The Kingdom

He leapt to the task without asking any questions, but I knew he must be curious. As for myself, I was either going to make a really big fool of myself or pull off the stunt of the century. On the other hand, if I did make a fool of myself it wouldn't matter because I would be dead.

Over the racket of the enemy army, I heard a disturbance off to the side. Looking that way, I beheld Mayrin leading her horse up the steep stairs to the wall top. The horse took to it easily enough, but it appeared that almost everyone was asking her what in the world she was doing. In reply she just kept gesturing off in the distance to me, which only seemed to puzzle her questioners more.

Thanuel and Jarken had appeared in the battery and were both looking on the proceedings with interest. Jarken nodded slowly, as if realizing some private puzzle and picked up a piece of rope and began braiding a loop of it around the rope that trailed out from behind the javelin launcher.

Thanuel walked to the wall and glanced over for a moment and then back to me, before laughing softly as he shook his graying head of hair back and forth, "You never cease to amaze me."

Stepping up to the wall beside him I asked, "Will it work?"

"I think so," Thanuel said. Then laughing again he said, "For your sake I can only hope so!" He slapped me on the back good-naturedly and went to help Mayrin.

In this moment I wished that I possessed his confidence in me. My palms were sweaty, as I ran through my head once again what needed to be done.

A snuffled snort behind me alerted me to the fact that Mayrin had arrived with her horse. I helped her to lead her horse over the rope and to my side of the javelin launcher. The breadth of the wall stretched out before us.

Pointing I said to Mayrin, "Go tell the warriors gathered along the wall to move back to the valley side edge and to stay down."

She looked at me strangely, but quickly complied. The warriors moved back at her bidding as Jarken and I worked on securing his short length of rope, which was noosed over the main rope, to Mayrin's saddle.

I glanced over the wall, and saw that Sar'ran was ready and on his horse, prepared to ride. He gave a big grin and waved up to me. I waved back, as I felt a smile come out on my own face. I was crazy to do this, but increasingly the thought of pulling this off was a challenge I desired to accomplish.