The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [180]
“At least we’ll be able to see them coming,” Berwynna said.
“I suppose so,” Mic said, “for all the comfort that is.”
“Oh, come now, Uncle Mic! We’re not dead yet, and I’ve been thinking.”
He gave her a look of such condescending pity that she decided to keep her thoughts to herself.
Not long after Laz appeared, pulling on a shirt as he climbed up the side of the barrow. When Richt and Mic got up to go speak with him, Berwynna trailed after to hear the news, predictably bad.
“I spotted them, all right,” Laz said. “The slime and their swine have regrouped right at the forest verge, but they also seem to be laying low and licking their wounds. I suspect that they’re waiting for us to take to the road again. I suggest we don’t.”
“Easier said than done,” Richt said. “If we do turn south, I know not the way. We be lost then, for certain.”
“If we keep going west, we’ll be dead.” Laz sounded curiously indifferent to the prospect. “I counted twenty-four of them, two of whom are wounded. There are seventeen of us, with five wounded. They have sabers, and they all know how to swing them. Your men have never touched a saber or a sword in their lives. Do you like those odds?”
“Of course not,” Mic said. “Very well, I’ll present the idea of turning south to the rest of the men.”
“You be not in town council!” Richt stepped forward. “Present it? I be master now, and I’ll tell them.”
“But will they listen to orders?”
“Oh, and I do suppose you know my craft better than I do?”
“Stop it!” Berwynna snapped. “You both be a-feared, but bickering will get us nowhere. There be somewhat else we can do. There be many a rock all round here. What if we do build a wall around our camp? The Horsekin, they would have to climb the barrow, then climb over the wall. While they try, it will be lots easier to kill some.”
“Splendid idea!” Laz said. “They seemed to be in no hurry to leave their camp. When I left, they were roasting one of your mules, the bastards, or large chunks of it to be precise, over various fires. I suppose half-cooked mule is better than naught for breakfast.”
“We do have higher ground than them, anyway, bain’t?” Berwynna finished up. “Dougie did always say that it makes a difference in a fight, who be higher.”
Richt and Mic stared at her for a long moment.
“Well?” Berwynna said.
“You are, of course, precisely right,” Laz said. “We can also cut branches, sharpen them into stakes, and set them around on the level ground at the edge of the barrow, which means my disgusting compatriots will have to dismount and pull them up if they want to ride up.”
“We can throw rocks at them if they do try,” Berwynna said. “If we do hit a couple of them in the head, they mayhap will have to stop. And two of the muleteers do have hunting bows.”
“So do some of my men.” Laz gave her a lazy grin. “This might be almost entertaining.”
“Huh!” Mic snorted profoundly. “Richt, my apologies.”
“And mine to you,” Richt said. “Very well. Let’s go tell the others.”
Giving demoralized men hope has something of the dweomer about it. The muleteers and the men in Faharn’s band worked so hard and so fast that soon their improvised dun wall rose to four feet high. In the morning, Berwynna filled every available container with water from the nearby stream and piled them up in the center of the circle. In the afternoon she fetched small rocks that could be used for weapons. By firelight the men sharpened branches into stakes. As Berwynna tore up a blanket to make bandages, she found herself thinking of Dougie. Her eyes would fill with tears, but she would wipe them away and go on working.
With the first light of dawn some of the men pounded the stakes at the perimeter of the wall in a random pattern while others led the stock out to water and graze. Laz once again disappeared, then