Most of Quraite had assembled by Telhami's hut by the time he got there. Telhami herself stood beside the door, waiting. Her gray hair stood out from her head in windswept wisps, and her eyes were weepy from the sun.
In the last few days, Pavek had heard her say many times that she watched over Quraite. He remembered how she'd been the first to know that Yohan was crossing the Fist, first to know that Pavek and his companions were returning with her and Zvain; but he'd assumed that she'd used some trick of the Unseen Way to accomplish that. He'd never guessed, until now, that she literally and actually hovered above her guarded lands.
"They're coming," she said, flatly and firmly. "From the southwest, straight out of Urik."
"All ten thousand?" an anxious farmer asked.
"Fifty men and women, give or take a handful. They've lost some coming across the Fist, but those I saw will finish the journey before sundown."
Fifty sounded better than ten thousand. The farmers sighed with relief, but Pavek didn't. He thought of fifty fighters, probably including Rokka and other renegades from the Urik templarate, and shook his head grimly.
Any templar could take battlefield commands and carry them out. And even a desk-bound procurer like Rokka had to put in his time on the practice fields.
Pavek held himself a competent fighter with the weapons he knew-better than competent, his size, strength and Dovanne's sword would give him a real advantage. But when the fighting was between one man and many, the wise man placed his bets on the many.
Yohan had made his own analysis of what they faced:
"They'll be parched and exhausted. Maybe they'll make camp." And his eyes sparkled with thoughts of an ambush. Telhami looked at Pavek.
He shook his head. "Unless it's so dark they don't see the trees."
"My thought as well," she agreed.
She took a long moment to study the Quraiters, one by one, looking straight into each pair of eyes with a confident smile. "We've done everything that we could do in advance," she said. "You know what we must do now, and I know that you can do it."
Pavek admitted to himself that for a woman who'd spent her life growing trees, Telhami did a credible job of marshalling her forces for what she, at least, had to know was going to be an all-out, to-the-last-survivor battle. His own confidence rose as he watched the farmers and lesser druids gather the long-handled tools that would serve as their weapons. Calmly determined, they laid the hoes, flails, scythes and rakes beside their stations along the waist-high dirt rampart that encircled Telhami's hut.
In six days they had transformed the village from a cluster of comfortable dwellings and pantries to a bare ground clearing in which they had hastily created three trench-and-rampart rings. They'd hacked stakes from the sacrificed trees and homes and set the largest point-up in the outer bank of the first two ramparts to slow the enemies' advance. Smaller stakes had become make-shift spears heaped in sheaves at each station of the innermost rampart.
The farmers and druids, everyone old enough to fling a stick or bind a length of cloth over a wound, would fight from behind the third ring's rampart, while he and Yohan would add their skills wherever, whenever the circle threatened to break.
And while they were holding back the physical attack, inside the hut Akashia would be shaping and focusing the guardian's power as Telhami combined druidry and the tricks of the Unseen Way to fend off whatever Escrissar sent at them.
And if they failed-if the circle broke and the enemy stormed Telhami's hut, or Escrissar got around Telhami and; the guardian to flood them all with nightmare monsters... Well, every druid had wrought unique spellcraft to hide his. or her grove. Escrissar would be hard-put to locate them all, and if he found them, the likelihood was that the zarneeka plants, and everything else the Quraite druids had nurtured for generations, would be dead.
It was as good a defense strategy as they'd collectively been able to devise. Pavek would have given all the gold stashed beneath Telhami's hut for a few bows and the men to shoot them, but there was no sense longing for what they couldn't have. Escrissar and his fifty allies would march undisturbed through the fields and the ring of trees and find an unpleasant surprise waiting for them.
Pavek only hoped the wheel of fate would give him just one opportunity to slip his sword between the interrogator's ribs.
He felt a tug on his shirt and spun around.
"What about me, Pavek?"
Ruari, with his staff.
"You know your place."
"Pavek, I can do better than that-"
"You can't. Gather your weapons, your water, and the cloth for bandages. Take them and yourself to your place on the rampart and stay there!"
"I want to fight"
"You're going to fight, scum. Now-Go!"
He and Ruari stared at each other, then Ruari stalked away. Pavek hoped-prayed to whatever nameless power might listen to a one-time templar, not-quite druid-that Ruari's bile wouldn't get him killed in the first assault wave. Quraite needed everyone, and Ruari was proficient with that staff of his; he set the standard for the fanners around him. They'd lose heart if Ruari went down in some fool's burst of bravery.
He'd lose heart.
Except for Yohan, none of them were veterans, none of them had fought a pitched battle-including himself. Stalking Dovanne's attacker or breaking the heads of petty criminals in his inspector days didn't count. The closest he'd come to combat was skirmishes on the streets of Urik against the Tyrian hooligans years ago.
Inside, he was scared to the marrow and desperate to see another sunrise. He almost envied Ruari his blind anger and commitment.
Waiting was worse than he imagined it could be, knowing that the circle fighters were looking over their shoulders at him and curbing their fears because he looked calm. Yohan, sitting beside him on the stoop of Telhami's hut, looked calm as he examined the edge of his obsidian sword.
But maybe, as Yohan's eyes met his, not calm at all. Maybe Yohan's panic went even deeper, because there was no one at all for him to turn to.
Then, without warning, the mind-bending began: a black fist thrusting through his mind. Everyone jerked backward; a few cried out in shock or terror before Telhami launched her counterattack, and the black fist became a memory.
Pavek slapped his hand against Yohan's and pulled himself to his feet. "Better you than me." Which was a lie. He had no idea what templars said to each other.
But Yohan laughed and shook his hand heartily. "That's good. I'll remember that."
"See that you do."
They released each other's hand and took a step backward toward the quadrants of the circle they'd selected for themselves. For a moment Pavek wanted to say something more, something sincere, then Yohan turned away and the moment was gone.
Escrissar brought his force through the trees in a compact group: a dozen fighters in the front rank and three or four in each of the files. If Telhami's estimate of their enemy's strength was correct-and Pavek saw no reason to doubt it -the interrogator was committing himself personally to a single thrust and holding nothing in reserve.
On second glance, the interrogator wasn't committing himself to anything, unless he was the black-haired half-elf marching second-from-the-left. There wasn't a black enamel mask to be seen, like Telhami and Akashia, Escrissar was holding himself out of the battle, mind-bending from a safe distance.
And that wasn't the worst thing Pavek saw, or didn't see. He spotted Rokka and a few other templars he recognized from Urik, about ten in all, just as he'd figured. They'd left their yellow robes behind-no surprise; heavy sleeves were a dangerous obstacle to a swinging sword-arm-and marched in such oddments of weaponry and armor as they'd scrounged from the templarate armory and private armorers in the elven market. Their rag-tag panoply stood in considerable contrast with the fighters who marched around them.