"Could you cast it in a circle around our campsite this -evening?"
There was a long moments silence, then a laugh. "Certainly. I can do it while we cook dinner."
Zeren smiled slowly. "Magic traps and common traps: aye, I think we'll live through this night."
By dusk, the Thona brothers were grumbling: they'd wasted a whole day following those pilgrims back north, never had a good chance to jump them, and hadn't collected any more food, beer, women, or other goods. Lumaj insisted that one day's march was no hardship for real warriors, especially since the reward at the end would be much better than they could get out of the dirt-poor farming towns to the south, but his argument lacked a certain enthusiasm. Dak and Ruek were mostly silent, but occasionally speculated about how much food, beer, and other wealth those pilgrims must be carrying; the mules and wagon alone would be worth the effort, and they could have some fun with the pilgrims, too. Choma silently noted the morale of his troops, and made attack plans.
"We stay here till they've crossed the ridge," he announced, "then we hurry up to the ridge line and watch where they go."
"Hurry? With these damned oxen?" Dak grumbled, but not loudly.
"We'll make 'em hurry." Choma glowered and smacked a fist into his other hand. "The spies go into woods, or cross another ridge, and we catch up again. We follow out of sight until they stop."
"We can't charge a mule wagon on foot," Ruek pointed out. "Nor with oxen, either."
Choma casually clouted his head. "Not by daylight, you stupid turd. We wait till they've stopped for the night, set up camp, gone to sleep. Then we take 'em."
"Oh, right," Dak grinned, showing gaps in his teeth.
"That'll be hours," one of the Thona boys gloomed.
"What, can't you hold your water that long?" Choma gave everyone his best glare. Nobody answered it.
They're over the ridge," Lumaj announced. "Gimme the whip for these damn beasts."
The whip flailed. The pained oxen broke into a trot. The laden cart rumbled out of the cover of trees and into the open pastureland.
"Oh Mama, why do I have to feed Mido and the baby?" Tamiri complained. "They're so dumb, they're spilling it all."
"'M not dumb," Mido grumbled, smearing stew across his nose.
"You have to, because everybody else is busy setting the traps." Vari studied the fire a moment, then chucked in some more wood—two good-sized logs that would burn half the night and leave a respectable bed of coals without much care or attention. "Now keep quiet, all of you, while I help Ziya with the mules."
Tamiri sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward, silently calling the gods to witness what she had to put up with. Mido shovelled more stew into his mouth. The baby grumbled, but accepted mouthfuls of the savory mess with not much bad grace.
Vari got up and went to the far side of the fire, where the mules were tethered. Ziya had filled their nosebags with a good mix of dried peas and grain, and was busy hauling a second bucket of water up from the small stream a dozen yards off. The mules hadn't been curried yet, and dried sweat tufted their grey coats. Vari took the curry-comb and brush from under the driver's seat of the nearby wagon, and started work on the nearer mule.
Ziya set down the water bucket, checked to see if the mules were still emptying the nosebags, and went to the wagon for a long weed-cutting knife. "Will we sleep first?" she asked Vari as she passed.
"Most likely, dear." Vari didn't miss a stroke with the comb as she answered. "Remember to keep your bow covered by the blankets."
"I know." Ziya went off to cut some fresh greens for the mules, somber-faced, and with no wasted motion.
Vari was just finishing with the second mule when Eloti came out of the wood, Zeren close behind. She looked flushed, tired, but smug; had Vari not known better, she would have guessed that Zeren and Eloti had been off making love in the bushes.
"Is the trap spell set?" Vari asked, setting the brush and curry-comb aside and reaching for the hoof pick.
"Set and ready, twenty-five paces out," Eloti smiled. "Here, I'll do that; the mules know me."
"Oh, tush, I'll manage." Vari lifted an uncomplaining mule's hoof to prove her claim to expertise. "After all these weeks, I've gotten a knack for it. You go get some dinner, and rest."
"She's right." Zeren tugged gently at Eloti's sleeve. "You've worked harder than any of us. Rest for the first watch."
"Very well." Eloti let herself be led away to the fire. "And you?"
"I'll take first watch, just in case our guests are the impatient sort."
"And if they're not?"
"Heh! I assure you, I've had years' practice at waking quickly to fight."
Vari watched them stroll off to the fire, and chuckled to herself between the mules' hooves.
"How much longer?" Ruek whispered, surreptitiously scratching a flea bite.
"Awhile yet," Choma growled. "Their fire's still at flame, not coals."
"So?" the elder Thona brother grumbled, easing away from a troublesome rock that poked his belly.
"That means they're still awake," Lumaj loftily explained. "Flames means new wood, fresh put on the fire, see? That means someone's still awake to've put it there."
"Oh."
"Also means someone's awake enough to need light, firelight to see by. Get it?" the younger Thona smirked. "Fire goes down t'coals, they can't see us."
"Uh, then we can't see them, neither."
"We'll have our eyes used to the dark," Dak volunteered, unsnagging a twig from one of his braids. "Besides, they'll be asleep."
"Just a matter of waiting," Ruek sighed, rolling over on his back. "Wake me when it's time."
"Don't sleep too sound," Choma grumbled, swatting him. "Another hour, maybe two, then we go in."
Slowly the fire sank down to coals. The mules, freed of their nosebags, slurped the buckets half-empty and turned their interest to the piled weeds. Very little sound came from the wagon, or the humans stretched out around the fire, or those whom the mules could smell in the woods beyond. There was no sound or scent of any preying beast larger than a fox anywhere in the small stretch of forest, and no snakes nearby.
Reassured, the mules munched their way through the herbage, then put their heads down and drowsed.
"'S time," Choma grunted, booting and elbowing his troops into action.
"Which way?" Ruek grumbled, rolling over. "Can't see the fire . . ."
"Straight ahead, and quietly!" Choma got to his feet with elaborate care, setting an example for the others, and inched forward through the dark brush. Too bad, he considered, that they hadn't had time to scout these woods beforehand, let alone divide the company and send half around to the other side of the spies' camp. Now they'd have to do it all in one short charge: messy, no real strategy, and some chance that a few of the outlanders might escape into the woods. Still, they'd catch some; certainly they'd get the wagon and the mules and any goods laid out in the camp. But quietly now, quietly, sneak up all the way to the campsite. Thank the gods, his boys at least knew how to move quietly in the dark.
They'd gone maybe twenty paces toward the fire when they came across what felt like a bank of mist: cold, thick dampness hanging in the air and confusing the senses. But they couldn't see any mist.
Dak swore softly. Lumaj shushed him, and they moved on.
One of the Thona brothers put his foot wrong on a tree root and fell, clumping and clattering, right into a thornbush. His squawk of pain seemed loud as thunder in the thick dark.