The Way Into Darkness: Book Three of The Great Way by Harry Connolly Page A

attack the grunt, but they were clumped together erratically, and ordinary townsfolk were mingled among them. Some of the citizens held hammers or cleavers, while others just stood there gawping, as though the only protection they needed was to have others standing a little closer to the beast. Beyond them were the carts of the caravan and the little market town the walls had been built to protect.
    Tejohn could see no evidence of the charge he’d witnessed through the doorway.  
    An arrow struck the dirt near the grunt and it shifted position. Tejohn saw the body at its feet more clearly as the beast tore a long strip of muscle from the boy’s leg. Its mouth, throat, and forearms were red with blood.  
    Monument sustain us all, that thing is huge . When he’d seen the grunts in Peradain, they’d looked as big as bears, if not larger. Had they grown over the months since they’d arrived or was the thing’s size magnified by Tejohn’s fear?  
    “F-form up,” Remly said again, his voice almost at a whisper. Tejohn was close enough to hear him, but the soldiers near him didn’t seem to.  
    He couldn’t stand another moment. “Fire take you,” Tejohn snapped at the commander. “Organize your archers to shoot in volleys and get those spears in a line! You need to block the northern end of the courtyard before the grunt gets into the town. Your spears have a better chance if they have room to maneuver.”  
    Snowfall opened his mouth but no sound came out. He gave Tejohn a murderous look but didn’t rebuke him.  
    “ What are you waiting for? ” Tejohn shouted.  
    The commander flinched and glanced at the grunt. It had turned to look at them, drawn by the sound of Tejohn’s voice, and Snowfall trembled under its gaze.  
    Someone came up behind Tejohn and began to tug at the rope around his wrists. Who ever it was, he ignored them. “You’re afraid,” he said to Snowfall. “You are a Fire-taken coward who thinks commanding an army during wartime is a comfortable political appointment.”  
    The rope binding his hands was severed, and he loosened the knots and rubbed his wrists. “He has always been this way.” It was Redegg behind him, a tiny belt knife in his hand. The old man bent to cut the rope binding his ankles. “The old tyr valued loyalty over competence. You can make your escape in the confusion now.”  
    “I know,” Tejohn said, then he walked across the top of the wooden stairs and slapped Remly Snowfall on the side of the head very, very hard.  
    His helmet rang like a muted gong and he collapsed like a stack of children’s wooden blocks. Tejohn immediately began to unsling the man’s shield from his back.  
    “Shall I help, my tyr?” Redegg said.
    “Sword belt.”  
    The merchant worked on the buckle while Tejohn slid the man’s knife into his belt. The open cuts on his back should have been more painful than they were. He knew they were bleeding, but he had found his anger again and there was no time for shallow injuries at the moment.  
    Tejohn hefted the shield while Redegg hung the sword belt on his hip. It was the biggest shield he’d ever held--a rectangle that came up to his bottom rib if he rested it on the ground. The wood was thick and the edge was rimmed with bronze. What’s more, it was notched and scratched heavily; someone had fought with it.  
    The old merchant strapped the belt on him faster than Tejohn would have thought possible. The fellow had the hands of a pickpocket. If only he could find a spear.  
    “ARCHERS!” he shouted, startling everyone. He started down the steps, slipping Snowfall’s helmet on. It was too wide; why did no one have a normal-sized head? “Form up for a volley on my command!” To his satisfaction, they began to do it. Perhaps there was a value to those ridiculous combs after all.  
    “Spears!” he shouted at the men and woman milling around the northern end of the yard. “Form a picket line! You can not let this thing