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“No. I hear them,” she said, her hand at her throat. “There are no roads to the east—that land is nothing but thickets and gullies.”
“I know.”
“Rah-ya! Wistala, what passes?” Rainfall called from the tree-flanked balcony above the door. Now the hooves could be heard even when the wind blew.
“Lock the doors and shutters!” Dsossa called as she raced across the lawn toward the stable, the ends of her housecoat flapping.
“Forstrel, the doors! The windows!” Rainfall shouted as he turned his seat on the balcony. He spun around again, completing the circle.
“Wistala, get in here!”
“But the main door—”
“Climb up here. The front gallery is wide enough, and I don’t care if the paintwork and floors get scale-chipped. Hurry!”
She could see lights in the tree line to the east, along the little path Jessup had driven the wagon the day they buried Avalanche. “Name of Masmodon!” Rainfall said, his arms falling limp. “What’s this?”
“Invasion,” Wistala said.
Wistala heard alarmed cries from within the house, both male and female, and Forstrel’s echoed voice bellowing orders: “Drop that, girl, and get all the shutters on the top floor. Latch and bolt! Hurry!”
Wistala climbed the tree trunk nearest her easily enough, despite the light-headedness she felt at the thought of a battle, and as she put sii on the balcony rail, the hoofbeats grew thunderous with alarming suddenness.
A clump of torch-bearing horsemen with no more formation than a broken egg emerged from the wood path. They spread as they came, one part riding for the garden, the other for the front turnaround.
“Inside, Wistala,” Rainfall said, his voice so deep and hard for a moment, she thought she heard Ragwrist beside.
Her shoulders and hips made it through the double doors. It occurred to her that she’d fit on the grand staircase down, but she might not make the tight squeeze to the third floor, should it become necessary.
Wistala turned—with some difficulty, and stuck her head out of the gallery door next to Rainfall.
Forstrel came down the hall, squeezing past Wistala. “I’ve seen to the lower level myself, Master,” Forstrel said.
“Douse the lights—let’s not give archers a mark,” Rainfall said. Then he whispered to Forstrel.
Wailing battle horns sounded from the riders, now individually distinguishable. Most were hairy and bearded; they rode blanket-back on shaggy mounts, handles of weapons sticking up from their back and belts like quills on a porcupine. But at the center of the group riding hard for Mossbell’s door was a better arrayed company. Wistala marked a man in dark plate with a white sash about him atop a black-armored horse, followed closely behind by a boy-man in black leather with a red sash draped across his shoulder.
Behind that pair rode another score of warriors, and more men at the back with packhorses and strings of those sharp-faced dogs with the twin lightning bolt runes emblazoned on their side.
Wistala remembered the dogs as being bigger and fiercer looking. Now they just appeared to be like any other pack of tongue-lolling hunting hounds, albeit matching in size and color and odd marking.
“How can this be? The thane rides at their head,” Rainfall said.
Wistala looked out. Near the man in the black armor rode Thane Hammar, clad in chain armor and blue-and-yellow cloaks and sub-cloaks trailing down across the horse’s back to its hocks.
“Mark! What does she do?” Rainfall said.
Dsossa exploded out of the barn in a knot of horseflesh, her bare toes clutching at the saddle stirrups and fingers holding both reins and mane of her mottle-gray horse. Backside raised and head close beside the neck of her horse, she galloped across the lawn toward the road wall, similar horses flanking and behind her, running for no other reason than that the lead had taken flight. At the rear was Stog, gray all around the nose, eyes, and hooves, who gave up the chase at the fountain and turned to watch the intruders with interest.
The black-leather-clad youth, fair hair showing under his cap, said a word to the men behind him. A group of six rode to the other side of the turnaround, taking great recurved bows off their backs and arrows from saddle quivers.
Thane Hammar pointed and cried out, and three of his saddled retinue charged after Dsossa.
“Let the archers bring her down,” the armored rider said, pointing with a long crossbarred spear. Wistala’s heart went cold; she knew that armor and spear of old.
The archers nocked their arrows and edged their horses so they could fire clean.
“Stog,” Wistala shouted in the beast tongue, and the giant black helm on the armored rider turned toward the balcony. “Cry out, as you did that night on the road!”
