"Innkeeper's another, gave me the same word. Always provided we aren't in a trap." Justin raised one laconic eyebrow at Kyra's headshake. "My child, you don't grow to be an old fighter without learning to be suspicious of your own grandmother. I would suggest to you that we follow 'enemy territory' rules."
Kyra shrugged. "You been the leader; I'll live with whatever ye guess we should be doin'."
Justin felt of the bed, found it satisfactory, and stretched his lanky body on it at full length. "It is a wise child that obeys its elders," he said sententiously, then quirked one corner of his mouth. "It is also a child that may live to become an elder."
Kyra shrugged good-naturedly.
A few moments later, the boy returned with a surprisingly good dinner for two, which he left. Justin examined it with great care, by smell and by cautious taste.
"Evidently we aren't supposed to leave," Justin guessed, "And if this stuff has been tampered with, I can't tell it."
Kyra followed his careful inspection of the food with one of her own. "Nor me, an' my grandy was a wisewoman. I don' know about you, friend, but I could eat raw snake."
"Likewise. My lady?" Justin dug a healthy portion out of the meat pie they'd been served, and handed it to her solemnly.
She accepted it just as solemnly. It might have been noted, had there been anyone else present, that neither partook of anything the other had al' ready tried. If any of the food had been 'tampered with,' it would likely be only one or two dishes. If that were the case -- one of them would still be in shape to deal with the consequences.
When, after an hour, nothing untoward happened to either of them, Justin grinned a little sheepishly.
"Well -- "
"Don't apologize," Kyra told him. "I tell ye, I druther eat a cold dinner than find m'self wakin' up lookin' at the wrong end'f somebody's knife."
They demolished the rest of the food in fairly short order -- then began another interminable wait. After a candlemark of pacing, Kyra finally dug a long branch of silvery derthenwood out other pack, as well as a tiny knife with a blade hardly bigger than a pen nib. She sat down on the floor next to the bed and began the slow process of turning the branch into a carved chain. Justin watched her from half-closed eyes, fascinated in spite of himself by the delicate work. The chain had only a few links to it when the wait began; when it ended, there was scarcely a fingerlength of branch remaining. Then, without warning, a portion of the wall blurred and Kethry stepped through it.
Kethry just held out her arms, welcoming both of them into an embrace which included tears from all three of them.
"Gods, Keth -- " Justin finally pulled away, reluc-tantly. "It has been so damned hard keeping this all inside."
"I know; none better -- Windborn, I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you two! You're the first to come; may the Lady forgive me, but there were times I wondered if this was going to work."
"Oh, it's working all right; better than you could guess." He wiped his eyes and nose on the napkin from their tray and locked his emotions down. "All right, lady -- mage, we need information, not waterfalls."
"First-tell me how you got here so fast."
"We weren't about t' let anybody beat us here," Kyra replied. "Not after that message. Sewen sent me on ahead t' tell ye that Queen Sursha give us leave t' deal with this soon's we get some of her new army units in t' replace us. The rest of the Hawks'll be here in 'bout a month."
"Ikan's out rounding up all the former Hawks we can track down," Justin continued. "We'll be trickling in the same as the Hawks will -- no more than two or three at a time, and disguised. One of the merchant houses is going to let some of us use their colors; Ikan took the liberty of taking your name in vain to old Gnumo. We have the support of Sursha's Bards, and half a dozen holy orders. We'll be everything from wandering entertainers to caravan guards. You've got a plan, I take it?"
"Tarma has; she's worked it out with a couple of highborn we can trust," Kethry told him. "All I really know about is my part of it, but generally we're hoping to accomplish the whole thing with a minimum of bloodshed."
"Specific blood" Kyra replied, with a smoldering anger Justin shared.
"Oh, yes. One of the lot we've already taken out -- Raschar's Adept. But the others -- " Kethry allowed her own anger to show. " -- Tarma's identified every person that had a hand in the deed. And they will answer to us."
Justin nodded, slowly. "What about arms? There's going to be at least half of us without much, given the disguises."
"Being smuggled in to us from an outside source, -- so that Char won't be alerted that something's up by activity in forges and smithies. We're getting everything Tarma could think of; bows, arrows with warpoints, various kinds of throwing knives, grapnels, climbing spikes, pikes, swords -- the last is the hardest, that, and armor, but we're hoping most of you will manage to bring your own. Do either of you have a guess how many there might be that we can count on?"
"Six hundred at an absolute minimum," Justin said with grim satisfaction. "That's four hundred Hawks and the two hundred that either retired to Hawksnest or that Ikan knows for a fact he can get hold of and will want in."
"Gods -- that's better than I'd hoped," Kethry said weakly. "There're four hundred regular troops here. about a hundred and fifty assorted militia, and fifty personal guards belonging to Char. There're some other assorted fighters, but Tarma tells me they won't count for much; there're Char's adherents, and their private guards, but we don't know but that they won't turn their coats or hide if things look chancy. That means we'll be going pretty much one-on-one; all the professionals starting the fight even."
"Even with his mages?" Justin asked dubiously.
Kethry raised her chin, her eyes glinting like emerald ice in the light from the window beside her. "He hasn't a mage that can come close to me in ability, and I have more power at my disposal than any of them could hope for."
"Where are you getting that kind of power?" Justin asked in surprise. "I mean -- you're alone -- "
"You -- and the Hawks. Your anger. I can't begin to tell you how strong a force I've already tapped off just you two; when I start to think about six hundred Hawks, it makes my head reel. It's the kind of power a mage sees perhaps once in a lifetime, and if I weren't an Adept I'd never be able to touch it, much less control it."
"You're Adept class now?" Justin said incredulously. "Great good gods -- no wonder you aren't worried!"
"Not with power like that at my disposal. I can channel all that anger, harvest it, and save it for the hour of striking. We're the attackers, this time. I can set up as many spells as it takes as far in advance as I need to, spells specifically designed to take out each mage; and wait until the moment of attack to trigger them. I'm assuming only half of those will work. The rest will probably be deflected. But the mages will be off-balance, and I can take them out one at a time. I know how mages think -- when they're under magical attack they tend to ignore anything mundane, and they seldom or never work together. White Winds is one of the few schools that teaches working in concert. I think we can plan that they will be concentrating on me and not on anything nonmagical. And that they won't even think to band together against me."