Wind dragged grit across the ridge while the last workers shuffled between Juna’s cut markers in single file.
Eirwen walked at their tail with an arrow nocked loose, counting heads every time the path bent.
Wren jogged back down the line, breathless and muddy, "That’s the whole yard crew, my lady, nobody left behind."
"Then keep them tight to the markers, Juna cleared the ground, not the sky above it."
A bowstring snapped somewhere above them, and a barbed hook hissed down the slope into the line.
It bit through a young worker’s sleeve and yanked him sideways toward the open scree just beyond the safe markers. A cord trailed from the shaft to a firing ledge, where an officer crouched with eleven Shards circling his arms.
"Down!" Eirwen shouted, loosing her own arrow before the young man’s feet left the path.
Her shaft split the cord a hand above his elbow, and he sprawled flat against the safe ground.
"He hooks people," Wren wheezed, dragging the young worker back by his collar, "he’s pulling them off the path like fish."
"Yes, I noticed the fishing."
’Twelve Shards against eleven, and my Zone is still empty from the last war.’
She slid behind a split boulder where she could see his bow arm without showing him her whole body.
The officer drew again without hurry, a fresh coil of cord feeding off a spool bolted right beside his knee. He kept the hooks for the crowd and saved clean broadheads for anyone stupid enough to stand and shoot back.
"Wren, can you walk them along the lower markers without me?"
"I can walk them blind, I’ve herded goats on worse slopes," he blurted, then flushed, "sorry, my lady, people aren’t goats."
"Then herd them like goats anyway, fast and low, with every head kept below the rocks."
"And you?"
Eirwen thumbed a fresh arrow from her hip quiver, "I’ll keep his eyes on me."
’No borrowed answer, no stored command, just my bow and whatever I can reach.’
---
Wren clapped twice and the line lurched forward, crouching low while he hissed directions over his shoulder.
The officer shifted his aim off the crowd and fired at the gap Eirwen meant to use for her retreat. A cable whipped across the narrow cut behind her boulder, its far end stabbing into a spike already driven there.
"Prepared that last night, didn’t you?" she called, eyeing the taut line.
"I prepare everything, Alder," he drawled from the ledge, "your road, your retreat, your little parade of runaways."
"They aren’t yours to drag back."
"Every one of them owes the captain board and tools, so step out and we’ll talk about your share."
"I’d rather talk with arrows."
He laughed and swung his bow toward the crowd instead, drawing a clean broadhead straight at Wren’s back.
’He wants me to choose between their backs and my own hide.’
The choice took no time, and her feet were already moving before the thought finished forming.
Eirwen broke cover and loosed into his shaft’s path, her arrow snapping his broadhead apart a yard short of Wren. Splinters rained harmlessly across the scree while the workers scrambled after their guide behind a long ridge of tumbled rock.
"Go, go, go!" Wren squeaked, shoving a woman ahead of him.
Eirwen did not follow the crowd toward safety, and she sprinted straight uphill at the firing ledge instead.
"Are you insane?" the officer barked, fumbling his next hook.
"Maybe a little," she panted, vaulting a fallen trunk without breaking stride.
His next arrow tore past her ear close enough to sting, and she twisted low under the hurried second shot. Loose rock rattled beneath her feet while the angle shortened, and every single step made his long draw more awkward.
From the nearer angle she finally saw everything, his spool, his bracing knee and his drawing hand.
Eirwen planted her rear foot and loosed through the spool’s hub, pinning it hard against the ledge stone.
The cord jammed mid-feed, and his next hook jerked short and clattered uselessly across the rocks.
"You little—"
"Bow next," she warned, already drawing.
Her second arrow struck his upper bow limb, and the wood cracked loud enough to echo across the whole ridge. The officer cursed and flung the ruined weapon far aside, then snatched a loaded hand crossbow off his belt hook.
His fingers closed on the grip, and Eirwen’s third arrow punched straight through the back of that hand.
He screamed and dropped to one knee, clutching the pierced hand against his chest while the crossbow skittered away.
"Yield," Eirwen said, her fourth arrow drawn and steady on his throat, "or reach again and find out how quickly I nock."
He stared at the jammed spool, the shattered limb and the arrow through his hand, then his shoulders sagged.
"I yield, damn you, I yield."
"Good, then you’ll live."
He spat onto the stone and sneered up at her, "The captain will just send another archer up here."
"Then he’ll find the ridge empty and his first archer tied up with his own cord."
"You could’ve put that arrow through my eye from the scree."
"I could have, but the elders need a witness more than I need a corpse," she replied coolly.
---
Eirwen kicked his crossbow off the ledge and bound his wrist with a cord from his own jammed spool.
Below them Wren waved his arms, and the crowd peeked out from behind the tumbled rock.
"My lady, the lower markers end at the slide," he called, "and I can’t tell which way down is solid."
She turned to the officer and crouched beside him, keeping her arrow loose across her knee.
"You know this slope better than anyone, so which descent will hold their weight?"
"Why should I help your runaways?"
"Lie to me, and you walk down that path first, ahead of every one of them."
He glared at her for a long, sour breath, then jerked his chin toward the eastern side, "The goat track past the cairn, the western slide moves every time it rains."
"Wren, the goat track past the cairn, east side," she called, "and nobody touches the western slide."
"Goat track, east, cairn, got it!"
’If the track holds, I chose well, and if it slides, the fault is mine to carry.’
She watched the first workers test the ground, then the next, until the line moved downhill without a stone slipping.
’Hajin would ask before deciding, but he isn’t here, and this decision belongs to me.’
The officer squinted at her while his blood dripped onto the ledge, "You’ll hand me to your foreign lord, then?"
"No, I’ll hand you to the people you hooked, and they can tell the elders what you did."
His mouth twisted, but he said nothing, and he stayed kneeling while she counted heads below.
The last worker cleared the cairn and vanished into the trees, and the ridge stood finally empty of anyone.
Eirwen climbed to the ledge’s highest stone and unfurled a signal flag, snapping it twice toward the fort platform.
Far below, a small figure on the platform waved back with a war mallet, bouncing on her heels.
’Your turn, Loccy, nobody’s left beneath it, so move the whole thing however you like.’