“You…stand in for him,” Dancer repeated.

“Imagine that you are in a dungeon, the captive of your enemies, knowing no one will come to your aid,” Crow said. “I didn’t want to leave him, but I took this chance, hoping I would find you here, and you could help him. Now I can’t get back.”

This man, Dancer thought, would know what it was like. This man, of anyone, would want me to succeed in rescuing Hunts Alone.

“All right,” he said. “You can come along as my guide. On one condition.”

“The Maker save me from upland traders,” Crow murmured. “What is your condition?”

“I want to bring a friend along,” Dancer said.

C H A P T E R  T H I R T Y - S E V E N

UNDER SIEGE

For days after the siege began, there was plenty to do: secure the perimeter, inventory supplies, organize work teams, and establish duty schedules. Raisa convened strategy meetings with those on her council who were on the inside. Her uncle, Lassiter Hakkam, seemed to have forgotten that he’d ever championed a marriage between Raisa and Gerard Montaigne. He was understandably nervous about his luxurious manor house outside the walls. He couldn’t understand why that issue had not been part of the negotiations.

They sent birds to Gray Lady, with no response. Birds arrived from Demonai Camp to say that Montaigne’s army had made it through the pass but the Demonai were doing their best to stall them in the mountains. There was no mention of Han.

Char Dunedain was a general without much of an army—only those few highlanders who happened to be inside the close at the time of the attack. She gathered up all able-bodied men and women within the close and went about turning them into effective defenders. She established a fletchery and a weapons foundry in the bailey. Those who weren’t standing patrol or sleeping were set to melting down cookware and tools for arrow points. Children gathered feathers for the fletchery and worked in the kitchens to free up their elders for training. Dunedain and Amon were the kind of military team that Raisa had wished for. Too bad their first challenge had to be this.

Nightwalker and the other Demonai worked hard, too, reinforcing their reputations as tireless fighters. Nightwalker, especially, lived up to his name. He never seemed to sleep.

Fortunately, the striper army had little in the way of siege equipment on-site, having seen no need to break into strongholds. At one point, they began building a crude siege tower, but gave up on that when the Demonai fired flaming arrows into it and it burned to the dirt. However, Raisa suspected that Gerard Montaigne’s flatland army would be better equipped for this kind of warfare once they arrived.