attack

Explosions everywhere, down near the square and up here on the plateau, some very close. Fog, or smoke, covers the hillside opposite, moving in. A flash in the mist, a sickening pause, then the sharp blow of the blast, its echo crackling around the unseeable lake.

Roosters scream, and dogs can't stop yapping, but I hear no bells, no wheels on the cobblestones, no sound of people anywhere. Nothing moves except the fog, which roils, as a last cat sprints out of it, along a roof-ridge, and back in.

I need to run, but cannot turn away from the window. I'm watching the world end.

=====[lacuna]=====

... on the mountaintop, in the woods. Further up, above the treeline, wind so fierce they were swept off the precipice — we watched them fall; their screams only reached us after they were out of sight.

No one has spoken, no one can speak. I know we are safe here, for the moment, but no one else does. These are gentle folk, happy folk, they cannot take in what just happened — not that I could explain, even if I spoke their language. I don't know what they'll do next, once they catch their breath, but if they decide to bolt from this cave I'll have to let them go.

Or go with them.

He must have seen me writing: a boy, nine or ten. I was sitting by the cave mouth and saw him moving closer to me, curious; the others didn't notice.

I turned my little book towards him. He stared at it, then at my face. I opened to a new page and drew an explosion, with people running. Among the people I drew a smaller one. I aimed my finger at him, then touched the figure. He looked again, then smiled the way all the children here do, like they're the ones protecting you, not the other way round.

A woman spoke sharply and he spun towards her. I raised both hands to say to the others: everything's all right. The boy shouted something to them and everyone shushed him, but he pointed at my book, whispering excitedly. So I held it open towards them, saying in my calmest voice that I was only writing down what happened this morning, and the boy wanted to see.

Of course they could not understand my words. I tore the page out and gave it to the boy, gesturing for him to show them. He ran it to them, and they gathered round, the boy chattering on, pointing at the picture, then at himself. They stared at it a long time. Then the tallest man straightened up, looking at me with angry eyes. It was the boy's father: the same face. The rest leaned away slightly, looking up at him. I couldn't swallow.

The father said seven solemn words. The rest looked shocked, then burst out laughing. The boy was bewildered, but I understood: 'My son does *not* look like that.' I could only shrug and smile, and after that I felt it would be safe for me to stay with them — as long as we remained in the cave.

Over the next few hours we tried to decide what to do next. This was difficult, but my little book helped — we passed it around, drawing maps and diagrams. I wanted them to understand that we should remain where we were: the explosions had stopped, but that did not mean it was safe to return — quite the opposite, I felt.

Had we all been speaking the same language, I could have given reasons and examples to back up my advice, which in truth was based only on a very bad feeling about what had happened to the town: we should wait until it got dark, then run the other way.

But they understood what I meant, though I could see it was very hard for them; they wanted — needed— to go back, to see what could be done, to help those left behind. But I knew their home was gone, or in the hands of men who wished them ill, which amounted to the same thing. I had some idea who attacked the town, and if I was right the only safe thing was to vanish, which we had done, into the cave, but after that to put ourselves as far from here as we could, as soon as we could.

By now it was quiet back where we came from, which meant the fighting was over; the attackers would likely be preoccupied with securing their position while the light lasted. Then they could start pillaging, inside the perimeter.

I knew how to get away: more than once I had paced off every fork and turn of every path out of here. But I'd let my wish to be done with running persuade me to stay another day, and then another, telling myself that my instincts would alert me when it was time to go — not realizing that that very thought was the signal I was waiting for: the first time I worked out my escape route, I should have used it to escape.

We are twenty-some in number; the boy is not the youngest nor his mother the oldest. I had thought that their leader was the boy's father, then his uncle or even his older brother, for it is the mother's face they both share.

When I realized that, time stopped, as the Remnant say. I will now need many words to describe what happened in the space of a dozen heartbeats, but this is how it was:

The leader wants to leave. I cannot blame him. He feels trapped; something must be done. Hiding in a cave is cowardly, and he is no coward. On the other hand, he now has all these others under his care, and he must protect them, which, as I know with certainty, means waiting a while longer.

I watch him closely as he tells what he is thinking — perhaps it is well I cannot understand his words, for it helps me concentrate on how he speaks, and how the others take his words.

He is easy enough to read: what he is saying now is a repetition of what he's said before. And even if I didn't recognize the pattern of sounds, I would know from his tone that he is marking time, waiting for some weight to shift, in his mind, or among his listeners. I look at him more closely yet: he is younger than I thought at first; the boy is his brother, and the woman is the mother of them both.

She herself is suspicious of me, but she is also shrewd: she sees I know something about this situation that no one else does, but she doesn't like it that I am a stranger. The business with the boy and the drawing made an impression on her, but all that did was to keep her from rejecting me outright. She of course is more sensitive than I to the leader's mood as he talks, and knows better what to make of it. So I watch her as well.

He is no longer speaking just to me, or only in response to my urging that we stay. What he is saying now is either prologue to the decision he has made, or else an appeal for their help in making it. If it is the first, and he has decided on leaving, I will have to act immediately; if the second, I may have more time to try to persuade him we must not. If I can do this, he will convince the others. I need a sign, and hesitate, knowing that what happens next can be fatal for us all, for I cannot leave them now.

And then he gives the signal. As he draws breath to say his piece, he glances at his mother.

Before he can utter another sound I go down on my knees before her, grasping her hands. She stiffens, but I hold on. When I look into her face, the tears just come, and I burst out: 'We must stay here until it is dark. We must stay. Please! Please! If we leave now they will see us, and we will be taken, and die. Once it is dark we will be safe. Please! Listen to me! — and I go on like this, holding her eyes with mine, sobbing, until she softens.

I took a terrible chance. I know now — I knew then — that the suddenness and force of my movement might have gotten me killed, and had she pulled away, I would be dead now. But she held her ground, and looked into my eyes, which kept the others off, and she did not let me go until she knew entirely who I was, whatever nonsense I was babbling. When I finally felt her assent, in the slight relaxing of her hands, I sank back on my haunches, covered my face and began to bawl — from relief at that point, for I was sure what she'd decided. It remained to be seen if she could win her son.

She took hold of my beard, berated me for making such a spectacle, and threw a handcloth in my face to make me wipe my nose and act like a man. Her son came over, terror turned to rage at me, but she headed him off, acting exasperated, gesturing at me scornfully. Whatever she told him, it persuaded him to forgive my outburst, poor savage that I was, who didn't even know how to speak like a person. Then she turned away in apparent disgust, dismissing me, and, after a moment, he came over and muttered something to me I had no trouble understanding: he knew only too well how it felt to be scolded like that.

He asked to see the drawings I'd made earlier, particularly my escape route, and questioned me closely about this and that marking, as if to cement it in his mind, memorizing it so he could help lead the way in the dark.

The worst part was waiting. We were on the far side of the mountain; someone needed to find out what was going on in the town. It was very hard for me to convey this idea, but it worked out like this: in order to approximate the shape of the mountain we perched on, I tore a page from this notebook, folded it, and placed it on a flat rock with the fold side up — like a blanket hung over a line to make a tent. The town sat at the base of one edge, below the corner; our cave was near the peak at the opposite corner, around on the other side of the fold.

For quite a while we conferred over this model, drawing on the page, placing smaller rocks and sticks next to and on it to represent the other features of the terrain, making piles of pebbles where we thought our enemies might be. The rest gathered around us, murmuring and pointing. At last I was fairly sure we all understood what was to happen: after I left, they would wait until the young moon went down; if I did not return by then, they would set off without me, following the map I had made that marked out the escape route.

It did not take long for me to slip along the treeline just below the ridge to the large boulder field at its far end, where it overlooks the town. I stood in the shadows at the top of the clearing for a long time, listening, feeling for the presence of others, before moving out into the dim moonlight towards the promontory. Sure enough, no sooner had I passed through the huge rocks than I could see a sentry standing at the edge of the cliff, looking out over the plateau below, where the town spreads around the foothills at the mountain's base.

It was enough to know how close even one of them was to our hiding place, and I should have gone back at once. But I waited, and in a moment another came up to him and said something, and they both laughed.

I had a weapon in my kit; it would not have been difficult to kill them both, standing together as they were. But I had to consider that once they were missed, a party would investigate, this area would be searched, and our trail would be found.

So I listened to their voices long enough to discern that they expected nothing interesting to happen, and then pulled back into the woods to return to the cave.

By the time I got back, the sickle moon was just above the horizon, its pale shimmer pooling in the mouth of our hiding place. It was so quiet inside I thought they had left without me, but as soon as I stepped into the opening of the cave I heard a collective exhalation, and the leader came forward into the light. I reassured them with a few gestures, and they showed me that everyone was ready to go.

We watched the curved blade of moon slowly slice into the horizon, then sink behind the faraway mountains. When its last gleam was gone, we left.