Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  “Here, milady,” they said in unison. All four sergeants had assembled on the walkway over the gate.

  “You and your squads are with Sir Merric,” Kel told them.

  “Yes, milady,” Connac replied. Boots pounded on the stairs as Merric and the sergeants ran for the horses. She hoped that by now their young stable-hands would have at least a few ready to go.

  It’s too soon, all too soon, she thought, her mouth dry. We aren’t ready!

  There was no point in fussing now. She heard familiar trumpet calls in the distance: some of the embattled people on the east road were on their side.

  “Sergeant Oluf?” she called.

  “Milady?” Oluf, in charge of her second convict squad, and Sergeant Yngvar had remained on the walkway. If Kel’s memory served her, Yngvar was that morning’s watch commander.

  “Have your squad arm up and hold themselves ready to ride,” Kel ordered.

  “Milady, we’re better keeping them on the walls here,” Oluf protested. “I wouldn’t want them at my back—”

  Kel faced him. She didn’t like Oluf any more than his counterpart, Vidur. “Sergeant, I didn’t ask you what you did or didn’t want,” she said quietly. “Move.” She said it as she’d heard Raoul give such orders, as if there were no doubt she would be obeyed. Oluf wavered, then went to collect his men.

  Neal and Duke Baird came running down the walkway from the stair near headquarters. Neal was buckling on his sword belt. “Tell me where you want me,” he said, his voice crisp.

  “Right here,” Kel replied. “If Merric gets in trouble, I’ll take Oluf’s squad to back him up. You’ll be in command.”

  “But surely you need me in the field,” her friend protested.

  “I need you here. People will obey you.” Neal opened his mouth to argue further, but Kel cut him off. “We require a knight on these walls, and I’m not about to risk a healer out there. I’m afraid this time we’ll have a lot more work for you and his grace.” She nodded to Duke Baird.

  “I’ll ready the infirmary,” the duke said immediately. “Don’t waste the lady’s time in debate, Neal. Let’s go.”

  “Kel,” Neal protested again, a hand on her arm.

  “I’ll send Tobe if I have to leave,” she said firmly, with a little smile. “Don’t damage the fort, all right?”

  Whatever he saw in her eyes, it made him sigh in exasperation. He followed his father back to the infirmary.

  “Tobe,” Kel called, raising her voice, “I need Saefas and—”

  Someone tugged her right sleeve. It was Tobe. Saefas and Fanche were right behind him, bows in hand. “Get every archer up and spaced evenly on the walls,” Kel ordered them. “If they waste arrows shooting when the enemy’s too far off, I’ll flay them.”

  Fanche and Saefas went to rally the civilian archers. Kel chewed on her lower lip, reviewing the most recent dispatches. Under her feet the gate moaned as it opened. This commotion in the woods had to be the next lot of refugees from Giantkiller, those who’d come from Anak’s Eyrie.

  Merric and his two squads trotted through the gate and down the inclined road. As soon as they crossed the Greenwoods River, they spurred their mounts to a gallop. Kel looked around. Civilians from Goatstrack and Tirrsmont raced up the stairs to the ramparts, bows in hand. Kel heard raised voices. She saw Idrius arguing with Saefas, hanging on to the ex-trapper’s arm though Saefas was plainly trying to get to his post.

  “Sergeant Yngvar,” she called to the watch commander, the only sergeant left to her, “have two of your men escort Master Valestone to the stocks and lock him in, immediately.”

  “Yes, milady!” the sergeant replied. He clattered down the steps with two of his soldiers.

  Kel turned back to the distant conflict, bringing the glass to her eye again. It was hard to wait, seeing the fight, seeing wagons and riders flee across the valley floor, but she had no choice. Until Merric called for help, or until she saw something that meant he would need it, she had to keep Oluf’s squad back to defend the walls. If another killing device attacked, they would be needed, even with the metal nets spaced at regular intervals on the wall against just that event.

  The battle moved closer and closer to the Greenwoods River. Merric had rallied his soldiers and any civilians in the train who could fight into a circle around the refugees’ wagons. The Scanrans were mounted and moving quickly, trying to take chunks out of that protective circle. Kel hoped her people got ahead of the enemy soon. She couldn’t destroy the bridge to prevent a Scanran crossing unless Merric and the refugees crossed it first.

  A raven perched atop the log palisade. Its beak changed shape until it could say clearly in Daine’s voice, “There’s Scanrans riding up from the south. They’ll be clear of the trees in a moment.”

  Kel told Sergeant Yngvar, “Take your orders from Sir Nealan!” She raced down the stairs to find Oluf’s squad, Tobe, and Peachblossom waiting. “Mount up,” Kel ordered the soldiers. She passed her glaive to Tobe while she climbed into Peachblossom’s saddle, then reclaimed it. “Tobe, get Neal. Tell him he’s needed on the wall.”

  The boy raced off. Kel led the soldiers out through the half-open gate at a trot. Squinting at the southern woods, she could just see movement in the trees. There was no point in wondering how the enemy had crept behind the forts and patrols between Haven and the Vassa River. They were here, and she had to persuade them to leave.

  Hooves thumped the ground, coming up beside her. Kel risked a glance to her left and saw Numair astride his spotted gelding. “They need you more over there,” she told him, pointing to Merric’s people.

  “You need me in the middle,” retorted the mage. He broke away and rode onto a rise in the ground squarely between Kel and Merric.

  Screaming battle cries, the enemy in the southern woods charged. Only a third of them were mounted; the rest were foot soldiers. Kel noted the Scanran horseman who appeared to be the leader and gave her convict squad the signal for caution.

  Shrieks sounded in her ears as her recently magicked and increased sparrow flock sped by, headed for the enemy. A flash of white on her left caught Kel’s eye: Jump raced forward at the head of a pack of camp dogs.

  Well, I said everybody at Haven works, she thought, grimly amused. I guess that means that everybody fights, too.

  Fifty yards from the enemy, she signaled her men to form two lines at her back, leaving Kel at the point of their formation. Arrows from the enemy’s archers zipped by them; Kel heard a man grunt. Then she was on the Scanran leader, chopping down with her glaive as she drew alongside him. The blond man raised his axe in time to block her. Peachblossom swung around, kicking a foot soldier with his hind hooves as he brought Kel into position to charge the Scanran leader again. Her gelding surged forward. Kel leveled her glaive and ran the Scanran through almost as neatly as she had once struck other knights’ shields in tournament jousts. She jerked the blade free. Peachblossom reared and spun. Kel moved with him, her glaive sweeping edge first to cut down another mounted Scanran. Peachblossom dropped to all fours, landing squarely on a foot soldier’s back.

  “You have a mean streak,” Kel murmured as she turned the gelding. She doubted that the man whose spine Peachblossom had just crushed would be getting up.

  “Kel,” a familiar voice said in her ear.

  “Numair?” she asked, startled, looking around. The mage stood on his rise, well out of speaking distance. Hands tugged at her leg. Kel slashed the man trying to unseat her across the top of his head. Blinded with blood, he released her.

  “Kel, get your people to retreat,” Numair’s soft voice urged in her ear.

  And that griffin-feather band does a lot of good in my belt pouch. I can’t tell if this is an illusion or really Numair, she thought bitterly as she looked for her men. Gil was unhorsed, his mount dead beside him. He was trying to hold off three Scanran foot soldiers with his longsword and shield. Riding down on Gil’s attackers, Kel thought, I don’t care how silly I look, I’m w
earing griffin-feather ornaments in my hair from now on.

  The sparrows swarmed one of Gil’s foes, gouging his face with their tiny beaks and claws. They formed a cloud around his head, forcing the Scanran away from Gil. Jump leaped for a second attacker’s sword arm and clung to it, powerful jaws locked around the man’s wrist. Gil knocked the Scanran’s other hand and the axe it held aside with his shield. He thrust in cleanly, his blade slipping between the bronze plaques sewn to a leather jerkin, all the armor his enemy had.

  “Fall back!” Kel shouted, pitching her voice so her men could hear her over the clamor of battle. She rode down the third Scanran foot soldier. “Fall back in order!” She killed the foot soldier, wrapped her reins around her saddle horn, and reached down to Gil with her free arm. “Behave, Peachblossom,” she told the gelding. Peachblossom glanced back at her. Gil looked at the offered hand, then at Peachblossom, and gulped.

  “Numair’s up to something,” Kel informed Gil. “Come or stay, but decide fast.”

  Gil seized Kel’s hand and let her drag him up behind her. It was shamefully easy. That’s it, thought Kel, I’m making sure these convicts are fed. Once Gil was settled, Kel shouted, “Fall back!” Hoisting her glaive, she waved it in a circle, the signal for a retreat. Her soldiers came, some without horses, to form a line on either side of Peachblossom. They moved away from the Scanrans. A pair of Tortallans were down, motionless on the churned and bloody grass.

  The enemy stayed put for a moment, panting, gathering their strength to attack once more. Step by step, the Tortallan horses and the men on foot rode back toward Haven, weapons ready, putting ground between them and the foe. Kel glanced to her side. Sergeant Oluf swayed in his saddle, blood coursing down one arm.

  The earth shook under Peachblossom, who pranced and whickered. “Stop it!” she ordered. “This is help—I think!”

  Stone grated. The land moaned. Several of Kel’s men dropped to their knees, making the sign against evil and muttering prayers. Kel urged Peachblossom over until she could poke the kneeling men with the butt of her glaive. “Up!” she snapped. They lurched to their feet. “When I say fall back, it’s an order, lackwits!” She hoped they didn’t hear the quiver in her voice. The hairs on the nape of her neck and her arms stood. The ground by Numair’s rise sprouted a crack that raced across the land between him and the Scanrans Kel’s men had just fought. The enemy huddled together in fear as the ground shook. When the earth opened in a massive yawn under their feet, they pitched into it. The ground snapped shut. Only a bare, narrow strip marked the ground where the crack had been.

  “Why didn’t I take up carpentry, like me ma wanted me to?” whispered one of Kel’s convicts.

  “And miss all this adventure?” someone else replied.

  Kel turned Peachblossom so she could see them. “You act as if you never saw magic before,” she said. “It’s not like he doesn’t do it all the time. Now fall back on the fort in proper order.”

  “You heard milady!” Sergeant Oluf forced himself to sit upright in the saddle. “Fall in! What of Laif and Adern?” He pointed at the Tortallans they’d left.

  “Laif’s throat’s cut,” one of the men replied.

  “They got Adern clean through the belly,” added someone else. They were all moving now, headed back to the road, the men on horses outside those on foot. Kel listened to them with one ear, trying to see how Merric fared. People approached them on the road, running, driving wagons, riding: civilians all. Merric and his two squads were protecting their rear, then.

  A hand fumbled at one of her saddle fittings to unhook the water flask Kel always carried. Gil popped the cork out with a grimy thumb, letting it hang on its string as he offered the water to Kel from behind. Her mouth was dry as stone. She gulped at least half before she gave the flask back to him.

  “Sergeant, we’re going to form a line on either side of the road at the bridge,” she said, trying to keep her voice level as the ground nearby began to shake again. “You take four men to the north side of the road. I’ll take the south. Gil—”

  “Gone,” the convict said as he slid off Peachblossom. He’d kept his sword.

  “But stay with me. You, you, you.” She pointed to three other convict soldiers. “We’ll hold the road on this side. Sergeant?”

  He saluted and led his four men across the road, keeping out of the way of the civilians who fled for the safety of Haven. Their wagons were stubbled with arrows and marked by fire. One of them swayed and collapsed, its left rear wheel spinning free of its axle. The driver, a woman, got out. A teenaged girl, a baby in each arm, jumped out, followed by two boys. All of them raced across the bridge.

  Light sparked where she’d first seen fighting on the Giantkiller road. Kel grimaced. Nearly twenty Stormwings mingled with the vultures to approach the dead now that the battle had passed that section of the valley. The noise of the earth creaking like an old ship brought her eyes back to the ground where Merric still fought. He and his men were now falling back. A tree near the Scanrans split in two. The ground under them opened and closed, swallowing them alive.

  “He best leave us somethin’ to farm,” she heard a soldier remark.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll farm, soon’s he finishes wi’ that new-style Scanran fertilizer,” replied Gil. Some men actually laughed. Kel decided that life in the quarries and mines must create a morbid sense of humor.

  She gnawed her lip, wondering if she ought to take her men forward to support Merric, but no. It was wiser to stay put. If the Scanrans she’d just fought had reinforcements in the southern woods, she dared not leave the road unguarded. And Merric was doing well enough. He was in view with his squads in good order. Beyond them the road was clear but for the bodies strewn along it. What looked like a wave of dark magic rose above Merric, about to break over him. Kel gasped, then realized the darkness was a cloud of ravens, lit by streams of bluejays like lightning. The crowd of birds grew wider and broader, then broke up to feed on the dead.

  Haven was safe for the moment, provided no more Scanrans were in the woods. We need a burial detail, Kel thought, an eye on the Stormwings. And more weapons training. Four squads aren’t enough to defend us, especially when we lose men. She squinted at Merric’s approaching troops. He was short three soldiers. She had lost two. That was an eighth of their fighting force. She would have to ask Wyldon for replacements next week, when she was scheduled to report to him in person at Fort Mastiff. Even if he could replace those five, what of Haven’s future losses? Forays into the valley to rescue people under attack could turn into a costly business.

  One raven had not gone with the others. It swooped around Numair and his spotted gelding, its movements frantic. Numair leaned against his mount, swaying.

  “That must be Daine. And Numair’s too exhausted to move,” Kel whispered. She appraised Merric’s troops and the refugees they ushered toward Haven, then her own men. “Sergeant Oluf,” she called over the heads of a clump of refugees on foot, “stay here. You three.” She pointed to three mounted soldiers. “Come along.”

  She turned Peachblossom toward the rise in the ground and urged him to a trot. “I know you’re tired,” she murmured to him. “I’ll try not to ask too much more of you. We just need to get him off the field in case the enemy’s still about.”

  Peachblossom shook his head with a snort as if to rid himself of unnecessary sentiment. “It’s true. I mean every word,” she assured him. She heard hoofbeats behind her: the men she’d chosen from what remained of Oluf’s squad.

  They reached Numair, who now sat on the ground, his head in his hands. The Daine-raven perched on his shoulder, preening him anxiously.

  “Master Numair, come,” Kel said as they halted beside him. The convicts’ horses shied, nervous of the power that cloaked Numair.

  The mage looked up, gray-faced, his eyes tormented. All my folk were so busy telling me how scared they were of him for making the ground rise for the camp, they didn’t mention he must have been abed f
or days after, Kel thought. “Master Numair, come,” she repeated. “Please, mount up— you’re worrying Daine.”

  He put a hand up to the raven on his shoulder. “Yes—yes. Dearest, I’m fine.”

  Kel didn’t think he meant her. “Do you need a hand?” she asked.

  “No,” said the mage, getting on all fours. The raven took flight, circling. Numair tried to stand and staggered. Kel dismounted and loaded him onto his gelding in sections, head and chest first, then the rest of him, using her cupped hands under one of his feet and all of her strength. Once he was settled, she gathered his reins and remounted Peachblossom.

  “Let’s go home,” she told her men.

  The raven settled onto Peachblossom’s saddle horn. Its beak changed shape, enough that Kel understood when Daine said, “Kel, I mustn’t stay. I think there’s trouble over at Fort Giantkiller.”

  “Because Scanrans attacked on the Giantkiller road. I understand,” Kel replied. She squinted at the road near the eastern hills. Ravens, buzzards, and Stormwings flocked to the dead Numair hadn’t engulfed in the second crack he’d made in the ground. “Will you come back?”

  “I don’t know,” the Daine-raven answered sadly. “If it’s bad at Giantkiller, I’ll have to get word to Mastiff and Northwatch. I hate to ask when you’ve so many to mind already, but will you keep an eye on Numair? He’ll try to move about before he’s rested, and he won’t eat proper.”

  Kel smiled. “I’ll take care of him.”

  The Daine-raven took flight and headed northeast.

  The trot back to the bridge was uneventful, save for Kel’s awareness that more and more Stormwings arrived every step of the way. At the gate she called for a fresh horse and dismounted from Peachblossom, taking her glaive with her.

  “Find Tobe,” she instructed her gelding. “He’ll fix you up.” Peachblossom shook his head, showering Kel with foam and sweat.

  “Nonsense,” Kel retorted as if he were a human. “You’re all in. Do as I say.”

  He flattened his ears, then sighed, the fight going out of him. He trudged over to the waiting Tobe, weariness in every line of his body. Loesia brought Kel a fresh mount, a frisky mare, and held her as Kel swung into the saddle. Kel looked at Sergeant Yngvar, who stood by the gate. “May I borrow your crossbow?” she asked. “I’ll bring it back.” She opened her water flask and gulped the rest of its contents. Silently, Yngvar handed over his crossbow and quiver.