The fourth raider went down without ever getting his spear level.
The fifth turned to run and 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.
Rama didn't stop moving. Couldn't, not yet — the village's outer edge still had structures burning, still had voices he didn't recognize calling to each other in that harder-edged dialect, and every second he spent standing still was a second some sixth raider used to reach someone he hadn't gotten to.
