Erik reached the edge of the foulburg and found a few of his men, resting in the shade of a tree. ‘Report!’ he ordered one of them, and the soldier stood up. ‘We just got hit by another patrol. Captain. They came out of the trees and looked surprised when we filled them with arrows.’ He pointed toward the distant trees. ‘lieutenant Jeffrey is over there somewhere.’
It took Erik a moment to put a face to the name Jeffrey, and he realized suddenly how big his command had become. He had met every man in his unit for the first half-year, but in the last two months the army of the Prince had doubled in size as units of troops sent from the Far Coast and down from Yabon arrived, along with detachments from the East. Many of the men who were now looking to him to survive were strangers, while most of the men he had trained were already up in the mountains to the east.
He rode on and found the lieutenant a short time later. The soldier, who wore the tabard of LaMut, a wolf’s head on a field of blue, turned and saluted. ‘Captain, we had a patrol blunder right into us. They didn’t know we were here.’
Erik looked at the bodies littering the open ground south of the trees. ‘They’re sending companies out without any coordination,’ he said. ‘The Saaur and the other companies we fought today haven’t spread the word we’re waiting.’
‘Can we expect this to last long?’
Erik remembered his own experience with the Queen’s army in Novindus and said, ‘To a point. They’ll never have the internal communication and discipline we do, but they have numbers, and when they come at us, they’ll all come at once.’
Looking at the afternoon light, he said, ‘Send a messenger down to where our reserves are and bring back two companies to relieve the men here, and’ - he pointed to where the standard of the heavy lancers could be seen flapping in the breeze - ‘tell the lancers to stand down for a few hours.’
‘You think we’ve beat them back?’
Erik smiled. The older lieutenant from LaMut knew better than that. He just wanted to see what kind of young captain he was taking orders from. ‘Hardly,’ said Erik. ‘We’re just catching a little calm before the storm. I mean to take advantage of it.’
Before the lieutenant left, he said, ‘What about those serpent priests?’
Erik said, ‘I don’t know. Lieutenant. We will certainly know when they arrive.’
Jeffrey saluted, and as he departed, Erik called after, ‘And bring me a fresh horse!’
Miranda said, ‘Something’s ahead.’ She spoke at a bare whisper.
Her father stood behind her, sweat beading his brow as he labored to keep a spell of invisibility around them. They had found the rift entrance that led into the world of Shila, and Miranda was attempting to probe it, to see what they could expect on the other side. From what Hanam had told them, they were likely to walk into the arms of some very angry demons if they just walked through.
They moved within sight of the rift gate, which to the normal eye appeared a blank wall. To Macros and his daughter the area was alive with mystic energy, and Macros said, ‘Something has tried to seal it from this side.’
Miranda probed the rift. There were presences on the other side, and Miranda backed into the dark. ‘You can let the spell down. There’s no one around.’
Macros did.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Miranda.
Sitting down heavily, her father said, ‘We try to get through that rift with stealth, we try to fight our way through, or we search for a third way to get to Shila.’
‘The first two don’t sound likely, and I especially don’t find the second choice attractive,’ said Miranda. ‘What do you think of the third?’
Macros said, ‘If there’s a way to Shila via the Hall of Worlds, Mustafa the fortune teller would know.’
‘Tabert’s?’ asked Miranda.
“That’s as good a place as any,’ said Macros. ‘I’m tired. Can you get us there?’
Miranda’s brow furrowed in concern. ‘You, tired?’
‘I would never tell Pug,’ said Macros, ‘but I suspect when he pulled me asunder from Sarig, I became fully mortal again. Most of my power came from the dead God of Magic, and with that link sundered . . .’ He shrugged.
‘Now is a hell of a time to tell us!’ said Miranda. ‘We’re about to face a demon king and you’re suddenly not at your best because of old age?’
Macros grimaced as he stood. ‘I’m not quite ready for gruel and a shawl, Daughter. I could still tear down this mountain if I had to!’
Miranda smiled as she took his hand and willed them to an inn in LaMut. The inhabitants of Tabert’s were a mixed lot’, but to the last, they rose and stepped back when the sorcerer and his daughter winked into existence a few feet before the bar.
Tabert was standing behind the bar, and he merely raised an eyebrow as Miranda said, ‘We need to use your storage room.’