breathlessly organizing the local defenses, employing the tactics that had shown their worth in the raids of the Laggand Bandits nine years before.
The starfish, however, was making no attempt to follow up the valley people’s rout. It was still on the path at the point where the Guardian had seen it last, waving its arms about and hooting menacingly at the silent trees.
“That should do it, I guess,” Grandma Wannattel said. “Before the first projection fizzles out, the next one in the chain will start up where they can see it from the village. It ought to be past midnight before anyone starts bothering about the globes again. Particularly since there aren’t going to be any globes around tonight—that is, if the Halpa attack-schedule has been correctly estimated.”
“I wish we were safely past midnight right now,” the rhinocerine pony worriedly informed her. Its dark shape stood a little o