The attack is swift, quiet, and amazingly efficient. With no sound, Lark makes two hops up the far side of the carriage. One moment the guard on top is sitting with her crossbow in her lap, the next she’s facedown in the guard box, clutching her forehead. Lark catches up the fallen crossbow with her toe and flings it into the swallowing bracken, while in the same motion brings the flat of her sword around to connect with the driver’s head. Iano’s up by that point—he springs to pin the guard’s hand as she struggles to find her sword hilt. Soe climbs into the driver’s box with crossbow cocked and pointed at the cowering driver.
Then, it’s just a matter of binding both their hands and mouths. As Iano stands over the guard, and Soe over the driver, Lark swings off the coach. She reaches down into the bracken, and Tamsin appears, sliding on the steep slope. Lark adjusts her sword and knife, hitches her bandanna a little higher, and moves to the coach door. Tamsin follows. After that, my view is blocked by the carriage.
I lean against the cold rock and wipe my forehead, my arm trembling with effort and anxiety. My hands are still stinging from the blows of the sledgehammer. I thought the tree would never come down. But it did, mighty and tragic and falling exactly where we wanted it to. Now the guards swarm around it, their hoods up against the rain, pointing at different places along the trunk and lopping off a few small branches, completely unaware of the plight of their comrades just around the bend.
I try to calm the butterflies in my stomach. Things are working. Now it’s all down to what Lark and Tamsin can glean from inside. I shift on the rock, my vantage point, checking the bow and quiver of arrows for the dozenth time.
These guards are slow to begin their work, noodling around the trunk, peering here and there. There’s not much sound from the coach at this point, but I’d like them to start sawing—it would keep them all the more preoccupied.
My gaze flicks between the two scenes. The coach, still and silent, with Soe and Iano standing over their wards. The tree, where the guards cluster around the trunk, their tools at their sides.
What are they looking at?
Slowly, one by one, their faces turn up toward the hill.
My heart vaults to my throat.
I’m hidden well enough that they can’t see me from the road, but I shrink against the rock all the same. I watch with horror as two of them detach from the others and begin the tedious, slippery work of toiling up the hill, along the length of the tree. The others begin their work a little half-heartedly, trimming off a few skinny branches here and there.
I race through my options. If they reach the base of the tree and find it cut, what then? They won’t be able to see the coach from the stump, but it will definitely make them wary. I glance down at the carriage again. No change—but have Lark and Tamsin made any progress inside? Will Kimela tell the guards to stand down?
The two are getting closer to the stump. I wet my lips, making a decision. At the very least, I can warn the others that something’s amiss. Trying to beat away the same panic that crept up on me when Lark collapsed in the water scrape, I purse my lips and blow. The first whistle is only air, and I rush to try again. I give the rising two-note call of the cardinal. What cheer! Danger.
Through the trees, I see Iano’s head shift, but he doesn’t react beyond that. At least I know he’s heard. The two guards climb closer. With fumbling fingers, I pull an arrow from the quiver and set it to Iano’s bowstring. I’m not sure what I plan to do with it, but it’s there.
The two guards stop short, their gazes up the slope. They’ve seen the smooth, purposeful cut at the end of the trunk.
I purse my lips again. What cheer! I don’t dare take my eyes off the soldiers to see how the others react at the coach.
The guards close the last few feet to the stump and see the saw, the sledge, the wedges. They look around their immediate vicinity. I’m above their line of sight, but any closer and I won’t have much cover to depend on at all. This rock was convenient because it was high above everything else, with little to block its view down to either side of the road. But it’s a perch, not a hiding place.
I whistle again, trying to inject urgency into the call. What cheer!
Best case scenario, Kimela will pop out and holler for everyone to stand down. Worst case, Lark and the others are planning their retreat. I throw a glance down at the coach.
They’re just standing there! Iano and Soe, standing immobile, the same as before. No movement from the coach. Didn’t they listen? Have they forgotten the calls I taught them?
The guards are alert now, their hatchets replaced by their sword hilts. They’re looking around, back to back, searching for the culprit. With real panic now I clamber sideways along the rock, hoping to find somewhere with better cover. There’s a cluster of trunks nearby that should hide me—if I can get to them.
When no attack bursts from the underbrush, the guards must realize the danger isn’t right here at the stump. They turn back down the hill. One shouts to the guards clustered around the tree.
I take another breath and give one more desperate attempt to warn the others. What cheer!
My whistle cracks on the final note, sounding more like a person than a bird. The rear guard halts in his tracks and pivots back up the hill. His gaze locks on me.
“Hey!” he shouts.
As sure as if his shout was a crossbow quarrel, my foot slips on the wet rock. I slide toward the ground, losing sight of the carriage.
It’s only as I hit the brush and scramble in the opposite direction that I realize what I’ve done.
The cardinal isn’t danger.
It’s all’s well.