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“They sent about five thousand men into the southern counties,” the Tower Lord reported to the council of captains that evening. Lyrna had been obliged to order him to sit as the man’s exhaustion and evident pain threatened to tip him over at any moment. He sat on a camp-stool, both arms cradled in his lap, the left heavily bandaged and the right hanging loose from a drooping shoulder. Lyrna had offered to take him to Weaver but the Tower Lord’s shocked expression was enough for her to let the matter drop.
“The slave soldiers mostly,” Al Bera went on. Lyrna knew this to be a man promoted through merit rather than blood and his voice held the broad vowels singular to the common folk of southern Asrael. “Plus about a thousand cavalry. And slavers, of course. Laid waste to several villages before word reached the Tower. I marched out with the South Guard and what men I could levy from the coast, caught them as they were finishing up a slaughter at Draver’s Wharf on the lower reaches of the Cold Iron. Had a sense they were expecting a less speedy response. Unsurprising, since I should be dead by rights.” Al Bera paused to give a wan smile. “Made ’em pay for it. The numbers were about even so it was a bloody business, but we made ’em pay.”
“Prisoners?” Vaelin asked.
“The slave soldiers don’t surrender, but we took a few cavalry and slavers. I gave them to the people we freed. Probably should’ve just hung them, but blood pays for blood.”
“Quite so, my lord,” Lyrna told him. “Please continue.”
“Been gathering men and training ’em best I could since then. Word came two weeks ago telling of the Meldenean fleet sailing up the Cold Iron so I judged it time to move north.”
“You judged correctly,” Lyrna said. “However, you find us short of supplies.”
“Supplies I’ve got, Highness. My lady wife has family connections on both sides of the Erinean. Seems some Alpiran merchants were willing to trade with us. The terms were hardly favourable and the South Tower treasury stands just about empty, but since the Emperor lifted the embargo I s’pose they couldn’t pass up a chance at profit.”
Lyrna saw Lord Verniers raise his head at that. He was a deliberately obscure presence in the army, keen to avoid conversation with any save herself and Vaelin, though she made it plain he was welcome at all meetings and free to record all words spoken. The Shield had made something of a fuss of him in the aftermath of the battle, proclaiming him “The scribe who killed a general!” with a hearty laugh echoed by his crew. Verniers, however, seemed to shun any rewards his heroism might offer, though he had persisted in requests for a private interview.
“Your Emperor seems better disposed to our Realm, my lord,” she told him.
The chronicler squirmed a little as the captains turned to regard him, voicing only a short response. “So it seems, Highness.”
“Do you think he knows of the Volarians’ great scheme? Could that be the reason for this change of heart?”
“The Emperor’s mind is never easily gauged, Highness. But anything that might injure the Volarian Empire is likely to please him greatly. They have been our enemy far longer than yours.”
“We should send an ambassador,” Vaelin said. “Forge an alliance, if possible.”
“All in good time, my lord,” Lyrna said, turning again to Al Bera. “I’ll pen a letter for Lady Al Bera giving assurance that any debts incurred in purchasing more supplies will be settled in full at the close of hostilities, she is free to agree suitable terms of interest with any and all merchants. In the meantime, half her available supplies will be shipped to Alltor to succour the Cumbraelin people through the winter. The other half will come to us”—her finger traced across the map to a town on the Renfaelin coast—“at Warnsclave, where we rendezvous with our Meldenean allies in fifteen days. As for now, my lord, please get some rest.”
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She spent the journey to Warnsclave travelling with a different contingent each day. One with Lady Reva’s Cumbraelins, the next with a regiment of miners from the Reaches, the third with the South Guard. Every face displayed either awe, fascination or, in the case of Lord Nortah’s Free Company, a fierce and unhesitant loyalty.
“The Departed have blessed you, my Queen!” one man called out to her as she drew up alongside Lord Nortah, the shout soon taken up by his fellow fighters.
“Silence in the ranks!” the company sergeant barked, an athletic young man with long hair and a sword strapped across his back in the manner of the Sixth Order.