And how we had laughed, my brother and I! Laughed until we nearly lost our perches and fell into the chaos. The Rat Man danced a wild jig when a rat tried to run up his legs. One of his dogs snatched it up by the head, a second grabbed the hindquarters, and a third seized the middle and tore it into pieces, sending a wild spray of blood into my brother’s face. He had wiped his sleeve across his face, and we had laughed until we nearly choked. Rats, rats, and more rats, dying in a frenzy of yips and squeaks and squirting blood. Rats that fled, and hid, and bared their yellow teeth when cornered.

What fun.

And Soldier’s Boy’s face was set in the same hard grin that it had worn on the long-ago day. He was exterminating vermin that had overrun his territory, and he felt nothing for them as they fell and died.

The fire gave a sudden roar, and then the entire roof erupted into flames. Shingles and pieces of burning rafter began to fall inside the building and the anguished screams grew louder. Then, with a sudden crack, the roof gave way and collapsed inside. It was over. The night darkened around us as the fire that had blazed overhead like a beacon suddenly folded in on itself. Soldier’s Boy gave his head a shake as if he were just waking. He looked around for his next target. More rats were hiding and must be rooted out.

Throughout the fort and town, other cries were heard: men shouting hoarsely for help, shrieks of death and despair. The flames had a voice of their own, hissing and crackling. Uneven light and wild leaping shadow populated the town. The screams of trapped horses still came from the inferno that had been the stable. The air thickened with smoke and blowing ash and floating sparks. I heard gunfire from the direction of the prison barracks, and wondered what was happening there. When it became obvious that no one else remained alive inside the barracks, Soldier’s Boy lifted his hand over his head. “Come!” he shouted. “Follow me!”

He nudged Clove and the big horse was glad to move away from the fire. I prayed that we were leaving, that the Specks’ lust for blood had been satisfied. Instead, Soldier’s Boy led us deeper into the fort. In the dark and the smoke I could scarcely tell where we were, but it soon became apparent that he was guiding us toward the sound of gunfire. The flames and the smoke combined to turn the night to a murky red sunset around us. We passed a dark alley. A young man, or perhaps a soldier’s son, clad only in a nightshirt, raced out of it. A Speck warrior was right behind him. He speared the boy, and then pinned him to the ground with his weapon as a sharp kick to the boy’s head ended his struggles. Soldier’s Boy didn’t even pause. He led his warriors on. From the corner of his eye, I saw the warrior jerk his spear from the boy’s body and fall in with us.

It penetrated my awareness that I was no longer hearing random shots, but organized volleys of fire. A surge of hope lifted me. Someone had rallied and imposed order on at least some of the troops. The same thought seemed to occur to Soldier’s Boy. Scowling, he shouted for Sempayli, and then ordered him to find the other warriors and bring them to join him. His lieutenant nodded curtly and ran off into the smoke and darkness. Soldier’s Boy rode on toward the prison.

Soldier’s Boy’s plan had been to simultaneously set fire to the prison while freeing the prisoners to add to the chaos. I think I recognized what had happened before he did. The freed prisoners, confronted with the marauding Specks, had not fled but had seized whatever they could find to use as weapons and attacked their liberators. Perhaps they had not perceived the Specks were deliberately freeing them, or perhaps they had simply chosen to side with their countrymen when faced with savages with unknown intentions. In either case, the Specks had not been prepared for the prisoners to turn on them with such fury.

The section of the fort that housed the prisoners had been constructed in such a way that the watchtower overlooked both the prisoners’ compound and the outer wall. I would later hear that some of the prisoners had doused the fires set near the watchtower while others had fought hand to hand with the Specks to hold the warriors back. Their valiant action had enabled their guards to organize themselves and retreat to the upper level of the watchtower. Flames leapt upon the roof of the tower; at least one of his fire-arrows had found its target. But the forces that held the watchtower were undeterred by the fire above them. From that vantage, their long guns were having a deadly effect upon the Specks. The open space around the watchtower was littered with bodies, many of them Speck. As we approached, it was obvious to me that the prisoners and their guards had joined forces, for gunfire came now from the lower level of the watchtower as well. As long as the defenders’ ammunition held out, the Specks had no hopes of taking the watchtower.

I knew that. Therefore Soldier’s Boy knew it also.

His Speck warriors did not seem to comprehend it. Even as we came onto the scene, a handful more brave than sensible rushed into the open, bows drawn, to launch their arrows at the high tower windows. Coming into the open was the only way for them to bring their weapons into effective range, yet the soldiers in the tower had only been waiting for them to do so. I heard the distant shout of “Fire!” and the bark of the long guns. Every one of the Specks went down. Four lay shuddering; only one crawled back toward the sheltering shadows. Another gun cracked and he, too, lay still. Soldier’s Boy’s whole body twitched as if the shot had entered him.

I had a moment of icy realization. If there was one good man in that tower, one sharpshooter, I was at the edge of his range. I could die at any moment now. Terror clawed at me from the inside as if I had swallowed a small beast with sharp claws. Still, I did not hesitate. I clenched myself around my fear and did not let it show. I did not warn him, but only breathed a prayer. Good god, let it happen now. Let this be over. I was sure that if Soldier’s Boy fell to a bullet, his followers would scatter.

The long guns in the tower flashed again; strangely, I do not recall that I heard them. Between the muzzle flash and the blows of the iron balls, I knew a thousand regrets for my life’s end, said a hundred farewells. To my left, a warrior crumpled, howling and clutching at his shattered knee. To my right, a man dropped without a sound. Before me, like a tiny hailstorm, the impact of bullets kicked up spurts of packed snow and ice. Was I hit? I waited for pain.

Soldier’s Boy did not. He jerked Clove’s big head around and kneed him at the same time. “Fall back!” I heard him shout, in Gernian, and then he cursed in the same language before crying, “Run! Get back—stay out of the open and the light! Get back!”

The fool had never thought to teach them how to retreat in an orderly fashion. In his arrogance, he’d never imagined that he’d need for them to know that. Now his careless order and his own apparent flight from the battle woke their fears, and the men who fled to follow him did so heedlessly. I heard another volley fired and screams behind me. Some of his warriors had not heeded his warning to stay out of the open in their haste to follow him away from danger.

At almost the same instant, I heard a sound that had never been sweeter in my ears. A trumpet sang, a call to arms. And miraculously, in the distance, from outside the fort, I heard another horn answer it, and then the heart-leaping sound as the same faraway instrument sounded a charge. Hope, all but dead in me a few minutes before, suddenly surged back to life. The first trumpet sounded again, within the fort, and it seemed much closer now. From the watchtower, I heard a resounding cheer. Then, a volley of bullets peppered the ground near us. A few, perhaps charged with an extra bit of powder or simply by luck, penetrated the shadows that hid us and found random targets. Three warriors howled in pain, and one abruptly fell, still.