Chapter 35

Right, open links.” Aydon Smith bore a chain over each shoulder. “This is lord’s iron, by the way.”

“Good, thank you, Aydon.” Katherine waggled the point of a militia spear in its binding—it nearly fell off the shaft. She handed it to Martin. “See if someone can fix that.” She cast a glance around her at the floor of the inn and counted perhaps ten spears worth using. Some of her neighbors ripped rags, dipped them in pitch and wrapped them onto arrowheads. Others strung the longbows, testing each string with an empty draw. Knocky Turner worked at a frantic rate in the far corner, converting an old piece of fencing into a combination roadblock and shield wall. Molly Atbridge and her mother bent beside him, stretching wet ox-hides over the row of old militia shields lashed to the frame.

Aydon rattled the chains. “Lord’s iron, you know—his stock. Is he paying?”

“We’ll ask him later.” Katherine strode to the door. “Bring what you need to make a good, hot fire. I’ll come show you what to do.”

More folk poured in from the roads, outlying farmers farther to the ends of the great chain of alarm. By the time the news had reached them, it had gained in detail, so most came with all that had been asked of them—torches, longbows and arrows, even a few swords. It was an effort to keep the newcomers silent once they reached the square, but by then everyone in the village knew enough of Katherine’s designs to impress the need for quiet on their neighbors, with a harsh hiss and a swat for those somewhat slower of wit.

Katherine walked with Aydon onto the span of the bridge and stopped at the first set of posts. “Can you loop each end around one of these, then shut the links so that it’s stretched taut across the span?”

Aydon set down the chains. “I’ll need a roaring hot one.” He stepped back and took note of the wind. “I’ve got a stack of hickory just in by my door, dry as you like.”

“You might not have long,” said Katherine. “Any sign of trouble, kick your fire into the river and come right back, done or not.”

“Aye.” Aydon set down his tools. “Don’t you worry on that score.”

Katherine hurried back into the square. She waved up at the roof of the mill as she passed. “All well?”

Jarvis Miller waved back to her. “We’ve got a lamp lit down behind the cams.”

“Just give the word.” Nicky Bird stuck his head out next to Jarvis. “We’ll make ’em sorry they ever even heard of Moorvale.”

Katherine passed on through the square and pushed back the door to the inn. “What’s the arrow count?”

“Eleven score.” Anna Maybell let a handful drop into a barrel. “Or a bit over.”

Katherine had hoped for more. “Get a full barrel up to the mill, and half the fire arrows. Hurry—we don’t know how long we’ve got. What about spears?”

“Fifteen,” said Martin.

“Good, bring them out.” Katherine turned back through the square and surveyed the field of battle before her. The mill did a fine job of blocking the south side, and its wooden roof gave a high vantage over the bridge. She let her gaze rove north. The land rose along the Bakers’ croft, perfect for another company of archers.

“Come, my lords and knights.” She cast a glare over the bridge at the shadowed moors. “Come take us, if you can.”

Aydon’s fire blazed up on the span of the bridge, and soon the tinking of his hammer sounded, spaced with muttered grunts and curses. Katherine went over to the bundle of supplies she had brought with her from the castle and took up her sword—a soldier’s sword, forged from good bloomery steel but without decoration on hilt or blade. She still called it her uncle’s sword, sometimes, though he had died more than ten years before she was born. Her uncle had left one mark on it, a deep score on the crossguard where he must once have turned a crushing blow from an axe. She drew the blade; the other marks were hers.

Martin bore a dozen spears out of the hall. “So who gets these?”

Katherine glanced at him. “Pick a dozen men—strong ones, some tall and some short. Tell the rest to get their longbows.” She sized up the run of road through the square to the bridge. She marked out points of escape between the Coopers’ and the Turners’, and another up behind the smithy, then made a silent wish that she would not need to make use of them.

“Bella, Missa, over here. Grab up a bale and follow. Wat, bring some of that pitch.” She took up the hay bales she had asked for and led her neighbors onto the bridge. “Mind Aydon, everyone, mind the fire. Step over the chain.”

She dragged her bale up the span, to a point roughly halfway to the top. “There. Put them in a row, right across.” She set it down and sighted back to the village. She risked one low shout. “Up on the mill—can you hit this?”

“Of course we can!” Nicky Bird spat off the roof. “What do you think we are, a pack of Wollanders?”

Scuffing footsteps sounded in echo from the east. Katherine turned around to find a pair of figures cresting the top of the arch at a run.

“Lights.” Geoffrey Bale came in just ahead of a white-faced, trembling Miles Twintree. “Lots of them, a mile past the rise. And talking.”

“Good, go on, to your places.” Katherine helped Wat Cooper upend a whole barrel of thick, tarry pitch over the bales, then led her neighbors back off the bridge. “Aydon, they’re coming! Toss your fire and get down here!”

The fire on the bridge slid out and fell to hiss into the river. Moments later Aydon hurried down into view. “I could only set the nearest chain.” He threw his tools aside and took a spear from Martin.

“One is much better than none.” Katherine turned to the cluster of folk standing in between Gerald Baker’s and the mill, the last two buildings before the foot of the bridge. She counted, at best, sixty bows.

“Quiet, now, everyone! It all depends on quiet.” Katherine picked out Missa Dyer from the crowd. “Missa, go back into the square. Tell everyone to keep all the lights out of view—I don’t want to see so much as a candle if I look that way. You two, over there by the edge, go into the smithy, load up some coals in the brazier and bring it out. Set it by the wall, in reach of the archers.”

Katherine ordered the spearmen into a rough double line, the taller men holding ready to stab over the shoulders of the shorter. “You are both our first line and our last. With luck, our enemies will never even reach you. Martin is your captain. Follow him as though he were Tristan himself.”

Martin thunked the haft of his spear into the earth. “Anyone who’s not in it with us to the end, just turn and run for it now. We’re better off without you.” He looked somewhat different from his usual self, his slow anger awakened and alight. Even his black beard seemed to bristle out.

“We won’t let you down.” Horsa Blackcalf took up a spear, the oldest of Martin’s picked company, old enough, in fact, to be Martin’s father. The front rank of men knelt down, their feet touching the edge of the bridge.

“Good—Martin, they’re all yours.” Katherine passed beyond them to the folk who stood with bows and arrows in the eastern end of the square. Not all of the women had left—she counted Luilda Twintree holding hands with Lefric Green, and Elsie Overbourne standing with her husband, Telbert.

Katherine pointed into the shadows. “Someone bring up that barrel of arrows and put it in reach. Each of you take a handful and push them into the ground at your feet, then space yourselves in ranks. I need to detach one company. Who asks to lead them?”

A dozen hands rose. It was no easy choice amongst the best three. Katherine pointed. “Gilbert Wainwright, take twenty archers north, up through Gerald’s croft. Put yourself along the high bend, that rocky bit—you should have a good view along the side of the bridge.”

“Oh, ha-ha, good one. Good one!” The spearmen turned to laugh. “Hit them from the sides! Katherine’s got it all figured, don’t she?”

“Don’t bother with fire arrows, and bring no light,” said Katherine. “Shoot as you like once we start. All right?”

“Got it. Good luck, everyone.” Gilbert turned and waved a score of folk out of the crowd. They slipped around the back of the smithy.

“Everyone else, you’re mine.” Katherine stepped out before the first rank of archers—Telbert Overbourne, Lefric Green, Walter Bythorn and old Robert Windlee. “I want tight volleys on my signal, arched high to drop onto the middle of the span. We’ll leave the long shots to the men on the roof—and no one is to fire before I say. Same up there on the mill. Hear it? No volleys until I give the word.”

“We hear.” Nicky Bird sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the roof. “Bit fancier than Aelfric’s old drill-and-practice runs, hey? But we’ll do it, don’t you worry.”

“Wait, wait, up there.” Knocky Turner emerged from the dark, holding up one end of his hastily built shield wall. “It’s done.” Molly Atbridge held the other, though rather low, and Jordan Dyer dropped his longbow to help her bring it along to the foot of the bridge.

“Now, that’s good work.” Martin took hold of the shield wall, and all by himself hauled it around and set it just in front of his spearmen, so that its frame braced on the far side of the huge stone posts. He banged the top of it with his hand. They now had a braced wall of shields across the foot of the bridge that came to the height of a man’s chest.

“Katherine.” Jarvis whispered from the roof of the inn. “I see them. They’re on the ridge.”

“Quiet—quiet, everyone!” Katherine got her wish at once. None of her neighbors spoke or shifted or even breathed too loud. In the silence that followed came the distant sound of metal-shod hooves on stone. The wind blew in at them from the moors, but that could not be helped.

“Take an arrow.” Katherine spoke just loud enough to be heard. “Nock it, but do not draw. Listen and wait. Edmund, get ready.”

Edmund clambered past her, over the shield wall and onto the span. Katherine stepped up to Martin’s shoulder and peered out into the dark. She caught sight of shapes moving at the top of the bridge, a few snatches of laughter that echoed over the gentle rush of the water.

“Curse you for a pack of dogs,” Telbert Overbourne snarled under his breath. “Come over here, and we’ll see who’s laughing by sunup.”

Katherine wondered for a moment whether Lord Wolland himself rode in front. “Quiet, now. Just a moment more.” She strained to listen. The approaching shapes came down the near side of the bridge, close enough to tell the strike of hoof from its echo off the water. Then they stopped.

“What’s that?” Lord Wolland’s voice rang out clear from atop the bridge. “Hold, what are they saying up there?”

A more distant voice rose to a shout. “They said they heard something, my lord, whispering, from north along the banks!”

Katherine raised her arm. “On the mill, there! Fire arrows, light and draw.”

The words bales of hay, right on the bridge were cut down by a dozen shouts of “Up there! My lord, look!”

“Take aim.” Katherine glanced up to the roof. A ragged bank of flames stood drawn and ready. She heard the sound of a warning shout on the bridge, and then—oh, she could kiss the clouds—the wind died suddenly to nothing.

“On the mill, fire!” Katherine tapped her cousin’s shoulder. “Set your men. Archers in the square, draw high—fire!”

The fire arrows loosed. Katherine watched the burning trails arc through the air—many landed close to the target, but only one struck the center bale on the top.

“That one was mine!” Nicky Bird shouted it from the roof. “That was my shot!”

Geoffrey popped up beside him. “No, it was mine!”

“Everyone look away!” Katherine turned from the bridge. “Edmund, now!”

“BY FIRE LIGHT IS BORN. IN THE EYE OF NIGHT, A MOTE OF SUN.” Edmund’s voice intoned from the footing of the bridge. “AWAKE, ARISE IN LIGHT. FIRE, AWAKE!” There was a whoosh, and then a light so bright that it almost blinded Katherine, even though she had her eyes shut and her back to it. She turned eastward again, blinking hard, and through the spots in her eyes she could see the vanguard of knights straining desperately to hold their rearing horses in check as flame burst to life at their feet.

Katherine helped Edmund back over the shield wall. She found to her surprise that though her friend was breathing hard, his eyes shone brightly and he seemed otherwise well. “The spell didn’t hurt you?”

“I’ve learned a few things since the last time I tried that.” Edmund hopped lightly to the ground. As soon as he stepped near to the brazier meant for lighting fire arrows, it went out at once, without so much as a wisp of smoke.

“That’s the cost of the spell.” Edmund shrugged and smiled at Katherine’s questioning look. “It’s going to last awhile, I’m afraid.”

Gilbert’s voice cried out from up the banks, and Katherine caught a glimpse of a volley arcing in from the north. A few missed the bridge completely, falling under the span or looping high above it, but most must have struck home from the hoarse cries they raised. She heard the sounds of splashes—knights falling off the bridge into the river—and then louder ones, their horses falling with them.

Katherine called out for a volley, and then another, and for a moment dared to hope that she had driven off the army at a stroke. Then a voice bellowed from the dark—it was Wolland—and the sounds of panic on the bridge died away.

“Hold, everyone hold!” Katherine rushed past Martin and leaned out from the post of the bridge. The burning bales had already dwindled away to almost nothing, consumed by the power of Edmund’s spell. She saw blood on the stone span, some fallen men and abandoned shields, but no one standing. One wounded knight staggered up and tried to leap over the smoldering bales, but tripped and cried out on his way down into the water.

Katherine waved back to the archers. “They’re out of range; don’t waste arrows.”

“What’s going on up there? Are they running?” Lefric Green had barely time to say it before Gilbert’s shout gave the answer.

“They’re charging!” Gilbert called it twice along the banks. “At the bridge, there—they’re charging!”

“Boys, up and ready!” Martin got his spear high and over the shoulder of the man before him. “Lower down, Horsa. Hold hard!”

“Draw and hold! No volleys yet!” Katherine raised her hand. She could not stop Gilbert’s company, though, and did not mind the havoc they caused along the thin column coming over the top of the bridge. She spared a brief moment to think that what her enemy tried was no small feat of horsemanship—and felt a prick of grief for the horses.

“Katherine, they’re coming!” Someone whispered it from amongst the archers behind her. “Do we fire? Say the word!”

“Nock and draw.” Katherine held her arm high. “Wait.”

She watched the bridge. A column of knights thundered in twos, spurring their foaming steeds out of the dark. The beat of their hooves came deafening. Luilda Twintree started to whimper, and someone else in the square let his bow clatter down and turned to run.

“My lord—my lord, a chain!” The voice on the bridge rose to a wild shout, but too late. The front two men ran straight into it, and the men behind them smashed over, and for long, sickening moments there was nothing but the sound of screams, snapping bones and plunges down into the Tamber.

“Oh.” Luilda started to weep. “Oh, that’s so—”

“Shut it!” Katherine flashed a hard look behind her. “Mill and square, another volley! All together, now—fire!”

Though there was no longer any light upon their targets, the archers of Moorvale had taken their gauge of the wind and had an entire column of knights amongst whom to drop their shots. The army’s second advance turned all at once into a rout. Katherine hissed down her neighbors’ cheers. “Not yet. Quiet! How many arrows have you got left?”

She heard some voices answer, “Just one,” others, “Two or three,” and then a few say, “Here, give me one, then, I’m out!”

“Keep them nocked,” said Katherine. “Wait on my word.”

“Men of Moorvale!” The voice boomed out from atop the bridge. “You have done nothing but rouse our anger at these tricks. You have turned but our vanguard, and now we march on you in earnest. We have hundreds of knights, and we will come across that bridge whether you fight us or not. Stand aside now and I may yet prevail upon my men to use some mercy.”

Katherine stepped to the banks before his words could do their work. “You argue without force, my lord Wolland. You have tried to take this bridge twice, and been turned back twice. We will teach you a third lesson if you are in truth so thick in the head.”

There was a long, long pause. “Katherine Marshal?”

“Good evening, my lord,” said Katherine. “I advise you to leave the field of battle as quickly as you can.”

“I will not be challenged by a peasant!”

“Why not?” Nicky Bird’s voice sang out on the air. “You were just beaten by one!”

“My lord Wolland, you are defeated,” said Katherine. “We have the vantage and we will keep it. It’s a long march back across those moors, so I suggest you get started.”

“You do not have the men to hold against us!” Lord Wolland lost his temper completely. “You do not even have the aid of your own lord!”

“Oh, do we not?” Katherine raised her voice to match him. “Look past our square, to the road, my lord, and see for yourself what is coming.”

She waited, hardly daring to breathe. She stared at the bulky outline of Wolland’s form atop his warhorse and could just catch his quiet talk with the men on the horses behind him.

“Come on, come on,” she whispered. “Swallow it whole.”

Edmund leaned to her shoulder. “If this doesn’t work?”

“Then we run for our lives.” Katherine cast a look back at the approaching torches. They had come far enough along that she knew Lord Wolland could see that they were roughly one hundred strong, and marching in two columns—but if they got much closer, all was lost.

Lord Wolland turned his horse and rode back off the bridge in silence. The clatter of hooves on stone dwindled away.

Katherine threw her arms around a startled, blushing Edmund, then waved her hand behind her. “Now you can cheer, if you like.” Her neighbors drowned her out in the noise of it.

“Keep watch, though. They might still try something.” Katherine slapped Martin’s shoulder, then stepped back amongst the archers. “Who can ride? I want one for Longsettle and one for Northend. I’ve got a horse we can use if someone can lend us another. We want arrows—tell them we’ll pay from the village purse if they balk at it.”

“So Lord Harry’s coming?” Hob Hollows waved out at the line of torches.

Katherine felt a smirk twitching up the corners of her lips. “He might come along eventually, but that’s not him.”

“Then who is it?”

“Have a look.”

The torches came closer and closer, and before the nearest had reached the square, a ripple of laughter had spread through the folk gathered there.

“Did it work?” Emma Russet led them, with Miles Twintree and a line of children, formed in two columns like soldiers on the march.

Katherine embraced her. “You sent an army running for the hills.”

“Scared off by a gang of kids.” Hugh Jocelyn guffawed so hard that he dropped his longbow. “So much for your battle-hardened men of war. Eh? Eh?”

The children approached in their lines toward the square two by two. As they got near to Edmund, the torches went out without so much as a hiss.

Edmund turned a sheepish smile on Katherine. “Saves having to douse them, I suppose.”

Miles Twintree dropped his snuffed torch on the road. “What’d we miss?”

“The finest shot in the history of all Moorvale.” Nicky Bird hopped out through the front door of the mill. “And some other things of lesser notice.”

Katherine let her neighbors whoop and embrace. She returned to the bridge and leaned on one of the grand stone pillars, and watched Wolland’s army pull back out of view.

Edmund followed her into the square. “You did it.” His eyes sparkled with admiration. “That was the cleverest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Katherine turned to smile at him, but then caught sight of motion on the Longsettle road. “Are those more of the kids?”

“No, we’re all here.” Miles turned to look back with her. “I thought I heard noises from the south, just as we started marching.”

Folk approached along the road—on foot, and walking in a clump. A man stepped out before their ranks, a ragged, frightened peasant carrying a little boy in his arms. He stared about him at the folk of Moorvale assembled in the square. “So then, you must already know.”

Katherine glanced at Edmund, a hollow fear growing in her. She turned back to the man. “Know what?”

“There are monstrous creatures marching up from the south,” said the man. “There’s panic on the roads—villages aflame. Elverain is under attack.”