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A few more seconds pass. A trio of thumps roar out again, the roof-men testing the hatch. It holds. It'll hold for hours. They had bows, not axes, and breaking something like this with your bare hands is the work of stubborn fools like Jove and six hours of splinters.
Edward, reloads hastily, peeks out the door. An arrow SLAMS into the frame and he ducks back inside. Looks like multiple fast moving people out there, ducking, moving, the shuffling of feet. Not shouting, not making noise. They communicate with quick hand signals, looks like. Professionals at this kind of thing. Too much noise would give them away.
Alright, alright, alright, two muskets, two spears, one axe, one bow, four shields, one wounded man, one wounded woman, a nice table set for ten and a good stout building. Crassus had worse odds in the Pytherii Civil War, right? Field Marshall Aranski once took a fort with four men and nine-thousand-nine-ninety-six scare crows and a blunt museum sword. This can't be the worst thing that happens to you today.
The woman Zivka brought in has found her feet. She looks oddly steady. Takes two steps to the side, grabs a chair, and spins it out and away from the table then sits right does. Scoffs at the food. Zivka's quick snap word to avoid the food gets a nod. She agrees.
Gingerly runs a few fingers along the top of her skull, tests the bandage that Zivka gave her. Then rubs her wrists. She has rope burn there. Was she tied to the chair outside? In the chaos, it was to hell - she had fallen sideways. Maybe if she was tied, a small sharp thing, for hours, while we rested near the entrance to the village?
She looks woozy. Her pupils are still strung out. She's oddly coloured, even in here, out of the sun. Wrack? Poison? Something else? But she waves off Edward attention. Points a shaking hand at the trooper with an arrow sticking out of his clavicle and a profuse bleeding. He's trying to patch himself with one hand but it's not exactly winning any Free College of Medicine scholarships.
She tries to speak but she's parched.
Gives a little hand motion towards the water skins at our belts.
. . . well, yes, there's the rub isn't it. Six Company folk. Six water skins. Six rations.
Seven people.
How long is this siege going to last? Well, it's probably not a concer. They laid out such a feast for you, after all.
