Talon of the Silver Hawk

Tal waited.

 

Jasquenel stood beside him on the stockade, watching for the first sign of the invaders. For a countless time Tal reviewed all the things they had done in the last ten days. Runners had been dispatched to all the nearby villages, who in turn sent more runners to villages farther north. If Raven and his company managed to fight their way past this village—Queala—they would be resisted at every other village until they were turned south.

 

In the ten days since Tal had arrived with his company, he had felt sudden bouts of sorrow and yearning, for no place since his boyhood reminded him of his home as Queala did. The Orodon were not the Orosini, but it was clear that at one time they had been close cousins, for many of their ways were Orosini ways. There was a familiar long house where the men gathered in council, and a round house where the women worked. Their dress and customs were much like his own people’s, too. But there were also differences, and often it was those differences as much as the similarities that reminded him of how much he had lost.

 

Queala was larger than his home had been, for it had thirty families living within its walls, compared to the dozen or so in Village Kulaam. There were four common buildings, the men’s long house, the women’s round house, a community kitchen, and a bathhouse. Smaller homes filled the stockade, with only a central clearing left empty.

 

He looked back over the wall and down at the clearing in front of the stockade. The engineers had dug traps and covered them with canvas; then added light coats of earth for camouflage, and wind and a light dusting of snow two nights before had completely hidden them. There was an inconspicuous-looking twig stuck in the ground a hundred yards to the right and fifty yards away from the wall, and a large rock at the edge of the clearing. From the rock to the twig, then the twig to the gate was the safe route to the gate; otherwise, one risked being impaled upon a nasty set of stakes.

 

Tal thought about the defense of the village and realized that he had been fortunate; the village had only two walls that could readily be attacked—the south and the west, where the main gate was. The north wall overlooked a very steep hillside, which should be impossible for a significant number of men to climb; two bowmen could easily sit up on the wall there and pick off any attackers foolish enough to try to come at the village that way. The east wall overlooked a gorge that fell away sixty feet below its base.

 

Two massive catapults had been assembled by the engineers. These men had fascinated Tal by their ability to walk into the woods with a set of simple tools, some ropes, a few nails, and some spikes, and emerge three days later with such impressive engines. The leader of the engineers, a man named Gaskle, had said that if they had a good smithy, some iron ore, and a forge to work with, they could build him a proper trebuchet in a week, but Tal had observed that he thought the catapults would be sufficient, as they would probably get only one chance to rain rocky death on the attackers before Raven and his men beat a retreat.

 

Glancing down at the walls, Tal saw where the engineers had reinforced the stockade, against the possibility of the attackers’ using a ram. It was unlikely they would bring a heavy covered ram; but they might think to try a large tree bole fitted with wooden wheels, which they could roll down the hill toward the gate. It should bounce off, if it didn’t get fouled up in the pits that had been dug along the way. Tal was satisfied that all had been done that could be done.

 

And so they waited. Sentries two days before had sent word of bands of armed men riding through the southern passes and marshaling in a meadow half a day’s ride to the south. Tal glanced skyward. It was now midmorning, so the attack could come at any time. He looked across to the southern wall. John Creed met his glance and nodded. Nothing in the woods there to see.

 

Tal pondered. He was no expert on tactics or strategy, having read only a few books on the subject while studying in Salador, and having no practical experience of warfare. The skill he had with a sword was as a duelist, and he did not know if it would serve him on the field of battle. Which was why he had come to rely on John Creed and his experience. There was no rank in the company, but it was clear to all the other men that Creed was the unofficial second in command.

 

 

 

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