An explosion like thunder made Gull look up.

The sky was clear, blue and deep. The sun was high and spring-warm. The Mist Moon, a dull white, was a fingernail paring over the western trees.

There was something else in the sky too. All Gull had ever seen aloft were moons, clouds, and birds, yet now…

A big lumpy ball like an inflated bladder drifted in the blue.

The woodcutter stepped away from the tree into a spot he'd cleared that morning. He hopped up on the stump to see better. He and his team were no more than half a league deep in the Whispering Woods. Whatever that… flying thing… was, it was close to his village. Above it.

"What in the name of Chatzuk…"

His mules snuffled uneasily. Gull shushed them and strained to hear.

The round bladder-thing was encircled with ropes, and from them hung a basket full of tiny scruffy figures, all arms and pointed heads, all jabbering. They struggled with something, making the basket sway jerkily. They were hurling things.

At his village?

There came another thunderclap, louder than the first. The stump under Gull's feet jumped, then trembled.

His mules nickered. Flossy, with her gentle disposition, minced in her leather hobble, seeking shelter under a chestnut tree. Knothead, stubborn even for a mule, lowered his head to chew through his hobble. Gull hopped down and yanked on his ear. The mule snapped at him with yellow teeth.

"Not now, Knothead!" he griped. "I need help, not hindrances!" Tugging at the mules' collars, he started to lash them together so they couldn't wander. But something made him stop: a premonition that he wouldn't return soon.

Like most muleteers, he talked to his animals as if they understood, for often they did. "Stay here, you two. I need see what's happening. And where's Greensleeves… Ah!"