At the prison camp, the soldiers in black sensed that their prisoners were stirring. Their captain warned his men to be especially vigilant, although there was nothing specific he could point to — no rebellious behaviour that could be punished with whipping, hanging, or a brief and educational visit to the vats.
In Ralanast itself, a man in the attire of a Halrana High Lord stood at the vortex of a constant stream of activity, issuing orders and receiving messages from his command centre in one of the four great storehouses in Ralanast's cargo district. There was a whisper, a hum that was impossible to suppress, as the number of men under Prince Tiesto swelled at the last minute, with every young Halrana wanting to play a part and join their fellows in this moment. The newly created officers — recruits whose only credentials lay in the fact they'd been with the resistance since the beginning — tried to keep the murmurs of anticipation quiet, but the Halrana could not be silenced. By nightfall, the storehouses were filled to bursting, and still they came. Prince Tiesto would not turn any away.
Expectancy hung in the air.
~
AMBER looked around her, nodding in satisfaction. To all outward appearances, the density of the clustered groups of prisoners was the same as it always was, but she and Lina had coordinated a shifting, so that the most able-bodied prisoners were clustered near the gate.
Their task was made infinitely more difficult by the various personalities of the prisoners. Some were willing and ready to fight — desperate to, even — while others were terrified, their spirit crushed by the constant fear and merciless beatings. Amber often felt that more of their efforts had gone into handling the other prisoners than anything else.
There were many more prisoners than there were guards, but the guards had sharp swords and long pikes, steel armour and prismatic orbs. The tough warriors of the Black Army would cut through the weak and unarmed prisoners with ease.
Amber sat with Lina and Samora, wondering if she looked as nervous as the other two women. "What if they noticed the food was tainted?" Amber asked Samora.
"Then it's over before it starts," Samora said.
Amber looked at the guards, men who were on duty and wouldn't be eating with the others, knowing that no matter what, they would need to take these men out. At best, the poisoning would reduce the numbers of their reinforcements. "Are you sure she used enough?"
"How would I know?" Samora said. "I'd never even heard of celemar three days ago. It's not like I was there to watch her."
The off-duty guards always took an evening meal at their own encampment. There were three shifts in a day, which meant that at any time two-thirds of the total complement of soldiers would be resting, ready to come to the prison camp at a moment's notice in the event of trouble, while those on guard duty cursed their luck and would take their meal later, passing the time making sport with the prisoners.
One of the prisoners, a fifteen year old girl named Merri, had been drafted to serve the guards. A stick-thin waif of a girl, some officer obviously thought she was harmless enough that she could be trusted to serve out bowls of meat stew, scrub the dishes after, and clean out the latrines once a day under supervision.
When they'd first shown Merri the celemar she had refused outright to have anything to do with slipping it into the guards' food. A brown knob of root the size and colour of a large mushroom, the celemar looked far from appetising, and Merri said she had no involvement with the preparation of the food anyway.
After the conspirators gave it some thought, Amber was tasked with obtaining a canister of salt. This time she used a man's typical reluctance to think too hard about anything womanly. Amber told the guard that she needed salt to mix with water to prevent infection. What infection? The guard asked. Amber had simply looked down. Embarrassed, the guard had lived up to expectations and soon he'd provided her with a canister of salt from his meal table, fear of Moragon written across his face.
The three women then spent hours with stones, grinding up the celemar until it was a fine, light-brown powder. Amber and Lina remembered to wash their hands afterwards, but Samora forgot, and even now she was still sick in her bowels.
They poured the celemar powder into the salt canister, mixing it with actual salt, and regarded their handiwork. The colour was definitely off; would the guards notice?
Merri finally agreed to the plan. She would smuggle the canister in with her, and place it on the bench next to the steaming pot of stew she served the soldiers. Many would automatically season their monotonous fare, and if the chance came, Merri herself would try to sneak some of the powder into the pot.
"How long until sunset?" Samora asked.
"Less than an hour, I make it," Lina said, the tall Halrana woman frowning and looking up at the sun. "It gets dark late this time of year."
"The guards are going to wonder why some of the bowls are missing. They'll notice some prisoners aren't returning with their bowls," Amber said worriedly.
"No they won't," Lina said. "The guards will just count their blessings that mealtime has finished early today."