A bearded rider in a grey tunic broke from the wheat then, black horse galloping, dust rising in a pale cloud behind him. He pointed back over his shoulder as if the gesture alone could move villages.
"Run!" he shouted. "They're coming!"
Behind him, from the tree line below the ruined castle, a huge army of horse and foot crested the horizon. Dozens of crimson banners matched the cloth in the creature's grip. From the well the army looked like a storm given legs. The tiny circle of stone, the chickens, the linens, Miren's outstretched hand—all of it became suddenly absurd against that moving wall.
The rider reined hard enough that the black horse skidded. Tobin of the ridge flocks, Miren recognized him now, Ralla's brother, the one who sold wool in spring and apologies in autumn. Sweat cut clean tracks through the dust on his face.
"South road's already watched," he gasped. "Osric's vanguard. They mean the grain. They mean the village. Go—warn Sibley—"
The creature hauled itself over the well's lip with a wet scrape of scale on stone. It did not flee. It planted its feet on the damp rim, wings half-spread for balance, and held up the crimson scrap as if presenting evidence in a court no human had convened. Its eyes were the yellow of old resin. When it opened its mouth, the sound that came out was not a hiss exactly. It was closer to the groan of a gate hinge that remembered better days.
Miren did not take her hand back.
Edric looked from the banners to the creature to Tobin's horse. "How long?"
"An hour if they keep parade pace. Less if the captains are hungry." Tobin's gaze snagged on the winged thing. "By the empty cisterns—what is that?"
"Later," Miren said. She scooped carefully, the way she would have lifted a lamb from a ditch, and the creature allowed it—allowed, not submitted—settling into the crook of her arm with the cloth still clenched. It smelled of wet rock and old smoke. "Edric, the bell. Tobin, the mill. If Corin hasn't heard the hooves yet, his stones will."
They moved.
Stonewell was not large. A double row of cottages along the rutted track, the mill on the creek bend, the shrine of river stones Elder Sibley kept swept, the drying sheds, the goat pens, the low wall that pretended to be a boundary and was mostly a place to sit. Miren ran with the creature against her ribs and felt its heart ticking fast and independent against her own. Edric took the short path to the bell-post and rang it hard enough that the iron note went out across the wheat like a thrown nail.
Doors opened. Children appeared. Mistress Keld from the dyeing shed came out with indigo up to her elbows and a ladle still in her hand. Corin the miller strode from his doorway wiping flour from his beard, saw Tobin's horse, and went pale under the white.