The gnome was right. They will fight. And they will die.

“Ardal!” she flew around, forcing him to look at her. “Do not do this. You have families to think about. They must make for the fort.”

He stopped. “I will not send them out into the plains at night unguarded. They will be safer here with us.”

This foolishness has no end. “There is no safety here!”

Ardal’s face remained resolute. “If Master Loamtoes went to warn the fort, as you say, then there is nothing to fear. Kederic will send his warriors.”

“You are quick to put trust in a man who so readily abandoned you.”

Ardal continued walking. “He will come.”

Rosheen followed him to the alehouse. The wives and children were gathered, their faces flickering with uncertainty in the light from the building’s fat lamps. The men were rushing over in singles and pairs, pitiful weapons in hand.

“Faabar bid me advise you to flee,” Rosheen pressed on, hoping her words would reach someone of sense. “He is out there now. Padric, too. Shadowing the goblin advance. Giving you every chance! Would you throw that away?”

“We must defend what is ours!” Ardal countered, making sure the crowd heard him. “We have flocks and homes here. Would we give those up so willingly? See it all destroyed and ourselves with nothing but the Thegn’s charity? Then we really are his tenants for good and all! Brogan did not want that. I do not want that.”

“Ardal is right,” one of the men declared. Laoire. His name is Laoire. “We will drive them back. With iron!”

Someone laughed.

It started small, and then grew to an obtrusive cackle. Every head turned towards the sound. Two-Keg stood unsteadily in the door of the alehouse, his face flushed with mirth and drink. He teetered out into the middle of the crowd, barely the height of the smallest child. He swept the people with heavy-lidded eyes, chuckling sourly, stopping when he found Rosheen.

“Best let’em stay, lass. They can do it! They’s shepherds, affer’all. More than a match for what’s coming. Only Red Caps. Pfssh!” He waved his hand dismissively in the air. “They’ve only been fight’n wars, murder’n folk, burning life to the ground for…A… THOUSAND…YEARS!”