While weapons were sharpened and distributed in the snowbound camp, I was picturing him, in his comfortable tent, and wondering whether he would betray our plans to the Council. While Simon and Piper drilled the troops, and Sally went over the plan of attack with them, I waited and waited for some sign from the Ringmaster. If he’d moved quickly enough, there might be time for him to bring soldiers to us before we marched on the town. I watched the horizon to the north and the west. Sally kept her distance from me, but on the last day she caught me alone, staring beyond the ring of reeds that encircled the camp. “No messengers? Nothing?” she said. “Nothing.” I could feel no hint of reinforcements, or of the Ringmaster’s presence. Nothing was visible on the horizon but the charred bones of what had been the forest. Tomorrow we would attack, and we would be doing it alone. I had seen the blast scorch the world, a thousand times or more, but the battle scenes in my recent visions were so intimate that they affected me differently.
