By noon on the twelfth of December the builders of the fort had completed their last meticulous preparations (and Roger had patted every inch of the ramparts to make sure that he could trust them to parade Parker’s standard along), but they did not actually cross the frontier until the thirty-first of January. Operations were launched by lightning action as a result of a serious incident which had subjected them to unbearable provocation; a snowball had hit Roger in the side of the head. By the afternoon of the following day, there was not one member of the opposing band who was not in the hospital.

William T. Vollmann, You Bright and Risen Angels

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