Marafice had shuddered. "What of the Whitehog?"
"He retired to his grange. Some believe he should have pushed that last five leagues to meet his mother and he's lost some support over it. His momentum's gone, his remaining hideclads are disheartened, the ground's still too hard to bury the dead. Word is that he'll rally but it'll take time." Again the green eyes had glittered. "All due to a storm."
Marafice had dismissed the man, and resolved then and there to never use him again.
It was three days later and he knew he would break that resolve and call Greenslade into his presence tonight. Information was his lifeblood. If he intended to approach Hoargate tomorrow he needed to know what to expect.
His father-in-law held Mask Fortress, yet as of three days ago Roland Stornoway had not declared himself surlord. Marafice could not imagine a stranger turn of events. Spire Vauis without a surlord for a month? He did not know the histories and perhaps such a thing had happened before. But he doubted it. He had lived in Spire Vanis all his life, spent twenty-two years close to surlords—first Borhis Horgo and then Penthero Iss. This was not a city that could tolerate a vacuum. Something was happening, but he was not a scholar or a politician; he needed Greenslade and his brethren to help him figure it out.
"All halt!" Tat Mackelroy cried, standing in his stirrups and bellowing down the ranks. "Make camp. All halt!"
Marafice was surprised to see they had arrived at the Vale of Spires. Hours had passed where he had left his progress in the hoofs of his big black warhorse. The sun was failing, dipping into bands of red and silver clouds at the edge of the sky. All farm stench had gone and the air was crisp and gusting. They had approached the granite spires from the east and Marafice wondered how long he had ridden in their long, needle-like shadows and not known it.
Most people believed the spires had been formed by God, given as both gift and warning to the people of Spire Vanis. See my power. A few claimed they had been raised by ancient sorcerer kings who had died in the War of Blood and Shadow, long before the city at the foot of Mount Slain existed. Marafice could not understand the need to explain such things. They were there, you could see them, why invent fancies to turn them into things they were not? What they were was a rough circle of granite fangs that thrust straight out of the bedrock at the center of a grassy plain. Some were as tall as a hundred and twenty feet and others less than thirty. The granite was a dirty off-white color, streaked and potholed with black. To Marafice s mind they looked like rotting shark's teeth. He supposed they might be an alarming sight to those who had never seen them before, especially the taller ones that had edges like serrated knives, but he had always found them oddly pleasing.
And it pleased him to make camp here this night. He dismounted and started issuing orders. Anyone who looked even remotely afraid or doubtful was given latrine duty. Marafice had found it worked as well as anything when it came to refneusing a mans mind, feeling full of energy, he hammered posts with I he mercenaries and raised tents. Cook fires were— a problem as tiiev had run out of timber two days back and had not been able to forage or strip much since. All trees had long since gone from this part of the country, felled to make way for pasture and farms. Marafice thought a fire would be good thing for the men. "Chop down the small cart," he commanded Tat Mackelroy on impulse. "There's no reasons why the captives can't walk to the city tomorrow. The wounded can be jammed into the remaining two."
This turned out to be a spectacularly popular order. Mercenaries and men of Rive Company came together to hack the wooden cart into sticks. One of the old Rive men fetched his stringboard and started plucking out a tune, some outrageously lewd song about a woman who went up a mountain and ended up getting fucked by a bear. Pretty much everyone joined in the chorus. Ale kegs were tapped. The cartbed was reduced to chips. Work began on the wheels. Perish frowned at all the ungodly activity, but had the sense to let it be. He knew the value of such releases to men who had been away from home for too long.
"What should we do with the captives?" Jon Burden was the one sober presence in the camp. As commander of Rive Company, the four clansmen who remained alive were his responsibility.
"Lash them to one of the fangs," Marafice said. "Take off their boots and razor the souls of their feet. Lightly, but enough to keep them from running. Those men aren't fools. They would have figured out by now that tonight's their last chance to escape before we enter the city."
"Aye," Jon Burden said, glancing south toward the mountains and Spire Vanis. From here you could just see the haze of gray smoke the city created billowing above the ice fields of Mount Slain. "Always supposing we are allowed entry."
Marafice had known Jon Burden for as long as he had been in the Rive Watch. They had trained together under Perish; pulled themselves up from lowly brothers to captains, learned how to eat in the grand banquet halls of Mask Fortress without causing grange ladies to faint in disgust, and discovered hard truths about the city they guarded. Marafice would not lie to him. "We'll see what we see."
Jon Burden pulled air into his thick powerful chest. The rubies in the killhound brooch at his throat fired in the setting sun. "A pity we had to trade the ram."
Marafice barked out a laugh. Clapping Burden hard on the shoulder, he said, "Count yourself lucky you never had the pleasure of meeting the Weasel chief firsthand. She's been figuring in my dreams ever since—and God help me, sometimes she's naked."
Burden snorted. "I'll see to the clansmen."
Carefully avoiding favoring his left foot, Marafice left the campsite and walked amongst the granite spires. It was colder herd, the air still. Odd bits of debris littered the ground surrounding the stones: incense burners, lamb-gut sheaths, glass vials, ale cups, moldering lumps of food. Something that looked a lot like blood had been sprayed against the base of the tallest spire. Marafice frowned at it, deeply disgusted.
"Protector General." It was Greenslade, slipping between the fangs. Always it was difficult to keep your gaze on his cloak. Somehow it kept sliding off. "You wanted to see me?"
Marafice glanced back at the camp. Walking deep into the thick of stone spires, he said, "What is the latest news from the city?"
Greenslade was not a man to waste time. "Roland Stornoway still controls the fortress. As he's yet to make a formal announcement about the surlordship word is that he's holding it for his son-in-law."
"The watch?"
"They've been with him right from the start. It's my guess he's been telling the captains that by supporting him they're supporting you."
It would certainly explain how easy it had been for Roland Stornoway to control Mask Fortress and the city gates. You needed the watch on your side for that. Marafice reached out and touched the closest stone spire. The edges were sharp enough to open skin. "What's the status of the gates?"
"Hoargate and Almsgate are still closed. Wrathgate remains open for limited hours each day. Stornoway has forbidden the breaks to be put on the gear shanks, so the gate can be dropped at a moment's notice."
It made sense. "Who polices them?"
"The watch, though I've heard rumors that Stornoway has hideclads garrisoned in all the gate towers."