200 horses or near enough moved restless inside a corral of lash timber and rope their numbers a stark aching reminder of exactly what was at stake. Around the corral tents cook fires just beginning to smoke men. Ezra counted 11 before Chaitton's soft correction hit 12. Moving through the camp with the loose, unhurried confidence of men who'd never once believed anyone would be foolish enough to follow them this far. Two guards, Ayanna whispered, pointing.
One on the high rock there, can see most of the valley from that position. Another moving the corral perimeter. Same as before, Ezra murmured, remembering the shape of a plan they'd half formed on the ride in. Neutralized the high guard first, quiet, before he can raise any alarm. I can reach that position, Chaitton said, eyes already tracing a path along the canyon's eastern shoulder.
There's a game trail there that climbs unseen from this angle. I can be in position within the hour. And the ground guard, leave him to me, Ezra said. Ayanna's eyes cut to him sharp. And the horses, 200 animals do not know your scent. startle them wrong and the whole valley wakes before anyone's in position.
I remember you don't have sage and river herb this time," she said, something almost ry beneath the tension. "You'll have to make do with charm alone. I wouldn't count on it. My charm's gotten me this far. Your charm got you an arrow an inch from your shoulder two nights ago, and yet here we all are." Chaitton watching the two of them with an expression somewhere between exasperation and reluctant amusement cleared his throat.
"If you two are finished," he said, "we should discuss the actual plan before the light goes." They spent the next hour refining it, whispering over the ridge, while the valley below settled deeper into evening. Chaitton would take the high guard first, using the eastern trail to climb unseen. Once the ridge was clear, Ayanna would move toward the corral's far side. Ready to open the gate the instant the signal came. Ezra would draw the ground guards attention away long enough for the gap to open, then help push the herd toward the canyon's northern mouth.
The one route Chaitton swore led clear of any second camp or reinforcement. Simple in the telling. Nothing about it would be simple in the doing. They all three knew that and none of them said it aloud because saying it aloud wouldn't change a single thing about what came next. Darkness settled fully over the valley.
Fires dimmed to embers as the camp below drifted towards sleep, one man at a time until only the two guards remained upright and watching. Now Chaitton breathed and slipped away into the dark without another word, moving like something the mountain itself had grown rather than something that had climbed onto it. Ezra and Ayanna waited, counting silent minutes that stretched longer than any minutes had ever stretched in either of their lives, waiting for a signal that would mean the high guard was down, and the next impossible piece of this could begin. came at last, a soft owl call twice from the direction of the high rock. Not a real owl, close enough, though in the dark to fool anyone not specifically listening for it. "That's it," Ayanna whispered.
"Go," she melted into the shadows toward the corral's far side. Ezra started down the western slope, moving as carefully as 11 years of memory. And one long, terrified knight had taught him how to move. He was close enough to see the ground guard's face. Young, younger than Ezra had expected, barely out of boyhood himself.
When everything went wrong at once, a twig snapped under his boot. Small sound, impossibly loud in the dead quiet of the sleeping camp. The guard's head snapped up. "Who's there?" he called, rifle already swinging toward the sound. There was no more time for careful plans.