The fourth raider went down without ever getting his spear level. The fifth saw it happen, some animal calculation flickering behind his eyes as his companion folded backward into the dirt, and broke for the tree line instead, panic finally outrunning whatever orders had sent him here in the first place. He made it four steps before Rama caught his collar and put him face-first into the packed earth hard enough that he didn't get back up.
Around the well, the elder's grip on the three children loosened by degrees, disbelief working through her weathered face faster than relief could catch up to it. One of the children was crying now, the first sound any of them had made since the raider's hand had closed near her arm, and the elder pulled her close without looking away from Rama, as though she needed to keep watching him to believe what she'd just seen.
