“Get out! Out! I won’t have you talking to me like that!” The vixen bowed and turned to go. Silth subdued her voice to a whine. “No, stay with me, daughter, stay. I fear being alone here. This room is far too ugly. It needs more light, more beautiful things in it.”

Lantur bowed again and continued toward the door. “I will stay, Majesty. With me you need have no fear. Wait while I dismiss those fools who are supposed to be guarding your door.”

Lantur stepped outside and dismissed the guards. When they had gone she tapped lightly on the far wall. A female water rat emerged from the shadows of the upper stairs. Lantur nodded at her. “Wilce, keep an ear to the floor of my room. When you hear me snore as if I’m asleep, then send down the White Ghost and start moaning. When you hear the Queen scream, pull it back up again.”

The rat Wilce bowed to her mistress. “I know what to do, my lady.”

Lantur reentered the bedchamber and installed herself in a chair. “Rest, O Queen, I am here to protect you.”

*

Janglur and Rusvul stood in the battlement shadows, watching the moonpatched landscape of open field that skirted half the south wall. Each of the squirrel warriors gripped a massive yew longbow, with a gray-feathered arrow on its string, half as long and heavy again as a normal shaft. Something moved near the woodland fringe.

“Here they come, mate, two of ’em,” Rusvul murmured. “Over by that high sycamore.”

Janglur followed his friend’s direction, sighting the enemy. “Aye, I’ve spotted ’em now, water rat an’ a Marlfox. See the liddle glow? They’re carryin’ a piece of smolderin’ rope. Let ’em get closer afore we take a shot.”

The vixen Vannan bent double, taking advantage of every bracken patch and groundswell. Beside her the rat Dakkle kept pace, blowing lightly on the glowing end of towrope to rid it of ash.

“Don’t blow too hard,” Vannan cautioned him, “’twill burst into flame. Leave it now until we’re at the wallgate.”

Dakkle uncrouched slightly as they moved forward, raising his head a fraction to survey the walltop. “Looks fairly quiet up there, marm. We’ll warm things up a bit for them soo . . .”

As soon as the long shaft struck Dakkle between his eyes, Vannan was off, rolling to one side into a patch of fern. Thunk! Another arrow embedded itself in the spot where she had crouched a moment before. Flattening herself, she wriggled away through the ferns. Two more arrows followed, the last grazing her footpaw. Vannan sprang up then and ran for the trees in a zigzagging rush, tripping and falling flat by the sycamore as a clothyard shaft buzzed overhead like an angry wasp into the woodlands.