The Invasion of the Tearling

“What is it?”


“Five men rode out of the western Verinne around dawn, sir. We thought they were messengers, but we’ve been tracking them all the same.”

“And?”

“Llew’s pretty sure now, sir. It’s Ducarte.”

Hall’s stomach sank. The news was not wholly unexpected, but it was bad all the same: Benin the Butcher. Hall would much rather have dealt with Genot, but Genot hadn’t been seen in camp since the attack. He was dead, or fled, and there would be no more easy victories. Blaser looked uneasy as well, so Hall forced a smile and clapped him on the shoulder. “How far away?”

“A few hours. At most.”

Hall trained his spyglass on the sprawling mess of tents below. He and his men had gotten plenty of entertainment watching the Mort clear the camp; the rattlers were crafty bastards, their sense of self-preservation not at all impacted by the sudden removal from their hillside rookeries, and having fed well, they’d gone to ground, finding the best hiding places in the camp and sleeping during the day. At night, the screams continued, a steady diet. For the first two weeks, Hall had been pleased to see the Mort camp lit up like a Christmas tree at night. They must have used up the lion’s share of their ready oil.

But more food and oil always came, an unrelenting stream of supply from the southeast, and snakes or no, the cannons remained heavily guarded in the middle of the campsite. Dozens of plans for dealing with them had been heard and discarded, and Blaser and Major Caffrey often ended up shouting at each other until Hall ordered them to shut up. These were signs he could read: despite the victory they had scored, morale was beginning to fail.

Hall refocused his spyglass on the foot of the hill, where the Mort had piled their dead in an enormous pyre. This pyre had burned for the past week; even now, wisps of smoke still drifted into the air from the charred remains. The smell had been bad, and Hall had been forced to change shifts at double time. But now the camp was entirely cleared of the dead, and Mort soldiers leaned against tents, chatting, their shirts off to absorb the June sunlight. Three separate groups of soldiers were hunched over tables, downing pint after pint of ale while they played cards. Hall even saw one soldier sunbathing atop a supply wagon. Still excursionists on vacation. The Mort had tried several assaults on the foot of the hill, but found themselves repelled by Hall’s archers each time. In the absence of Genot or another general, these attacks were poorly planned, disorganized in execution. Hall could see them coming a mile away, but that would not last. He turned his spyglass east and found the party easily: a clutch of dark-clad figures moving slowly and steadily across the flats. He couldn’t make out their features, but there was no reason to doubt Llew, who’d been born with a built-in spyglass of his own. Hall had never fought Ducarte himself, but he’d heard plenty from Bermond, whose reminiscences about the Mort general could chill the blood.

“Ducarte will be more inventive,” Hall remarked. “And much more trouble.”

“If they try to flank us to the north, we can’t hold them,” Blaser cautioned. “It’s too much ground to cover.”

“They won’t flank.”

“How do you know, sir?”