Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

Thiadbold knelt beside her. “Here, now, Hanna.”

She grasped his arm so hard that he gasped. “You must take cover. If… any arrow cuts the skin … they have poisoned arrows. It will kill at once. Even a scratch. Believe me!”

“I believe you!” he cried with a glance over his shoulder toward the gate, being shouldered closed by a pair of brawny Lions. Barely visible as the night swept over them, Lions clustered in shield walls where the wall gapped. The wall had minimal defensive capability; no inner wall walk offered a vantage for sentries and archers. The nuns clearly had never used swords and bows and spears to defend themselves.

“Still,” he added, “they’ll be cautious about attacking against walls when it’s dark.”

“They’ll shoot arrows.” She coughed, and he helped her stand. Her sides heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. “They need only scratch …”

A trio of arrows spat down out of the night, sticking in the dirt.

“Take cover!” shouted Thiadbold as men scattered, startled and dismayed. He looked at Hanna, frowning. Because he had his helm on, she could only see his eyes and the lower part of his face, but he looked as steady as ever. “They can’t afford to waste arrows uselessly. If that’s but a raiding party, they’ll hoard their arrows and their poison.”

“Maybe so, but we are no more than sixty or seventy people all told. If there are only ten raiders and each one has ten arrows, even that could kill every one of us.”

“You fear them.” He had his hand on her arm in the manner of a man comforting a loved one.

“I fear their poison. I saw my companions fall. Ai, God.”

He nodded. “Have you a bow?”

“I do, but I’m only a middling shot. Sergeant Aronvald will have more weapons, for he kept with us the weapons of the soldiers we lost. He has only three good archers left but another half dozen strong bows. We’ve been making arrows as we go.”

He released her and called to Ingo. “Sergeant, you’re in charge while I go to the other side. Keep their heads down and their bodies under cover. Do not shoot unless you have a target. Let no man be exposed by the light of torches.”

“Shall we douse the torches, Captain?”

He worried at his lower lip. “If only we had lit a ring of torches out beyond the wall we might see them coming, if they choose to storm our position.” He shook his head impatiently. “But we have not. Leave the torches be for now. Let no man stand where the light will give him away. Come, Hanna. Tell me the story again.” He began walking and she sheathed her sword and jogged up alongside him, still puffing.

“Aronvald!” he called, and was answered from the shadows by the weaving shed, where a strong section of wall separated the shed and the orchard from the darkness of the forest.

“A good place to creep up close,” he muttered.

She stumbled on a rock, an old building stone half buried in earth and grown over with moss—what in God’s names was that doing here? Once a structure had stood here, but in the darkness she couldn’t guess what it might have been. Wincing, she got to her feet and dusted off her gloved hands. Seeing her unhurt, Thiadbold hurried to consult with Lady Bertha’s sergeant. The two men stood close together under the eaves of the weaving shed. Hanna looked around, getting her bearings. Her eyes had adjusted—as much as they ever would—to the dark; she hadn’t seen this portion of the compound closely during daylight.

Sergeant Aronvald had lit no torches. His men waited in the shadows, four of them up on ladders to get aim over the wall. They were all in mail and helmets, some inherited from the dead. The half dozen Lions waiting below beside the narrow orchard gate wore brigandines and decent helmets. All had boiled leather greaves, gloves protected across the back of the hand with chain mail, and good boots—a soldier’s stout friend on the march. This she had noted when she’d first met them at the village; after so long on the road she had learned to assess quickly what manner of armor her friends, and her foes, kept on them.

A moaning cry rose out of the forest, more wail than sob, an awful racket that made her cringe and then hate herself for her fear.

“What was that?” whispered one of the men as the sound died. Wind rattled branches. The orchard swayed as if each tree were trying to come unstuck, to move its roots, to flee that noise, which rose a second time, hung in the air, and faded.

“I don’t like this,” said another Lion.

She encountered no more obstacles as she came up beside Thiadbold and Aronvald, who were talking with the intensity of men who know a decision must be made swiftly and decisively.

“… fire,” Thiadbold was saying. “So we can see them. We might see if we can shoot flaming arrows into the trees.”

“It’s not likely to work,” replied Aronvald, “as it is so damp, but I tell you, Captain, it’s better than no idea at all, and no idea is what I’m having, for we lost half our company and our good lady to these creatures.”

“If that’s what’s out there. It might be bandits. We came across some the night before we reached Freeburg, but Liath chased them off. With fire, that is. Which is how I came to think of it.”

“There’s a trick to getting the flame to hold as the arrow flies.”

“I’ll put my men to work on it. Mayhap the good nuns have some pitch—here! Hanna!”

“I’ll go and ask them at once, and take the message to Ingo, of what to expect,” she said.

“Folquin and Leo can be in charge of fixing the arrows. They’ve done something like in the past, and are clever. Go.”