The Skeleth

Chapter 13

Tom lay awake, just inside the door of Tristan's great hall. He found himself in no danger of nodding asleep—instead it felt as though the watches of the night had stretched out forever, and that ten sunrises should already have come and gone. He tried not to think of all the folk who would likely be dead by the time the sun truly did return, should any part of his plan go amiss.

He turned onto his back. A roof of braced and pillared hardwood arched high above him, over a floor of patterned stone strewn with moldering rushes. Trestle tables ran the length of the chamber, all at odd angles, all covered in dust. Tapestries hung between the pillars that braced the walls, each depicting a man at life size beneath a coating of soot. A knight stood square and grim within the first on the left, his gray beard flowing out over his chain cowl and the point of his sword driven down through the head of the twisted creature at his feet. A very tall man stood bent as though to squeeze himself into the frame of the first tapestry opposite. He wore huntsman's green and cradled a great boar-spear in the crook of a lanky arm. Tom remembered the stories well enough—he looked upon Tristan's old companions, the Ten Men of Elverain, the great heroes who had ridden with him against the Nethergrim long ago. He found himself wishing that they could somehow come alive, that some unknown magic would bring them leaping from their tapestries for one last daring rescue, but instead they stood frozen in the warp and weft of their cloth, looking down upon the scene of their old friend's ruin.

Tom crossed his hands on his belly. He shut his eyes and opened them—then shut and opened them again. How long could it possibly take Rahilda to get the word out to her neighbors? How long to move what needed to be moved? Were they arguing about the merits of his plan? Would they try it? Would someone betray them? He rolled onto his side, pressed to the flagstone floor by his doubts.

When the moment long awaited arrived at last, it shouldered anticipation aside without the slightest courtesy. "Fire!" Tanchus burst through the front door of the hall. "Fire in the village!"

Tom sat bolt upright. The men in the hall had helped themselves to no small portion of the ale, but even so, the cry of "Fire!" had them up and scrambling in a heartbeat.

Hamon Ruddy snorted awake. "What's that? Fire? Where?"

"Fire in the—" From the grunt and thud that came next, Tanchus tripped over a bench in the dark.

Tom got up onto the balls of his feet. He peered about him, and in the glow of the embers from the hearth spied the brigands rising from their stupor to a quick-spreading panic.

"Ow!" Tanchus kicked the bench he had fallen over and let out a stream of truly vile curses. "Fire in the village! In the barns, the grain sheds, the food stores! Fire!"

Amidst the chaotic shouts that greeted the news, Tom heard the crossbowman rounding on Aldred Shakesby. "You jack-in-the-dirt! I told you we should have hauled the food inside the walls. You've ruined the whole caper!"

"Shut your mouth! Move!" Aldred clattered about for his sword. "All of you, up! Move!"

Tom slipped out into the courtyard, stealing through the shadows by the wall and through the rubble of the unfinished keep. He watched the brigands charge outside in a mob and thought he had completely escaped notice—but then he walked right into the path of the jailer rushing forth from his post in the tower.

"Hoy!" The jailer grabbed Tom by the shirt. "Where are you going? What are you sneaking about for?" He held his sword, a thick, saw-bladed thing that looked better suited to torture than to open battle.

Tom made a face of horror, which was not so hard to do given the circumstances. "Fire, fire in the village!"

The jailer blanched to his stubbly jowls. "The food. All the food!" He let go of Tom and turned to yell. "Raise the gates! Raise the gates, we've got to get that fire out or we'll all starve!"

Tom slipped back into the shadows and ran crouching to the smithy, an open structure built without a north-facing wall. Shadows grew into shapes as he crept farther in: a stack of wood, a barrel, tongs, and then an anvil. He leaned around the anvil to peer into the courtyard, where a swelling mass of brigands collected by the raising gates.

"Half of you, stay behind to watch the walls!" Aldred barked himself hoarse beneath the gatehouse. "D'you hear me? No, don't all of you just—curse you all, listen to me! Get back here!" No one seemed to heed him. As soon as the inner gate had been winched above the height of a man's head, the brigands charged off in a mass through the gatehouse tunnel. The fat jailer was not at all the fastest of their number, but once he threw off his mail shirt, he managed to keep up with the pack, following his fellows through the gates and out of view.