and irritable from the buffeting storm, the coachman gave way with ill grace. The first boy he hailed failed to hear his bull bellow through the thundering rumble of supply barrels three lackeys rolled across the plank flooring. In the maelstrom of arrivals and frenetic activity, nobody paused to note livery colors, or spared proper time to grace the prerogatives due to servants of ruling rank.
The irritated coachman was forced to jump clear to avoid being milled down, an ungainly leap that slapped his wet coattails against the spindle shanks of his calves.
The next boy he collared spun around in his tracks, staggered under a double load of horse harness. ‘Let be, sir! I’ll catch a lashing if the last of these bridles aren’t cleaned. The riders have orders to leave at first light!’
‘Impertinent wretch!’ Run out of patience, the coachman grabbed rein leather and twisted, noosing the boy by the throat. ‘Do you see, over there? That’s his lordship, the mayor. He’s the one asking your service. Now find me somebody who can flag the guard captain’s attention, or I promise, you won’t live long enough to catch whippings, or carry anything, anywhere.’
The boy with some difficulty swiveled his head. His ruddy cheeks paled as he noticed the glittering personage, fuming red-faced on the fringes. ‘My lord, forgive.’ He unloaded the harness in a jangling heap and scampered, the coachman left cursing as he unlooped his feet from the mess of dropped headstalls and rein leather.
Through the subsequent wait, the mayor steamed, silent. The guardhouse reechoed to its hammer-beamed ceiling with the rushed noise of men under pressure. Their snappish talk came and went through the continuous dinning screel, as the armorer’s boy sharpened blades and pole weapons on a pumice wheel spun by a half-wit.
At due length, a breathless equerry dashed up. Shouting, he offered to escort his Lordship of Jaelot into the guard captain’s presence.
The mayor stamped a gout-ridden foot, then winced at the twinge of sharp pain. ‘Damn your impertinence, it’s himself should be coming to me.’
Since the harried equerry looked likely to bolt on the pretext of some other errand, the coachman entreated, ‘My lord! I beg you, please follow.’
The mayor shot back a rankled glare, then embraced better sense and gave way. He waved the equerry onward and gimped headlong into the tumult.
The disgruntled party tacked an erratic course through mounds of provisions, overseen by anxious clerks busy checking off lists on their tally slates. They sidestepped, and just missed getting skewered by a man bearing bundles of furled banners on poles with lethally sharpened steel finials. Men polished armor, fitted spurs with new straps, or checked stitching on targets and scabbards. By the snatched words of conversation and the bellowed instructions that surfaced through racketing mayhem, the mayor learned that a cavalcade of five hundred prepared to ride northward at daybreak.
‘I gave no such order!’ he huffed over the press, buffeted by fellows lugging a field tent who failed to look where they were going.
The lanky coachman shortened his stride, belatedly reminded that his lordship suffered from cruelly swollen feet. Worn to boredom by the incessant upset caused by the Master of Shadow, he expressed sympathy, then held the plank door in forbearance as the boy led into the candlelit closet that served as the bursar’s office.
The stuffy space already held two muscled sergeants armed with chain mail and swords. They faced off against an overstrung baker who shook fat, pink fists in brisk argument. ‘Damn your haste to the eighth fire of Sithaer! I can’t supply a half company of men on a mountain foray at short notice! You want loaves, and not bricks shaped of flour, you’ll wait. Bread dough takes time. Can’t hurry that. You want your provender delivered in three hours, we can make good on half what you’ve listed, provided you settle for soda biscuits.’
‘What foray!’ bellowed the Mayor of Jaelot, ignored where he stood at the threshold. ‘No such command was sealed by my hand! Who dares presume to send mounted men haring off into the Skyshiels?’
Hobnails grated as the sergeants spun volte-face. The baker squeaked and fell silent. Beyond them, a sparkling, deliberate movement, the guard captain arose from the trestle. With the shutters latched closed, sullen light from the candle lamp chased his mail shirt with glitters of reflection. Bypassing rank, he spoke first to the baker. ‘Bring biscuit in casks. We’ll hold the supply train, and send them along when they’re loaded.’
The mayor flushed purple. Choking with outrage, he tugged at his pearl-stitched collar of state.
Before he could howl, the guard captain turned on him. Too large a man for the confines of walls, his no-nonsense manner seemed stripped away to a magma core of aggression. His weathered, flint face displayed chilling resolve, and his stare held a sharpened, fanatical intensity. ‘You do want the Spinner of Darkness destroyed?’
The mayor shut his gaping mouth like a trout. Set aback under scrutiny that bored like an auger, he sucked in a shaken breath. ‘We have patrols already in pursuit of the Master of Shadow.’ Wary as the man who handled hot coals when he had expected an ice cube, he added, ‘I’ve come to demand why my orders concerning the Koriani witches have failed to be carried out!’
‘The messengers you sent only got underfoot.’ No longer the stolid commander at arms who paid ruling rank proper deference, the guard captain’s mood took on a terrifying edge. ‘And the demons-accursed witches don’t signify.’ He kicked back his bench and stalked past the boards of the trestle. ‘The watch had your warrant to arrest them last night. Wasted effort, of course. The Koriathain had gone, though the hour before, my sentries reported the good sisters seemed to be everywhere. No search will contain them. Whether or not they’re inside town walls, no weapon I have can break through their wards of protection.
Since they’ll hide behind spellcraft and slink where they please, the larger concern should take precedence. We must turn every resource we have in pursuit of the Master of Shadow.’
The mayor advanced a gimping, short step. ‘How dare you!’ Flushed to his wattles, no small bit afraid, he let his shrill tirade gain force. ‘Those witches allowed our prized quarry to go free!
They have their own web of secretive politics, and I rue the hour we gave them our trust. We were without doubt betrayed by their senior. That small, bronze-haired healer broke her word as well, though she swore me a vow of life forfeit. I want her brought to justice for the bastard’s escape. Reassign your men here. I won’t sanction the authority to send our best company to break their fool necks in the mountains.’
The guard captain’s baleful stillness held threat. ‘I say again, do you want the shadow-bending felon taken down? Or are you not sworn to the Light, with Jaelot’s resources pledged to support the Divine Prince’s Alliance?’
‘We’re pledged, not possessed,’ the mayor hedged, his gloved fingers clasped in dismay for the change that made his captain a volatile stranger. ‘The s’Ffalenn pretender is criminal, and sorcerer, and likely by now, he’s made his escape to the seacoast.’
‘The coast is cut off. Bastard can’t slip by us that way.’ The guard captain advanced, the mailed fist on his sword tensed as though ready to kill. ‘By my tracker’s report, since the hour we flushed him, the criminal has turned northwest. He’s alone, and in flight toward the high ground. We’ll pin him against the ravines, or break his heart and spirit in the Skyshiels.’ At the mayor’s hissed protest, he flexed his hand, the sword inched from the sheath a glittering fraction. ‘I won’t argue further!
In this case, the Light of true justice must prevail, no matter the cost of our sacrifice. Stand aside, old man! Whether the slinking fiend of a sorcerer leads us a chase through Baiyen Gap, I’ll take our best lancers and hound him. No haunts, and no threat of old wives’ tales will stop me. Nor will your shrinking, faint heart.’
Overfaced, whitely shocked, the mayor backed down.
His guard captain shoved past with obstinate force, the spark in his eyes