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  “Sarah, will you dance with William at the ball in Barley Point on Saturday? He’ll truly ask you,” teased Tabitha.

  “Shut up, you,” came the good-natured response. “I’ll bet he won’t even be there.”

  Tabitha wasn’t giving up. “Of course he will,” she retorted. “He’ll be home from Aldingham for the harvest by then, and he’s going to be looking for you…”

  Sarah cringed.

  William Forling, who was, to the day, three years older than Sarah, was the youngest of seven boys. He hailed from Grayvern Farm, the 100-acre parcel bordering Hilltop Farm to the west, and he had fancied himself Sarah’s sweetheart since the two were small children, with the not-so-silent blessing of both Will’s and Sarah’s parents.

  Sarah long considered William a friend, but a match? The Forling boy was tall – too tall – and laughably clumsy. George had teased the neighbor boy as he grew up by likening him to an unmade bed, and that had stuck with both the Stuarts and his parents. Will had shocks of flowing blond hair which grew so quickly he was seemingly giving it a fresh cut once a week just to keep it out of his eyes. He was frequently tripping over a pair of snowshoe-sized feet and his confidence in front of the community’s adults was somewhat absent, leading to a comical stutter.

  Since his departure for the academy two and a half years earlier, the younger Forling was also a frequent correspondent via post. Those of his letters she did read were filled with awkward romantic overtures. As she became old enough to recognize boys approximating her age as potential husbands, Sarah crossed William off that list. Emphatically.

  No, Sarah would not marry William. Sarah would do much better. She’d had that conversation with her father and made her stance clear, but it was the source of some consternation to her that George didn’t seem to take her very seriously.

  “Such obduracy in matters of the heart!” he’d said with a grin, upon Sarah informing him of her rejection of William, just before his departure for the academy. “Young Forling shall lament the day his parents settled in the vicinity of so demanding a belle.”

  After such a mocking response from her father, Sarah had turned to her mother for support. “He thinks I’m a silly girl!” she’d cried. “How can you let him be such a brute?”

  Judith had merely cast her eyes up from the novel she was reading. “I always say that time solves these questions,” she said, in her languid Trenory drawl. “But I do expect you, as the oldest of our girls, to be the first to marry. If the Forling boy isn’t to be your betrothed, I trust you will surprise and delight us with a young man of means and culture to join us as our son-in-law.”

  Sarah knew then that it was time to shut up and let the matter drop for the time being, but she was right about William Forling and her opinion of that boy had been well set. No one was going to change it.

  “Maybe he’ll dance with you, Tabitha,” Sarah said.

  “Is it dancing when you trip and fall on the first step?” her sister, the comedienne of the family, wondered. “Besides, he’s certainly not interested in me. You’re what he wants.”

  “Ugh. Poor boy. He needs to find a nice girl who’ll appreciate him and won’t mind how floppy and ungainly he is.”

  Tabitha wasn’t ready to give up. “It’s funny you say that. Robert’s letters make him the luminary of the student body at the Academy.”

  Sarah found that hard to believe, though perhaps not impossible. She hadn’t laid eyes on the Forling boy in over two years, though his letters to her had come in a steady stream that had declined from weekly in his first year at the academy, to monthly in his second year, to a bit less regularly so far in his third until the last few weeks when they’d resumed their initial pace. She’d read them occasionally, and, less occasionally, sent polite responses.

  “That’s most wonderful for him,” she replied to Tabitha sarcastically. “I’m sure he’ll do very well, and make some other girl a capital husband.”

  It was then that Sarah noticed Hannah wasn’t seated at the milking bench, her cow mooing in an irritated fashion.

  “Hannah!” she snapped. “Get to work!”

  “Something’s wrong,” the youngest sister said, as she stared out of the shed’s door facing to the south. “It looks like Thistleton Farm is on fire.”

  Thistleton, due south of Hilltop, was visible from the Stuart family manor and its outbuildings because of the height of their vantage. It was about three miles away, and it was occupied by the Hawklines, a young family with four children: three boys and a girl all younger than Ethan. Judith had struck up a close friendship with the mother, Evelyn Hawkline, who, like Judith, had grown up in Trenory. Mrs. Evelyn was something of an aunt to the Stuart children. The father, whom they didn’t know as well, had been a merchant sailor and was originally from somewhere in the Northeast.

  Sarah raced to the shed door to share Hannah’s view, and Tabitha followed just behind. The three gawked, as dawn broke, at a pillar of fire and smoke emanating not just from the Thistleton farmhouse but also from its outbuildings, and they could make out amid the pall several – more than a dozen – of what looked like horsemen with torches.

  “Those look like Udars!” Tabitha whispered, paralyzed with fear.

  “Go inside the house,” Sarah barked. “Tell Father. Get the rifles from the hunting closet, and as much ammunition as you can carry. Now!”

  No time to spare, she thought, as she threw open the cattle door and clapped the cows into the pasture – if this was a Udar raiding party, something she’d heard about but never experienced, perhaps if the cows scattered they could escape capture or slaughter. She needed to get Hannah and Ethan into the ice cellar, where there was a hiding space in which they could be safe, and then help her father defend the farm. On that score Sarah felt somewhat confident, if that was possible in circumstances like these, as she’d hunted often with her father and brothers and wasn’t a bad shot. George had impressed on his children, particularly in the last couple of years, the urgent necessity of marksmanship amid what he saw was a flagging commitment by Ardenia’s army to defend the settlers of the frontier.

  Racing to the house with Hannah by the arm, Sarah found that the adults were already in the midst of preparation for what lay ahead. She bumped into her mother still in her shift just inside the side door as she entered the manor’s kitchen.

  “Take your sister to the cellar,” Judith commanded, an unfamiliar urgency bordering on panic rising in her voice, which scared Sarah. “But before you do, get the strongbox from your father’s office and bring it with you down there. You know how vital that is to us.”

  “Yes, mother,” she said, as George, his nightshirt untucked over his britches and the buckles on his knee-high boots undone, blew past her with his arms stuffed with saddlebags, his carbine rifle and his scabbarded cavalry sword.

  “Three rifles and a crate of magazines are on the living room table,” he said over his shoulder. “Get those after you hide Hannah and Ethan, and bring them to the south balcony. You’re going to need to take firing positions with your mother. Quickly!”

  Sarah did as she was told, reassuring her terrified youngest siblings and admonishing them to “stay quiet until I come for you” as they tucked into the cellar hiding space, and she then rushed up the stairs as fast as her legs would carry her. The clunk-clunk-clunk of her clogs against the wooden stairs was, she thought, a good approximation of her heartbeat.

  Atop the stairs, she turned left into the master bedroom where Judith was hurriedly donning a robe to go with her bedclothes. Tabitha was throwing open the double doors to the south balcony. Tabitha and Sarah turned a table on its side and dragged it out to serve as a shield against enemy arrows and throwing axes, and then Judith joined them in taking position near the southwest corner of the manor house’s second floor balcony.

  She could see her father outside. George was on his horse, thundering down the hill to the south to scout the trouble.

  He didn’t get far, thoug
h. Barely 200 yards down the road to Thistleton, Sarah could see him stop his horse, empty his rifle in a quick succession of trigger pulls and wheel around to his right. He sought to lead the enemy away from Hilltop Farm, at least as he reloaded a new magazine while riding in preparation for a new defense, but the Udar advanced on a full gallop straight for the manor house.

  In strength.

  Sarah had heard her father’s stories of the fearsome Udar war party–thirty to forty riders, equipped with practically every implement of pre-modern warfare and deadly skill in their use. The short bow, the throwing axe, the Ba’kalo halberd, the curved Gazol sword and the barbed Izwei dagger weren’t much of a match for a Thurman rifle or the chain gun, he’d said, but with superior numbers and in close combat the Udar could wreak utter destruction on cavalry or infantry alike. That came from a lifetime of military training for Udar men, for whom no other profession was considered acceptable. All occupations other than hunting, piracy or warfare were the province of women in that savage society, which meant the Udar could punch above their technological weight in the prosecution of violence.

  And this was a full war party, thundering up the road to cut George off from his family. The lead Udar were approaching the low stone wall at the south end of the manor proper now. Sarah could see that these were powerfully-built men, shirtless under vests and britches to their knees made of some indeterminate animal skin, with boots of a similar material, and the unmistakable fearsome trademark headdresses fashioned from the skulls of various creatures, including those of the human species. They filed around the wall, emitting war whoops as they rode to surround the Stuart manor house.

  Crack! Crack! Two Udar were unhorsed by George’s rifle shots as he advanced on the enemy now from their rear. Sarah watched in horror as four more rounded on him, two unleashing arrows in his direction while two more rode at him brandishing Ba’kalos.

  George dodged an arrow from one and shot the man square in the jaw from 25 yards with his Thurman rifle, but the other dismounted him with an arrow to his horse’s neck. Sarah’s father managed to jump clear of his mount, and rolled to a defensive position as he drew his pistol on the first halberd-bearing Udar. He fired, killing the raider with a bullet to the throat.

  George wheeled to shoot the other man approaching him, but he was too late.

  The mounted Udar gored George in the collarbone with the spear point of his Ba’kalo, driving him backward into the ground. The last of the four warriors, who had unhorsed him with the arrow, rode up and dismounted, drawing his Gazol and decapitating the head of the Stuart family with a cruel, unceremonious blow.

  Now the Stuart women were all that was left of Hilltop Farm’s defense. The last moments of her husband’s time among the living had unduly engrossed Judith, and she and her daughters had missed opportunities to shoot the advancing Udar who were now inside the wall and busily setting fire to the outbuildings of the farm.

  “Girls, shoot as many as you can!” Judith screamed. “We have to save ourselves now!”

  Sarah ran to the west balcony, the one above the front door and facing the road. The manor house was festooned with columns and a second-story balcony bordering all four sides of the building. She took aim at one Udar who advanced on the front door. She shot him in the side, and he crumpled into the flower bed along the footpath. She sighted another leading two Stuart horses by the bridle from the barn, and hit him in the leg. The horses panicked at his fall, and he was trampled by one. She then took aim at a third Udar as he came for the front door – and missed.

  Things then became considerably worse, as Sarah caught a glance of a pair of hands atop the balcony rail on the northwest side of the manor house. She pointed the rifle in time to see a head and shoulders rise above the rail, and let loose a shot.

  It found purchase, as the Udar’s face exploded from a bullet through his nose. He fell to the ground from the second story.

  Back to the west, Sarah then shot an Udar rider as he raced around the house from north to south. She dodged a thrown axe, which landed barely a foot to the left of her head, bouncing with a spark off the stone wall, and she cast a glance toward the south in search of its thrower. Finding him, a dismounted Udar drawing his bow, Sarah drilled him in the stomach with another rifle shot.

  Six shots, five hits. Four bullets left in the magazine, with another in the pocket of her skirt.

  Sarah raced to the north, and saw another rider attempting to scale one of the columns to reach the north balcony. She killed him with a bullet to the side of the head. But her next shot at another Udar, wielding a torch as he rode back across to the west, missed, and she missed him again as he launched the torch onto the house’s roof. Sarah began to smell smoke coming from inside the house, and looking into the second upstairs bedroom window, she could see the manor was ablaze.

  One shot left. She hadn’t seen her mother or sister since just after her father died. She stopped herself from thinking about what she’d witnessed and what might become of the family. Concentrate on what you can control, she thought. There will be time for all of that later.

  Coming back to the south balcony, Sarah shot another Udar warrior as he ran with another torch toward the house. She stole a glance down the balcony as she reached for another magazine and reloaded, and that’s when she saw with horror Judith’s body, pierced through the heart with an arrow as she slumped against the wall. Her lifeless eyes seemed to look almost accusingly at Sarah.

  By the Saints! she thought. I’ve lost both Mother and Father in front of my very eyes. This is the worst day of my life.

  But the worst had only begun. When Sarah looked up from the remains of her murdered mother, she saw an Udar warrior holding a knife to Tabitha’s throat as he turned the corner from the east balcony.

  The man was the most frightening vision Sarah had ever seen. Though not quite as tall as her father, who’d stood a commanding six-foot-two, this warrior was at least twenty stone, powerfully built with an angry russet complexion set off by an impressive straight beard tied in a point a few inches below his chin. Iron rings covered his immense left arm from the elbow to the wrist, and a massive headdress topped with the skull of a Blood Raptor, a species of predatory bird Sarah thought was extinct on the Great Continent, adorned his head. He wore a black vest made of some sort of leather and britches to his knees of a similar material dyed blood red. On his feet were boots of a fleshy color. As he moved, she could see a long, dark braid of hair dangling near his waist from under his headgear, and as he glowered at her she noticed that his yellowed teeth were filed to sharp points.

  “Rochat, mazeen!” the man spat. “Avoy! Rochat!” He made a move as if to slash Tabitha’s throat.

  “Let her go,” Sarah said, in as calm a voice as she could manage while raising her rifle, “or I’ll shoot you dead.”

  I have ten shots left, she thought. But I don’t know how many I can fire before he kills Tabitha. And maybe me as well.

  “ROCHAT!” he roared in a deep, intimidating voice. “Avoy!”

  “I’m not dropping this rifle, you bastard,” she said, recognizing it unlikely he would understand; the Udar were not known to bother themselves with knowledge of the Civil Tongue. “You can kill my sister and me, but I’ll take you with me and we’ll go in opposite directions in the afterlife.”

  She could hear guffaws of laughter from the ground below the balcony, which she assumed were in response to her defiance more than the specifics of her words. Some two dozen Udar warriors had gathered to watch the deadly drama as though it were a sporting event.

  The Udar holding Tabitha looked down at his comrades, then back at Sarah.

  And a smile crept across his face as he pressed the knife further to Tabitha’s throat.

  Her sister began to issue a scream, but was quickly silenced. Tabitha’s final utterance was cut short as the Izwei ripped across her neck, nearly decapitating the girl in a rush of blood. Then the warrior advanced on Sarah.

  Screaming w
ith rage and terror, Sarah quickly fired, hitting him in the thigh with the first of three shots but missing high with the next two. The Udar was barely slowed by the bullet, and in seven steps of a dead run he tackled her, throwing her back against the doorframe. As she was catapulted backwards by his broad right shoulder, her head hit the limestone of the wall outside her parents’ bedroom, and everything went black.

  …

  TWO

  The Barley Point Road – Morning (first day)

  H.V. Latham’s real name was Henry Varlet Latham IV, which under different circumstances would have been a famous name worth carrying. For a time, his father Henry Varlet Latham III had been one of Ardenia’s most famed stage actors, heading a dramatic troupe which performed all along the locomotive circuit from the capital at Principia to its far-flung destinations in every direction. It was on what turned out to be the last of those tours, however, when elder Latham found himself in an imbroglio involving a card game in the train’s lounge car, that an incident ensued involving a pistol and a very angry man accusing the actor of dealing from the bottom of the deck. Henry Varlet Latham III was shot dead halfway between Belgarden and Valledge Lake.

  The death of H.V.’s father hit the teletext wires within minutes and had made all the broadsheets by the end of that week, and what started as scandal soon became legend. The younger H.V.’s mother reacted by immediately putting her husband’s property on the market, banking a half-share (H.V. and his sister were in for quarter shares each when the house and most of its contents were sold at a premium at the Brown’s Auction House in Principia). She then promptly took up with a retired Navy admiral of her husband’s acquaintance, and decamped for the mountain resort town of Guthram in the far northeast.