CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Royce led the others back to the meeting place almost in silence. There seemed to be so little to say after what had just happened, at least until they had gotten back, seen to the wounded… counted the dead.
They trudged along the long march back, rain coming down now the way it so often did out on the heather. Around Royce, the others started to huddle in under cloaks and even shields, holding them up the way they might to deflect arrows. There seemed to be far fewer than there had been coming out.
“We failed,” Garet said, keeping pace with Royce. “We were going to smash them, and we failed.”
Royce nodded, not knowing what to say.
“It all seemed so simple when we planned it,” Lofen said. “We knew they were going to try to trap us, and we’d trap them while they did it.
