Back towards Rathain, or will he muck into my campaign in north Tysan?”
The nervous courier disclosed the development too sensitive to be penned under seal. “The latest informants’ reports favour Tysan. The co-opted galley weathered the storm in a cove down the coast, which suggests her course lies to the west.”
“Flimsy guess-work!” The Hatchet scraped at the stubble on his bull-dog jaw. “No one can say with authority what that whey-faced wastrel intends. He might have been out-bound for Falgaire or Morvain before heavy seas forced him to snug down.” Squat as an armoured battering ram, the Light’s first commander shoved his chair back. Kicked papers fluttered like birds in his wake as he belaboured his officers. “I want that galley overtaken and searched. Cuff every living deck-hand aboard and shake them down by rough questioning!”
Tasked with what seemed a suicidal assignment, a dismayed staffer denounced, “You believe the avatar’s elsewhere?”
“I like my targets kept tidy,” The Hatchet cracked in earnest. “If the detail you send gets scalded alive, we’re hell-bound to know, like the weathercock, which way Lysaer’s pointed for certain.”
The pavilion headquarters seethed into motion, the dismissed officers treading over the papers jettisoned under changed orders.
“I’ll have the veteran divisions split into skirmish groups. Equip the best to cross the mountains towards Valenford, then swing them north to engage the rest of my battle plan soonest. The second wave will fan out behind and muster beneath the western foot-hills.”
“Supply’s caught short-handed,” a rattled voice protested. “Rearrangements on that scale are going to take days!”
“Then improvise, quick!” retorted The Hatchet. “Hungry men can forage at need during summer. This post will be stripped. Lean troops on the march are better off than a batch of post-sitting, burned skeletons, paralysed by ineptitude!”
Against scoured silence, The Hatchet plunged on. “I’m saving our finest! Do you understand? March them out before dawn. Take what food they can carry. No wagons. No tents! I want speed. The heavy equipment left here must maintain the illusion we haven’t dispersed.”
Cooks and camp-followers were to wear surcoats and helms, while the raw recruits stayed on to keep staging drills in the practice field.
“Our dregs will form up tomorrow for Erdane to defend the High Temple against the rogue avatar.”
Another captain gasped. “They’re sheep herded to slaughter!”
“Maybe.” The Hatchet glared at his detracting officers. “Tell me, which bunch would you sacrifice?”
Only the next in command dared a protest. “Our strongest would hold that line and not break.”
“Yes, and die to a man for no purpose!” The Hatchet waved off his underlings’ outrage. “If the demoralized companies and green recruits run, weakness favours their chance of survival. Maybe the mad avatar will lack the stomach to murder a pack of puking tenderfeet.” His bark chased the stunned officers crammed at the exit. “Get on, directly! My orders won’t wait.”
Barged after them into the black pelt of rain, The Hatchet yelled for his messengers, some to ride straightaway to alert the towns and the Light’s stationed garrisons. Others would carry his notes of requisition and summary records to placate the priests.
Urgency cut no slack for the midsummer gale churning the coastal road into soup. The Hatchet returned, breathless and soaked, and lit into the scribe caught resharpening his nibs. “Sit up and take my dictation!” Given the extensive planning that Lysaer’s surprise move overturned, neither the Light’s lord commander nor his master of letters saw rest.
Cloudy dawn pierced the gloom when at last The Hatchet stood up. The campaign trestle before him was swept clean of the last revised dispatches. Smoke gritted the air, with the newest campaign plans burned to doused ash inside a commandeered chamber-pot. No evidence remained to disclose his rapid redeployment. Outside, the thinned encampment kept the boisterous semblance of an unchanged routine: troops engaged in practice bouts with enough blundering racket to maintain the appearance of numbers. A shrewd eye might discern the reduced strings of horses hitched to the messenger’s picket line; or notice that the cauldrons under the cook shack’s sagged awning served less than yesterday’s head count.
Short bones aching, The Hatchet knuckled his eyes, too restless to retire. Gadded by nature, he moved to inspect the night’s progress before his swift raid overtook the renegade vessel. Met by another obstruction, his bulled stride all but mowed down an inbound equerry.
“Messenger, sir! Bearing a High-Temple mandate, arrived under Hanshire’s banner.”
“Get the fellow in here double-quick.” The Hatchet lurched back and dropped into his chair like a sackload of bricks.
A voice murmured without, while another’s light tread squelched over the sodden ground. The figure that darkened his entry came alone: no man, but a slender, imperious female in a purple cloak banded with scarlet.
The Hatchet shoved erect as if pinked. “I’ve more pressing priorities.”
Yet evasion did not stem the woman’s impertinence. “If your urgency concerns the delinquent galley shipped out of Falgaire, my business might speed your endeavour.”
The Hatchet shrugged. “At what ruinous price?” But the witch had forestalled him. Caught at close quarters, he stared upward with blistered hostility. “I might rather know the Master of Shadow’s current activity. Ah, no! Not again,” he chided. “Don’t trouble me with a replacement for your last shady talisman. Or didn’t you mean to add spin to the failures that botched my invasion of Havish?”
“No. Our mutual aim was subverted as well. Seek due revenge upon Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn.” The Koriathain advanced with cool equanimity and placed a cedar box on the trestle. “Our token today is sent in good faith.”
Since The Hatchet failed to snatch up her gambit, the enchantress flipped the catch and raised the fitted lid. Nestled inside, a steel crossbolt quarrel scribed a bright line in cold daylight. The notched end for the cable had razor-edged fins instead of plumed fletching. When her gloved fingers eased the coffer closed, the metal’s suspect sheen imposed the after-image evoked by a latent enchantment.
The Hatchet grinned without delicacy. “You seek an assassin to slaughter a god? Find a more gullible fool. One who doesn’t mind dying in martyred flames, condemned for collusion with Shadow.”
“Soon enough, your High Priests will revise their priorities.” Shown caustic contempt, the Koriani witch returned a feline smile. “The veracity of the True Sect Canon can’t withstand the word of a living avatar. Lysaer s’Ilessid poses a liability to the purity of their creed. Unless, of course, his divine status becomes discredited. He is mortal, in fact. Fellowship sorcery grants his longevity. Wound him in public, and his divinity will be exposed as a sham.”
“I have other priorities,” The Hatchet repeated, annoyed enough to shoulder aside her insinuations.
“Do you truly?” she challenged, a post in his path. “Why not accept help? I might spare you the waste of resources, even by-pass a squalid day’s search for a commandeered ship.”
But her blandishment misfired. The Hatchet clenched his jaw as though he chewed
