Shadowheart

'Reinforcements?'

'Where from?' asked Chandyr. 'And given that they want to break us, why haven't we seen them in tandem with the elves before now?'

Dystran chuckled. 'My dear Chandyr, you are the military mind. I rather think I should be asking that question of you.'

'Apologies, my Lord, I'm thinking out loud.' Chandyr cleared his throat. 'I can only surmise that they have found some new mercenaries or perhaps that one of the Barons has been persuaded to lend his support. Whatever, it has given the bulk of the elves time to rest and regroup and I think that is significant. They are waiting for us to act and they will be ready.'

'Your thoughts?' asked Dystran.

'There is little open to us, my Lord. Whatever your timetable, I suggest you stick to it. We also should not change our plan to attack through the north gate; any other leaves us in the open for long enough to lose the effect of surprise. I don't think the elves are planning an assault, that would be futile but we had to expect them to expect us to force the pace at some stage.'

'Thank you, Commander,' said Dystran.

'My Lord?'

Dystran turned to be faced by an anxious-looking youth wearing the armband of a messenger.

'Speak up,' said Dystran.

'I am ordered to tell you from your college guard captain that he has found something you need to see urgently.' There was an uncertain smile.

Dystran nodded. 'Very well. Go and get some food from the kitchen and get back to your post. Well done.'

The messenger bowed and ran back the way he had come. Dystran shook Chandyr's hand.

'Keep me informed. Anything out of the ordinary and I must know it. Our time is close. Be ready.'

'Always, my Lord.'

A canter back through the city and Dystran was intercepted at the college gates by Captain Suarav, the most senior college guard soldier. Like Chandyr, a career in the military had left him cynical and scarred, older than his forty years, but his sense of duty and loyalty shone out. He was a man Dystran instinctively liked and trusted. Dystran smiled to himself. Ranyl would remind him of his like and trust of Yron, hero turned betrayer. He wondered briefly what had happened to him. Dead, he presumed, and probably at the hands of an elf. Fitting.

'My Lord, I wouldn't normally bother you but I felt you should see this in person before it was cleared.'

Dystran jumped from his horse and handed the reins to a waiting stable hand.

'What?'

'This way, my Lord.'

Suarav indicated around the college walls and led the way. They walked quickly across the open space between the college and the rest of the city, heading for drab tenements and blank-faced warehouses. The guard captain walked down a stinking, narrow alley into gloomy shadow that gave a lie to the brightness of the morning. A buzzing sound up ahead revealed itself to be a cloud of flies underneath which, three guardsmen stood, swatting ineffectually.

'This isn't a time for a walkabout view of social deprivation in Xetesk,' said Dystran, without a clue why he was being dragged down here.

‘Ican assure you it is nothing of the sort,' said Suarav. His tone was not encouraging.

They walked down the alley in silence. Thirty odd yards in, Dystran was presented with five bodies. The rats had got to work in the time since the men had died. Two of them were dressed in rough clothes and Dystran couldn't care less about them. What concerned him greatly was the patrol of three that lay with them.

'How long have they been dead?' he asked.

'A day, maybe more,' said Suarav. 'We knew they were missing but didn't suspect this. As you know, we have had the odd attempted desertion.'

Ignoring the stench of death and the mass of flies swarming about the corpses, Dystran and Suarav knelt for a closer examination.

'At first we thought this was a fight gone wrong between thieves and our men, but it can't be that.'

'Why not?' asked Dystran, who had assumed exactly the same. He turned his head to one side to try and breathe some cleaner air.

'Just look at the wounds,' said Suarav. 'These two bastards don't have a mark on them but their necks are broken. Our men have been taken down by a clean arrow shot here, and a crushed windpipe and a single thrust here. The third's had his throat torn out. I'm afraid these men have all been killed by the same foe. We've seen it before in these alleys.'

'Elves,' grated Dystran. 'In my city. Again?

Last time, with Yron's help, the elves had taken back the ancient elven thumb fragment from under Xeteskian noses. It had stopped the elven plague in its tracks and swung the war away from Xetesk. Dystran wasn't about to allow that sort of thing to happen again. He straightened quickly and strode from the alley, Suarav in his wake.

'Double the number of patrols, treble the guard on the archives, use any spare men to watch the entrances to the catacombs. No one who can use a sword or a spell sleeps tonight in my college, understand?'

'My Lord?'

'There aren't many elves in the battle today. Chandyr thought they were preparing for a breakout by us but they aren't, are they?' Dystran shook his head. 'Some of those bastards are coming in here tonight. Perhaps all of them.'

The trouble was, he reflected on his way back to his Tower, with almost all the remaining Protectors banished from the college grounds because of their questionable loyalties – Dystran suspected but not could not prove, yet, their complicity in the theft of the thumb fragment – he didn't necessarily have the men to keep the college secure from the elves. Any normal strike force, yes, but these people were way too clever, way too fierce. One thing he had to do was put watchers on the city walls.

There was a great deal to be done.

In the end, Tessaya and Devun hadn't spoken much that first evening. The Wesmen Lord had seen the Black Wing's tiredness, had apologised for their treatment while insisting on its necessity and had seen Devun and his men to a freshly pitched tent outside his camp boundaries.

He hadn't been recalled until after midday the following day, by which time he and his men were rested, refreshed and well fed, if still nervous at their position. Returning to Tessaya's tent at the sullen request of a Wesmen warrior with the most halting Balaian, Devun breathed in the scents of steaming bowls of flower petals and incense candles, relaxing perceptibly.

Tessaya was dressed much as he had been the previous night and he showed Devun to one of his sofas, offered him food from the platter of bread, fruit and meat on the table between them, and sat down himself.

'So, where did we leave it last night?' he asked 'You had told me of the appetite for war being displayed by the colleges, the continuing troubles of Julatsa following our own successful occupation there, and the siege currently in place around Xetesk. Lystern and Dordover in alliance, you said?'

'Yes, my Lord,' said Devun.

'Please.' Tessaya held up a hand. ‘Iam not your lord. To you, I am Tessaya, as to me you are Devun.'

'Thank you,' said Devun, disarmed in spite of himself by the charm of this man, whom he had heard to be little more than a savage. 'And they are aided by elves from the southern continent of Calaius.'

'Yes, fascinating,' said Tessaya. 'Very capable, you said.'

'Extraordinary,' replied Devun. ‘Imyself was witness to an attack of theirs when three elves killed fifteen of my men. A match for Protectors, I've heard it said.'

Tessaya raised his eyebrows. 'Now that would be worth seeing. But to business. You came here looking for my assistance. I am at a loss as to how to give it. I can hardly join a siege perpetuated by my sworn enemies and I do not see the point of attacking them and letting Xetesk, the worst of them by far, off the leash.'

He sat back, having grabbed an apple from the platter, and now bit into it, washing down the fruit with a goblet of wine. Devun felt himself being pierced by Tessaya's startling gaze, which blazed from beneath heavy brows.