Chapter 5

“Are you hurt?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Ola, let her look at you. You’re a cleric, right?”

“Yes, I am. Oh, is it your arm?”

“You have to speak up, Ola, so she can heal you correctly.”

“It’s my arm. I hurt it when I fell off the stool.”

“You were one of the ones about to be hanged?”

“Yes.”

“You were very brave.”

“I’m Bossi Greenfeet. I don’t think we’ve met?”

“I'm a cleric. There. Is that better?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Just a cleric? Wait. Aren’t you one of the Weird Sisters? I saw you once after you brought in Gurble. That troll that’d been raiding north of the city? I’d just been kidnapped by the duke, though they called it being 'arrested,' and was behind you in line for processing.”

“Gurble was a handful, yes.”

“He complained that you kept breaking his legs. With a big hammer.”

“Well, he kept trying to escape.”

“Yes. With your big hammer.”

“Bossi! She’s the one that saved us! She broke the scaffold.”

"Yep. With a big ol' hammer."

“Quiet, please.”

“Why? Oh. You don’t want anybody to know. No. You don’t want Mr. Cartwright to know.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I —.”

“You’re scared.”

“No, I’m —.”

“Yes, you are. Look at you. You’re shaking.”

“Oh, ma’am, you don’t have to be scared of Mr. Cartwright. He’s the nicest man I’ve ever known. He taught me even when he knew I was forced to spy on him. He’ll love you for rescuing us.”

“Please, I just can’t.”

“Bossi, she’s crying.”

“We won’t tell him, will we, Ola?”

“No, no we won’t. If it would hurt or scare her, Mr. Cartwright wouldn’t want us to.”

The knock on the trapdoor came and Ned was scooped up out of the bag. He found himself atop a tower in the early morning light on the Thornwall, staring down at the familiar pale stone as he regained his balance and stood.

“I figured you’d go to Thornwall,” Ned said.

“Yeah,” said Hughie. “But look.”

Ned turned toward where Hughie was pointing, the next tower to the south. Even as he watched, from its top, a catapult let fly a huge flaming boulder that turned in the air for a few glorious moments before it crashed into a mass of goblins like a meteor, throwing tiny flaming bodies this way and that. The rock rolled drunkenly over corpses and the uneven terrain before it detonated sending shards of glowing stone hurtling, blowing the diminutive monsters away in an expanding ring of blazing destruction. The men on the tower gave a cheer that Ned, even at this distance, could barely discern over the noise of the battle. People were running toward the battle, limping away from it, carried away on stretchers. They swarmed over the battlements, firing arrows into their enemies below, snatching goblins off the walls with swords, pikes, maces, and whatever else at hand. Lightning arced down in flashes from the tower as the mage Wardens contributed to the slaughter.

Goblins were covering every foot of ground to the west between his tower and the far-off mountains, their numbers beyond counting.

“My God.”

Hughie said, “That’s not all. Look over there.” Hughie was pointing to the east.

There Ned saw a large group of marching soldiers approaching.

“A full company of the King’s Guards, maybe close to two hundred soldiers,” said Hughie. He indicated an orange banner with a black cloud emblem occupying its center. “I saw them when I flew over.”

“Shit.”

“Yes.”

“Did you see where our command center is?”

Hughie blinked. “I imagine on the near tower. I think this one here," the small man tapped the stone with his foot, "is being used as an infirmary."

Ned nodded. "Wait a second. Has this tower always been here? They were farther apart before, right?" He run from tower to tower the last time had been made while he was literally exhausted. He'd been forced to rest several times to time out the debuff but he was pretty sure this tower was too close.

"You're right," said Hughie. "Look." He had the trapdoor open, pointing at the side of the stone underneath. "It's stone, but thinner. Lighter."

Now that Ned was looking he saw other signs that this tower was hastily constructed. It didn't take up the entire width of the wall either. There was a thick door instead of a portcullis system and, when he inspected the bottom floor, weaving his way through medics and wounded, he saw massive retractable wheels. "It's a siege tower," he said.

One of the medics stopped and said, "Yes, it is. We store them in pieces down below in the wall in protected caches and pull them up and put them together for times like this. Are you wounded?"

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Ned blinked. "No."

"Are you a medic?"

"No."

"Get out."

"Yep."

Back upstairs, Ned considered the top of the tower. “Looks like enough space.” He took the red bag from Hughie, knocked on the trapdoor telekinetically, and then there were upwards of twenty people standing around there with him. He took the blue bag off his belt, considered a moment, then knocked again. He pried open the trapdoor just a little before speaking into the bag. The people in here had no one inside to warn them. “Don’t look up!” he said. “Everything should be okay, but just as a precaution, as I open this trapdoor to take you out, everybody should just close their eyes, okay?”

And then there were close to forty people looking out at the battle, milling around, murmuring to each other.

“Dad —!”

Ned spun around. The voice was achingly familiar. But it couldn’t be Jazzy. She was long gone in another universe where he was long dead. She probably had another father by now, maybe a boyfriend, a husband? She was old enough. There was some commotion on the other side of the crowd as Ned craned his neck trying to see who had cried out and what was going on, and others, spurred by his interest, also turned to block his vision. Things grew quiet soon though, and Ned figured some family had just been reunited with some other father. Maybe he’d saved them.

He felt jealousy so intense that his stomach cramped and his eyes filled. As soon as he identified the emotion, shame erupted within him and drove it away. He turned from everyone until his cheeks stopped burning and he had control of himself once more.

When he faced them all again, Hughie and Jerome were at the fore. They had odd expressions on their face.

“What?”

A squirrel clambered onto Hughie’s shoulders, one on each side. One was red. One was white, mostly.

“Schoteka! Hattan!” Ned was crying. He took Hughie by the shoulders. “Alive?”

The squirrels scurried up Ned’s arms, laughing. They nuzzled him a moment then ran back down to Hughie.

“Hattan! Are you okay?” Ned said.

Much of the white squirrel’s left side was bald and bubbled with pink scar tissue. “We brought your students back to the Namastery to find the scouts Lord Kax had left curiously absent,” said the cleric. “Schoteka looked for sign, found it, and tracked them to the east. Ned, they’d been baited and led away. The count’s men left false indications of a large number of owlbears heading toward Fort Smith and our people were trying to warn people away. We discovered the ruse too late. We gathered up the squirrels and went back to the Namastery but the fight there was already underway.” Hattan’s voice broke. He took a breath but hung his head when the words wouldn't come. He couldn't continue.

Schoteka said, “We fought. He got hurt. I got him out.”

Hattan nodded. “I was a long time recovering.” He moved behind Hughie’s neck to rest beside Schoteka and nuzzled her. “She helped me.”

“Oh,” said Ned. “Oh!”

Hattan grinned and Ned discovered that squirrels, and Schoteka in particular, could blush despite all the fur.

"Oh my God! Congratulations!" said Ned and once again the world blurred as tears filled his eyes. He had missed his good friends dearly. "I love you guys."

“Ned,” Jerome leaned in. “This is touching and all but, you know, there’s a war on?”

“Yes,” said Ned. “Yes!” He turned to the crowd. “Wait.” He turned back to the squirrels. “You were the one shooting in the throne room,” he said to Schoteka.

“Not the only one,” Schoteka said. “One of the Weird Sisters was there firing an odd crossbow.”

“Was it the green one?” asked Jerome.

“Yes, the one firing it wore green. I do not see her here,” said the little red scout.

Ned looked at Jerome.

“One likes to wear red. One likes green. The leader likes plate,” Jerome said and shrugged. “They don’t tell people their names. They’re just the Weird Sisters.”

“Jerome,” said Ned, drawing out his name like he was being exasperated by the other man. “Don’t you know there’s a war on?”

Jerome snickered and shook his head.

Ned turned back to the crowd of people on the tower. “As you can see,” he said in his best teacher’s voice. “We are at Thornwall where the Wardens are under siege. I aim to help them. You can too, if you like. We could sure use it. Oh, I’m a Warden too. I take it you all got your Rebel notifications?”

There were some nods, grumblings, a few swear words.

“Sorry about that,” said Ned. “Welcome to the family. We should make t-shirts or something.”

Jerome snickered again but if anybody else understood the reference they didn’t give any indication.

Ned cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’m going to deal with them,” he said indicating the King’s Guards. “And then, when I’m done, I’ll help with the goblins. Anybody who wants to and has any experience fighting, I’ll take you to Colonel Manard, assuming he’s still alive and in charge. Anybody with any experience caring for the wounded, go below. We’re standing on the infirmary. I'm pretty sure, given the present circumstances, rebel or not, we'll all be welcome here. At least for now. Anybody else who can’t fight or won’t or isn’t trained to help the wounded, we could use you at the settlement to the north, for logistics if nothing else. Olmer? Where’s Olmer?”

Olmer Tack stepped through the crowd to stand expectantly beside Jerome.

“Olmer,” said Ned. “You’ve got some experience. This fight doesn’t look like it’ll be over any time soon. We’ll need wagons going up and down the wall with supplies and wounded and, well, you know best. Link up with whoever’s in charge in Thorntown and help, okay?”

Olmer gave a quick nod.

“Find Dara and see if she won’t help you.”

Olmer nodded again.

“The rest of you, red bag goes to Thorntown. The blue bag goes with me. Medics downstairs.” Ned handed the red bag to Jerome and the blue bag to Hughie. “If you could, guys, I just need a moment.”

Jerome and Hughie took the bags and began getting people sorted while Ned turned back to watch the battle.

That had to be, like, all the goblins in the world down there. They churned forward in a chaotic mass, sometimes scrambling over each other in their rage to get to the front and kill. Many died on the thorns. Many more used the dead to pull themselves up the fortification to die on the spears and pikes of exhausted Wardens. Ned looked but saw no sign of the campfires from before. There had been many plans between the orcs and Wardens on how to deal with the goblins’ fire supply. The little green bastards didn’t know how to make it themselves, so they kept the fires they found going, and took it with them to burn the wall. They almost succeeded, but Ned and the Wardens had turned them back and now there were no telltale wisps of smoke curling into the sky at their rear. No goblins holding torches.

Good. One less thing to worry about.

The King’s Guard on the other side of the wall marched ever closer. Within fifteen minutes or so, they could begin an assault on the wall, if they chose.

Were they here to fight Thornwall?

Were they here to assist against the goblins?

No one knew.

Ned sighed. He guessed he’d better go ask them.

He turned back around to see how loading the bags was going to find one Bossi Greenfeet and Ola Needlebottom giving him quite the stare. They were scowling at him like they’d caught him abusing the cat or something.

“What? What’s wrong? What’d I do?” he said.

Bossi leveled a finger at him. “I don’t know but you upset a nice lady,” she said. “I know about your Ladies’ Man thingy in your title but I’ve always thought you were a nice man anyway. I’m going to Thorntown now but I’m going to find out what you did.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Ned.

“I’m going to find out!” said Bossi. She looked him up and down. “And then I’ll fix it. If that means fixing you then that’s what it means.” She went over to a much amused Jerome and the red bag. “I’m very disappointed in you, Mr. Cartwright. Come on, Ola.”

Ola looked so disgusted she couldn’t speak. Wordlessly, she followed Bossi into the bag.

Ned looked at Jerome. “What did I do?”

Jerome said, “Man, I have no idea. But you are in serious trouble.” He laughed.

Ned looked around but there were only the three of them now on the tower. Hughie shrugged.

Ned scratched his head, thinking over everything he’d said and done in the last little while but nothing occurred to him. Well, it wasn’t the first time he’d screwed up majorly without knowing what he’d done or why. Bossi would find out and tell him later. It bothered him that he’d upset her and this other, unknown ‘nice lady.’ It bothered him quite a lot but now was not the time.

“Where would you like to go, Jerome?” Ned asked.

Jerome arched an eyebrow and pointed at the blue bag like it was obvious.

Ned nodded and helped him inside. He tucked the red bag into his belt and said, “Take us to the other tower, please, I guess.”

Hughie helped Ned into the bag, shifted into his crow form, flapped his wings, and, taking the sky-blue bag into his talons, flew off to battle.