John Flanagan - The siege of Macindaw

Will's spirits soared. His idea was back on track.

"How quickly could we put the tubing in place?" he asked.

Malcolm pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Maybe two nights," he said eventually. "We'll have to work after moonset, and we can't have too many people involved or we'll be spotted. Last thing we want is your friend Buttle sending a party out to investigate what we've been up to."

Gundar growled softly at the mention of Buttle's name. Will glanced sidelong at him. The huge Skandian reminded him of a bear – big, powerful and seemingly clumsy, but in actual fact fast and deadly. Then, he thought, smiling, that a lot of Skandians could be described that way. They were a very bearlike race. He thought he wouldn't want to get in Gundar's way when the time came to go up the scaling ladders. As that thought struck him, he realized that was another item they'd have to take care of.

"We'll need ladders," he said. "Can we get your people to work making them?" He addressed the remark to Malcolm, who nodded. Then he turned to Gundar. "Your men too, Gundar," he requested.

"I'll get them on it first thing tomorrow," the Skandian said. "How many do we need?"

Horace and Will exchanged a glance.

"You had some idea about using only one?" Horace reminded him. But Will shook his head.

"I'm still working on that. We'd better have backups. How many would you say?"

The young knight chewed a fingernail as he thought about it. The more the better, he knew. The more ladders there were, the quicker his men could be up on the ramparts and into the attack. But there were limitations.

"We'll have to manhandle them through that tangle of forest on the west side," he said."That'll take a lot of time and effort. I'd say the most we could handle would be four. That makes about seven men to a ladder."

Will looked to Malcolm and Gundar, who both nodded agreement. "Four it is, then," Will said. "I doubt we'll have time to make more anyway. And as you say, it'll be a nightmare getting a five-meter ladder through that forest."

He addressed Malcolm again. "You know, it also occurred to me that we might be able to use something like that illuminated face that you had sailing across the clearing the other night?"

He phrased it as a question, but Malcolm was already shaking his head. "We needed overhead wires and cables for that. We can hardly rig that sort of thing on the open ground outside Macindaw without being seen."

"And if you are seen, the garrison will know it's all some kind of trick," Orman put in. "Then your whole plan collapses."

Will nodded, acknowledging the point. "I can see that," he said. "But I thought there might be some way to throw them high in the air, then have them explode the way that one did the other night. That was quite spectacular, believe me."

"Let me think on it," Malcolm said. "I can probably put together some kind of simple catapult to throw them. We could site that in the woods, after all. There's no reason why we couldn't do that from a concealed position."

"Exactly," Will said, his enthusiasm growing by the second. "The more diversions we have the better. And flying, glowing, exploding heads would make a great diversion."

He looked around the faces at the table, seeing enthusiasm and hope in all of them.

"Well," he said,"it's late and I still have to send a message to Alyss. I suggest we adjourn for the night and get to work in the morning. We have a lot to do."

There was a mumble of agreement from the others, and they all rose. Orman was still feeling left out of the full picture.

"Flying, exploding heads," he muttered to himself."These Rangers really are peculiar folk."

Alyss smiled quietly as she read the coded message again. She had already read it the night before, when Will had sent it to her, of course. But she saved it to read one more time in the morning light before carefully placing it in the fire that burned in her grate.

She stooped before the fireplace now, watching the sheet of paper turn black and curl up in the flames. The paper might be gone, but the message of hope it contained remained clear in her heart. It was typical of Will, she thought, that he would take the trouble to travel miles through the grim trails that twisted through Grimsdell Wood in the middle of the night to send it to her.

It wasn't an urgent message. There were no important instructions to follow. It was simply designed to bolster her spirits and let her know she hadn't been forgotten.

There was a strange, veiled reference that had puzzled her. It read, We have a guest from the land of Cobblenosskin.

She frowned over that for several minutes. The name was vaguely familiar, and she searched through her memory for it. Then it came to her. Cobblenosskin had been a character in a fairy tale she and Will had been told when they were children in the Ward at Redmont. He was a mischievous gnome who lived in the wild mountains of Picta, far in the north. It was not a reference that would be immediately apparent to anyone unfamiliar with the old tale – Keren, for example. Will was obviously taking precautions against the possibility that the message might accidentally fall into his hands. But she took it to mean that, somehow, Will had captured someone from Picta – and the only possible candidate she could think of was the Scotti general who had visited Macindaw a few days previously.

At least, that's what she hoped it meant. "He's a talkative fellow," the message went on to say. If her suspicions were correct, it meant that Will and his allies had learned the details of Keren's plan.

And that was reason to smile indeed.

But even more so was the other obscure fact contained in the message. For the most part, it was a chatty, gossipy piece – as far as that was possible within the limitations of a brief coded message – designed to keep her spirits up and to remind her that she had friends close by. And now she knew that there was more than one old friend out there in the forest. Since she had assured Will that the stellatite was effective in countering Keren's mesmerism, he had felt it was safe to include another fact.

Love from Tug the last line of the message read, and from Kicker and his big friend.

Kicker…

She had heard the name before. Obviously, Will thought it would mean something to her. Was it an animal of some kind? It sounded like an animal's name. A dog? Not with that name. Dogs didn't kick. Horses kicked. And then, once again, the meaning was clear. Kicker was the name of the battlehorse Horace rode. Horace was here!

She thought about it now, hugging the news to herself like a warm cloak. Will and Horace working together – Will with his wits and intuition and quicksilver mind, and Horace, dependable, determined, perhaps one of the most accomplished warriors Araluen had seen in years. She had no doubt at all that the two of them would manage to defeat Keren and any number of Scotti.

She almost felt sorry for the usurper. Almost. She smiled again, then heard the key turning in the lock.

She glanced quickly at the fireplace, reassuring herself that the page was completely burnt. She poked at the coals with a fire iron to crumble the blackened sheet to powder, then rose hurriedly, dusting her hands as the door opened.

It was Keren, of course, and her hands automatically went behind her back, her fingers searching for and finding the shining black pebble that permanently nestled in the cuff of her sleeve. But there was no sign of Keren's blue gem, and she relaxed. He had come for another one of his chats.

"You're looking cheerful this morning, my lady," Keren said. She realized she was still smiling, still feeling the warmth that the message had brought her. It would be a mistake to try to hide the fact now and adopt a hangdog, miserable air; Keren would be immediately suspicious. He would want to know what she had to be cheerful about in the first place. Instead, she widened her smile and gestured to the window.