Even if Darian’s influence had only been on the children, they looked likely to go out and do what their parents feared to. Errold’s Grove would prosper again; perhaps not this year, or the next, but in the future.
That was the good influence; in the meantime, the children were as prone to imitate Darian’s sins as his virtues. So Darian was likely to cause another uproar when word of this day leaked out to the children. Without a doubt, there would be a brief plague of children sneaking out on their appointed tasks to play truant, and defying their parents when taken to task.
That had not been in any of Justyn’s half-formed plans.
He sighed, then rested his aching head on his hand. It seemed that nothing he had thought of for Darian was working out in the way he had hoped.
Perhaps if I proved to him what his behavior is doing in setting an example, and a bad one, among the other children ? He’s not an unreasonable child, and he wouldn ‘t want to get the others in trouble. That might do the trick; perhaps Justyn had been going about this all wrong. Darian had been treated as a sort of miniature adult by his parents; he’d had a great deal of independence with them. He was used to relative freedom and the responsibility of deciding what he was to do for himself, but Justyn had been treating him as a directionless child.
Justyn tapped a little marching rhythm on the arm of his chair with his free hand, and frowned as he thought. I should sit down with him, I think. Instead of lecturing him, or going on about how much he owes us, I should point out to him - no, that’s wrong. That would be treating him as a child again, and although what he is doing is childish, I am no longer certain his motives are entirely those of a child. Instead of telling him anything, perhaps I should begin by listening to him. If I can get him to tell me what has been going through his mind these many months, perhaps we can work out the best way to proceed together. And - perhaps I should tell him my own story, and let him see why I am teaching him the way I am. That might be the way to get through to him.
Lost in these thoughts, and unexpectedly wearied from the stress of dealing with all those unhappy visitors, Justyn closed his eyes. Just for a moment - just to ease them. One moment turned to two, and two to many, and without intending to permit himself the luxury, he dozed off, dreaming of a repentant apprentice, now willing to be taught and to take on the responsibilities of a proper student . . . then he reached the point in sleep where his dreams themselves faded away.
Justyn was so deep in slumber that it took several moments for the sound of the alarm bell in the village square to penetrate his consciousness. When it did sift through, it brought him awake with a start. It took another few moments for him to collect his thoughts and realize what it was that had awakened him, it had been so long since that particular bell had been rung. The last time had been due to a flood - but what could possibly be amiss this time? A quick glance out the window showed that there was no sign of a storm, and the village had been so quiet that Dalian’s peccadillo was the worst thing to disturb the dull routine of the day. What had happened to change that?
His heart pounded uncomfortably at the sudden awakening. He struggled up out of his chair, every joint protesting violently at such sudden movement, and got his walking stick down off the wall. He opened his door on pandemonium. Outside beyond the nearest houses in the village square, there was a babble of voices, the noise of many people running to and fro. He heard many people shouting, and there was panic in their tones; he hobbled out his door to see folk streaming toward the center of town from the fields. He joined them, alarm giving him more energy than he’d had for many a day. By the time he reached the square, most of them had beaten him there. Some had already heard the news, which must be terrible indeed to judge from the way they were pelting back to their houses, faces pale and eyes gone panicky and full of fear. Others had already been to their houses and were returning, with hunting bows, boar-spears, and rusty old antique weapons in their hands.
A monster? Bandits? Surely not war - who would we be fighting? The Hawkbrothers? No, that’s not possible. Surely there is some other explanation -
Derrel Lutter stood beside Nandy, who was still ringing the bell with wide-eyed determination. Her hair had come undone and flew in wild tendrils all about her face. Beside Derrel was a stranger holding the reins of a tired horse, whose clothing showed the effects of a hard ride, and whose face was pinched with terror he was trying not to let loose.
“Don’t try to fight, you fools,” the man shouted over the bell and the shouting, his voice cracking with strain. “Run, I tell you, run! I tried to tell you before, and you didn’t believe me! This isn’t some band of brigands, this is an army, and you haven’t a chance against it!”
Bewildered, Justyn looked around and saw Vere coming back to the square with a determined scowl on his face and a boar-spear in his hands, and seized his arm. “What in the name of heaven is going on?” he shouted.
Vere thrust his chin at the stranger. “That there’s a feller from Riverford Farm, big estate upwater where Derrel does some trading,” he shouted back. “Derrel vouches for him. Came riding in ‘bout mid-dinner. Says a gang of men and monsters came storming in and massacred everybody in sight; says he was out with the herds and managed to get away on his horse and make a run for it. He wasn’t too clear on what he’d seen, not then anyway, so we figured it was bandits, and Tom Kalley rounded up the militia.” The man paused when he saw the look of noncomprehension on Justyn’s face. “He mounted up, and led ‘em out, just like always. Wasn’t nothing to frighten the women about, he thought, so nobody told ‘em except for the ones whose men hadda go; men’d just go out, turn ‘em away from the village, and send a messenger over to Lord Breon. You know we ain’t never had no trouble before. We figgered Riverford just been caught out, that’s all. Too bad for them, but we were ready, see?”
Justyn shook his head, not yet understanding the cause for such a high level of panic. The Errold’s Grove militia never had experienced any trouble discouraging bandits from coming after the town. It didn’t make any sense!
Vere wasn’t through yet. “One of them - just one - came back a short bit ago; his horse was foundering, and it dropped and died right after he tumbled off. The rest - they’re gone.”
Justyn gaped at him. The militia - twenty men in all - were well armed and quite adequately trained, and their ability to fight on horseback had given them a considerable edge over bandits, who were generally afoot and even when horsed did not know how to fight as a group. When the Guard had been forced to leave to go to the front, the Queen had no intention of leaving them defenseless; she had sent spare horses and arms, and someone to train volunteers from the village in fighting. Their Herald had supervised the training, and had seen to it that the trainer left instructions on drilling and practices, which the militia undertook with religious regularity. One of the duties of their Herald was to make sure that they stayed in training, and the occasional bandits only gave them incentive to continue that way. Justyn had watched them, and they weren’t bad - and the level of their expertise was obvious in the fact that they had handled every bandit group that they had come up against. How could they have been wiped out so easily?
The stranger grabbed Nandy and took the bell-rope out of her hands by force, so that the clangor finally stopped. “Listen to me - Listen to me!” he shouted, and the cries and screams stopped as abruptly as the cessation of the bell peals. His words fell into the sudden silence like cold, round stones into a pool.
“You heard the boy - your men are dead,” he said forcefully, and a woman’s hysterical sob pierced the quiet, only to be muffled by her neighbor pulling her head into the shelter of her shoulder. The stranger ignored her. “You can’t do anything for them; you can only save yourselves, and there’s not much time to do that. Send someone downriver to Kelmskeep and Lord Breon, someone on a fast horse or in a swift boat and do it now. The rest of you, grab what you can, and run, as fast and as far as you can. This is no bandit horde, I�
��m telling you, I know because I saw them. This is an army; it’s men and monsters, and it looks like a demon is leading them. They killed everyone at Riverford that resisted, and they’ll do the same here.”
Now Justyn saw that young Ado Larsh, barely seventeen and the youngest member of the militia, was sitting on the platform beside the stranger; there was a bloody rag acting as a bandage around his head and one eye, and another binding his arm. He looked white, in deep shock, but nodded in confirmation of everything the man said.
“What about those who didn’t resist?” Widow Clay called out sharply. “What happened to them?”
Someone else growled, and a few of her neighbors cast her angry looks, but she gave them back look for look. “There are some of us,” she pointed out, “who can’t run. Myself and Kyle, for two. What happened to those who didn’t resist?”
The stranger shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t wait around to see. But I can tell you that from the smoke that rose up behind me, it looked to me like they put every building on the estate to the torch, and I can only hope there wasn’t anyone in those buildings when they went up.”
“Th-th-they’re m-m-moving f-f-fast,” Ado stammered. “C-c-can’t b-be f-far b-b-behind.”
There was silence then, nothing but silence. Clearly, no one knew what to do next, and if no one took charge, in a moment, there would be nothing but blind panic. People would be caught between trying to hide and trying to escape, torn between saving possessions and getting away quickly, and managing only to confuse matters further. If someone didn’t tell them what to do, nothing would be done at all, and they would all die stupidly and uselessly.
“Right. I’ll take over from here,” Justyn heard himself say into the deathly hush. People turned to see who had spoken, as if they didn’t recognize his voice. Maybe they didn’t; this was the first time he had spoken with real authority in years.
He pulled himself up as tall as he could, and pushed through the crowd with the aid of his staff until he got himself up on the platform. Their faces turned up to meet his, all of them white and shocked, all of them looking for an answer from anyone - even him. Well, as it happened, he had one for them. A bit of murmuring started, and he quelled it with three sharp raps of the end of his staff on the boards beneath his feet.
“This is war, and war is what I came out of.” He looked around to see if there was any disagreement. “Some of you may not have believed my ‘war tales,’ as you called them, but they were as true as the fact that I’ve seen how armies operate. I know what’s coming and I know what I’m talking about. The stranger is right - you aren’t fighters, anyone who had any real training here is dead. You have no experience of anything but dealing with a few bandits, and I tell you now there is no way you can defend yourselves, let alone the village, against an army of trained and organized fighters.”
He had their full attention now, and since the majority of those below him were women and children, not men, there were fewer who were disposed to argue with that assessment.
Which is just as well, since it’s an honest one.
“Your best bet is to try to escape, or try to hide. Anyone who wants to take a chance on staying - I’d suggest you go to the riverbank as far from the village as you can and stay together,” he said briskly. “Don’t take anything of value with you; armies like this are paid in loot, and if you stand between them and their loot, they’ll kill you. If you have valuables with you, they’ll kill you to get at them. Let them have what they want - if you all survive this, you can petition the Crown for relief and get it. If you go hide yourselves beside the river, have nothing they want, and look as harmless as possible, once they’re done working out their battle-lust in looting, they’ll get around to finding you and they probably won’t kill you. Probably. That’s all I can promise you out of my military experience - they might just want loot, and they’ll leave you completely alone, never looking for you; or they might decide to make slaves - or something - out of you. If you have young children, take toys and sweets to keep them quiet. When the enemy soldiers find you, grovel, beg, bow your heads to the ground and plead with them and don’t stand up until they tell you to. With luck, they won’t find you at all, with a little less, they’ll let you go, and with a bit less than that, you’ll end up serving them.”
He didn’t say what else might happen; this was not the time to turn the women hysterical. If they hadn’t already thought of it themselves, there was no point in bringing the subject up.
“But at least we’ll be alive,” Widow Clay declared, and began to hobble determinedly toward the river. Justyn gave her credit for good sense; she didn’t even look back at her cottage, much less go back to try and save anything. She simply set her sights on the river and in putting as much distance between herself and the approaching trouble as possible.
“The rest of you do as you were told - take boats or horses if you have them, go afoot if you don’t, and run, now. Don’t stop to take anything with you; every moment you waste packing valuables is a moment when you could be putting as much distance between you and here as possible. Don’t let your jewelry cost you your life. Go to Kelmskeep; it’s fortified, and should be able to hold off a siege.”
A few moved to follow the widow, and before anyone else could start, he rapped his staff on the platform again. “As for me,” he trumpeted, in a pretty fair imitation of his old sergeant’s parade-ground voice, “I’ll hold the bridge against them. I’ve held bridges before, and this one only needs one warrior - or wizard - to hold it long enough for a considerable delay. The rest of you take the time I buy for you and run for Kelmskeep or put some furlongs between you and here. Lord Breon has a real garrison of veteran fighters, and he also has ways of getting word out in a few hours to the Guard. He can protect those of you who reach him long enough for the Guard and the Heralds to get here, relieve a siege, and drive the enemy out of Errold’s Grove. If you can spare a moment, set fire to your hay and your outbuildings as you run - the smoke will help hide you and might alert others out there that there’s trouble. The fire will confuse the enemy and keep them occupied a little longer. They might stop long enough to try and put it out, or they might run into burning buildings thinking there’s loot and get themselves crisped. Whatever you do, if you get caught, don’t fight back. Fall to the ground and beg for mercy. They’re trained, you’re not - and there will be many of them for every one of you. Now move!” he finished, in a bellow that startled them all out of their poses of shock. “You haven’t much time! Save your lives! Now! “
As he had expected, they were all so happy that there was someone who could take charge of the situation and tell them clearly what to do that no one argued with him. They simply scattered - some to follow Widow Clay, some to their boats or for their horses, some headed straight for the woods on foot, perhaps planning to take cover there and follow the river road to Lord Breon’s estate. He walked slowly and calmly toward the bridge, and as he passed the inn, he saw with a mingled sense of admiration and irony that Lilly had her own strategy for surviving. She had loaded a wheelbarrow with a small keg that could only be brandywine, some mugs, and a mattress, and she was headed obliquely toward the river on the upstream side of the village. It was fairly obvious to Justyn that in this situation at least, Lilly was not as stupid as everyone had thought she was. She had a fair idea what an invading army would do with a woman, and she was going to see that the ones who found her had a reason to protect her and keep her out of the hands of their fellows. Able-bodied and used to hard work, she would probably go far enough away from the others that when soldiers found her, there would only be a few of them, and someone who acted like a cooperative, would-be camp follower had good odds of surviving this encounter. She might even find one man strong enough to hold off the others, and willing to act as her protector, which was the best any woman could hope for in a case like this one. He wished her good luck, silently.
As if she had somehow heard his wish, she turned a
nd looked back at him. He couldn’t hear her completely over the noise of the fleeing villagers, but he read the words on her lips.
“I know what you mean to do. Gods bless and keep you, Wizard Justyn.”
She turned away, but before her face was completely averted, he saw tears starting up in her eyes. Tears? For me? With astonishment, he felt a kind of weight lift away from his shoulders and a new strength and dignity enter him; he drew himself up and continued his stately progress to the bridge.
No one else paid him any attention - but no one else even thought to question his plan, to recall that only a few hours before, he had been the unregarded, scorned old fool who couldn’t even manage to discipline a young boy. That was just as well, because he did have a plan, and he knew it would work. He might not have much magic left, but he had enough for one last trick, and it would delay pursuit long enough . . . long enough.
Long enough for Dorian to get deep into the Forest. Thanks to the gods that I sent him off candlemarks ago! He’ll see the commotion, and he’ll run, like a sensible lad. There’s nothing holding him here, after all, and I suspect that he’s been tempted to run away more than once. This will just give him the excuse he needs. He has his bow; he knows the woods, it’s summer, and he has enough control of magic that his power can help him a little. He knows where Kelmskeep is, if not how to get there. I think he’ll be all right.
He went to the middle of the bridge - if the people behind him knew it, a good magic place, suspended among three of the four elements: air, water, and the earth that the wood of the bridge had grown out of and was rooted in. He grounded his staff on the wood of the bridge, and began drawing power out of the world around himself. It was a slow process, but he had time - and besides, all that he gathered was only intended to add to the power within himself. Normally, he would not be able to tap into much of that -
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