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First Test

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In the middle of one night the lady lay abed alone in the quiet. She was often awake with her worries and fears for her family and her people, and sleep came only short and irregular on any given night. It was still cold out, for spring had not yet come, but the wind was still at least. She sat up in her unrest, and went to the window, pulling back the thick curtain to peer out through the spaces between the shutters as she frequently did. Officially it was spring, but winter was slow in loosening its grip in these northern hills, and the cool air streamed in crisp through the cracks. The moon was full and bright tonight, and she stared up at it sitting big and pale above the boughs and branches of the woodlands - many of which bore only the tiny little buds of new leaves. Through the plush pine needles waving gently in the night breeze she watched enchanted for a moment as its soft light danced gaily on the forest floor around the house. The shadows of the tree branches and needles swayed, and she stood for a while as her thoughts wandered far away, wondering about her husband and the others who had all left together for battle and war with their elf friends. 'Where was the big fight?' she thought to herself. 'And how long had it persisted? Were they fighting right now? Or was there a lull in which he was resting in a tent? Maybe even under a tree - then perhaps he might be enjoying a moment of silence watching the moonlight play on the branches of his tree and on the ground below just as she was now. Was he even still alive?' She stirred from her musings and clenched her hands. 'No, I cannot think of such things. No good did such worries do anyone. One would run mad, and certainly that would not help those away, or those at home.

At last the lady sighed, and stood back up from where she had been leaning against the wall, ready to head back to bed. But just as she was reaching to close the curtain something out in the midnight woodland scene caught her eye, and she paused. At first it seemed just the movement of the tree branches casting their shadows in the moonlight, just within the fences. But she watched for a few moments, and soon perceived that they were not shadows of trees in the wind. She kept watching, waiting in hopes that it was only the woodland creatures stirring as dawn approached. But no, she soon realized someone was there, carefully moving from tree to tree. More than one. Thankfully she had not opened the shutters, and quietly she backed away from the window, focused now on keeping her head in her alarm, and went to fetch her weapons along the wall. Then swiftly she left the room, to carefully rouse the servants. She wondered whether she should wake her son. A part of her wanted to deal with the threat on her own with what adults she had to her, both to spare her son and the other young ones from such an ordeal, and also to prove to her son her own mettle as the leader of those left behind to manage the homesteads. 'No,' she thought to herself, 'don't be foolish. He should be awake, not only for the needed help, but also if should it come to worst and the enemy were to break in.'

By the time she knocked on his door all the servants were up and moving. She bid her son rise and fetch his weapons, and set him with another servant - an old man - at his window with bows and arrows. The old man's wife she sent into the common storage cellar with some of the children, while some of the other ladies went to fetch the young ones and their mothers from the other houses. Shortly many of the other women - older girls near come of age and their mothers and unmarried ladies near her age - came hurriedly through her front door dressed and armed and ready for orders, while some of them peeled away to post up in teams along the building walls in the shadows of the houses as she had taught them."

"Are the others in the cellars?" asked the lady.

"They are going in now," said one of the women. "We have our teams outside waiting."

The boy came out of his room. "What can I do, mother?" he insisted.

"You can keep your post!" she replied. "How close are they?"

"Still approaching through the breaches they made in the fences, not too close. There is still time to prepare," he said. "Let me go outside with you to face them!"

She stopped and looked at him a moment, pondering her choices in organizing those she had available to her for mounting the defense. Finally she said, "I need you to go down to the common cellar with the others."

"But -,"

"All the others are hiding there," she reasoned, soft yet stern. "If the enemy wins to it, then what? Those hiding there will be trapped with no hope of defense or rescue or flight. Unless you are with them. Please, son," she added, clasping his arm. "It is an essential guard post that needs doing."

Finally he was assuaged by her words, which seemed to offer at least the promise of a test of action and valor. He nodded in acknowledgement, then bowed and left. Shortly she gathered the other women, and led them outside. As they filed out and peeled away into teams she glanced over and saw her son over by the storage cellar, helping usher everyone into the little dugout cave. She glanced over through the woods a ways to the southwest. The other villages of their people could not be seen from here at this hour, when all were asleep, but she had sent off a few of the girls to begin waking folks up to help. Then the lady and the others made their way carefully in the shadows to the farther sides of the houses at this edge of their village. She set archers behind the cover of trees here and there, but each team had at least two, and as these teams moved together hunched low amid the cover of trunks and brush, members kept looking back and forth between each other and the other teams farther away. Finally they all had reached their assigned spots where they hid, and waited.

A large troop of shadowy figures in iron helmets and black capes was approaching through the trees. The lady could see them clearly now, and was intently trying to count them. Her companions were alternately keeping an eye on the enemy and on their fellow teams sitting at a greater distance, waiting for the enemies to reach an easier distance. The trespassers were careful not to speak at this point, seeming to sense danger afoot in their mission, but their fall of their feet on the carpet of dead leaves and pine needles and their limbs brushing against bush and branch still made quite a racket, helping to guide the defenders' judgment in the dark. But the lady knew they could not wait too long, for she knew the enemy could still smell their prey easier than her ambushers could see their predators. At last she let out a quick little whistle, and the archers who were waiting in hidden spots behind trees or posted up on boulders, each already had an arrow trained on a target, began firing. Then she gave another whistle, long and loud, and her team sprang out and charged with spears in alternating teams under cover of the arrow fire, and the other teams emerged from their spots farther away and started moving toward them in flanks. The enemies were taken by surprise, for they were indeed tracking the scent of their prey but not expecting them to be ready and waiting to resist. Finally came teams wielding shorter range weapons: swords and axes and long hunter's knives, attacking whoever of the enemy left that was not engaged or coming to the aid of their other comrades.

The first and largest team now endeavored to keep their assailants engaged, and the enemy troops were scrambling to pull together a defense. Some of the quicker ones dashed out of the way, some to save themselves, some bolder ones to attempt to return the favor of surprise attack. But the flanking teams had reached the lead unit, and the posted archers still kept a broad view of the battlefield, so these stray enemies were spotted quickly and kept at bay with relative ease. The defending teams began to converge on each other, and their attackers were pushed back the way they came, many falling to blade and arrow as they went. The assaulters were not a large enough group to overwhelm their target, the chief village of the mortals in these parts, and they were surprised by the stiff resistance they encountered, and finally those that remained turned and fled in the darkness.