He had chosen his place the summer before, with the help of several small boys who thought it was a great game to play at being soldiers and to keep that a secret from their mothers. An outcrop of rock at the end of a ridge, separated from it by a rift the boys spanned with a plank. The track up the mountain turned here, to go around the outcrop. If his sight had been clear, he would have been able to see anyone coming up the track, and then look down on them as they turned, and turned again the other way, to continue up to the village.

He hoped—he had to trust—that he was still the Blind Archer. All he could see was a blur, lighter by day and dark by night. The invaders would not be fire-shapes like the dragonspawn. But the gods would not have set him here unless he had a purpose. That he was sure of, though he was not sure who stood before him until that person moved or spoke, and he could not name the gods he believed gave him purpose.

He felt his way across the plank and pulled it free, hauling it up onto the top of the outcrop with difficulty. Then he sat down on the rock he had chosen and ate a little bread, drank a little water. He felt lighter, the old battle excitement rising again. That surprised him; he had not expected to feel it. The sun warmed his face; he smelled, under the smoke, the rock and the aromatic bushes that grew near it. He touched the foxhead ring on its thong around his neck, thought of putting it on his finger … thought of throwing it away, so those who found his body would not know who he was, or take it to use. Finally, he left it on the thong. He was, at the end, a soldier, and he did not really care who knew it.

Before he heard anything with his ears, the stone beneath him shuddered once. Earthquake? But before he had taken five breaths, he heard voices from below carried on the wind, men’s voices complaining, and took the stone’s movement as a warning.

The notches he’d chiseled in the stone reminded him where to stand, how far he could move without being seen. This outcrop gave him three places from which to shoot, and he could move between them without being seen—at least until they outflanked him and came from behind. That would happen, he was sure. But if he made it sufficiently costly, they would be slow to expose themselves. And they did not know the details of the land. When they’d come before, they’d simply come up the trail the village folk used to trade with the fisherfolk below.