As he had expected, they were all so happy that there was someone who could take charge of the situation and tell them clearly what to do that no one argued with him. They simply scattered - some to follow Widow Clay, some to their boats or for their horses, some headed straight for the woods on foot, perhaps planning to take cover there and follow the river road to Lord Breon’s estate. He walked slowly and calmly toward the bridge, and as he passed the inn, he saw with a mingled sense of admiration and irony that Lilly had her own strategy for surviving. She had loaded a wheelbarrow with a small keg that could only be brandywine, some mugs, and a mattress, and she was headed obliquely toward the river on the upstream side of the village. It was fairly obvious to Justyn that in this situation at least, Lilly was not as stupid as everyone had thought she was. She had a fair idea what an invading army would do with a woman, and she was going to see that the ones who found her had a reason to protect her and keep her out of the hands of their fellows. Able-bodied and used to hard work, she would probably go far enough away from the others that when soldiers found her, there would only be a few of them, and someone who acted like a cooperative, would-be camp follower had good odds of surviving this encounter. She might even find one man strong enough to hold off the others, and willing to act as her protector, which was the best any woman could hope for in a case like this one. He wished her good luck, silently.
As if she had somehow heard his wish, she turned and looked back at him. He couldn’t hear her completely over the noise of the fleeing villagers, but he read the words on her lips.
“I know what you mean to do. Gods bless and keep you, Wizard Justyn.”
She turned away, but before her face was completely averted, he saw tears starting up in her eyes. Tears? For me? With astonishment, he felt a kind of weight lift away from his shoulders and a new strength and dignity enter him; he drew himself up and continued his stately progress to the bridge.
No one else paid him any attention - but no one else even thought to question his plan, to recall that only a few hours before, he had been the unregarded, scorned old fool who couldn’t even manage to discipline a young boy. That was just as well, because he did have a plan, and he knew it would work. He might not have much magic left, but he had enough for one last trick, and it would delay pursuit long enough . . . long enough.
Long enough for Dorian to get deep into the Forest. Thanks to the gods that I sent him off candlemarks ago! He’ll see the commotion, and he’ll run, like a sensible lad. There’s nothing holding him here, after all, and I suspect that he’s been tempted to run away more than once. This will just give him the excuse he needs. He has his bow; he knows the woods, it’s summer, and he has enough control of magic that his power can help him a little. He knows where Kelmskeep is, if not how to get there. I think he’ll be all right.
He went to the middle of the bridge - if the people behind him knew it, a good magic place, suspended among three of the four elements: air, water, and the earth that the wood of the bridge had grown out of and was rooted in. He grounded his staff on the wood of the bridge, and began drawing power out of the world around himself. It was a slow process, but he had time - and besides, all that he gathered was only intended to add to the power within himself. Normally, he would not be able to tap into much of that -
Well, this situation is not exactly “normal.”
As he began, the old black tomcat ambled up, and sat down neatly at his feet, just as calmly as if he were sitting down at the hearth, waiting for dinner.
Justyn looked down at the cat, bemusedly. “I wish I knew what you really were,” he told the cat. “I wish I knew if you were just an opportunist, or a real Pelagir familiar. It might not make much of a difference to this situation, but - well, it would to me.”
Halfheartedly, he tried to shoo the cat away, but it refused to leave his side, and he gave up. Small, aged animals fared poorly in situations like this one; it would be better off with him. The cat looked up at him with one eye, truly a jaundiced look if there ever was one, yawned hugely, and turned his attention toward the road.
Justyn took his cue from the cat, and saw a plume of dust rising above the treetops. The enemy was coming - whoever the enemy was. And as had been warned, it was coming swiftly.
Justyn took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, reaching inside himself for calm and certainty. When he opened them again, a heartbeat later, he was ready.
This will be a very short confrontation.
Darian was out of breath by the time he reached the village; Justyn wasn’t in the cottage, the flames he had seen were from haystacks and sheds, and when he saw Vere throw a flaming brand into the thatch of his own cottage, he realized that the villagers themselves had set their property aflame. Everywhere, people were fleeing as if for their lives; in the confusion it seemed as if there were hundreds more folk than actually lived in the village, and he wondered if they had all gone suddenly mad. He coughed in the acrid smoke, and stood poised in the midst of the chaos, searching for someone to tell him what was going on.
Someone seized his arm; he automatically started to wrench away, when as he turned, he saw it was Kyle, the woodcutter. “You gotta run and hide in the woods, boy!” the man shouted over the noise of fire and fleeing people, shaking his arm for emphasis. “There’s trouble on the way, big trouble - fighters, an army, more’n we can handle!”
He dropped Darian’s arm and hobbled off toward the river, using a stick as a crutch, leaving the boy staring after him, blankly.
Trouble? More than they can handle? What was that supposed to mean?
As Kyle had held him, the last of the villagers had left the confines of the town; nothing impeded him but the refuse of what they’d left behind in their wake, and the fires and smoke. Pigs, goats, chickens, geese, and even cattle milled in the street, evidently turned loose by their owners. He ran up the path toward the bridge, jumping over dropped bundles and dodging the confused and panicky livestock and fowl, certain only that whatever was coming, it would be coming from that direction, since it was away from that direction that everyone was running.
It never occurred to him that Justyn might not have run away with the rest of them until he got around a house and could see the bridge - and Justyn was standing, straight as a post, in the middle of it.