The stranger grabbed Nandy and took the bell-rope out of her hands by force, so that the clangor finally stopped. “Listen to me - Listen to me!” he shouted, and the cries and screams stopped as abruptly as the cessation of the bell peals. His words fell into the sudden silence like cold, round stones into a pool.
“You heard the boy - your men are dead,” he said forcefully, and a woman’s hysterical sob pierced the quiet, only to be muffled by her neighbor pulling her head into the shelter of her shoulder. The stranger ignored her. “You can’t do anything for them; you can only save yourselves, and there’s not much time to do that. Send someone downriver to Kelmskeep and Lord Breon, someone on a fast horse or in a swift boat and do it now. The rest of you, grab what you can, and run, as fast and as far as you can. This is no bandit horde, I’m telling you, I know because I saw them. This is an army; it’s men and monsters, and it looks like a demon is leading them. They killed everyone at Riverford that resisted, and they’ll do the same here.”
Now Justyn saw that young Ado Larsh, barely seventeen and the youngest member of the militia, was sitting on the platform beside the stranger; there was a bloody rag acting as a bandage around his head and one eye, and another binding his arm. He looked white, in deep shock, but nodded in confirmation of everything the man said.
“What about those who didn’t resist?” Widow Clay called out sharply. “What happened to them?”
Someone else growled, and a few of her neighbors cast her angry looks, but she gave them back look for look. “There are some of us,” she pointed out, “who can’t run. Myself and Kyle, for two. What happened to those who didn’t resist?”
The stranger shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t wait around to see. But I can tell you that from the smoke that rose up behind me, it looked to me like they put every building on the estate to the torch, and I can only hope there wasn’t anyone in those buildings when they went up.”
“Th-th-they’re m-m-moving f-f-fast,” Ado stammered. “C-c-can’t b-be f-far b-b-behind.”
There was silence then, nothing but silence. Clearly, no one knew what to do next, and if no one took charge, in a moment, there would be nothing but blind panic. People would be caught between trying to hide and trying to escape, torn between saving possessions and getting away quickly, and managing only to confuse matters further. If someone didn’t tell them what to do, nothing would be done at all, and they would all die stupidly and uselessly.
“Right. I’ll take over from here,” Justyn heard himself say into the deathly hush. People turned to see who had spoken, as if they didn’t recognize his voice. Maybe they didn’t; this was the first time he had spoken with real authority in years.
He pulled himself up as tall as he could, and pushed through the crowd with the aid of his staff until he got himself up on the platform. Their faces turned up to meet his, all of them white and shocked, all of them looking for an answer from anyone - even him. Well, as it happened, he had one for them. A bit of murmuring started, and he quelled it with three sharp raps of the end of his staff on the boards beneath his feet.
“This is war, and war is what I came out of.” He looked around to see if there was any disagreement. “Some of you may not have believed my ‘war tales,’ as you called them, but they were as true as the fact that I’ve seen how armies operate. I know what’s coming and I know what I’m talking about. The stranger is right - you aren’t fighters, anyone who had any real training here is dead. You have no experience of anything but dealing with a few bandits, and I tell you now there is no way you can defend yourselves, let alone the village, against an army of trained and organized fighters.”
He had their full attention now, and since the majority of those below him were women and children, not men, there were fewer who were disposed to argue with that assessment.
Which is just as well, since it’s an honest one.
“Your best bet is to try to escape, or try to hide. Anyone who wants to take a chance on staying - I’d suggest you go to the riverbank as far from the village as you can and stay together,” he said briskly. “Don’t take anything of value with you; armies like this are paid in loot, and if you stand between them and their loot, they’ll kill you. If you have valuables with you, they’ll kill you to get at them. Let them have what they want - if you all survive this, you can petition the Crown for relief and get it. If you go hide yourselves beside the river, have nothing they want, and look as harmless as possible, once they’re done working out their battle-lust in looting, they’ll get around to finding you and they probably won’t kill you. Probably. That’s all I can promise you out of my military experience - they might just want loot, and they’ll leave you completely alone, never looking for you; or they might decide to make slaves - or something - out of you. If you have young children, take toys and sweets to keep them quiet. When the enemy soldiers find you, grovel, beg, bow your heads to the ground and plead with them and don’t stand up until they tell you to. With luck, they won’t find you at all, with a little less, they’ll let you go, and with a bit less than that, you’ll end up serving them.”
He didn’t say what else might happen; this was not the time to turn the women hysterical. If they hadn’t already thought of it themselves, there was no point in bringing the subject up.
“But at least we’ll be alive,” Widow Clay declared, and began to hobble determinedly toward the river. Justyn gave her credit for good sense; she didn’t even look back at her cottage, much less go back to try and save anything. She simply set her sights on the river and in putting as much distance between herself and the approaching trouble as possible.
“The rest of you do as you were told - take boats or horses if you have them, go afoot if you don’t, and run, now. Don’t stop to take anything with you; every moment you waste packing valuables is a moment when you could be putting as much distance between you and here as possible. Don’t let your jewelry cost you your life. Go to Kelmskeep; it’s fortified, and should be able to hold off a siege.”
A few moved to follow the widow, and before anyone else could start, he rapped his staff on the platform again. “As for me,” he trumpeted, in a pretty fair imitation of his old sergeant’s parade-ground voice, “I’ll hold the bridge against them. I’ve held bridges before, and this one only needs one warrior - or wizard - to hold it long enough for a considerable delay. The rest of you take the time I buy for you and run for Kelmskeep or put some furlongs between you and here. Lord Breon has a real garrison of veteran fighters, and he also has ways of getting word out in a few hours to the Guard. He can protect those of you who reach him long enough for the Guard and the Heralds to get here, relieve a siege, and drive the enemy out of Errold’s Grove. If you can spare a moment, set fire to your hay and your outbuildings as you run - the smoke will help hide you and might alert others out there that there’s trouble. The fire will confuse the enemy and keep them occupied a little longer. They might stop long enough to try and put it out, or they might run into burning buildings thinking there’s loot and get themselves crisped. Whatever you do, if you get caught, don’t fight back. Fall to the ground and beg for mercy. They’re trained, you’re not - and there will be many of them for every one of you. Now move!” he finished, in a bellow that startled them all out of their poses of shock. “You haven’t much time! Save your lives! Now! “