Raven's Warrior by Vincent Pratchett

done would be done under the cover of night. This game of chess afforded little movement and no mistakes, but the first strike would come from the enemy troops. The one advantage that the rebels held was that this was their territory, and if civilians could reach the forest unnoticed, they could escape.
    His footsteps rang from the bare stone walls as the rebel walked steadily and effortlessly to the room at the far end. This was the last vestige of a life before war, it was bleak and unadorned, a room not fit for habitation, a room now used only for idle storage. The young man stood before the large machine, which to the untrained eye seemed a complicated contraption. It was built and used by his great-grandfather, and it had passed from one generation to the next along with the skill to make it sing.
    The young hands that had first used it were now bone within the earth, and yet they reached down to him from ages. What he saw, touched, and heard was what his forefathers had seen, touched, and heard, and it bound them both and gave him strength. With rough cloth he wiped away the dust layer that bore witness to abandonment and disuse. A spider scurried from its woolen threads. Another time he would have carelessly wiped it away with the dust, but now he watched it and was sorry to have destroyed its home and sent it scrambling.
    â€˜Regrettable, another casualty of war,’ he thought and then he sat before his instrument. His feet and hands moved with the speed of practiced lightning. Working the loom had always set his mind at peace, but he was not concentrating on the weaving, he was going through the motions of movement and strategy. Time had no substance here, and the afternoon passed as though it had never been.
    He continued effortlessly, a man both totally present, and yet, very much far away. On this day he cared naught for composition or color or sequence, he cared only that this work would bring him mental clarity. He stopped his work at the loom only when his mind had stopped its working. All the possibilities had been considered, all the permutations had been exhausted, and he stood, now confident that his next course of action would be the best one.
    Darkness had fallen, as he stretched his tired and weakened frame he thanked his ancestors for the life he had been given. It was time to get back to the serious business at hand, and time he realized, was now everything. Before returning to the company of his men and those he protected, he looked upon what he had woven. Strangely, it was a color he had never used or ever noticed. Before him stretched a sky of blue, dyed from the leaves and flowers of woad that grew with abundance in the hills of his old home region.
    He touched his work with a curious fingertip and thought, ‘Too small for a carpet, too plain for a prayer rug, mindless effort with no real purpose.’

Sacrifice
    The small children that were by nature so active, now slept with mothers and elders; they were heavily sedated. The ones old enough to walk were left alert, but their faces were wrapped to muffle any cries of pain or fear. All faces were blackened with soot from the lamps, and the clothing worn was also dark. Meager rations had been evenly distributed. The major components of the plan had been explained. There was nothing more to do but wait, and waiting of all the tasks was by far the most difficult.
    Now they sat in groups of one hundred with each group being assigned one soldier from the rebel forces. Talking was not permitted, and so only their eyes held their conversations. Some spoke of defiance, some of fear, and all spoke of love and farewells. Hers spoke clearly of loss and sorrow, but much more loudly of strength and resolution.
    The rebel’s wife kept her oldest by her side and nursed the baby one last time. Her milk was drying, but her breast would soothe her infant while the sedative took effect. Her husband entered like the wind of a winter’s day. No longer