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The woman's horse stood so near him that she heard the sling's whistle and turned her head as the beast collapsed. She dismounted hastily, dropping her spear in the process. Pahid's horse fell on the old man's leg and wrenched his knee. Clark reached out of the culvert and grabbed the woman's spear, but before he could pull, she hit him in the neck with her fist. He dropped down just in time to avoid her knife. She took a few blind stabs at the shrubbery, but he kept the stick between himself and her and managed to crawl away with only a few cuts on his arm. The two of them ran down the road toward the battle, Pahid barely limping though his knee was already swollen. Clark bound up his arms in Expandages he carried with him. The cannister had been leaking sticky threads of white bandage for days. When he finished, it was nearly empty. Had he been on his toes, he might have figured out some way to trip the horses with it and so avoided getting cut.

From the top of the ridge around the hollow he commanded a fair view of the battle in the grass. A small part of Pahid's force had allowed itself to be drawn out there, but that did little good since the catapults had not been set up in the hilltops before the alarm was sounded. A team of men who were supposed to be engaging horses in the wood had instead gone down to the fields, where five of them baited riders to charge while the other two held a pike on which to gore the horses. A line of shield-bearing Verloringers swept through the woods, followed by men and women wielding slingshots. Pahid's red-haired lieutenant, riding again, led a corps of twenty women divided in two groups, who approached the shields from either side, slinging stones and feigning charges, holding them stationary as though to exhaust their ammunition. Clark was sure she must be backing them into a trap. From where would someone have a clear line of fire at them? He remembered the rock outcropping Paula had worried about. It must be near.

Stones whirled past Akiva. One struck him in the chest and knocked him flat. Others were falling also. There was a pause while the horsewomen reloaded their slings.

"Stagger your fire, don't forget!" someone yelled.

Now a volley of stones flew toward the horses.

"Advance!" Tiyar commanded.

The first man to respond was carrying a field harrow shaped like a giant claw. He almost flew forward, hurled by the weight of his weapon. Tiyar followed. The horsewomen moved back. Spear-wielders emerged from behind the horses. Verloringers with pitchforks ran down from the west under cover of flying stones. The first return vollley stopped half Pahid's spears and left people and several horses writhing or dead.

A boulder flew out of the hills at them. The horses screamed and bolted. The Verloringers fled. Soon, that side of the hollow was empty. The Verloringers massed on the opposite side, the north, surrounded by slings and spears that hemmed them in without inviting combat. For the Defenders, this was no longer a battle but an exercise, and to be hurt in such minor action would make a soldier ridiculous. Pahid's mounted force waited on the plain for an order to charge.

Clark had followed the boulder's trajectory to its origin. Here must be the catapult. A stone grazed his stomach. He dropped down flat. Someone ran past, trampling on his hand. He grabbed an ankle. It was a boy, about fourteen years old, with a slingshot. He tied the boy's wrists with the shotstrings and lifted him to his feet. "Now, I want you to go back where you're coming from," he told him.

The boy led him a short way and stopped. "Over there," he said.

A granite outcropping shone pearl-grey in a thick stand of pines. Clark squinted to watch a shadow appear and disappear at the top of it. The smell of granite dust mingled with fresh-cut pine. The machinery creaked. A rock flew past and landed far off with a boom like thunder. Still holding the boy, Clark circled behind the rock under cover of the thicket. He counted five warriors casually reloading the catapult. He pointed to one at random and said, "Call him."

The boy did nothing.

"Call him," Clark repeated. The boy rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. Clark knew the horses might charge at any moment. He landed a vicious kick in the boy's knee.

"Don't!" the kid sobbed.

One of the figures on the rock turned around. When she came near, Clark jabbed full force in her solar plexus with his stick and took her knife away. Kill her? He gave her a push downhill, thought better of it, pulled her back and struck her on the head with his stick. The boy knelt beside her.

"Ingrid!" a man called from the rock.

Clark's stone hit the man and he fell into the undergrowth. Groaning, he rose to his knees. Clark scuttled as close as he dared. Two younger women came to help the man. Clark guessed them to be sisters, and wondered if these five might be a family. He leapt out of the brush, knocking down the man as he did so, and held the knife above the man's head. The daughters shrieked.

"Quiet!" Clark hissed, but it was too late. He heard footsteps. He ducked into the underbrush. Someone followed him. He turned suddenly to stab the pursuer. It was Fuego.

They returned to the catapult. The father was about to cut the restraining rope and fire, while the two daughters braced themselves to steady the base so it would not turn when the mechanical arm swung. Fuego whispered, "I'll get the man. You tie up the big sister in the cord. Then we turn the base and cut the rope."

Clark handed him his light knife. "To Clarkwell with love. Work for Harmony," Fuego read. He wrapped his fingers around the crescent, turned it on, and dropped it with a gasp.

"No, that's the end the beams come out of. Hold this end. Move this button to move the point where they converge. That's what cuts. Your hand all right?"

"I think I can make a fist. Let's go."

Down on the field, Paula was telling everyone, "When they come, just stand your ground. Then drop back, behind the horse-pikes, running backward. Show your fronts; otherwise they'll slow down. Keep them coming." She moved among the troops, showing an authority she did not feel, slapping people on the back, correcting a grip here and moving someone to a better position there, while behind her Tiyar did the same among those who manned the pikes. A line of women held shields turned to the north, uphill, where Pahid's footsoldiers lounged, jeered and occasionally shot stones. No one bothered to shoot back. The east side was clear, except for splintered trees and half a dozen new boulders that described the limit of the catapult's range. Retreat in any direction would be bloody.

For a moment there was quiet. All the birds and animals had fled. Even the worms had gone deeper, it seemed. Paula saw an ant crawl over a woman's foot and felt a rush of gratitude for the little emissary. But it could not be there on purpose, she thought, and her welcome turned to pity.

A great stone rent the air. This time Paula could see the volley would not fall short of them. She would die here. To die is inevitable, she reasoned. We are only another means of settling the universal dust. How lucky to die in a cause, in rescue, to be spared the ridiculous years of nostalgia for these few moments of real life. She charged Pahid's line.

"It's the witch!" a man screamed. They made way, then closed around her as she fell.

A stone landed, square in Pahid's cavalry. The horses panicked, scattered and finally, the riders barely clinging to their necks, fled galloping out between the two hills to the west. The two groups on foot, Defenders and Verloringers, stood looking at one another. Neither side wore leather or any uniform but muddy cotton overshirts, Pahid's soldiers' greyish and those of the Verloringers tending to black. Most of the Defenders of Faith looked about sixteen to twenty years old, while the Verloringers ranged from twelve to past sixty. A few on each side were pregnant. The Verloringers crouched and called out threats in deep voices. The Defenders stood erect and jeered. Stones flew back and forth but seldom hit.

The Verloringers advanced. The grinning enemy dropped back. They could hear one or two horses neighing in the hilltops while the two groups slowly traversed the hollow, keeping clear of the plain though the catapult seemed asleep. When they were backed almost to the woods, the Defenders turned and circled back toward the other side.

It was past noon when the great stones began to fly again, not toward either side but onto the roadway and up in the hilltops. Both sides stopped moving. They heard the horses coming back, racing up the western pass behind the Verloringers.

"Attack!" yelled Tiyar, lunging forward. His weapon was an axe.

The harrow claw lodged in a spearwoman's side. She screamed. Her companions ran toward her. Others ran at her killer. He dislodged his weapon and raised it. They fell back. He swung it round at shoulder height, spraying them all with blood. Every Defender slingshot was aimed at him. A deluge of stones rang on the iron fingers.

The rest of the Verloringers seized the chance to come close. They tumbled forward, laughing with relief at the end of the long weeks of marching, days of waiting and the morning's slow fearful dance around the hollow, to begin the fight at last.

Tiyar shouted, "You stand at the brink of hell!" a battle cry he had picked up from Pravelany toughs at home.

"You are in hell!" a man replied.

Tiyar hesitated at this explanation. The side of his face, his arm, and the blade of the axe gleamed bright in the sun. Then he struck with such fury that the blade split a man's skull and the long bone of his upper arm, meeting a stick raised to block it, gave way. He switched the axe to his other hand and leapt among the spearmen, dodging their thrusts and slashing their hands and faces. At this range, they often speared each other.

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CONTINUE.....................

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