Choosing speed and sure footing over secrecy, Gerik used the High Road. He reached the crossroads before too many of the curious routed from their homes by all these nocturnal comings and goings could come out and ask silly questions. This let him array his men for battle, with himself and three others mounted on the road, four more on the road behind, and four dismounted ahead in ambush. The villagers were farthest to the rear, and Kiri-Jolith grant that they would stay there!
Fighting for Ellysta was something in which he was honor-bound, both in his own right and as the son of his father. Getting unarmed loyal villagers killed was not. Indeed, honor demanded that he protect them from their own enthusiasm if he could, so that they would not be enslaved or imprisoned, their children sent to labor as "children of virtue" in certain secret temples, and the like.
He had not believed the stories of kidnapped children, until Rubina told him that two of her friends had lost kin that way, one of them a half-brother. He had then written down what she told him, and left the tale in a safe place, where his father might find it if he returned.
The night wind piped faintly in Gerik's ears. Off to the right and up the hill, a stand of templebeams twisted and dwarfed by something in the soil were mere shadows. It was easy to imagine them as the clawing hands of buried giants, bursting through the ground, reaching for the light and air.
It was also easy to frighten oneself into a fit with such imaginings, like a child in a dark room.
Gerik had just reined in his fancies when a sudden uproar broke out to the south, toward the woods. He heard horses neighing and screaming, men shouting and cursing, then a great many fast-moving hooves and even the clatter of steel on armor. It sounded as if someone there had frightened himself into a fit.
Gerik's men had made ready without his command; they had ears too. The young man's were now turned wholly toward listening for Bertsa Wylum's voice. A battle cry, even an oath, would help tell friend from foe.
Gerik realized that he should have had all the Tirabot fighters mark themselves somehow, with bands on their arms or patches on their backs. Something visible in the darkness, that would distinguish them from the enemy-
The enemy was upon Gerik before he could think further. His sword leaped into his hand. He had cut two men out of their saddles and was engaging a third when he realized that the man's comrades were not fighting. They were fleeing, as fast and as far as their horses could carry them.
Not all of the horses were willing. Gerik saw one rider, with a hairy chin and a balding head, somersault over the head of his mount as it stopped suddenly. The horse then fell as another, running loose, crashed into it. Both went down on top of the man. Frantic neighing and hideous human screams made a din that might have daunted the Dark Queen.
Before Gerik could see another such horror, the last of the riders had thundered past. A few riderless horses cantered off in various directions, trampling fallen horses and fallen men. Gerik was now more frightened than he would have been in a battle at odds of ten to one. In the darkness, amid the fading cries of maimed men and panicky horses, the Abyss seemed about to gape at his feet.
To spare his own steed, he dismounted. The horse was tossing its head nervously and whickering. Gerik stepped up to the gelding's head and whispered in its ear. Nothing that would have made sense, in Common, but in some horse-speech it seemed to say what the horse needed to hear. Gerik had just decided to mount again, when for a second time the darkness spewed movement.
This time no one died. A torch flared behind the movement, showing them to be eight or ten armored but unarmed men, all on foot and most looking as if they had been used as kickballs by giant trolls.
Behind them rode Bertsa Wylum. She held a torch in one hand and her sword in the other, guiding her mount with her knees at the head of her band.
"Take and bind them," Gerik called to his people, pointing at the men on foot. His men looked relieved at having something to do. The new prisoners looked almost relieved at being taken, as if their captors could protect them from what was abroad tonight. What that was, Gerik hoped Bertsa Wylum would know.
But when he rode up to her, all she said was, "Their horses went mad on them. I think a certain kender we chased off had something to do with it."
"I thought the kender had turned on you," one of the men whined.
Wylum grinned. Only Gerik saw the mockery in her bared teeth. "Of course they did," she said. "But you know kender. They can't tell friend from enemy when they're up to a joke. How much do you want to wager that he aimed at us and hit you?"
The man's curses said that was no wager, but certain knowledge.
"I suggest, good sir, that we leave some of our people here to bring these along after us, while we ride for the village," Wylum added.
"How so?" Gerik said, not minding at all sounding as if he did not know what was happening. He was one of many.
"Well, the rest of these witlings are heading straight for Tirabot," Wylum said. "I'd not wager they'll all fall off their horses before they reach it."
Gerik nodded and turned his mount.
Grimsoar One-Eye found himself second among the captains in the manor itself, after Gerik rode out of sight. So after a decent interval he asked the senior's permission to go down to the village and ask Serafina to come up.
She was spending the night in their house, and probably would not come up to the manor even for its greater safety. Her duties to the village would come first, but he had to try. Also, if he could help her pack along more healing material, perhaps that would persuade her that she could do useful work in the manor. After all, no one could tell where the attack would come.
Grimsoar presented his case to the senior, a retired sell-sword who called himself Orgillius, which could hardly be his proper name. He seemed even more seasoned a fighter than Bertsa Wylum, but his manners went far to explain why he had less rank.
"I thought you were too old to need a woman every night," Orgillius said.
Grimsoar shrugged. He wanted to do something rather more eloquent, such as knocking Orgillius down. He only said, "If the woman thinks I'm young enough, what odds? Wait until you're my age, then complain if a woman wants you!"
"We can't open the gates or give you a horse."
"I'm also young enough to climb down a rope," Grimsoar warned. "One never forgets that. And don't you forget that I can walk to the village faster than any horse here could carry me."
"On your head be it," Orgillius said. His tone suggested that he hoped Grimsoar's head would next be seen flung over the walls by an enemy siege engine.
Grimsoar turned away, vowing to make sure that Orgillius never got behind him in battle.
Pirvan's old companion had not in truth felt so young and vigorous in years as he felt tonight. Perhaps he would stay in the village a bit longer than he had planned, even if Serafina was willing to come. The manor was a trifle crowded, unless you were Gerik and Ellysta, and the gods knew they deserved their good luck.
It was easy going over and down the walls, and Grimsoar was halfway to the village before he realized that he had company. He thought at first he was being stalked by one of the kender, to keep up the game of their being enemies, then realized that the figure was only kender-sized.
When he knew who it was, the journey to the village began to seem less like a good idea.
"Rubina?"
"Sssssh. If you shout like that, they'll hear you in the castle."
"They won't open the gate or send out riders."
"Not for you," Rubina hissed. "But maybe for me. And there's the village. They do have horses, and people who won't let me come with you."