“And if they do not hold?” asked Roland. “What then? By the time you realize they have failed you, it will be too late to do anything but die.”
In the end, a compromise was suggested. As soon as the weather cleared, the women, children, and old men would leave the village and take shelter in the caves on the nearby hills. They would bring with them everything of value, even their furniture, leaving only the shells of the houses behind. Barrels of pitch and oil would be stored in the cottages near the heart of the village. If the Beast attacked, the defenders would try to repel it or kill it from behind the walls. If it broke through, they would retreat, drawing it into the center. The fuses would be lit, and the Beast would be trapped and killed, but only as a last resort. The villagers took a vote, and all agreed that this was the best plan.
Roland stormed out of the church. David had to run to catch up with him.
“Why are you so angry?” asked David. “They agreed to most of your plan.”
“Most isn’t enough,” said Roland. “We don’t even know what we’re facing. What we do know is that trained soldiers, armed with hardened steel, couldn’t kill this thing. What hope do farmers have against it? Had they listened to me, then the Beast might have been defeated without any loss of life to them. Now men will die needlessly because of sticks and straw, because of hovels that could be rebuilt in weeks.”
“But it’s their village,” said David. “It’s their choice.”
Roland slowed down, then stopped. His hair was white with snow. It made him look much older than he was.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s their village. But our fortunes are now tied up with theirs, and if this fails, then there is a good chance that we may die alongside them for our troubles.”
The snow fell, and the fires burned in the cottages, and the wind carried the smell of the smoke into the darkest depths of the forest.
And in its lair the Beast smelled the smoke upon the air, and it began to move.
XXI Of the Coming of the Beast
A LL THAT DAY and the next, preparations were made for the evacuation of the village. The women, children, and old men gathered up everything that they could carry, and every cart and every horse was pressed into service, except for Scylla, for Roland would not let her out of his sight. Instead, he rode beside the wall, both inside and out, checking it for weaknesses. He did not look pleased by what he saw. The snow still fell, numbing fingers and freezing feet. It made the task of reinforcing the village’s defenses harder, and the men grumbled among themselves, asking if all these preparations were really necessary and suggesting that they might have been better off fleeing with the women and children. Even Roland seemed to have his doubts.
“We might as well set splinters and firewood against this creature,” David heard him tell Fletcher. They had no idea from which direction the attack would come, so over and over again Roland instructed the defenders in their lines of retreat if the wall was breached and in their tasks once the Beast was in the village. He did not want the men to panic and flee blindly when the creature broke through-as he was sure it would-or all would be lost, but he had little faith in their willingness to stand and face the Beast if the tide of battle turned against them.
“They are not cowards,” Roland told David while they sat by a fire and rested, drinking milk still warm from the cow. All around them men were sharpening staffs and sword blades, or using oxen and horses to drag tree trunks into the compound in order to support the walls from within. There was little conversation now, for the day was drawing to a close and night was approaching. Everyone was tense and frightened. “Each of these men would lay down his life for his wife and children,” Roland continued. “Faced by bandits or wolves or wild beasts, they would meet the threat, and live or die according to the outcome. But this is different: they don’t know or understand what they are about to confront, and they are not disciplined or experienced enough to fight as one. While they will all stand together, each in his way will face this thing alone. They will be united only when the courage of one falters and he runs, and the others follow after him.”
“You don’t have much faith in people, do you?” said David.
“I don’t have much faith in anything,” Roland replied. “Not even in myself.”
He drank the last of his milk, then cleaned the cup in a bucket of cold water.
“Come now,” he said. “We have sticks to sharpen, and blunt swords to make keen.”
He smiled emptily. David did not smile back.
It had been decided that they would marshal the main part of their little force near the gates, in the hope that this would draw the Beast to them. If it breached the defenses, it would then be lured into the center of the village, where the trap would be sprung. They would then have one chance, and one chance only, to contain it and to kill it.
When not even the barest sliver of pale moon was visible in the sky, a convoy of people and animals quietly left the village, with a small escort of men to make sure that they reached the caves safely. Once the men had returned, a formal watch was placed upon the walls, each man taking it in turn to spend a few hours guarding the approaches. Altogether, they numbered about forty men, and David. Roland had asked David if he wished to enter the caves with the others, but, although he was frightened, David said that he wanted to stay. He was not sure why. Partly he felt safer with Roland, who was the only person he trusted in this place, but also he was curious. David wanted to see the Beast, whatever it was. Roland seemed to know this and, when the villagers asked him why he had allowed David to stay, he told them that David was his squire and was as valuable to him as his sword or his horse. His words made David blush with pride.
They tethered an old cow in the clearing before the gates, hoping that it would lure the Beast, but nothing happened on that first night of the watch, or the second, and the men grew ever more grouchy and tired. The snow kept falling and freezing, falling and freezing. The watchers on the walls found it hard to see the forest because of the blizzard. A few began muttering among themselves.
“This is foolishness.”
“This creature is as cold as we are. It will not attack us in this weather.”
“Perhaps there is no Beast at all. What if Ethan was attacked by a wolf, or a bear? We have only this vagabond’s word that he saw the bodies of soldiers.”
“The blacksmith is right. What if all of this is a trick?”
It was Fletcher who tried to make them see reason. “And what purpose would such a trick serve?” he asked them. “He is one man, with a boy by his side. He cannot murder us in our sleep, and we have nothing worth stealing. If he is doing it for food, then there is poor eating for him here. Have faith, my friends, and be patient and watchful.”
Their grumblings ceased then, but they were still cold and unhappy, and they missed their wives and their families.
David spent all of his time with Roland, sleeping beside him during their periods of rest and walking the perimeter with him when their time came to take the watch. Now that the defenses had been strengthened as well as they could be, Roland took time to talk and joke with the villagers, shaking them awake when they dozed and encouraging them when their spirits grew low. He knew that this was the hardest time for them, for the watch was both dull and hard on their nerves. Watching him move among them, and seeing the way in which he had supervised the defense of the village, David wondered if Roland really was only a soldier, as he claimed. He seemed more like a leader to David, a natural captain of men, yet he was riding alone.
On the second night, they sat in the light of a big fire, huddled beneath thick cloaks. Roland had told David that he was free to sleep in one of the cottages nearby, but none of the others had chosen to do so and David did not want to appear weaker than he already seemed by taking up the offer, even if his refusal meant sleeping outdoors, cold and exposed. Thus he chose to remain with Roland. The flames illuminated the soldier’s features, casting shadows across his skin, enhancing the bones in his cheeks, and deepening the darkness in the sockets of his eyes.