The North Fork Road roughly paralleled the North Fork of the Calder River, with its stringer of woods. About an hour before you reached extensive forest, the East Fork flowed out of the hills to join the North. There, Wollerda was to be waiting with two hundred men, to jump the reeve’s company from behind when it had passed. Then Macurdy’s platoon was to turn and hit it from the front. Between his force and Wollerda’s, they’d outnumber the reeve’s more than two to one.
Macurdy couldn’t afford much delay at the village. If the reeve caught them before they’d passed the junction with the East Fork, they were in serious trouble. They’d have to abandon the loot, try to reach the forest and scatter. His people said not to worry, it wouldn’t happen that way, and he’d nodded as if he accepted their assurance, but . . .
And finally, how well would his men perform? Would they hold ranks? Fight well? Would he make good decisions?
On top of it all, his mouth hurt where new teeth were pushing through. Now he knew why teething babies fussed. New teeth! Weird, at his age. Apparently it was a side effect of Varia’s magic to keep him young.
Macurdy could hear the village dogs almost as soon as he saw the village, their distant barking less insistent than that of the farm dogs they’d passed. Bark bark, pause. Bark bark bark, longer pause. Like Morse code, he thought. Houses hunkered darkly in the moonlight, with here and there something taller—barns and stables he supposed. Somewhere in there was the bailiff’s stronghold.
His lips stretched tight over his grin. He felt better now, as if the immediacy of action was clearing away his nervousness. Quickening his horse, he caught up with Tarlok. “Keep it to a walk,” he said, loudly enough for the men to hear. “They won’t react so quickly.”
At four hundred yards the village dogs became aware of them, and the barking spread quickly, gaining energy. Another wagon road crossed the one they were on; they’d take it eastward when they left. Meanwhile their present road took them into and almost through the village before they came to the stronghold, its fence looking solid and formidable in the darkness. The barking from inside was deep and raging, a sort of staccato roar that made him twitch.
His men knew their assignments and needed no orders. One group turned off on the near side, another rode past and turned off at the farther corner, each group with a packhorse carrying a ladder for laying against the fence, a ladder broad and strong enough for three men to cross abreast. Macurdy and the rest stopped in front of the gate and waited. If there’d been an outside guard, he’d disappeared. Meanwhile what were the inside guards doing? Their dogs were just inside the gate, barking like something out of hell. The whole village had to be awake by now, he thought, and for the first time wondered what would happen if the villagers sided with the bailiff. Traditionally, flatlanders and hillsmen had been hostile to each other, feelings dating from ancient wrongs occasionally renewed. The bailiff, on the other hand, was a present and continuing evil. But . . .
Then someone inside whistled shrilly, a signal to those outside, and the dogs raced away from the gates, still raging. There were shouts from several points, and very close by, a man screamed. The barking thinned as dogs were killed. The access gate opened, and one of Macurdy’s men looked out.
Macurdy trotted in with another group, and stumbled over a body; a gate guard, he supposed. He wondered if his people had taken any prisoners, as he’d instructed, or if they’d simply killed everyone they didn’t know. There seemed not to have been any serious resistance. His attention went first to the wagon gate—a double gate, its two halves meeting in the center. They were barred—that was no surprise—but they were also fastened inside by a heavy, padlocked chain through two large eyebolts. And they needed them open, to get the packhorses back out when they’d been loaded.
“Slide the bar out!” he shouted. “Use it as a battering ram!” One of his men tugged on Macurdy’s arm. “Captain! They had a bunch of tax girls shut up in a shed. What do you want done with them?”