‘You have news?’ Ivanr asked.
The man’s drawn face was grim. ‘Yes.’ The rain had plastered his dirty grey hair over his uneven skull.
‘Troubling news?’
‘Yes.’
Ivanr motioned to the overcast sky. ‘Not a day for bad news.’
‘No day would be good for this news.’
Does this fellow delight in being the bearer of bad news? ‘All right. What is it?’
The man took a fortifying breath. ‘We have word from reliable sources that the Priestess still lives.’
Ivanr stared at the man. ‘Generous gods! This is bad news?’
‘She is with the Imperial Army. They are bringing her with them.’
Ivanr rubbed the cold rain from his face as they continued to walk along. They were bringing her south — to them? ‘And you are worried…’
‘What they intend, yes. I believe they mean to make a spectacle of her death.’
Yes. That would make sense. A gruesome lesson in the uselessness of rebellion. Yet do they really believe that would terrify these people? It would only infuriate them. Strengthen their resolve, not weaken it. In fact, it may provoke a bloodbath. Could that be their real intent? To goad these peasants into a precipitous attack? I will have to warn Martal.
‘Thank you… What is your name, anyway?’
A humourless tightening of the thin bloodless lips. ‘Orman.’
‘You served in Beneth’s organization?’
‘Yes, in addition to my preaching.’
Ivanr eyed him sidelong. ‘When we spoke before… were you acting for Beneth?’
He shook his head, completely untroubled. ‘Then, I spoke for the Priestess.’
‘Well, I’m not one to meddle among Beneth’s choices. So, what now?’
For a time Orman walked along in silence, hands behind his back, head cocked. ‘With your permission I will travel ahead to Ring city. Early on we made an effort to seed the city with followers. Now we’re pretty much locked teeth and throat in an unofficial battle for control of it.’
‘How goes it?’
A clenched, pained look crossed the fleshless face. ‘Poorly. These Imperials have finally caught on. They’ve sealed the roads north. Forced refugees back into the city. They’re not giving up any more ground.’
‘I see. So… what is your prediction?’
He tilted his head. ‘This time I believe the fate of the city will be decided by the battle. Whoever wins that will win the city — and half the country. Impartially speaking, the Imperials really should not meet us upon the field. They ought to garrison Ring, deny it to us, and watch our movement dissolve away goalless and unfocused…’ He sighed, lifting his bony shoulders. ‘But that they will not do. The way these uprisings have been dealt with in the past will dictate how the Imperials will handle this one now.’
He offered what might have been intended as a smile of encouragement, but which struck Ivanr as a death’s-head leer. ‘So you see, Ivanr. You may take their determination to meet us in the field as a potential disaster — I see it as already a half-victory.’ With that the man bowed, and took his leave.
Ivanr wasn’t certain what to make of all that. Either the man was an extraordinarily talented political agent, or he was a religious fanatic blind to everything but success. While he agreed that this lot did not have the discipline to last any protracted siege, the Imperial heavy cavalry playing to their strengths of warfare in the field did not particularly strike him as a mistake on their part. But he didn’t serve on the intelligence side of strategy. Tactics was his strength.
The call came back through the ranks for an end to the day’s march. The soldier in Ivanr was horrified: it was nowhere near dusk! At this rate it would take them another week to reach Ring. He dabbed his wet sleeve to his face. Such was the price of holding together a voluntary civilian army.
And as always, the Imperials watched and waited. He peered around, searching the rolling hillsides surrounding the loose, ranging force. There, on the distant flank, riders shadowing them. One of Hegil’s few remaining cavalry? No way to tell from this distance. Probably not. He wondered why they weren’t constantly harassing them, gnawing at their numbers. Perhaps the Imperials considered it beneath their dignity.
Perhaps they did not wish to discourage the rag-tag army from advancing to its destruction. A damned miserable conclusion to come to. He blew on his hands and wished he hadn’t thought of it.
*
A constellation of camp fires lit the night to the east. Here, in a wooded depression, a single hearth of embered logs glowed a sullen orange. A man sat cross-legged before it, hunched, studying small objects pulled from a bag. Each piece elicited further exclamations of disbelief and outrage until the man scooped up the casting of pieces and thrust them home once again.
The crackle of brush snapped his attention round. ‘Who is that?’
‘It’s Totsin,’ snarled the newcomer, cursing and pushing at the dense bracken.
The man relaxed. ‘Surprised to see you here. Don’t you know it’s dangerous to disturb a talent at work?’
Totsin straightened his shirt and pushed back his thin hair. ‘Is that what you’re doing? I’m looking for Sister Gosh. She’s here, isn’t she?’
The man shook the bag, squinted suspiciously at it. ‘Yeah. She’s here,’ he said absently.
Totsin watched for a time, stroking his uneven beard. ‘So, Brother Jool… what are you doing?’
Jool shook the bag next to his ear once again. A clacking sounded from it. ‘The tiles are talking nonsense.’
Totsin’s hand clenched in his beard. He took a quavering breath. ‘Oh? I’ve always thought them unreliable, you know.’
Not answering, Jool smoothed the dirt before him then reached into the bag. He drew a tile, examined it in the faint light, grunted, and set it down.
‘What is it?’ Totsin asked in a whisper.
‘Hearth, or Flame, inverted. Failure? Betrayal? A very troubling start.’
Next came another tile, this one of a very black wood. Jool snorted his disgust. ‘Again. Always early. A strong portent — but of what?’
‘What is that one?’
‘The Dark Hoarder, inverted. Death? Betrayal ending in death? Or life, the opposite of cessation? How am I to read it?’
Totsin said nothing.
Another tile, this one of crude fired clay. ‘Earth. Very unusual coming up this early. Could also mean the past returned, or consequences. It is aligned with the ancient earth goddess. Some name it the Dolmen.’
He reached in again and this time hissed at the gleaming white tile in his hand. ‘Riders next. Prominent. Are these two associated now somehow? What are the relationships here: hearth betrayed, death betrayed, earth or past, and Stormriders? What am I to make of it?’ Jool reached in again. ‘One last choice.’
This dark wood tile he held up, squinting at it. ‘Demesne of Night. Hold of Darkness. Related, how? A puzzle indeed.’
Totsin cleared his throat. ‘I have a tile for you, Jool. I came by it recently.’
Jool did not look up; he was frowning at the spread of tiles before him. ‘Oh? A new one?’
‘Yes. Here it is.’
Distracted, Jool glanced up. Totsin tossed the small rectangle of wood; Jool caught it. ‘What is… Gods all around! Totsin! You fool!’ The man sprang to his feet, tried to throw the tile away but it would not leave his hand. He stared at it, horrified. ‘We never — the Witch! Her! What have you-’
Then, a long hiss of comprehension, his shoulders falling. ‘I see now. Hearth, home, betrayed: a traitor within the family. Death — mine. Dolmen — the past, your reasons. Night — now, this night.’
The hand holding the tile withered before their eyes, desiccating to a dead skeletal limb sheathed in skin cured to leather. ‘The Riders, though,’ Jool continued, wondering. ‘What have they… wait! Four! Four fates foretold! Two greater and two lesser.’ The man’s face paled to an ashen pallor, sinking and withering. ‘Fool you remain, Totsin. You slew me too early. What I foresee I now withhold — to your despair…’ A last breath escaped dried lips and Jool collapsed, bones clattering, to fall in a heap of parchment-like flesh.