Like the whole world, thought Nylan, but maybe I can change her a little. After he dressed and strapped the pair of blades in place, he lifted the cradle, stepping carefully so that he didn't trip on either cradle or blades. He snorted, thinking how pointless it would all be if he tumbled down four flights of stone steps before the battle.

"I'll bring her down in a moment," Ryba said. "Go ahead and eat."

"Fine," he grunted, struggling through the door with his burden.

After he slowly trudged down the steps and set the cradle next to the others carried down by either Siret or Istril or those who had helped them, Nylan paused. He saw a hand wiggling and walked over to look down at Weryl. Flat on his back, his son studied his own chubby hands, his short fingers intertwining, then separating, as if they were not really connected to his own body. Antyl-the new and very pregnant guard-stood watching.

Nylan bent down and touched Weryl's arm lightly, trying to offer some cheer.

After a bit, he straightened. In the next cradle lay Kyalynn, being rocked by Niera.

His other daughter's eyes were wide in the dimness, but she only looked, first at Niera, and then at Nylan.

Nylan walked around the cradle so that he could bend down without getting in Niera's way, and he touched Kyalynn's wrist. Her eyes turned to him, deep green and serious as he looked at her.

Finally, his eyes burning, he stood. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and started toward the great room. Though his guts were tight, he knew he had to eat, as much as he could stomach.

"I saw that, Nylan."

He looked up as Istril stood there: Then he shrugged. "What can I say? I didn't have a lot to do with their birth, but nothing can change that they're my children."

"You had a lot to do with their birth, just not their conception." Istril swallowed.

"I hope Weryl grows up like you."

"I hope he grows up," Nylan said bleakly.

"He will. I can see that."

"You, too?" Nylan forced a chuckle.

"Me, too." Istril paused. "You're not riding with the guard?"

"No. I'm supposed to stay with the laser, and try to hold off their wizards in some way that I haven't really figured out. So I don't have to worry, in the beginning, anyway, about arrows and blades."

"That doesn't reassure me, Nylan."

"What you're wearing doesn't reassure me much, either." Nylan looked at the silver-haired guard, in full battle dress with twin blades, and the bow and quiver in her hands. "What about... ?"

"Weryl? There are more than score eighty armsmen out there, and two of those small siege engines. Every person counts. Siret and I drew straws. I won, or lost, depending on how it goes. Yesterday, she went out with the sniping detail. You know they got almost two hundred of the Lornians, especially in the darkness?"

"What about their wizards?"

"They can't see that well in the dark, and Saryn had the tactics laid out well.

Only one shot from each position, then move. When you've got twenty kays of trail to leapfrog along and they don't dare leave formation, it's not that hard."

"Of course," Nylan said, "by this morning those fifteen hundred or so who are left are ready to kill us all, preferably by attaching sections of our anatomy to horses traveling at high rates of speed in different directions."

"Probably. We just have to kill all of them. Then they won't be a problem."

Nylan looked at her. He thought he saw a faint hint of a smile. Then again, maybe he hadn't. "That's not a solution that works well over time."

"No. It'd be a lot easier if most men were more like you, but they seem to be more like Gerlich."

Nylan's stomach growled, and his head felt faint.

"You need to eat, and so do I."

Nylan nodded, and they walked toward the great room, where the tables were mostly filled. The candles helped dispel some of the predawn gloom, but not much, and they flickered with the breeze through the open windows.

Istril sat down at the second table.

Ayrlyn-dark circles under her eyes-nodded as Nylan sat down at the head table.

"You're tired," Nylan said, reaching for the pot that held the bitter tea he needed-badly.

"It was a late night."

"You went with the archers?"

Ayrlyn finished the mug of tea. "I can see in the dark. It helps."

Sensing her exhaustion, Nylan stretched across the table and refilled her mug.

"Thank you." The healer put a chunk of bread in her mouth almost mechanically, as if each bite were an effort.

"Do you want some meat?"

"No... thank you," the redhead added. "It's not your fault, Nylan, but it was a long and hard night." She slowly chewed another piece of bread.

"It's too early," grumbled Huldran. "Bad business to fight before dawn."

"We're not fighting before dawn," said Fierral. "We're eating."

"How did it go last night?" asked Nylan.

"Well enough that any other idiot would have turned around. There are bodies everywhere along the road. Their commander was smart enough to keep them moving, and not try burial. They've got a half-fortified encampment a valley or so down out on a rise that's surrounded by grass." Fierral chewed through a thick chunk of bread, and then a lukewarm strip of unidentified meat that Nylan had tried and choked down despite a taste like gamy venison. "We didn't get many after they camped. Too open."

"We got a lot, and lost a few ourselves," Ayrlyn said tiredly.

Nylan understood her exhaustion went beyond mere tiredness, and he wondered how many she had healed, or had been unable to heal.

Ryba, fully dressed, had carried Dyliess into the great room, although she had left her bow and blades on the shelves by the stairs. As she seated herself, and Dyliess, she answered Ayrlyn's comment. "That leaves a lot, and us with fewer guards."

Nylan repressed a wince, wondering how Ryba could sometimes be so insensitive-or so strong-as to ignore such pain. Which was it? he wondered. Then his eyes crossed Ayrlyn's, and he offered a quick and apologetic smile.

He got a brief one in return.

"We'll have the first of the picket posts set in a bit, ser," said Fierral. "I had some of the newer guards out real early, scrounging shafts and weapons from the ones that fell last night. They should be back not too long after dawn, well before the army starts moving."

"Men are slow in the morning," mumbled Huldran. "Excepting you, ser," she added to Nylan.

The smith-engineer wondered why he was the exception to everything-or was that just because Ryba needed him? Or because he disliked the use offeree to solve everything, even when he was guilty, or more guilty than just about anyone, of employing it? He took a sip of tea, then lowered the mug to his chin, letting the steam seep around his face.

After a few more sips, he slowly chewed a strip of hot-sauced venison, and then another, and then some more bread. All of it tasted flat, but he kept eating.

"... engineer's off somewhere ... got that look ..."

"... wouldn't want to be in his boots ..."

"I would."

"That's not what I meant..."

In time, he looked up. Ayrlyn and Fierral were gone. The tables were half- empty, and Ryba was wiping her face one-handed, juggling Dyliess on her leg.

"Can you take her?" asked the marshal. "Antyl and Blynnal are keeping the children, while Siret holds the tower..."

"I know. Istril told me." He stood, then took his daughter, still looking at her mother.

"You know what you're going to do?" Ryba asked.

"It's pretty simple, in theory anyway. You and the guards get them bunched on the hillside, and I fry them. That doesn't take into account that they may not want to bunch or that their wizards may have other ideas, or that the wizards may be able to block the effect of the laser. Or that the wizards may be able to fry me.

But," he concluded, "I understand the plan." He paused. "Was there any problem getting some of the newer guards to trip the pikes?"

"No. There were a handful who'd have done it on a suicide basis."

Nylan winced. "There's a lot of hatred here."

"There's been a lot of hidden hatred between men and women in a lot of cultures, Nylan. It's just more obvious here." Ryba half turned. "I've got to go. Ill either check with you or send a messenger once we're set."

Nylan shifted Dyliess to his shoulder and patted her back as he walked slowly to the other side of the tower, trying and succeeding in not tripping over the pair of blades he wore.

He eased Dyliess into the cradle, then patted her arm and touched her smooth cheek. She smiled, then threatened to cry as he stood.

"Istril told me you were here earlier." Siret had just handed Kyalynn to Antyl, and she stepped toward Nylan. The silver-haired guard had deep circles under her green eyes, and a narrow slash across her cheek.

Nylan reached out and touched the skin beside the wound, letting a little order seep into it.

"You didn't have to do that."

"You didn't have to go out last night and try to reduce the odds against us."

They just looked at each other for a long moment.

Then Nylan cleared his throat. "Take care of them. Just . . . take care of them."

He turned and headed up the steps to the fifth level and the components of the weapons laser. Huldran joined him on the way up.

The sun had just begun to ease above the great forest to the east of the cliffs when Nylan carried the weapons laser head and cables across the lower meadow to the crude brick revetment. From the raised position on its platform on the highest point of ground east of the tower, amid the fields, the weapons laser had a clean field of fire in nearly any direction.

Behind him followed Huldran and three of the newer recruits, none of whose names Nylan knew, carrying the heavy firin cell block and the rest of the equipment.

Nylan positioned the tripod, then clicked the firing head onto the swivel. After that came the power cable.

"Let's move the cells to the center here," he suggested, and one of the new guards, a mahogany redhead, helped.

After that he straightened and looked at the three new guards. "That's all we need for now. Go do whatever you're supposed to do."

"We're supposed to guard you," the redhead said. "Oh ... all right. Then get as many shafts as you can and whatever else you need and report back here. When the time comes, try to use arrows and keep them at a distance. The farther away the better."

"Yes, ser."

The three guards started walking toward the tower. Nylan shook his head and turned to Huldran. "I'll check this out while you get our mounts. When you get back, I want to inspect the pike lines. Is that all right?"

"I get to walk up to get the horses and bring them back, and you get to ride?"

asked Huldran, raising her eyebrows. "I thought it was a good idea," said Nylan.

"Sometimes, ser, you still have certain male characteristics."

They both laughed. Then Huldran trotted uphill along the paved road to the stables and the corrals where not only the horses were, but where the sheep had been gathered.

As the early golden light fell across the meadows, and the fields, Nylan slowly went through each and every connection, letting his senses check the lines where the flows would follow. He did not power up the system. He could sense that it would work, and he knew that he would need every erg of power, and probably a lot more.

When he had finished, Huldran had not returned, and he looked out to the west, to Tower Black standing in the light against the shadowed rocky hills that rose eventually into the higher peaks of the Westhorns. In the flat morning light, the Roof of the World was quiet except for the steps of the last guards heading up to the stables. The grass hung limp in the stillness, dew glittering like tiny diamonds in the light. The scene appeared almost pastoral.

As Huldran rode across the grass, leading the brown mare, Nylan took another deep breath, conscious that he had recently been taking a lot of deep breaths, a whole lot-and that nothing had changed. He still had to destroy hundreds of men, just so Westwind would be left alone. He walked behind the emplacement and started to check the mare's saddle before he mounted.

The triangle rang three times-twice. A squad or group of guards rode down past the smithy and the tower, and over Nylan's short bridge and up the hill past the end of the paving. As they vanished over the crest of the ridge, the triangle rang again in triplets, and Nylan swung into the mare's saddle and started toward the pike emplacements.

Another set of riders passed the tower, and one turned her horse toward the laser emplacement, then changed her direction toward Nylan.

Behind her, the three newer guards hurried across the meadows, followed by a man in black-Relyn.

Nylan reined up and waited for Ryba.

The marshal drew up beside him, and began to speak. "The Lornians are forming up and beginning to march toward the flat down on the other side of the ridge. The scouts say that they're two kays down past the flat." The marshal glanced toward the sun. "I'd guess it would be after midmorning before they'll be in your range. Longer if we're successful."

"Then I hope you are most successful," Nylan said.

"We'll see. That's something I don't know. I'll try to send you messengers, if we have any to spare." Her eyes were bleak.

"Don't worry," he answered. "I'll do what I can." As if I had tiny real choice at all, between you and them.

As Ryba spurred her horse back toward her guards, Nylan glanced to the great forest beyond the steep eastern cliff that dropped away in its nearly sheer fall.