Bastion

again. “Where you want us?” he asked.
    “Amily, I know from my cousin’s memory that you are deadly with your bow,” Bey said with a little bow. “Please to take a place inside the caravan. You will be safest there. If you see any of the Sleepgivers with bows—and I expect this—drop them, please. There are five left; I expect three in the front, two behind with bows.”
    She nodded and went straight to the caravan. From inside, she opened the window; the shutters were already opened. You couldn’t tell she was even in there. Bey turned to Dallen. “I do not expect them to attack until after dark. So, is it possible for you to slip out when the sun sets and hide yourself against the snow? You will be our last guard to prevent any from escaping.”
    Dallen nodded.
    Mags went to stand where he had stood the first two times, and Bey extinguished the torch.
    Now . . . it was waiting. Waiting as the light outside waned and finally died. Waiting as Mags watched the thoughts of those above grow first confused, then angry, as they realized that they had somehow been duped. It was with relief that Mags saw they were convinced that Mags had been the one who had made the cries of distress. If they’d had a guess that Bey was working with them, one of their number would almost certainly have left at that moment, to find a way across country and back to the House of Sleepgivers to alert them to the existence of a traitor. Probably having Dallen Mindspeak to other distant Companions and alert the countryside would take care of that problem, but . . . these were Sleepgivers, and they had managed to elude the best of the Heralds before this.
    If they hadn’t been wearing their talismans, he would have taken a chance and pushed the idea into their minds that he was the one who had duped them. But he didn’t dare.
    The light in the valley went to dusk and then full dark. Mags never saw or heard Dallen move, but at some point after the darkness fell he heard :I’m up to my chest in snow and laying my head and neck along it. Just behind the parapet. I think I am pretty adequately concealed from above as long as I keep my eyes closed.:
    “Dallen’s ready,” he whispered, keeping constant watch over the thoughts of the remaining five Sleepgivers.
    Their anger was a burning, sullen furnace. They could not believe they had been duped by a lot of people they considered to be weak and soft and not terribly crafty. They barely assuaged their outrage by deciding that it was all Mags’ doing. After all, he was of the House! They had learned in Valdemar from tale and rumor that Mags had partaken of the herbs that should have given him his proper memories. That must have been it, their angry thoughts went, so angry, that they easily projected into Mags’ mind. He remembers what he is, but not who he should be. Finally they were all united in their rage and determination. Mags was not going to be allowed to escape them. He would take the herbs and the talisman, and finally he would join them. He would prove himself by killing these people he thought were friends, and they would all return triumphant to the Shadao.
    “They’re coming,” he said softly into the icy dark, and not long after he warned the others, there came soft thumps as five men on the three ropes dropped down at the entrance to the cave. They were not even trying to be stealthy. Mags wished rather desperately that there could have been some way to bring up some light behind them, because they would have been easy targets for a volley of arrows.
    But there wasn’t—not without exposing themselves.
    A fire-arrow suddenly arced across the dark cave, slammed into the back wall, and fell, still burning. Another joined it, and another, until the whole back wall was lit up. Clever move. Now if any of them came from out of cover, they’d be clearly silhouetted.
    Mags heard five sets of footsteps coming down out of the dark entrance. He remained pressed against the rock. Now his heart was pounding the way it usually did before a fight. There was nothing like this in Bey’s memories, for Bey had never dealt with a straight-up fight in his life. The words of the Weaponsmaster came to him first. Get in the first blow from a distance. Even a wound makes a weakness, and a weakness will give you an opening for a kill.
    He listened with every fiber, and tried to hear their thoughts, but the talismans were all awake and concealing everything. He didn’t think