Ato was no longer bored. Whatever else could be said of her situation, she was not bored and, to her, that more than made up for an apparently increased risk of death, enslavement, or injury. There were five notches on her spear and she was starting to think she should come up with her own, original method of keeping track of how many people she’d killed.

Along with Ora, Ryoko, Tengu, and of course Emen, Ato was one of nearly a hundred people from Lookout who had not retreated back into the city as the siege arrived. She was deeply grateful to Tengu for standing up for her, even if it really only served to make Tengu more mysterious and thus, more annoying.

When the discussion had been going on about who would stay in Lookout and who would stay outside, both Ora and Emen had said that Ato should stay inside where it was safer. Ato had argued that if they got to stay outside, she should get to stay outside as well. Emen had said he would happily stay inside and keep her company.

Tengu had said: ‘When I was Ato’s age, I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to stay inside. I was out and about.’

‘You were fighting and killing people at fourteen?’ Emen had asked.

‘Younger.’ Tengu had shrugged.

‘How old are you?’ Ato had asked.

Tengu had just smiled.

‘How long ago was that?’ Ato had tried again.

Tengu had shrugged. ‘A while.’

‘How old were you at the time?’

‘Younger than you.’

Ato had pouted, but it hadn’t worked.

According to the various people Ato had interrogated on the subject, Tengu looked almost exactly the same as she had when she arrived in Haven seven years ago, with some extra scars. Guesses ranged from late twenties to early forties. No one had been helpful on the subject.

But at least Ato wasn’t stuck in Lookout being bored.

She’d spent the past week and a half mostly in the Lord’s House, hassling more soldiers and supplies on their way to Lookout. Those mobile walls made the effort very difficult, but it probably hadn’t been a waste of time. Only about sixty soldiers and four camels loaded with supplies had made it from Outer Light to Lookout, with six more walls.

At the moment, Ato was conducting an argument with a man called Massi. Despite his previous helpfulness, he was being very foolish.

‘It’s just too risky,’ Massi was saying. ‘It would be very difficult to get any reinforcements if it goes badly.’

Ato pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘It’s not that risky,’ she insisted. ‘Anything we do will be risky. They’ll set up the walls rather than fight.’

‘You don’t know that, Ato,’ Massi said. ‘If they decide to fight us, we’re massively outnumbered.’

‘They won’t decide to fight us, Massi. That’s what the crossbows are for. And when they decide not to fight us, they’ll restructure the whole siege to protect themselves better.’

‘It would give up the element of surprise,’ Tengu pointed out.

‘Is there a better way to give up the element of surprise?’ Ato demanded. ‘Or should we just hold onto it forever and not do anything? Why not just stay in Lookout?’

Tengu looked at Massi.

Massi took a deep breath. ‘Just because they’re spread out doesn’t mean they couldn’t outnumber us easily,’ he said.

‘But why not stay in Lookout?’ Tengu asked.

‘What’s the alternative, Massi?’ Ato demanded. ‘What better idea do you have that’s somehow both useful and safe?’

Massi opened his mouth, closed it, frowned. ‘If we go back to Haven, we can get some bigger siege engines…’

‘That just means more lost siege engines,’ Ato interrupted. ‘We don’t have an unlimited supply. We absolutely can’t defend them. You said it yourself, we’re outnumbered.’

Ato was doing her best to ignore the small crowd that was looking back at fourth at them like it was some kind of sport. Massi was not doing as good a job ignoring the crowd.

He looked around. ‘I’m not the only one who’s allowed to have ideas,’ he half-pleaded. ‘Surely someone else has something? It can’t just be me and Ato.’

‘You’re both right,’ said Heft.

‘She’s more right,’ said Pest.

‘It’s dangerous, no doubt,’ said Heft.

‘But there’s no way to be safe and effective,’ said Pest.

Beln had stayed in Lookout, or Ato would have grabbed him. There were a couple of people throughout Haven and its outposts that knew a bit about the military of the Lord’s House, but he knew it best.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Massi’s plea to the audience had worked to some extent, though. People started discussing it amongst themselves, taking the pressure off the arguing parties. Ato sighed and rubbed her face. Why did adults have to be so dense?

Discussion turned very quickly from whether or not to attack the unwalled outside of the siege to the best way to conduct such an attack. Ato was willing to concede that not all adults were as dense as they seemed.

Despite mild protests from Ato and a few of the freed soldiers from Wasolan, the group decided it would best to attack in the mid-morning the next day. The people from the Lord’s House made the slightly unconvincing argument that attacking at night would make them demons, but attacking during the day was expected practice.

It was sheer coincidence that, as the sun was just starting to rise over the sparse camp in the desert, Jules arrived with thirty-odd Sand Crawlers. Ora leaned over to Ato to mutter ‘that’s a sign if ever I’ve seen one.’

Ato said ‘pffsht.’

Even if it wasn’t a sign from the Lord of Light, who Ato was reasonably sure hated them all anyway if he even existed, it was at least an extremely welcome addition.

‘Looks like they’re mustering at Outer Light again,’ Jules said, by way of a hello. ‘Only so much we can do about that.’

The skirmishers outside Lookout had already known that. What they hadn’t known, because Jules hadn’t been near a telegraph operator in more than a month, was that Jules and the thirty-odd Sand Crawlers had been spending their time attacking soldiers on their way from Deep Illumination to Outer Light.

Ato had a little chuckle at the name Deep Illumination.

‘I know, right?’ Jules grinned. ‘Strong implication that there’s a light at the end of someone’s dick.’

Something like two thirds of the group groaned, loudly.

‘See?’ Ato muttered to Ora. ‘Someone else gets it.’

Ora sighed and rubbed her face. ‘It’s because of the mines.’

Ato winked. ‘Mines. I get it.’

Ora sighed harder.

It took only a minute to explain the plan, such as it was, to Jules and the Sand Crawlers. Tengu forced everyone to remember just how tall she was by leaning down very slightly to mutter something to Jules.

Jules looked at Ato. ‘Is that so?’

‘Only if it’s good,’ Ato said. ‘If it’s no good, it was probably someone else.’

Jules grinned.

Ato hadn’t spent very much time with Jules over the year and two months that she’d been around Haven and Lookout. But she had decided very quickly that she liked Jules. If she hadn’t liked Ora more, she might have decided to go and join the Sand Crawlers.

What was interesting about Jules, to Ato, was the contrast she provided to Tengu. Tengu was massive, but you only noticed it occasionally. She was a bit skinny, she was quiet, and she wore her mask almost constantly. She was a mystery and, thus, an annoyance.

Jules was not a mystery. She was big and loud and confident. She smiled a lot and when she did, lines creased around her mouth and eyes. She was always a bit sunburned. She had strong opinions.

‘Jules,’ Ato said. ‘How old are you?’

Jules glanced at Tengu and grinned. ‘Too old, if you ask me. Just hit forty-one about two months ago.’

‘How old were you where you started fighting and such?’ Ato asked.

Jules furrowed her brow and looked at her hands. ‘Oh, must have been about fifteen or sixteen,’ she said. ‘Way back in the war… the one between the Lord’s House and Oszrath.’

A number of people did some mental mathematics and decided that that checked out. Ato didn’t know enough about that war to know if the math checked out, but she put the question aside until they weren’t busy.

‘Not a shred of mystery about her,’ Tengu said, smiling under the mask.

Jules guffawed, which she was quite good at.

The attack on the besieging army from the Lord’s House was not only successful because Jules and the Sand Crawlers had arrived. It was also successful because Ato was full of good ideas and people ought to listen to her more.

The first volley of arrows caught the soldiers largely unaware, and, as Ato had predicted, they raised their shields and rushed the skirmishers. The second volley of arrows was much less effective, but did what it was supposed to do.

The army was spread fairly thin around Lookout, with a few denser spots in the middle of wide stretches of the portable walls. The gaps were narrow enough that it would be vanishingly difficult for anyone to get out of Lookout, and that was presumably the point.

Soldiers were nearly within spear range of Ato, out at the front of the line with Emen, Ryoko, Ora, and Jules. They had charged in something of a loose wedge, as the second volley drew in more soldiers to either side of the first few platoons that had been fired upon.

On cue, the three stationary crossbows that the skirmishers had gotten back out of Lookout opened fire. They couldn’t fire very quickly, of course, but the massive quarrels punched through the front line of shields just enough for battle to be joined.

Despite many lengthy arguments with Emen and Ora, the two of them stepped most of the way in front of Ato to fight. Ato wasn’t going to continue the argument in the heat of battle and did what she was supposed to do.

While Emen kept soldiers at bay with his spear, Ora waded in with her sword. Ato, at the back, stabbed under the shields, mostly hitting empty air, but providing enough motivation for soldiers to lower their shields a bit so that Ora and Emen could finish them off.

Under fire from the stationary crossbows, the loose wedge formed into a column to minimise the number of soldiers who could be targeted. Because the front ranks were already engaged, they couldn’t pull into a tighter formation without opening themselves up to further attacks from the rank of archers. But fear of the stationary crossbows and the archers meant that the Lord’s House couldn’t form their own ranks of crossbows without too much danger of hitting their comrades.

Thankfully the defenders inside Lookout took the hint and started firing into the exposed backs off the fighters. The mobile walls shifted as fast as they could to bring up the rear and push to the front of the fighting to block the stationary crossbows there.

The skirmishers made it as difficult as possible to shift the walls into position, but as Massi had pointed out, they were drastically outnumbered. The stationary crossbows stopped firing as the walls got close to position and within a minute, the skirmishers had scattered back into the sand.

As slow as they were, the newly formed turtle of soldiers and walls had no chance of giving chase.

Not a single one of the skirmishers was killed, though many from the front line, including Ora, Emen, Ato, and Jules, were injured. No one was so incapacitated as to need to be carried, and only a couple of people decided to head for Haven to recuperate.

Ato’s plan had worked extremely well. The area of the siege they had attacked returned to position as a much denser block of walls and, without needed to be attacked themselves, the rest of the besieging army followed suit.

Ato, very impressively, resisted the urge to say ‘I told you so’ to Massi. She implied it very strongly, though, because she was still fourteen.