“Where is everybody?” Malek wondered out loud. “It’s strange. No one working in the fields, no children playing in the shade …”
“Perhaps Rakell came back sooner than expected and took them,” said Hume.
“No, they must be here.” Howland lowered the grass bucket. “We saw them from the hill. They’re hiding from us. They’re afraid.”
Malek reddened. “Fools! They can see I’m with you!”
“They fear strangers,” the Knight said. “Can you blame them after all that has happened?”
Malek ran to the nearest house and rattled the door. “Come out! Come out, Vank! You too, Dora! Bakar, Fayn, Luki, where are you?”
He ran to the next house, calling his neighbors’ names. Howland and Hume remained at the well, embarrassed but outwardly stoic.
Malek fell to kicking at doors and cursing his fellow villagers. No one emerged until the others arrived. Not until Nils, Wilf, and especially Caeta returned were the farmers reassured by familiar faces. Slowly, one house at a time, they opened their doors and peeked out.
“Come out, you damned rabbits!” Malek raged. “Greet our guests! They’ve come here to fight for you. Can you not show them some gratitude?”
Gradually the people of Nowhere collected on the common ground between their homes. Mothers hugged children close to them, while husbands nervously flexed work-worn hands around their garden tools.
An aged villager appeared in a gap in the crowd. Caeta gave a little cry and rushed forward to greet her father. Not waiting for an invitation, Howland also went to meet him. Hume stayed by the well with the recruits.
Caeta wiped happy tears from her eyes. “Papa, this is Sir Howland, a Knight who’s come to help us.”
“Greetings, my lord,” the old man said. “Thank you for seeing my daughter safely home. I never thought to see her or the boys again.”
“We’ve come a long way,” Howland replied briskly. “There is much to do. Where can I quarter my people?”
After a brief consultation between elder and daughter, Caeta said, “Marren’s hut is empty. The raiders took him and his girl Laila. You may sleep there.”
“I shall want to meet with every able-bodied man and woman in the village. We’ve come to fight your enemies, but we will need plenty of help.”
“I will call a village gathering after sunset,” said the elder. He grasped Howland’s hand with his bony one. Aged or not, his grip was hard.
“We are determined to fight,” rasped the elder. “To the death.”
Howland managed to smile. “A true warrior doesn’t fight to the death,” he countered. “He fights until his enemies are defeated-or dead.”
Breaking away from the elder and his daughter, Howland signaled the others to join him. He led them across the dusty square to the hut they were told to occupy. Frightened, curious farmers openly stared at their would-be saviors. Few of them had ever been more than a day’s walk from home, and an ebony-skinned woman, two elves, a minotaur, a kender, and Ezu with his exotic features filled them with wonder. At one point a small boy darted out from behind his mother and ran up to Khorr. With exaggerated care, he lightly touched the minotaur’s brawny flank.
“Yes?” asked Khorr in his cavern-deep voice.
With a yelp, the child fled back to his mother.
“They’re scared,” said Robien. “Scared because we’re different.”
“I hardly know what I’m doing here,” the Saifhumi woman muttered.
“A noble thing.”
She snorted. “You think so?”
The bounty hunter halted to look over the wide-eyed crowd watching them. “Until this moment I didn’t believe Sir Howland’s story about oppressed farmers. Now I see it’s true.”
“Move along.” She gave him a shove.
Ezu, trailing the rest, paused to examine a group of villagers clustered in front of a pair of joined huts. Smiling and speaking in a soothing voice, he fingered the women’s bone hair clasps and the men’s tools.
“There is little metal here,” he observed to one of the inhabitants. “Perhaps a trade-a hair clasp for-”
Amergin came back and took him in tow.
Marren’s hut was a single room, with a pounded clay floor and central hearth. Because Marren was blind, what few pieces of furniture he and Laila had were fastened securely in place. Raika promptly claimed the bed, a simple wooden frame filled with moss and straw.
“Ah!” She reclined and for the first time in days took her eyes off Robien.
Howland entered. “Listen, all. We’re to meet with the village elder and his people tonight. Before then, I have tasks for you.”
“Fire away, captain.” Raika cupped her hands behind her head and closed her eyes.
He ignored her. “To my eye, this village appears indefensible. If Rakell is half the soldier I imagine he is, he thinks so too. That may give us an advantage. An enemy is most vulnerable when he believes he has the upper hand.”
“What shall we do?” asked Hume.
“For now, we’ve got to whip these villagers into fighting shape. Malek says there are twenty-five or so capable of fighting, but they must be properly led. Otherwise, they’ll just be sheep driven before wolves.”
Carver made baa-baaing noises. Howland ignored him.
“Each of us who is able will take six or eight farmers in hand and teach them how to move and fight together,” he said.
“Are we not all able?” asked Khorr.
“Ezu is not a warrior. Neither is Carver. As for Robien-I’d be glad to have you with us, but as a prisoner, you’re under no obligation to fight for your captors,” said the knight.
The Kagonesti ranger, kneeling with his hands still tied, looked thoughtful. “I don’t know what fate is planned for me,” he said, “but I would rather fight free than stay bound. Captivity is death for a freeborn elf like me. I will not try to escape.”
“That’s good enough for me.” Howland ordered Robien cut free.
Raika protested. “What’s to stop him from fleeing in the night and betraying the lot of us to the Quen Bortherhood?”
“The choice is his.” Howland’s tone was clear. The matter was not open for debate.
“What about Amergin? Has he no say?”
The barefoot forester was leaning against the doorway, watching but not speaking, as usual. When Raika invoked him he said, “If Robien gives up his contract to return me to Robann, I have no objection to his fighting with us.”
“A contract is a contract,” the bounty hunter replied tersely.
Raika pointed triumphantly at the stubborn elf.
“You’re making this difficult,” said Hume.
“Honor has a way of making life difficult. It also gives life meaning.” Robien shrugged his pinioned shoulders. “On the other hand, the Brotherhood did not specify when I was to bring my quarry in. Given the circumstances, I believe it could be a long time before I return Amergin to them.”
Howland said, “Cut him loose.”
Hume hacked through the rawhide lacing. Robien stood, rubbing his raw, chafed wrists. “Thank you,” he said to Howland.
Howland was somber. “Don’t thank me. You may have agreed to your own death.”
They discussed arming the farmers with makeshift weapons. At last Carver spoke up.
“I can make whippiks for the villagers and teach them how to use them. Anyone can use a whippik, even human children.”
“True,” Hume said thoughtfully. “Many of the village children are no bigger than kender.”
Carver made a face. “Size isn’t everything, you know.”
Khorr raised a meaty hand shyly. “What’s a whippik?”
Carver strode to the hearth. “A whippik,” he explained, “is a throwing stick with loop of gut or twine on one end. By sitting a stone or dart in the loop, a whippik can propel the missile almost as far as a bow. They’re simple to make. All we need is a piece of straight wood as long as the thrower’s arm. And projectiles, of course.”