Sergeant Aronvald had lit no torches. His men waited in the shadows, four of them up on ladders to get aim over the wall. They were all in mail and helmets, some inherited from the dead. The half dozen Lions waiting below beside the narrow orchard gate wore brigandines and decent helmets. All had boiled leather greaves, gloves protected across the back of the hand with chain mail, and good boots—a soldier’s stout friend on the march. This she had noted when she’d first met them at the village; after so long on the road she had learned to assess quickly what manner of armor her friends, and her foes, kept on them.
A moaning cry rose out of the forest, more wail than sob, an awful racket that made her cringe and then hate herself for her fear.
“What was that?” whispered one of the men as the sound died. Wind rattled branches. The orchard swayed as if each tree were trying to come unstuck, to move its roots, to flee that noise, which rose a second time, hung in the air, and faded.
“I don’t like this,” said another Lion.
She encountered no more obstacles as she came up beside Thiadbold and Aronvald, who were talking with the intensity of men who know a decision must be made swiftly and decisively.
“… fire,” Thiadbold was saying. “So we can see them. We might see if we can shoot flaming arrows into the trees.”
“It’s not likely to work,” replied Aronvald, “as it is so damp, but I tell you, Captain, it’s better than no idea at all, and no idea is what I’m having, for we lost half our company and our good lady to these creatures.”
“If that’s what’s out there. It might be bandits. We came across some the night before we reached Freeburg, but Liath chased them off. With fire, that is. Which is how I came to think of it.”
“There’s a trick to getting the flame to hold as the arrow flies.”
“I’ll put my men to work on it. Mayhap the good nuns have some pitch—here! Hanna!”
“I’ll go and ask them at once, and take the message to Ingo, of what to expect,” she said.
“Folquin and Leo can be in charge of fixing the arrows. They’ve done something like in the past, and are clever. Go.”
This time she knew enough to skirt the stone that had tripped her before, and as she swung wide around it a golden light flared above her, hissing as it spit sparks. Had one of Aronvald’s archers gotten fire fixed so quickly?