The entire host of Paladins tossed their pistols, daggers, and other weapons into the snow.

When Karis turned again to Mabin, the councilor remained speechless. With the brute force of implacable fact speaking for her, Karis also said nothing. Mabin, General of Paladins, last legitimate member of the old Lilterwess Council, drew her dagger and dropped it to the ground.

Chapter Thirty

On Long Night, the people of Shaftal burn candles to remind the sun to come again. But in the children’s garrison there were no candles, no night‑long parties to keep an eye on those candles, no festive meals of carefully balanced sweet, savory, salty, and bitter foods to guarantee a balanced year. In the children’s garrison, the youthful soldiers were put to bed and barricaded into their dormitories by the disabled veterans who kept watch over them. For everyone, it would indeed be a long watch, but not a festive one.

Clement sat awake in her room, with a clock borrowed from Purnal to chime the hours. With Captain Herme she periodically inspected the preparations. They began their inspection at the top of a ladder, in the attic where six soldiers and a few children kept a crouched, dusty lookout at the cloudy windows tucked under the eaves. It was terribly cold up there, and the watchers were frequently replaced to thaw out in the warm dining hall where their fellows dozed uncomfortably in their boiled leather armor. Through the wavery glass of the attic windows, Clement might peer at a starry sky and a glowing field of snow, across which no one could have approached unseen. The inspection then continued, to the corridor that encircled the big central courtyard, where the ammunition lay ready: orderly bags of lead shot and powder tins, the little lamps by light of which reloaders could see to measure the powder. Again, Clement would check to see that nothing was visible in the darkness. They could make no mistakes.

The wait was terrible.

More terrible was the moment a child soldier pounded on the door and cried excitedly, “They’re coming!”

Clement was on her feet immediately with the door slammed open, the girl’s loose shirt captured in her fist, hissing, “Follow your orders, soldier! In silence!”

She let her go. The girl ran for her prescribed position without another sound. Clement stood a moment, listening, and could hear only the faint whisper of footsteps, near and far, hurrying across stone as the company got itself into position. No voices, no lights.

Gods, it was a bitter night.

Clement walked, swiftly and quietly, to the round building’s center. The corridor that encircled the round central courtyard was protected by a chest‑high half‑wall, sturdily built to withstand any accidental crashings of horses and wagons making the three‑quarter turn to enter the stables. The corridor’s circle was interrupted only by the main passage through the building to the front gate. Here, both ends of the broken circle were blocked by barred doors. With the doors to the stable also barred, anyone who entered the building could take only two routes after coming into the courtyard: through the entrance to the main hall, or over the top of the half‑wall.

And the invaders would have no reason to climb over the half‑wall. They might look over it, but they would see no danger. Though faint starlight filtered down the long arched passageway from outside, the half‑wall cast the corridor into unrelieved darkness. And there was nothing to see, in any case: the piles of lead balls, the powder horns, the spirit lamps, these were draped in dark cloth. The soldiers waited behind locked doors: on foot, their weapons sheathed for quiet, forbidden to utter a word, or shuffle their feet, or do anything other than breathe shallowly. There was nothing to see: nothing, that is, except Clement and her signal‑man.

He was already in position: a light, lithe man, black‑dressed, in soft, silent shoes. He had made a game of slipping through shadows these last few days, of learning to be invisible even to observers who knew he was there. But Clement’s knees sometimes crackled; her leather armor might creak, and after crouching a long time in the shadows she would be too stiff to move soundlessly. If the game were given away prematurely, she would be the one to give it away.

The signal‑man said in a voiceless whisper, “The watchers count thirty‑two people approaching the gate. There might be more, hidden in the trees.”

Clement nodded. The defenders outnumbered the attackers, and also had the added advantage of surprise. Awkward in stiff leather, she knelt on the waiting cushion and carefully picked up the loaded and primed pistol. The signal‑man helped her to veil her head and body with black cloth, and then he made himself disappear. With the pistol resting on one thigh, Clement pressed herself to the half‑wall where the shadows were most impenetrable, uttered a silent prayer to the god of luck, and put her eye to the peephole.

She could not see the roof beams; the center post at the middle of the circular courtyard was visible only because she knew it was there. The courtyard itself was mostly obscured in shadows that only faintly lightened near the arched passageway, down which the snow had reflected a trace of the starlight from outside. There was nothing to see. It was so silent that Clement could hear only the rhythmic rush of blood in her own veins. The attackers had perhaps realized by now that the padlock was too cold and rusty to be picked, and were quietly riling the metal instead.

To wait and watch, freezing cold, even colder from anxiety, skin crawling, nose itching (inevitably!) was terrible. Clement’s face rasped against the wood, as loud as a cough in her hypersensitive ears. Her armor creaked with every breath. She became convinced that the black veiling was slipping off, and that the revealed polished leather shone as brightly as a lamp. Cold sweat crawled from her armpit down to her ribs, and the tickling became such a torture she could think of nothing else.

Of course, the tension and discomfort seemed unendurable. It always did.

A movement in the faint light of the arched passageway. One person only. A man by the shape of the shoulders. What did he see? An echoing vacancy of blackness. An unguarded building where the occupants slept soundly, unsuspecting, where hearthfires warmed the rooms behind shut doors. What did he hear? The creak of Clement’s armored breaths?

He came in: not overly cautious, a shadowy shape whose hobnails crunched on gravel. Relaxed, in no great hurry, he tried one of the barred doors, peered over the half wall, walked part way around the circle of the courtyard, then stepped through the entrance to the corridor. Clement could no longer see him. Would he appear in the curved corridor to her right? If he did, then he might spring the trap too soon, and this would not be the ambush she hoped for: her soldiers would be chasing the attackers through the snow instead.

He stepped back out into the courtyard. Perhaps he had walked the other direction, or had gone down the main hall, trying the doors, looking into the empty refectory. Perhaps he wondered why so many doors were locked. Or had he even noticed? He finished his casual circuit of the courtyard. He brushed by Clement’s peephole. Not an arm’s length away, he peered over the half‑wall. He stepped back, and stood a moment. She glimpsed his teeth, his glittering eyes, as he turned into the starlight.

She let out her breath. The leather creaked. He walked away. She knew he must be Willis: he would be a leader who insists on going in first. A leader for whom image matters more than common sense. Who did not see what he did not expect to see.

She breathed. She needed the air.

More shadows in the archway. His entire attack force was quietly coming in. They formed four clusters. If it were Clement’s force, and if she knew in advance that one quarter of the building was stables, one team would secure the exit and the other three would each secure a quarter. Again, she spotted her man, Willis, going confidently from team to team, clasping hands, patting shoulders, whispering assurances a bit too loudly.