Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  Kel fanned herself with her broad-brimmed hat, wiped her face on her sleeve, replaced the hat, and put the glass to her eye. Slowly she scanned the horizon, then the middle ground, then nearby terrain. She froze. There, northwest. Movement.

  She took the glass from her eye, wiped her forehead, and searched the area again. Movement for certain, on a road abandoned twenty years before. It was overgrown but still offered easier marching than untouched forest.

  Sun glinted off metal. This was no raiding party. It was a small army, headed for Northwatch. Kel put her things away and slowly, carefully, began her descent of the tree.

  Raoul and Flyndan heard her out. “Flyn, send a messenger to Northwatch,” said Raoul when Kel had finished her report. “Vanget will put his army in the field against this lot. It’s stragglers and side parties we have to worry about. One squad to the logging camp, one to the mines. Get those people out of there, I don’t care what excuses they give to stay. Send Osbern to the mines as well. Tell him to break heads if they don’t heed sense. That’s three squads. Three to defend this camp. Who’s in Riversedge this week?”

  “Volorin’s squad,” replied Flyn and Kel together.

  “Flash them a warning with the mirrors. Flyn, you’re in command here. I want Dom’s squad, Balim’s squad, and whoever’s left with me.”

  “Sir?” asked Flyndan. “Where will you—”

  “They’ve been making two-pronged attacks all summer,” Raoul reminded him. “And that merchant caravan is due at Riversedge today.”

  Flyndan swore. Riversedge was normally a raider’s plum. A big merchant caravan like the one expected made it juicier still. The town could hold for a time with their own fighters and Volorin’s squad, but how long depended on the enemy’s numbers and weapons.

  Kel saddled Drum and Peachblossom—with so little time they took only one horse each. Once they were ready, she donned her armor. She didn’t worry about Raoul. Lerant was probably there already, thinking he’d stolen a march on her as he assisted Raoul with his full suit of plate metal armor.

  Dressed, she gathered her weapons. After a moment’s hesitation she took the quiver that held her griffin-fletched arrows instead of her everyday one. Today she might need all the help she could get.

  She returned to the command tent to find Lerant securing Raoul’s greaves to his shins. Raoul winked at Kel as she collected his weapons. By the time she had fetched their mounts, he was armored. He slung a long-handled, double-bladed axe on his back. His lance he kept in his hand. There had been reports that giants fought for Scanra. They might be with the force Kel had seen, invisible among the trees.

  Lerant already wore his own mail and weapons. He ran to get his horse, saddled by one of his friends, as Kel and Raoul mounted up. Kel held the banner as they waited for him and for the rest of the men to assemble.

  Raoul urged Drum to the gate as the squads formed a double column. Kel followed, Jump in his carrier behind her, the sparrows clutching perches on her gear, Peachblossom, and Raoul’s saddlebags. When Lerant rode into his place, Kel gave him their flag.

  “Try to stay in one piece, my lord,” Flyn, at the gate, told Raoul. “The king’ll have my head if you get killed.” The gates swung open. Raoul raised a gauntleted hand and chopped down twice, briskly, the signal for the horses to trot. The column followed him onto the road.

  The gates closed. The locking bar thumped as it was thrust into place. The camp was on its own.

  Halfway to Riversedge Raoul called a halt and sent Lerant up a tree with his spyglass. Lerant came down fast in a half-fall that Kel envied, though she would never try it. She could live with heights; she couldn’t defy them.

  “They’re at Northwatch, my lord,” he said, flipping sweaty hair from his eyes. “There’s fires burning that way. And it looks like a second party’s headed for Riversedge. They’re about three miles off and there’s two giants with ’em. Maybe sixty or so men, and a covered wagon.”

  Raoul swore. “Time was they never had enough warriors to hit two places at once. Mithros curse this Maggur maggot.” He signaled for a trotting pace. “A wagon for a raiding party?” Kel heard him mutter.

  At Riversedge the gates were shut, the walls lined with armed men. Sergeant Volorin and the town’s headman came out through a small door in the main gate. “The caravan?” Raoul asked.

  “No sign of ’em,” the sergeant replied.

  “Scouts saw ’em camped by Trebond Gorge last night,” added the headman. “Loaded heavy, moving slow. They might be as far as Forgotten Well by now.”

  Raoul ran his fingers through his hair. Kel tried to guess what he was thinking. Forgotten Well was five miles away. Riversedge was fortified. It had a steep-sided ditch lined with stones at the base of its wooden wall. Like so many isolated towns, its back was to the river. Nearly all of the men were archers. They should be able to hold the enemy off.

  “Which, Kel?” he asked quietly. “Town or merchants?”

  “Merchants, sir,” she said promptly. “They’re just about naked out there. This is a bad time to think the enemy won’t try a three-pronged attack.”

  “Or that after going for one tough nut in Northwatch, they’d also want a second tough nut in Riversedge,” Dom commented. “Smarter to go for the easier fight and merchant loot.”

  Raoul turned to Volorin and the headman. “I’ll see to those merchants. You’ll manage fine without us, for now.”

  “Good hunting, my lord,” said the headman.

  “Mithros ward you,” added Volorin before he followed the headman inside the walls.

  Raoul looked at the five squads behind him and signaled for a trot. Kel’s skin prickled. She listened hard, trying to hear what lay under the jingle of tack and thump of hooves. Was that movement deep in the woods to her right? She sent the sparrows after it: they could now read hand signs. They’d picked up “go there” and “scout” within days of their arrival in the north. Now five went and returned quietly, which meant they’d found nothing.

  Kel sent other sparrows farther ahead. The company had ridden a mile when the birds came back in a straight line, peeping their alarm call.

  “Pox-rotted, money-blinded, mud-wallowing, donkey-whipping merchants,” snapped Raoul. After three summers with the sparrows he knew their signals. He gave the sign for “gallop.”

  They heard battle sounds: the clash of metal, the whistle of arrows, the screams of men and animals. Sergeants ordered men off the sides of the road to sweep the woods for the enemy. Kel sent two sparrows to watch the road in back of their column to make sure no one fell on them from behind. She hoisted her glaive, checking that her grip was firm as they galloped around a bend in the road.

  The caravan was backed against tumbled boulders at the foot of the hill where the village of Forgotten Well had been. Three wagons were turned on their sides to give archers cover. The merchants were behind the wagons, fighting the enemy with coolness and precision: they were used to attacks on lonely roads.

  Facing them were about thirty Scanrans, mounted and afoot. Kel saw no giants. From the bodies, abandoned goods, and spent arrows littering the road between them and the merchants, the Scanrans had already tried an assault, and been driven back.

  Raoul’s force slammed the Scanran left like a hammer, breaking up their columns. Drum and Peachblossom reared, flailing at anyone foolish enough to approach. Jump leaped at a man about to attack Kel, thudding into his chest. The Scanran yelped and fell. Kel chopped an enemy down with her glaive and closed with Drum, not wanting to get separated from Raoul. She saw only a sea of arms, legs, and weapons ahead, rising up and down as Peachblossom wielded his murderous hooves.

  Suddenly the enemy turned and ran for the shelter of the trees. Raoul’s high-raised hand kept his squads from chasing them, though the archers continued to shoot until the last Scanran was out of range.

  Raoul turned Drum and signaled the order to fall back on the rocks, where the caravan waited. “They came out of nowhere,” said a
man whose arm was being splinted. “Our wounded, our animals . . . Are we to lose everything?”

  “No,” Raoul told him. “This was only half of the war party reported in this area, and two we didn’t see were giants. We’ll stand here until it’s safe to move. Vanget haMinch has five companies of infantry and two of light cavalry at Northwatch—he’ll be along as soon as he can.” He didn’t say that Northwatch was besieged.

  He’s afraid they’ll spook if they know, Kel realized.

  Raoul looked at the stones, pulling a handkerchief from under the poleyn that covered his right knee to wipe his face. They had been over this place several times that summer. Kel knew he was visualizing it as a map, seeing a series of natural walls to fall back on. Behind these boulders that girdled the hill rose a small stone bluff. Trees grew at irregular intervals on its sides. The ruins of Forgotten Well’s stockade and buildings crowned the top.

  He looked at the merchants. “Let’s get you up there”—he pointed to the overgrown dip that was the original road—“behind the walls, what there are of them.”

  “My wagons,” said an old man, clutching a bundle.

  “Buy new ones. Get moving,” he snapped. “Put your wounded on blankets and carry them up. The animals can go if they’ll follow. If not, leave them. Who’s in charge?”

  “My—my husband’s dead,” said a small, fragile-looking brunette with huge brown eyes. “I suppose—”

  “If he was in charge, let’s make it you, unless someone argues. Get going,” Raoul ordered. “Don’t flutter, mistress, just do it.”

  The brunette turned away from Raoul. Kel watched her, thinking she would crumble or delay. Instead the woman squared her shoulders against the no-nonsense gray cotton of her dress. Her chin went up. She began to call out names, her voice firm as she went on. A slender man carrying a longbow and quiver came to stand beside her. Those who hesitated at her orders behaved after that.

  “Kel, will your sparrows tell us when the enemy gets within a hundred yards of the tree line?” Raoul asked, nodding to the woods just twenty yards away. All but four birds flew off without Kel saying a word.

  “Nice to have sentries,” Raoul commented, scratching a rough map in the dirt. “Squad leaders, to me.”

  They gathered around.

  Raoul marked his points on his map. “As we face the enemy, I want the squads out along the base of the hill, behind these boulders. Drag dead animals and the wagons to cover the bare spots between them. We hold them here,” he told the squad leaders grimly. “Detail two men to walk your horses up to the merchants. Lerant, picket Drum behind those rocks—I may need him in a hurry. Kel will take Lerant’s mount and Peachblossom up.”

  Kel raised a hand. “Peachblossom will go on his own.”

  Raoul looked at her. “As long as you’re sure. He’d probably cripple anyone else who took his rein. Now. Keep your weapons and your water bottles. It’s going to get hot. Places. Balim’s squad has the far left flank. Woodcutters left a huge pile of dead trees and trash on that side, like a natural wall between you and the river.”

  He named squad after squad, showing positions at the base of the hill. Dom’s squad would take the far right flank, the other end of the crescent anchored by Balim’s squad. “I’ll be here, by this road, and I’ll roam afoot—unless those giants show. I need to go up there”—he jerked a thumb at the bluff—“get them to send up a smoke signal for Northwatch. If you even smell a giant, horn call. Lerant, you’re message runner. Kel, you’re with Dom’s squad.” He straightened and looked at them all. “Move. It won’t take them long to find their friends. When they do, we’ll reap a field of hurt.”

  Kel sent Peachblossom to the top of the bluff: he hadn’t wanted to go, but finally obeyed. The four sparrows not on scout duty stayed with Kel. They were led by the new chief female Kel had named Nari, the Yamani word for thunder. On her way to her post she checked the hill just in time to see Peachblossom walk through what had once been a gate. Above the ruins of the stockade wall a pillar of smoke began to rise. It would be visible for miles. If the general saw it, he would come with troops, if he could.

  Dom’s position was sheltered by trees on the hill and in front. They wouldn’t bake in the sun, as the men to their left would. On the other hand, more trees made it easier for the enemy to get close. At Kel’s request Nari and the other three sparrows went to scout.

  Dom signaled her to take the rock next to his. She slid down behind it and whispered, “Jump, sit. If anyone gets close enough, you know what to do.”

  Jump wagged his tail in agreement and took his post. Like the company’s wolfhounds, he had done his share of fighting that summer.

  Kel set her glaive to one side and rested her quiver on the boulder. Quickly she strung her longbow and laid it down. She checked the weapons on her belt—sword, dagger, warhammer behind her right hip—and took a mouthful of water.

  Jump whuffed; Kel’s four sparrows fled the wood, shrieking. In the distance Kel heard an alarm call from more sparrows in an otherwise silent wood. The Scanrans were advancing. Dom signaled the man on his right; Kel signaled the last man in the squad on her left. She then drew a griffin-fletched arrow from her quiver and set it to the bowstring. Carefully she looked around the side of the boulder.

  There they were, still ill-defined lumps of movement behind the screening brush at the edge of the trees thirty yards ahead. Two taller moving shapes looked to be horsemen—nobles, then, or officers. Among the Own there were two opinions: kill the soldiers because they fight and officers are useless, or kill the officers because they think and the soldiers will break up and panic without them. Kel and Dom belonged to the second camp. As the Scanrans exploded from cover, shrieking war cries, both Kel and Dom waited until the two horsemen emerged. As one they stood behind their covering rocks and loosed. Dom hit his man in the thigh. Someone else’s shot caught that Scanran in the shoulder; he reeled in the saddle and fell.

  Kel shot her officer squarely in the throat. He too dropped. Kel ducked as arrows rattled on the stones around her, and fitted another arrow to her string. Up she went, taking a perilous moment to choose her target: a blond man the size of a bear, frothing at the mouth as Scanrans did when they claimed war demons had possessed them.

  This is for you, thought Kel, and loosed. Her arrow punched into the frothing man’s eye. He dropped like a stone, war demon or no. Kel took cover to choose two arrows this time, holding one in her mouth as she set the other to her string. Once more she chose a target and shot; the man she hit keeled over as she put her second arrow to the string. About to draw, she stopped. The enemy was racing back into the tree-cover. Dom signaled everyone to stop and save arrows. The squad on Kel’s left did the same.

  “Nice shooting, Kel,” Dom said with approval, taking a swallow of water.

  “It’s these feathers the griffins gave me,” she told him, showing him one. “I think if I shot straight in the air I’d still hit a target.”

  “Modest, modest, modest,” he teased, shaking his head. “Do you think it’s a requirement for lady knights or something? Lady Alanna isn’t modest—at least, not about the things she does well.”

  Nari and her trio zipped past, crying the alarm. Dom and Kel readied to face the enemy’s next rush. The Scanrans were more careful this time. Arrows preceded them, raining behind the squads’ rock wall. A man yelped on Kel’s left; another screamed on Dom’s far right. Dom cursed. Now Scanran foot soldiers came on in a single ragged line, instead of each man charging as he pleased. They had shields, round ones they tried to keep overlapped with their neighbors’ as they advanced. Dom’s men shot at their thighs or at those who didn’t keep their heads down. Kel trusted to the griffin fletching and shot at eyes and throats when they became visible. Five shots later, the Scanrans retreated again.

  Dom sagged against his rock. “Mithros, I hate it when the enemy learns new things!”

  Kel, sipping water, asked, “What things?” She took a handkerchief from her
pouch and blotted her face.

  “Formation to create a shield wall. Advancing in order,” replied Dom. “Curse this Maggur what’shis-name. He’s trained with a real army, or he’s studied them. Did you see that ugly one back on the edge of the trees, the one with the peaked fur hat?”

  “Mage?” asked the man on Dom’s far side.

  Dom nodded. “My arrows all swerved when I shot at him. I can hear him singing back there—he’s cooking up something nasty. Probably something to hide them on the next advance.” He sucked a tooth in thought. “Kel, I’ve got an idea. Nobody can lie around griffins, right? Maybe some of that carries over to their feathers. Maybe you could see through illusions if you tied some on your forehead, over your eyes.”

  Kel shook her head. “This had better not be a joke to make me look silly. If you say Sakuyo laughs, you will be in deep trouble.”

  “Saku—what?”

  “A Yamani god. On his feast day people play tricks on one another, and if someone gets angry, the other one says Sakuyo laughs.” She always carried spare griffin feathers in her belt pouch, just in case. She took two out and used a pair of handkerchiefs as a band to hold them over her eyes. Holding two arrows, she slid up until she could look over her sheltering rock. The old man in the pointed fur cap stood just in front of the trees. He sang as he hopped around a tiny fire that cast off threads of glittering smoke. Around him the enemy was massing, preparing to attack.

  “What do you see?” asked Dom. “I can’t see a thing.”

  “You can’t see the enemy?” Kel whispered.

  “Everything turns to kind of a smoky blot about ten feet in front of us,” he replied. “Now we know what the mage is up to.”

  Kel exhaled. Dom was right. With those feathers against her skin, she saw what the others could not.

  “When in doubt,” the mage Numair Salmalín had taught the pages, “shoot the wizard.”