Chapter 26
Toria leaned over the table, gesturing. “Show me where you’ve had the heaviest fighting.” At her side Wag peered at the map, his ears perked in the canine equivalent of curiosity.
Rymark started to ask a question, then shook his head. “If you can call it fighting. Our men no longer call the waning of day sunset. They call it the dying time.”
He bent over the map, pointing to markers in red that had been placed to show the worst confrontations with the forest. By the time he was halfway through, she knew the purpose behind the attacks.
“Cesla is trying to gain access to the towns beyond,” she said. “He needs tools.”
“Aye,” Ellias said. “We received your message, Lady Deel. Anticipating that Cesla would be targeting the towns beyond the forest with the strongest ironworkers guilds, King Rymark shifted our forces.”
“And that’s when we entered into battle proper,” Rymark said. He paused to look around the tent, though they had been alone and were still. “We must find a way to turn this tide, Lady Deel.”
“Are your losses so great, then?” she asked.
“Not taken as a whole, no.” Rymark shook his head. “But the enemy doesn’t just kill, my lady. They take a casualty, sometimes two, and they deliver the bodies to the next outpost or camp.” He licked his lips. “Lady Deel, an army is made of men and women who can face death with courage despite the fear that works to undermine them. The bodies—”
She held up a hand. “I understand, Your Majesty. Most men talk of evil without ever encountering the depth of its reality.” A region on the map struck her as odd, and she put her finger on it. “Why is this marked?”
Rymark glanced at the king of Moorclaire. “The casualties there are half what they have been at any other outpost,” he said. “I thought it was nothing, but Ellias tells me the difference is . . .” He searched for the right word.
“Significant,” King Ellias said.
“That’s it.” Rymark nodded. “I’ve asked for a report, but the increased skirmishes have disrupted communications.” He looked at her and Fess. “The outpost is close enough that I have considered going myself.”
“Ridiculous notion,” she said before she could stop herself. “I mean no disrespect, Your Majesty, but it’s two days away, and you command the armies of the north. You can’t be spared for this. Fess and I will go.”
“Your argument is sound,” Ellias said. “But can the two of you be spared, Toria Deel?”
“The Vigil has never been an instrument of war, Your Majesty. We have always exerted our influence through more personal engagements.” She glanced outside. “We’ll leave in the morning.”
Rymark nodded with a glance at Wag. “I’ll have quarters arranged for you and your companions inside the compound.”
Screams jolted Toria awake, and she jerked from slumber to wakefulness without transition. Quick as she might have been, Fess stood over her, weapons in hand. The beat of her heart rocked her back and forth like a pendulum. Outside the tent, the glow of light lit the compound. White light.
“Come,” she said as she jerked on her boots. She fumbled in the gloom for her weapon. “Wag!”
Thrusting aside the flap, she burst out of their shared tent to chaos. Men and women raced to the walls, climbing makeshift scaffolding. Soldiers crowded the towers at each corner of the camp, filling broad platforms at the top, most armed with short bows. In the center of each platform a brazier of solas powder burned, banishing the darkness in white-hot balls of sunlight, while on either side of the flame, men or women aimed mirrors out into the darkness.
Massive guards came charging out of the tent next to hers, hemming in the king of Owmead. Rymark screamed orders to a series of runners who dashed up and just as quickly dashed away. Over the din of screaming, she heard thumps against timbered walls of the compound.
“Your Majesty! King Rymark!” She screamed, but the king of Owmead ignored her calls, issuing commands for light and torches.
Toria threaded her way through his guard, clutching. “What can we do?”
He turned to her, his gaze desperate before it landed on the sentinel. “We’ve got men camped outside the gate. We’ll lose them all.”
She jerked a nod, breaking into a run. “Wag, Fess, with me.” She raced across the compound, willing her legs to go faster. The gates were fashioned from huge logs. On the far side men and women beat at them, begging admittance against the sound of slaughter.
“Open them!” Toria yelled at the soldiers. “By order of King Rymark.”
As the men worked to throw the massive beams, she knelt, put her hands on Wag’s thick ruff and sank into the delve.
Hunt! she ordered. But only those with the scent of the forest on them, and you must live! A flood of impressions came across the link, the smell of blood, its taste, salty and hot on her tongue, the crunch of bone.
Wag raced through the opening, and a mix of screams filled the night air as men and women in the colors of Moorclaire flooded through, frantic to escape. A veiled man wearing the clothes of a merchant came leaping out of the darkness toward the gates. Just before he reached the opening, hundreds of pounds of fur and muscle hit him from the side and powerful jaws snapped his neck. The gates closed.
“We have to get back to Rymark.” Fess took her hand and ran, half pulling her back to the king, who stood gazing at the northwest tower, a stream of sulfurous language spilling from him.
“Protect her!” he ordered his guards, pointing, but none of the guards moved to obey.
She
