Erik laughed. ‘Then get out of here!’
Roo had found that two of his wagons had made it to Ravensburg. He did as he promised and paid the two drivers a year’s wages. He then let them go and turned one of the wagons over to Milo and Nathan, keeping the other one for himself.
Erik rode to the second wagon. Milo and Nathan sat on the driver’s seat, while Kitty, Freida, Rosalyn, her husband, Randolph, and their sons, Gerd and Milo, huddled in the back. Erik smiled at the older boy, who now clearly resembled his true father, Stefan von Darkmoor. The boy sat in his stepfather’s arms, asking excited questions in his own two-year-old’s dialect of the King’s Tongue, while his mother held the baby in her arms. Erik said to Nathan, ‘When you get to Darkmoor, find Owen Greylock. He’ll find you a safe place to stay.’
Kitty stood up and Erik moved his mount close enough to the wagon so that he could embrace her. They held each other without speaking, then Erik let her go.
Nathan flicked the reins and the horses moved away, and Erik sat watching his life move from him. His mother; her husband, who was a rare and wonderful man; Milo, who had been the only thing remotely like a father in his boyhood; Rosalyn, as much a sister to him as if his mother had given birth to her; and Gerd, his nephew, though only a few knew that fact. And, most amazingly, Kitty, a slender young girl who meant more to him than he would have imagined possible before he met her.
Erik watched until the wagon disappeared into the frantic town. Other townspeople piled their belongings into wagons, onto carts, or into bundles they would carry on their backs, in preparation for abandoning their homes. Anything important to a family’s livelihood was being carried away: tools, seeds, cuttings from the most productive vines, books and scrolls, inventory. Randolph’s family had managed to dismantle their bakery, salvaging every item of hardware - the iron doors to the stone ovens, the flat iron oven bottoms and cooking racks - and every other valuable item, leaving only the empty stone ovens and some wooden cooling racks behind.
Some families had every belonging in their possession piled high atop whatever cart or wagon they owned, while others grabbed only valuables, abandoning years of accumulation, furniture, clothing, and other household goods, sacrificed in the name of speed. Some townspeople had already left, driving small herds of sheep, goats, or cattle, or carrying away chickens, ducks, and geese in wooden crates.
Soldiers hurried by, moving to positions determined months before Erik arrived here. Erik put aside the feeling of personal loss that gripped him, and turned his attention to the defense of his hometown.
He considered everything Greylock had ordered him to do, and thanked the gods that the General and Captain Calis had been so thorough. He knew that soon the most desperate fighting since the fall of Krondor was about to resume.
Everything Erik had read in Knight-Marshal William’s library had reinforced one thing overall: war was fluid, unpredictable, and those who were best prepared for any eventuality, able to seize opportunity, were the most likely to survive.
And that was exactly how Erik thought of it these days: survival. Not victory, but simply enduring longer than the enemy. Let them die first, was all he prayed for. And he knew that if any detail of preparation eluded him, it wouldn’t be for lack of effort on his part.
Erik turned his horse and rode off to oversee the first line of defense.
Men dug furiously, building up the breastwork across the pass west of Ravensburg. Axes rang out in the afternoon as trees were felled. Erik wiped his brow and glanced at the hot sun. Thoughts of snow were difficult on a day like this. Yet he knew that in the mountains of his home province, winter could arrive as soon as a month from now. But his homegrown instincts told him this would probably be a late and light winter. The look of the plantlife and the behavior of the wild animals communicated to him silently that eight weeks or more would pass before anything like a serious snowfall would occur, and three months was possible.
Erik remembered the one year - he had been no more than six - when no snow to speak of fell through the entire winter; only a slushy sleet and that passed quickly.