“There are still recruiters out there.”
The thought had just occurred to me and I just spat it out. There was no time to do anything else, decisions were being made. Get the info out there. Facts, think, decide, act.
“We leave the fort up then, you have a way understrength cohort, we leave them and the engineers and baggage.”
“And messengers. We won't be that far but if the fort is hit we need to know.”
“Agreed.”
We were now in a tent full of commanders who were taking orders and instructions or, like Sheo, passing orders out the door as they came to be acted on. There were already people watching the town of Undralt from cover. They had mirrors to signal with if anything happened. A relay would get the message here pretty fast. A detailed message would follow. There was a battle mage on the walls. There is a dinky spell called far-see that gave them better range of sight. But we didn't send them out of the fort. Too useful to risk. At night we would have to wait for word. As the scouts came in we re-assigned them. No more scouts out lest they be seen or captured. We were trying to stay unknown now, and hoping it worked.
The day was on the wane. We needed to be ready to move out at any time, but I doubted anything would now make us move until dawn. There would be no practice tonight for me, and none for any of us the next day. Tomorrow it might be the thing we had been practicing for. A battle. The excitement bothered me but I couldn't not feel it. I didn't feel any fear, oddly enough, the excitement and the fact I was busy masked it if it was there.
“Best let the rest of the world know what's happening.”
Tul was in fact at his desk writing, it was me who couldn't stop pacing and thinking and talking.
“I'm on it. Three copies, one for Orthand, one for the King of Wherrel, one for the assembly of patrons.”
“Should we have warned the magistrate of Undralt?”
“How can they not know the enemy is near? And do we want to risk giving the enemy any information of us, no matter how slim the chance? I'm trying to write.”
I let it lie and worried at my lip, trying to think if we had missed anything. It all relied on not being seen, even then nothing was certain. The enemy attack the town, take the walls, flood into the town and then we hit them hard from the rear. Any inside the walls would be useless, and as long as we broke the force that remained outside we could probably take the rest as they flooded back out again, their numbers useless. And they had numbers. The three force theory was holding up, traveling separately in an arc from north to north-west. They might join up before reaching Undralt, or arrive at different times, either way we would wait until the town fell. Something over twenty thousand looked to be true. Ten times our numbers. Six miles from here to the town. There was a danger that outriders would find us and we had small units placed in any cover, ditch or copse, to take down riders. Their instructions strict, keep cover if you can't take them, take them down if you can. If engaged, don't let any enemy ride away alive, no matter what the cost. If a large unit got close enough to see the fort – which would be a mile due to lay of the land and vegetation; orchard, coppice, copse and so forth – we would have some warning and be able to prepare to take them down. There had been no camp fires all day and would be none in the night.
We worked on, worried, worked over the plans again and again. By nightfall I was exhausted.
“Sleep,” Tulian instructed me. “You'll soon enough be woken if something happens.”
“Have we missed anything?”
“I hope not. I don't think so.”
“If they see us beforehand we are going to have a serious problem.”
“The fort's solid, your towers and siege weapons, battle mages, crossbowmen, enough men to man the walls…”
“A serious problem.”
He nodded, knowing I was right. “Sleep.”
It was my turn to nod. I knew he was right.