the looming shoulder of the mountain, for the Bashkai. They were still making camp, setting up tents, starting cooking fires.
"How does anyone find anything?"
Gavin looked up and down the colorful chaos. "Slowly. Tent banners give rank, clan. Look long enough . . ."
"What if someone attacks them?"
"Ant nest. But mostly they run forward, not back. Ever see a Bashkai without his weapons?"
"In the bath?"
"Ever see a Bashkai in a bath?"
Kyro thought a moment, shook his head.
"What the hell . . . ?"
Gavin was pointing at an arrow quivering in the ground. Voices were yelling. Someone ran past. Someone else staggered, fell clutching his belly, an arrow. Gavin reached down, grabbed the shield the Baskhai had dropped, looked around for the enemy. Beside him Kyro yelped. The feathered end of the arrow sticking out of his shoulder pointed up. Gavin looked up, around. Many of the Bashkai had shields raised, mostly against the castle. He saw one of them stagger, fall. That wasn't it—too far. He turned, looked up to where the lower slope of the mountain rose almost vertically from the edge of the camp, pointed, yelled. One of the Bashkai saw, called out something in his own language, raised his shield against the arrows sleeting down from above. Where the slope above flattened out, Gavin could see figures outlined in black against the eastern sky.
Gavin recognized the banner on a tent. "Arkhal! Out here,