'Well hurry it up.'
Three more chests added to their spoils, the group made for the exit. By the time they got to it, the smoke was a lot thicker.
Checking that the street was clear, they quickly loaded the crates on to the wagons, and covered them with sacking. They slammed shut the entrance doors, and once the outer gate had been negotiated, set off.
Pepperdyne, again at the reins of the lead wagon, looked grim. 'If that fire's spotted before we get clear — '
'We'll have to hope it's not,' Coilla told him. 'So let's play it calm and innocent.'
'And if it is spotted?'
'You know the odds. We'll fight our way out.'
It was all they could do to stop themselves from constantly looking back. In their mind's eye a towering column of black smoke formed an accusing finger, pointing their way.
They approached the first checkpoint with trepidation, but in good order. It proved as slipshod as when they entered, and they were scarcely acknowledged, let alone stopped. The second was no different. Jaded sentries allowed them through with hardly a second glance.
At the third and most substantial roadblock there was less laxity. There was no queue to get out, as on the way in, but they were obliged to stop.
The same sergeant they dealt with earlier was still on duty. On sight of them his expression turned chary.
'I wasn't expecting to see you back here so soon, sir.'
'No?' Pepperdyne answered.
'The clean-up crews usually take twice as long.'
'Do they?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, this is a particularly hard-working bunch.'
'That makes a change for these lazy devils, sir.' He fixed Pepperdyne with a hard stare. 'What's your secret?'
'Secret?'
'How do you make 'em move their arses?'
'No secret, Sergeant. Just a generous application of the whip.'
The sergeant grinned approvingly. 'Yes, sir.' He glanced at Coilla. She avoided his gaze.
He looked into the back of the wagon. His interest was held long enough to have Coilla suspecting he'd spotted the booty. She began slipping a hand into her folds of clothing in search of a blade.
The sergeant returned his attention to Pepperdyne. 'Thank you, sir. You can move out.'
Pepperdyne nodded and cracked the reins.
He and Brelan resisted the impulse to speed up. They kept to a steady pace even when the distant sounds of tumult rose behind them in the restricted zone.
Coilla and Pepperdyne exchanged brief smiles.
The wagons trundled past a patch of wasteland on one side of the road, an area where a house had stood before it was destroyed by the incomers. Now the lot was scrubby and overgrown.
An especially eagle-eyed passer-by, or someone particularly receptive to the ambience of magic, might have sensed an anomaly there. A pocket of nothingness slightly out of sympathy with the air around it. Like a transparent bubble which light was not quite capable of passing through. But so muted, so elusive, that an onlooker would likely dismiss it as a mote in their eye.
Wrapped in her cloak of sorcery, the elfin figure of Pelli Madayar observed the Vixens' exploits, and was troubled. There was no doubt that the renegade orc warband was seriously violating the Gateway Corps' precepts. They were playing with fire.
And she knew they had to be stopped.
23
There was a gathering in the grand hall at the fortress in Taress.
The room was crowded. Military top brass were present, along with representatives of the lower ranks. Robed members of the Order of the Helix were in attendance. Bureaucrats, administrators and legislators rubbed shoulders. They had stood waiting long enough to bring on a spate of shuffling feet and stifled sighs.
General Hacher was at the forefront. His aide, Frynt, and Helix luminary Brother Grentor flanked him.
'How much longer?' Grentor whispered. 'It's intolerable being treated like supplicants.'
'Perhaps you'd care to express that to the Envoy in person when she arrives,' Hacher suggested. 'She is, after all, the titular head of your order.'
Grentor shot him a poisonous look and returned to morose silence.
The sound of approaching footsteps brought on an involuntary stiffening of spines.
With a crash the doors to the hall were thrown open. Two elite guardsmen came in and positioned themselves on either side of the entrance.
Jennesta followed. The hem of her cloak, fashioned from the jet-black, glossy pelt of a beast that could only be guessed at, brushed the timber floor. The clack of her precariously high stiletto-heeled boots echoed throughout the hall.
She swept to the head of the room and climbed the steps to a dais. Then she discarded the cloak, letting it fall from her shoulders in a careless motion. Hacher wasn't alone in thinking of a snake shedding its skin.
Facing her audience, Jennesta spoke without preamble.
'I've been here only a short time,' she began, 'but long enough to see how this province is run. More importantly, I've seen who runs it. Is it the might of Peczan's armed forces? The empire's commissioners, or its lawmakers? The brotherhood of the Helix?' She scanned them coldly. 'No. Acurial's true rulers are the very creatures you are supposed to suppress. Rebels. Terrorists. Orc scum. How else can it be when the so called resistance strikes at will? When cattle stampede through the streets of the capital, patrols are ambushed and buildings torched. And when humans are reported to be aiding the insurgents.' She let that soak in for a second. 'Discipline is woefully lacking in this colony. Examples need to be set, and not only among the native population.' She nodded to the guards at the entrance.
They opened the doors. A pair of Jennesta's undead bodyguards shuffled in. Between them was a terrified looking soldier, his hands chained and his feet in shackles. The bodyguards' appearance, and unsavoury odour, had the crowd willingly parting to allow them through. They looked on in silence as the zombies shoved their prisoner to the front of the room and up to the dais, where he stood trembling before the sorceress.
'The outrage yesterday was the responsibility of many in this administration,' Jennesta announced, 'but let this man represent all who fail in their duty.' She turned her baleful gaze on the accused. He did his best to hold himself erect. 'You are a sergeant in charge of a roadblock barring access to the quarter housing the Tithes Bureau?'
'Yes, ma'am.'
'And you allowed a gang of orc terrorists to pass your checkpoint and stage an attack?'
'They were accompanied by a human officer, my Lady. I — '
' Answer the question! Did you let them through?'
'Yes, Ma'am.'
'Then you admit your dereliction and stand condemned. Negligence on such a scale demands punishment equal to the offence. Prepare to pay the penalty.'
The sergeant tensed, expecting perhaps to be hauled away and thrown in a dungeon, or even to be struck down by one of his undead captors. Neither happened.
Instead, Jennesta closed her eyes. The keen sighted might have noticed that her lips moved silently, and that her hands made several small gestures.
The accused looked on in troubled bafflement; the audience exchanged mystified glances.
