He manages words but his voice is small, focus eaten up by the work.

I need to do better.

First approach - wind back to the first approach. Maybe it needs a protocol. A hail - but he'd have to convince everyone to use it. Bad solution. They have to be able to protect themselves whether someone is helping them or not. Coming back to that later, spin ahead to the first flash of the knife, his own incoherent terror in the face of his brothers and there, there, if he wasn't so small if there was just a second him that wasn't afraid he just needs to be more somehow-