(He hoped that the Poldarn's Forge hands didn't share his dreams, or at least not the one he'd been having lately, where he watched the executioners cut open the man who was either his best friend or himself, while either he or his best friend watched approvingly. That dream, for some reason, he had no trouble remembering, though on balance he'd have preferred it otherwise.)
By now they should all have been fast asleep; but he kept still and quiet, resolved to wait a little longer, just to be sure. Behind him as well as in front, his people were fast asleep (and whose dreams were Raffen and Rook and Asburn and Geir and Elja sharing, he wondered) and it seemed only fair to let them be peaceful for a little longer. After they were through here, they might not find it quite so easy to get to sleep, or if they did they might have bad dreams to contend with. He lay on his stomach and gazed at the red glow from the mountain and the fire-stream seeping over the horizon like a rival dawn, or like blood soaking through a bandage.
(In theory I could still abandon the whole idea; in theory, none of this has to happen-not this time round, anyway, it'll keep till the next evolution of the wheel. But the little voice that kept whispering that in the back of his mind had missed the point completely. What was about to happen was even more inevitable than tomorrow's dawn; it was the point of contact between the wheel and the ground as Poldarn's cart rolled slowly towards the next condemned city.)
Suddenly he sat up. He'd arrived; this was the right time.
Gently, he nudged Asburn's shoulder. 'Wake up,' he said, 'we're here.'
The blacksmith opened his eyes, and maybe there was a very brief moment when he wasn't aware of where he was or what he was about to do. But it was over very quickly, and Poldarn could feel the weight of memory settling on him. 'All right,' Asburn said. 'I'm ready.'
The rest of them woke up without having to be prodded. One or two of them yawned, but nobody said anything as they gathered their tools and equipment and slowly got to their feet. They didn't wish each other luck-that would have been wildly inappropriate, and unnecessary as well. Whatever other problems they might be about to face, the risk of failure wasn't one of them. After all, it wasn't as if what they were about to do was difficult.
They walked slowly down the slope to the yard. It was very dark, but Poldarn didn't need light to find his way around the farm he'd built himself. They stopped outside the barn, opposite the main door of the house. They all knew what to do; there was no need for Poldarn to give orders or instructions. Each of them took a couple of deep breaths to steady their nerves, and went to work.
As was only fitting, Poldarn and Raffen saw to the most important task, that of barring the main door. It was perfectly straightforward, simply a matter of dragging the heavy timbers that leant up against the side of the barn across the yard, butting one end into the ground and wedging the other end against the door. That would be enough to keep the people inside from crashing their way out long enough for Poldarn and Raffen to do a proper job, passing stout battens across the door and nailing them securely into the frame on either side. Once they'd jammed the door with the timbers they waited for the others to do their part-Asburn and Lax to do the same for the side door, Rook and the rest of Geir's people to board up the shutters, the rest to stand by with the long poles from the woodstack, ready to push back anybody who tried to break out through the thatch.
Once he was satisfied that everyone was in place, Poldarn reached in his bag and found the hammer and the cloth bag that held the nails he'd forged for this purpose. Raffen held the battens up while Poldarn drove the nails home. He worked quickly but carefully, knowing that the first blows of the hammer would wake up everybody inside, and it wouldn't take them long to figure out what was going on. That shouldn't matter, with the long beams holding the door shut, but Poldarn wasn't minded to take any risks. If the people inside did get out, he and his crew would be hopelessly outnumbered and the whole project would founder. From the back of the house he could hear Asburn's hammer counter-pointing his own, while further pounding of steel on iron at either side of him reassured him that the others were keeping up, as they drove in the staples through which they'd pass the iron bars that would keep the shutters cramped down.
He'd got one side finished before he heard any voices from inside; then he felt the door quiver, as someone tried to open it. The vibrations in the wood intensified-whoever it was, he was trying to kick the door open or burst it out with his shoulder. But the timbers did their job admirably, just as he'd hoped they would, and he knocked in the remaining nails without any problems.
He knew without needing to be told when Asburn finished with the back door; the shutters were already secure. He put the hammer carefully back in his bag-it was a good hammer, he didn't want to drop it in the dark-and took a step back. Inside they were shouting, but it was all right, all the angles were covered, everything was still perfect. Hand and Rook brought up the big sack full of kindling, and emptied it on the ground. Poldarn took out his tinderbox and tried to get it to light.
No luck. It was the moment he'd been dreading most. It's not me who should be doing this, he thought ruefully, it should be Asburn or one of the others, I never could get a fire started to save my life. But, just as he was about to give up and call for help, a little spiral of smoke stood up out of the dry moss in the pan of the box; he gave it a couple of puffs, and a tiny orange ember started glowing brightly. Quickly he piled the moss up round it while Hand made a little nest of dry leaves and straw; then Poldarn dumped the box's contents into it, dropped to his knees and let go a series of long, slow breaths until the tinder caught and the first flame broke through, like the first corn-shoot of spring.
The others were standing by, waiting to light the torches they'd made, hay and straw wrapped tight around a stick and drenched in lamp oil. Once the torches were ablaze there was light to see by, not that they needed it; and once they'd tossed the torches up onto the roof and the thatch had started to burn, it was soon as light as day.
So far, he thought, so good; the roof was burning cheerfully, and they could turn their attention to the rest of the house. Raffen, Geir and Reno were carrying armfuls of kindling out from the woodshed; Asburn was on his way back from the forge with the first sack of charcoal. Surprisingly quickly, they built up a series of small pyres all round the house, primed with oil from the quench and lard and beeswax from the storehouse. Some of these they lit with their torches and portfires; others were set alight by handfuls of burning thatch sliding down from the roof.
Someone inside was attacking the main door with an axe; but that wouldn't do him any good-the battens themselves would take a quarter of an hour to chop through, let alone the main timbers of the door itself. They were screaming in there now, as well as shouting, but so far nobody had thought to try getting out through the roof; that was surprising, he'd given them credit for more ingenuity than that.