Kept too ferociously busy for doubts, The Hatchet’s subordinates dug in for engagement, the gleam on their armour powdered by the trampled dust of the war camps. Their debates, thrashed over as tactics by lamp-light, launched by day the sweaty tours of reconnaissance. The scouts’ sketched reports of the outlying terrain were poured over by a wispy man with a squint. Hounded by The Hatchet’s astringent critiques, his tactile fingers recreated Daon Ramon’s topography. The meticulous work in pinched clay engulfed the plank trestle, from the undulant furrows of the Barren’s hill-crests, to each seamed vale, painted with the blue veins of the low-country rivulets. Where water was scarce, the wrinkled taupe hinterlands detailed the snaking course of dry gullies. Clumped horsehair, stiffened by dipped ink, represented the impassable thickets of black briar and hazel.
Strategy arranged the pin counters for troops, identified by toothpick silk standards, while other locations mapped in secret demanded the talent of the Temple diviners.
Outside, ordered in magnified counterpoint, The Hatchet pushed his outfitted companies to finesse his triumphant closure. He gamed the men’s fractious morale in cold blood, his rank-and-file foot sent hither and yon on forced marches until they seethed under the lid of harsh discipline. Griped on boredom, billeted under stifling canvas and fed to the teeth, men chafed through the brutal grind of their assignments, explosively pitched for release.
Towards that steel-clad stew, and the massed sinew primed for engagement, a lone rider astride an uncanny black horse crossed a country-side stripped of its herdstock. The thin traffic abroad pursued martial demand, with the movement of goods likewise steered awry by the northern campaign.
The thirsty mule-train blocking access to the creek packed a tell-tale burden of reeking green hides. Amid the clamour of harness bells strung upon bridles and breast-straps, the caravan master southbound to Daenfal blotted his peeling forehead with apology. “Aye, we’re noisy to put off the wolves, not just fiends. This stinking haul’s consigned for the tanners. Light rest us, I’d beg to clap my ears deaf! Nobody sleeps, and my outriders are wall-eyed from chasing off predators, ever since the herds grazed in Daon Ramon Barrens have been drastically culled.”
“Slaughtered to provision the True Sect war host?” Alerted by yips from the outriders, Tarens side-stepped as the watered mules spun, muzzles dripping, and surged en masse up the stream-bank.
The stocky master grunted, swung astride his lean nag to depart. “Just the game. The better horses were Sunwheel-branded for the dedicate war host.” His parting glance measured the glossy black stud. “Yon’s a quality mount. Wise to keep him close. Shadow’s blight upon war-bond tithes, our best hacks were skinn’t off us for piety, and no thanks for the robbery of requisition.”
Tarens reined on his way, more concerned that the Sorcerer’s loan might see him arraigned for a burning. His circumspect passage due northward from Backwater thinned the opportune chance for reliable gossip. Only one foot-loose tinker who plied a wheelwright’s skills had encountered the task forces scouring the Barrens directly.
“The Hatchet’s captain of archers has practised troop marksmanship by reaping the dun herds of deer.”
Yet the chinless granddame who wound his waxed thread described other forays set after small game. “The outriders have teamed with the head-hunters’ tracking dogs. Not just for coursing. They use beaters to flush and kill even the cotton-tail in the brakes.”
Tarens surveyed their ramshackle stall, gagged by the reek of poorly cured leather. The collection of strap stock, priced by the penny, confirmed the excess that undercut values. The push to denude the Barrens aimed to pressure Halwythwood’s clans by starvation. Foragers compelled to hunt farther afield increased their exposure to the True Sect bountymen.
More sinister still, the uneasy clan sentries at the Arwent Gorge reported smoke smudging the horizon towards Caith-al-Caen. “No blaze touched off by a storm,” they explained as Tarens reined up. “Eastward, The Hatchet has reivers burning the coverts.”
His farmer’s origin regarded askance, despite Asandir’s advance word, the scouts added snide comment that his heeled boots marked too vivid a trail for the trackers.
Tarens rebutted their scorn, convinced that his country trappings lent him an advantage.
“Well enough, perhaps, while you crossed Araethura,” sniped a youngster, sighting the edge on his knife. “But in the free wilds? Mind you aren’t shot in the back by one of our own.”
“That’s a moot concern, these days,” a bearded companion dismissed, while the kindlier of the two veteran women shared her meal of mixed jerky and berries. No one broached the unsettling threat, that an enemy shaft placed any patrol sent abroad in the Barrens at hazard. While a dry wind rustled the trees, punch-cut against a copper sunset, the watch change stepped up and recapped the more troublesome news from the west.
“The Hatchet’s set companies from Tysan along the trade-road by Instrell Bay. Armed patrols, with placed sentries in timber towers command the smuggler’s coves. Standing orders are to cut off and destroy any fishing-smacks caught landing cargo. We’ve warned off our allies. Hard times and bad business, but we daren’t jeopardize their livelihoods for a smuggler’s haul of fresh cod.”
Others belittled the blockade with shrugs. “The troops’ pious attention’s hell-bound to slack once cold weather sows discontent.”
“Not this time,” warned Tarens. “These companies are not posted to choke your supply but to cut off your people’s escape.”
Eyebrows lifted in stark disbelief.
“Are you mad?” The incredulous speaker spat in contempt. “Coward’s talk says we can’t hold our ground behind Fellowship wardings raised at full strength!”
“Don’t gamble the blameless lives of your families,” snapped Tarens. “Not while I bear Asandir’s urgent charge to relocate your rooted presence. The caithdein’s lodge and the heart of your settlement must look to Deshir before Halwythwood’s defences falter.”
While the hot-heads slapped incensed hands to their weapons, and galled outcries questioned the Seven’s endorsement of Tarens’s loyalty, the grizzled codger who tended their remounts commented from the side-lines.
“Have you all gone blind? The claim of Fellowship sanction is true! Or did you miss the uncanny ghost eye on the black horse yon crofter rode in on? The fey animal left,” the man added, regretful. “Lit off on its own under arcane command the moment I stripped off Iyat-thos’s bedroll and gear.” Turned to the fair-haired envoy ringed about with jaundiced ill will, he declaimed, “Your crotchety goats are across the gorge. Best collect them before they get butchered.”
All stares fixed on the town-bred’s scarred face.
“Goats?” The watch captain’s taciturn features flushed scarlet. “Whatever for? Did you imagine we’d fiddle with husbandry?”
“Not a bit.” Behind Tarens’s hayseed amusement, his blue eyes wore the sheared glint acquired from Rathain’s legendary caithdein, Earl Jieret. “What town-bred foray in benighted country won’t slack off stickling duty to chase down the windfall of grain-fattened meat?”
The Hatchet exuded anticipation. Fist clamped to his sheathed sword to save his clipped stride from entanglement, he strutted to meet the stopped wagon, just rolled in under a temple escort. The dedicates regarded his rapt approach, his short frame shadowed between two taller officers. His ferocious glance surveyed their road-weary ranks, the jerked plume on his helm wagged right and left like the tail on a swaggering rooster. He missed nothing. His hard mouth flexed, displeased by the sight of the white-and-gold vestments planted in their armoured midst.
“Don’t I already have enough priests on my rolls to feed twoscore able soldiers?”
“Erdane has sent an additional cadre to serve your expanded campaign.” The haughty worthy in charge stayed serene, unlike his train of underlings and diviners, who turned faces pinched pink with offence.
“Oversight, rather.” The Hatchet’s inspection raked the
awkward scribe, whose arms were clutched to a wicker crate crammed full of quibbling pigeons.
The priest smiled amid the flare of gold braid. “Naturally. What did you expect? The mortal world is rife with corruption, and the High Temple must be kept informed.” And would be, in detail, given the shocking expense underwritten to clean out Rathain’s Shadow-ridden barbarians.
By now, avid spectators crowded the side-lines, drawn by sharp interest in the close-kept plan to finish the Halwythwood campaign. Yet The Hatchet’s obstreperous scowl quashed the eavesdroppers’ hopes before the first tarps were unlashed. The repulsed bystanders sauntered away, while the Temple’s armed retinue shouldered the locked chests, each three spans long, and unwieldy enough to bend backs and raise grunts of effort.
This was not the usual cargo of oil casks and baled lint. Though the two wagons positioned behind hauled the expected arbalests mounted on timbers, coin laid on the rampant flurry of wagers suggested the forest was not slated to burn from the eastern flank.
The Light’s First Commander’s lips remained sealed as the seam on a walnut. He spun on his heel and ploughed a furrow through the priestly escort, reckless as a hammer swung on a string. The burdened bearers chased his spraddled gait, trailed by the scintillant flutter of Erdane’s rebuffed delegation. The clerk scuttled crabwise behind, staggered under his hamper of messenger-birds.
The Hatchet stumped into the command tent, one mailed fist on his sword in plain sight, and the other clutching his tactical strategy close as the hair on his chest. He waited, impatient, until the trailing procession arrived under canvas.
“Let’s have the lids off for my inspection,” he snapped, as the sweating men lowered the ungainly boxes in the lamp-lit gloom.
The ranked priest swept forward and unkeyed the locks. His dedicate body-guard breached the wax seals, parted the silk shroud, and bared the priceless cargo of metal rods bundled inside. “Pure copper, blessed and founded by the Temple at Erdane. Sited as planned on the major flux points, they’ll unravel the Fellowship’s lines of protection without any casualties.”
The Hatchet’s beard split to the gleam of bared teeth. “Perfect!” His gravel bass ground into a glued silence, stirred by tentative murmurs, then sliced by his right-hand captain’s bellowed astonishment. “You’ll dare to harness the lightning?”
Laughter rumbled behind The Hatchet’s breastplate. “What else?” The equinox storms packed the punch to destabilize spellcraft founded by electromagnetics. “The shock will be glorious.”
Repaired to the trestles spread over with Daon Ramon’s miniaturized terrain, The Hatchet outlined his brazen strategy with an array of stabbed nails. “We’ll ground the strikes here, and here, and along this line. Our diviners say stress brought to bear at these sites will unravel the Sorcerers’ web.” As excited talk swelled, he roared, “Clap your tongues! I’ll gut any yapper whose brainless noise leaks a whisper outside this tent.”
His forest-born prey must have no warning. He would have them penned like bunched sheep for ripe slaughter when the shield of protections came down.
The massive arbalests rolled into position that night under cover of darkness, each equipped with specialized quarrels, wood cladding sheathed over purified copper. The bare rods designated for Daon Ramon’s free wilds were assigned to select lancers for placement. Those elite parties assembled by morning, horses fresh off the picket lines, and accoutrements dazzling as low sunlight rinsed the tableau dull red. Summer’s last gasp sweltered over dry grass and baked earth, lidded in haze, while the breathless air shimmered above the reivers’ swathes of scorched ground, and denuded gullies winkled with reflections sparked off the depleted creeks. Encamped on stripped country-side, twenty leagues wide, the Light’s forces hemmed the green border of Halwythwood, backed to the south by the Arwent Gorge, with alternate egress thwarted by Athili and the shoreside garrisons at Daenfal Lake. Westward, more companies secured Instrell Bay and commandeered the Mathorn trade-road.
Heat wilted the standards and sweated The Hatchet’s acrid impatience. He paced through the priests’ ceremonial blessing. Tinged bilious under the tasselled canopy, the brosy clerk hovered with his lap desk and pen, a bagged pigeon at hand for the prompt release of the commemorative message. The inked lines were half-penned when a shouting disturbance burst through the line of poised lancers.
“Lord Commander!” Livid, the breathless master of horse let fly his howling grievance. “Blight puckle yer lot o’ slack sentries who’ve been caught asleep at their posts.”
The maligned watch captain, striding behind, bellowed his vigorous protest, “Powers of Darkness! Shut your lying yap. It’s your layabout grooms we’ve caught snoozing.”
The priest’s blessing stumbled. The clerk blinked and snatched for a fresh sheet of parchment, pen nib scratching through The Hatchet’s roar of annoyance.
“You bunglers got bested by a thieving wild stud?”
“The rank brute charged in black as death in broad daylight!” The captain’s flustered retort entangled with the hostler’s rant. “Stirred up randy havoc, the brute! The frenzied mares snapped their head-stalls and trampled over the staked picket lines.” Through yammering rage and stable-yard language, the bad news emerged. “Yon rogue made off with every sound animal in the command post.”
The priest stiffened. “If that’s the hoofed demon with the ghost eye, this campaign is bedevilled. The same ill-starred harbinger fore-ran our defeat at Lithmarin.”
“Shut your snivelling before I punch your front teeth through your nape!” The Hatchet wheeled with blood in his eye and detailed his mounted lancers. “Ride out. Now! You have your orders.” Refocused upon his flustered watch captain, he added through a curled upper lip, “Send two companies. Quarter the country-side until they’ve recovered our forsaken horses. And get Arwi Unfrey! I want his head-hunters’ dogs and best trackers to run down that stud and see him destroyed. Tell him to bring me the head and flayed hide. I’ll have them nailed up with my trophies.”
His granite glance noticed the diligent scribe. A lashed boot bashed the lap desk, to a black spray of ink. Servile scrabbling overset the pigeon bag. The panicked messenger-bird flapped aloft. Struck by its squirt of guano, The Hatchet cursed. “I’ll also rip the wings off your tattling birds if you keep on spreading hysterical superstition!”
News of the horse theft blamed on his black stud reached Asandir on foot, as he crossed the dry gulch that once channelled the Severnir’s headwaters. “Dakar’s impetuous idiocy did what?”
Echoes of his dismay shattered off the rock-walls that hemmed the gorge on both sides. The stallion tagging his heels shied back, snorting. Reins and saddle-girth loose, hooves clattering over unstable boulders, the flesh-and-blood horse was a hundred leagues from the Light’s disrupted encampment and nowhere near the dedicates’ randy mares.
Asandir curbed his flash-point temper. A quelling touch on the animal’s soaked neck, and a swift apology to the stomped rocks likely spared his mount from a broken foreleg.
Paused after his companion settled four-square, the field Sorcerer braced for the set-back behind Sethvir’s cryptic sending: “The Mad Prophet has wrecked our sage plan to reduce the worst of the Halwythwood clans’ losses.”
“By that, I gather he chose not to wait. Or did the chieftains flinch from the sacrifice Tarens suggested to gain their families’ safe passage from Halwythwood?”
Sethvir’s sigh could almost be felt from his distant perch by Althain Tower’s library casement. “Dakar’s erratic Sight failed to forecast the greater disaster beyond the handful of casualties. A short-fall not helped by Esfand’s inexperience.”
Sethvir’s earth-sense unreeled the summary havoc sown through The Hatchet’s encampment by the spellbinder’s precocious illusion. On another occasion, the field Sorcerer might have laughed as the rogue facsimile of his stallion flummoxed the True Sect’s diviners and sent the war host’s loose string into high-tailed stampede.
Yet
on this day, the milled grist of malfortune sprang from the confusion stirred in the aftermath. “A bold sally by the caithdein’s scouts raided and killed an escort squad of temple lancers,” Sethvir disclosed in disastrous summary. “The young fools waylaid one of the copper grounding rods sent from the High Priesthood at Erdane.”
“Those scouts can’t possibly hope to stave off the collapse of Halwythwood’s wardings!” The dedicate force entrenched in Daon Ramon outstripped the clan war band’s scant resource. Nor might the equinox squall lines be turned without back-lash, or the flux currents answer to Dakar’s inept mastery, unless—epiphany dawned with a galvanic shock. Asandir swore, at odds with the tender handling that reined his black stud around in the dry river-bed. “Ath avert the affliction of jughead stupidity! Dakar hasn’t dared put that forsaken rod to reckless use?”
“He surely has,” lamented Sethvir. “His crack-brained scheme’s aimed to draw down the lightning at Caith-al-Caen.”
The repercussive cascade of mass consequence wrung Asandir to a cold sweat. “The idiot! Doesn’t he realize the galvanic surge from that nexus will whiplash the entire Fourth Lane?” A flare on that scale would render Halwythwood too reactive for human habitation, and worse. “Chain Dakar to Sithaer’s deepest pit for eternity, don’t say his wilful genius overlooked the latitudinal bleed off!” The untoward burst would splash a storm of electromagnetics clear across Daon Ramon Barrens, a spike potent enough to drive the Light’s diviners insane and afflict The Hatchet’s massed troops with raving hallucinations.
“You can’t leave Althain Tower to stop this!” Asandir cracked, alarmed. “How near is the first squall line?”
“Too close.” By lane or direct transfer, intervention posed a lethal prospect at this pass. “The flux charge in the vicinity is overburdened to peak instability. No sending I’ve tried carried through.” A discorporate colleague dispatched to warn Dakar put the messenger’s unshielded spirit at risk of being ripped asunder.