Kushiel's Dart

barrier. Suffice it to say that all was done in the end, though my voice was ragged from serving as translator.
    It is much to Ghislain de Somerville's credit that we proceeded as smoothly as we did. Despite his initial discomfort, he dealt evenly with our unlikely force, and found a common bond with Drustan mab Necthana, who was not too proud to appreciate another's skill.
    Much credit also goes to Eamonn of the Dalriada, who had an exacting mind for detail. If we were well provisioned and the dispersal of arms and mounts went without difficulty, much of it was Eamonn's doing. As much as the Twins baited each other, I saw, in that exodus, why Grainne stood by him. They were a formidable team.
    We marched southward, swinging wide to the east, into Camlach, to avoid detection by Selig's forces. It is a dire thing, being part of an army on the move. I would not wish it on anyone. But we gained, in time, the rolling hills of river-wrought Namarre and a vantage point from which to spy on the siege.
    Several Skaldi met their death in that effort. Waldemar Selig, no fool, had posted scouts along the perimeter of the land he held. But he had not reckoned on the Cruithne, whose woodcraft surpassed aught that I had seen. Drustan appointed an advance party, and they did their job excellently, emerging silent and deadly from the very landscape to dispatch the Skaldi watchers in our route.
    Thus did we come to a place in the hills, overlooking the plain on which Selig's army was encamped.
    "So many," Drustan breathed in Cruithne, lying on his belly like the rest of us to gaze down at the scene.
    I had known; I had counted the numbers at the Allthing, I had seen them in the Master of the Straits' bronze mirror, and I had heard them from Ghislain de Somerville. Nothing had prepared me for the sight. From where we lay, the Skaldi army teemed around the fortified bulwarks surrounding Troyes-le-Mont like ants around an anthill. Swarms of tiny figures bustled over the plain, gathering here and there in strategic points to attack the bulwark. We could see how thin defenses were spread inside the wall, the weakening points vulnerable to attack.
    It wouldn't be long before the Skaldi won through, forcing the defenders into the fortress itself. Percy de Somerville had chosen Troyes-le-Mont because it was defensible-and because it wasn't surrounded by a city filled with innocent, unarmed D'Angelines-but Selig had studied Tiberian tacticians.
    They were building siege towers.
    "That's the best place to strike," Ghislain said practically, jutting his chin at a tower under construction on the outer edge of the encampment. "They're well out of bow range, so they'll not be on the lookout for attack, and their attention's fixed on the tower. Do you agree?"
    I translated for Drustan, who nodded in agreement.
    "Good." Ghislain stared hard at the besieged fortress, thinking, no doubt, of his father, then drew back cautiously. "We'll plan our retreat in stages," he said, gazing at the hills behind us with all the thoughtfulness of a farmer plotting his orchard. "We need to be able to make a clean break of it."
    If anyone had doubted that he'd inherited his father's gift for military tactics, they didn't after that day. The course of our retreat stretched for miles into the foothills, leading Skaldi pursuers through a deadly series of setbacks, and at last into a narrow gorge which could be blocked, forcing the Skaldi to retreat.
    It took two days to plan the attack, Ghislain verging on overcautious before finally giving his approval. I was glad, though, when I learned that Drustan planned to lead the strike.
    Fifty Cruithne, they had decided, including the best archers on the fastest mounts. It was the largest number able to get near undetected, and the smallest able to get the Skaldi's notice.
    I was not there to see it, remaining at the furthest retreat point, a steep, wooded hill, with Joscelin, Phedre's Boys, and the bulk of our army; it was part of Ghislain's plan to conceal our numbers from the Skaldi.
    But I heard, later. We all did.
    Drustan's Cruithne struck at the first glimmer of dawn, when they could barely pick out the shape of the siege tower against the darkling sky and the Skaldi were but indistinct forms, most still wrapped in their bedrolls.
    No warning did they give, but rode out of the hills like something from a nightmare, streaming across the plain, blue-masqued and eerie, slamming into the edge of the Skaldi forces and