Dies the Fire

The section leaders gathered around him, shaggy in their war cloaks, leaves and twigs pushed into the netting of the hoods drawn up over their bowl helmets.

"Look up there," Aylward said, pointing northwest up the road. "We're a good five hundred yards down from that curve. I want two sections"-eighteen archers-"behind the barricade. The rest of you, get your people up on the slopes either side-no more than fifty yards total, but I want each and every one to have a good tree to hide behind and a clear field of fire. Go do it!"

Everyone did. Aylward watched, which made him itch; circumstances and the growth of the Mackenzies had pushed him into an officer's boots, much against his will.

He comforted himself by walking back up the road and looking to either side. You couldn 't see far; the verges at the edge of the road's cleared swath were thick with Pacific rhododendron, vine maple and bear grass. His eye could trace the Mackenzies settling in, but once they were motionless, only knowing where they were let him see them.

"Good enough," he muttered to himself. "In a couple of years, they'll be bloody good, if I do say so myself."

A check behind the barricade showed that everyone there had a good step, high enough to shoot over the metal, but convenient for ducking down. They also all had a spear to hand, if things got close and personal; he'd picked two sections with people who'd fought the Protector's men back before Lughnassadh…

"Christ, they've got me doing it," he muttered to himself again, as he climbed up into the woods. "It didn't even occur to me to think August."

There was a little more work for him here. The archers were spaced about three paces apart, with a tree or bush to conceal each-and with the hoods of their cloaks pulled up over their helmets and shadowing their faces, they were hard to see. A few had picked spots that would block their fields of fire, though. He patiently corrected those, with a quick explanation why and how to check-he wanted them to do better next time-and made sure that each had two bundles of extra arrows from the packhorses, which made a hundred and twenty arrows altogether, counting those in the quivers. Most of the archers had a dozen or so pushed point-down into the dirt or a convenient fallen log, which was a good trick-faster than reaching back over your shoulder.

"Listen for the horn calls, lad," he repeated again and again, or variations, with the odd slap on the shoulder. "Just do what you've practiced, and it'll all come right."

And if things go wrong, the order will be to scarper up-slope, right quick; we can climb the hillsides faster than the Protector's men; their armor is heavier and they're going to be a lot more tired.

All done, he settled down to wait behind a hundred-foot-tall lodgepole pine on the west side of the road, taking out a hardtack and gnawing quietly at it, his bow across his knees. It took him half an hour to eat it-if you went too fast, you risked damage to your teeth, which since the Change was no joke. It was about two o'clock when the scout stationed at the northward curve of the road stepped out onto the pavement, waved her bow overhead, then vanished back into the undergrowth.

"That's that, then," Aylward said, standing and dusting a few crumbs off the front of his jack.

"How many's that?" Havel asked, as they stopped to pick up a wounded straggler.

"Twenty," Lua

Havel made a tsk sound as he looked at the steep slopes on either side. In theory the Protector's men could have set an ambush; Josh's scouts were only a couple of hundred yards ahead, and the only way to get a horse into the forest would be to dismount and lead it. The enemy still had half again his numbers. In practice…

"The Protector thought he had a real army because they had weapons and ranks," he said to her father. "Big mistake."

Will Hutton nodded; he had his helmet pushed back, and now he pulled it back down by the nasal bar.

"Sure was," he said, looking as a Bearkiller stretcher party carried the wounded prisoner back towards the ambulance wagons. An abandoned bicycle lay tumbled not far away.

"What was that you said about these here?"

"Low unit cohesion," Havel said with a grin. "Aka, bugging out on your buddies. Gu

He looked around, matching the terrain to the maps. "All right, people!" he said, louder. "Dismount by squads, water and feed the horses, and final equipment check. We're going to be caught up to them pretty soon."

"Timing's going to be tricky," Hutton said. "Don't want too much of a battle goin' before we get there."

Havel shrugged. "Well, that wasn't Lady Juniper's plan," he said. "We'll see what happens."

Aylward made a sound of disgust between his teeth. "Straight into it," he said contemptuously.

"You'd rather they were alert?" someone muttered.

He snorted; the Mackenzies had learned to do what the one in charge told them when a fight was brewing, but they weren't long on deference. And they did love to talk; probably picked it up from Juniper and her original crew.

The column of Protectorate troops halted and milled around when they saw the barricade; through binoculars he could see some of them looking over their shoulders.

There was shouting and shoving before they all got off their bicycles; eventually a ba

Probably has to lead from the front this time, Aylward thought. Or the others won't follow at all.

Lady Juniper's plan depended on demoralization. It was time to help that along…

He rose, throwing a wisp of dried grass in the air to gauge the wind direction, and looking at the extremely helpful ba

"Now," he said, throwing off his cloak and plucking an arrow out of the ground to set it on the string of his war bow.

A signaler put his cowhorn bugle to his lips and blew. Huuu-huuu-huuuu, the weird dunting bellow echoed back from the hills. A banshee squeal answered it; this time they had four bagpipers. They stayed hidden, but all along the hillsides on. both sides of the road Mackenzie archers shed their war cloaks and stepped forward, bows in their hands.

The sudden appearance and rustle of movement combined with the eerie keening of the pipes to make them appear more numerous than they were; imagination painted scores more behind them in the trees. Aylward watched as the ranks eddied and milled, heads twisting this way and that-and behind them again. The baron beside the ba

Well, I can read your bloody mind, mate. Neck or nothing, a charge is the only way you’re getting out. Got to put a stop to that.

Swift as a thought, he drew the string to the angle of his jaw, the heavy muscle bunching in his right arm, then let the string fall off the balls of his fingers. The cord went snap against his bracer; before the sensation faded the next was drawn, and the next, and the next. Pale and gray and directionless, the light was still good for shooting; he could see the slight glint as the arrow hit the top of its arc, and anticipate the sweet smooth feeling you got when you knew it was going to hit…