When I returned to Slake Cross, we gathered in the hall. The Insect flights had ceased but the valley was swarming with them. Rayne and Cyan had managed to ride through and had been here two weeks. I heard that Cyan was already antagonising her father and had offended nearly every Eszai.
Lightning crouched down and held a wooden taper in the hearth. Shielding it with his cupped hand he crossed to the table and touched the taper to the rope wick of an oil lamp. He turned down the wick until the smoky flame stopped fluttering, then stubbed out the taper and sat down next to Tornado and myself.
The yellow glow illuminated our faces and Tornado’s front as he hunched over a pint of beer with a glum expression. Wrenn paced up and down in the darkness between the table and the fireplace, more restless than a rat on a stove, his hand on his sword hilt. Nobody spoke. Cyan was sitting on the hearth step, reading one of Rayne’s books. She looked a lot healthier now. She was poking her thumb through a hole in her jumper, making a woollen glove, and paint was flaking from the designs on her riding boots.
A heavy, insistent hammering came from outside; the Sapper was keeping soldiers working long into the night, building palisades to enclose the canvas city growing outside the town.
The fire took some of the dampness out of the air. The first week of May had ended but the cold night rain still permeated everything. It flattened the grass on the moor and sent ripples down the dam’s overflow chute. Pools in the mud along the Lowespass Road deepened and coalesced. Many carts mired to the tops of their wheels were abandoned haphazardly on the verges.
Frost had fallen asleep sitting at her table, her head down on a sheaf of calculations. Lightning went to her and put a hand under her rounded shoulder. He gently tipped her backwards, her head lolling. He caught her with his other hand in the small of her back, put his arm under her knees and lifted her up. He carried her to her camp bed and laid her down carefully.
‘Is she all right?’
Lightning shook his head. ‘She’s been awake seventy-two hours. Every noise and shadow has her on her toes. She forgets that if you keep a bow strung all the time it will warp-and then when you need it, you won’t be able to use it. She is tillering the string of her mind so taut I wonder it hasn’t already snapped. Tell us the news, Comet.’
I said, ‘The Imperial Fyrd are on their way and so are all the manors. I’ve never seen anything like it-a hundred and fifty thousand soldiers and nearly the same in auxiliaries. All the inns and camp clearings are full, they’re filling churches with straw sacks to sleep on. They strip the depots clean as they pass. It’s as if all the towns are moving-the roads are just like long, thin towns. When I tell the governors that San has left the Castle, they don’t give me any problems raising fyrd. I haven’t even had any resistance from Eske or Hacilith. I think that’s why San is coming-to demonstrate how important this is.’
Tornado folded his arms. ‘When will the Emperor arrive?’
‘I saw his entourage this morning. They’re passing the troops already coming in on the Calamus Road. It’s taking them longer to get here than I expected because half of Awia and the Plainslands is ahead of them. At that rate they’ll take a couple more days.’
Lightning said, ‘I have ensured billeting for the Imperial Fyrd. The quartermasters and armourers are checking our stocks, and we’re carting in more fodder as fast as we can.’
The sleeves of Tornado’s leather jacket were pushed up to his elbows, so I could see the faded red sunburst tattoo under the hairs on his massive forearm. He said, ‘I’ll send troops to clear the way. There are too many Insects running around out there. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. That Insect flight was not, like, natural. It creeps me out. We’re the Emperor’s bodyguard so I’ll go and take charge of the Imperial Fyrd. Half of them hardly ever leave the demesne. They’re like, only the Castle’s guard.’
‘They train very hard,’ said Lightning.
‘They only bloody parade! They never campaign together, at least not as a single division.’
Lightning said, ‘Most of them are veteran Select. If they weren’t good they wouldn’t have got the job. But yes, I agree theirs is an honorary position and you should go out to meet San. He will have this hall as a centre of operations.’
‘Where will his private quarters be?’ I asked.
‘Your room.’
‘Oh, thanks.’
‘Well, you weren’t here and we thought you wouldn’t mind…After all, you can sleep on a bookshelf.’
I picked up a bottle and poured some wine, hoping it would ease my nerves. Wrenn paced around the table and said to the room in general, ‘The boss is coming. What have we done wrong?’
‘I wonder whose head is on the block first?’
Wrenn pressed me: ‘Doesn’t San leaving the Castle mean the end of the world? I was taught he would leave to prepare the way for god. Is god returning? What will it do?’
I had met with this question in every manor and it was really starting to annoy me. I said tiredly, ‘Shut the fuck up about god.’
Lightning said, ‘Don’t swear in front of Cyan.’
I glanced across to Cyan, who smiled innocently.
Tornado spoke up: ‘I hope god returns. It’s what I’ve been waiting for all these years.’
I gave a frustrated shriek and waved my hands in the air. ‘Hundreds of thousands of troops are coming and we have no space! Let’s concentrate!’
Tornado ignored me and addressed Wrenn: ‘I know I’m prepared for god. To me it’s the whole point of being immortal-I get a ringside seat when it shows up. San knows everything I do is for the Castle so I’m damn sure he’ll give me a good report.’
‘God is an inhuman power,’ Lightning said quietly.
‘Still, I like to think it’ll be refreshed and in a good mood.’
Lightning said, ‘Please can we keep to the point?’
‘This is the point!’
He shook his head. ‘No, Tornado. In my experience stories are rarely as old as people say; and traditions are never as time-honoured as they like to believe. The idea that San never leaves the Castle originated about a hundred years after the Games. I don’t remember him announcing that he would never leave. Many opinions sprang up around that time; they became stories and then the centuries twisted them into legends. Please do not be distracted by myths of the world ending because the truth is much worse. We all know the original version deep down. Cyan, Wrenn; when San leaves the Castle it logically means the end of the Circle not the end of the world. We have failed him and he needs to take command again himself. I think-I fear-that he will disband the Circle.’
‘He took charge of the Imperial Fyrd just like a warrior,’ I said with wonder.
‘Yes. San the warrior is not so strange to me. I remember him leading the First Circle. I was introduced to him once, in the field at Murrelet, where Rachiswater is now. When I was a boy he would stop at the palace on his expeditions from the Castle to the front. Could we be redundant?’
‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘San asked for every fighter we can field. Who’ll lead them? He needs us more than ever.’
‘I cannot begin to predict what he plans.’
Tornado said, ‘I still think god might appear.’
‘Well, you are from a more religious era,’ Lightning said airily.
‘And you’re full of bullshit!’
‘What will god look like?’ Wrenn asked Tornado.
The giant man’s voice sparked with interest. ‘Dunno. I asked San to, like, describe it, but he wouldn’t. San says god made us, so it’s more powerful than us, so it can’t be Awian or human. It wouldn’t have made us anything like itself, either in looks or the extent of its power, because then we’d be able to rebel and of course god wouldn’t chance that. That’s why god is an “it”. Most books I’ve read say it can look like whatever it wants to. It, like, creates stuff. That’s what it does. So it can create forms for itself. If god was speaking to you, then I guess it might choose to look like an Awian.’
‘You’re making this worse,’ I complained.
Wrenn glanced at Lightning for support. ‘Do you believe in god?’
Lightning said, ‘I see no reason not to, because San does not lie. No one has ever given me a more convincing alternative. Besides, we are immortal. God must be behind it somewhere, or how could San have immortality to share?’
Wrenn gave a great worried sigh. He unbuckled his belt and laid his sword on the table. He ran his fingers through his hair and set off pacing to the fireplace again.
I was suddenly furious. I couldn’t believe we were talking about this crap! ‘Tornado, you’re wasting our time! Are we credulous Zascai? Are we Trisians, to be sitting here pontificating? Is this the Buncombe Beach Young Philosophers On The Brink Of Disaster Club?’
‘Don’t speak Plainslands,’ said Lightning. ‘I can’t follow you if you go that fast.’
‘Sorry. I’m just telling him that we’re in this together and god is not going to help us. Nothing is going to come and save us. We have no one to run crying to, nothing to rely on. We must stand on our own two feet. Can we just grow up, please? Why do you think San told me to muster everyone from Frass to Vertigo? The strength and resources in each of us is all we have!’
‘You used to believe,’ Tornado said. ‘I remember when you joined the Circle. You weren’t so cynical then.’
I shrugged. When I was an apprentice in Hacilith I saw how seriously my seniors took the story. What other conclusion can a child draw from the sayings of adults? I grew more experienced and I realised that adults don’t have all the answers, and in many cases they’re even more credulous and confused than children. Then I saw the Shift, then I saw the Somatopolis, and I realised how truly alone we are-not only in this world, but in all of them.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I have no proof. But if we don’t know whether god is real, we can’t depend on it. If we can’t prove anything either way, and if we’ll never know the answer, we should shut up about it and do something more practical. Instead of talking we should save ourselves! God might return and make everyone immortal, or us mortal. It could alter and revoke the laws of physics at will and leave us with a terrifying disorder. God might already have come back-remember the posteventualist heresy? Maybe San is god, watching and chuckling to himself. Maybe the Insects are god; they appeared, didn’t they? Or maybe god intended them to be the next phase of creation, more perfect and far hardier than us men.’
‘Fuck that!’ Tornado thundered. He stood up, so I did too, but I foolhardily kept going: ‘San is coming to see something new to him, that’s all.’
He patted me on the shoulders-and I sat down heavily on the bench.
‘Please!’ Lightning said.
Tornado said simply, ‘If Jant picks holes in my belief, it will shine still brighter through them.’
I sighed. ‘God coming back is nothing but a story. I’ve lived everywhere; I know a tale when I hear one. From Darkling to Hacilith to the Castle I’ve had to don and doff beliefs so many times I’ve realised stories are only ever about the people who make them up…’
‘Have you quite finished?’ said Lightning coldly.
‘I think he’s crazy,’ said Tornado.
‘No, I’m not crazy. I’ve just been around. Let me show you what I mean. Tales of god from different countries would seem as outlandish to you, as yours would to them.’
‘I have had my fill of outlandish countries,’ Lightning remarked quietly, stroking the scar on his palm.
‘You find Rhydanne strange, don’t you?’ I asked Tornado.
‘I find you strange,’ he said.
‘Rhydane think of god as looking like a Rhydanne.’
He sniggered.
I said, ‘Listen to the Rhydanne version. God the hunter made the world, the mountains, the plains, the sky; but it was empty of animals. So god made an animal to chase, and the animal she made was enormous, as if every single creature of the Fourlands, dumb and rational, had been joined together in one giant form. It had feathers and scales, skin and fur, hands, claws, wings and tails. It had hundreds of heads and thousands of eyes. It was both male and female. The beast sat on Scree Plateau and used the Plainslands as its footstool. Its heads towered above the peaks in the highest mountain clouds.
‘God chased the beast all over the Fourlands. She twirled her bolas, the stones of which were as large as the glacial boulders on the slopes of Tarneilear, tied to leather strings as long and as wide as the Turbary Track. Eventually the creature tired and god caught up with it. She cast her bolas and brought it down on the summit of Great Fheadain.
‘God killed the beast and its blood flowed down the gullies of Fheadain and created the first waterfalls. Then god skinned it and carved up its flesh. She kindled a fire and placed the cuts of meat on flat stones near the hearth. The warmth of the fire brought all the pieces of meat to life. They jumped up and ran off, all over the Fourlands and became the people and animals of the world.
‘The Rhydanne were quickest; they ran away first, before the fire could cook them. The humans were closer to the fire, and got burnt, which is why they are not as pale as Rhydanne and they need a warmer climate. Some cuts of meat had stuck together-humans and eagles-so now we have Awians. The Rhydanne had already populated the mountains, so humans and Awians must perforce live in the lowlands. God saw this had happened accidentally and decided to get drunk. She drank and drank and eventually fell asleep. One day she will wake up, with the heaviest hangover of all time. Rhydanne live in dread of having to pacify her with more alcohol on that day, I can tell you-’
‘Jant…’ Lightning cut me off with a calm voice.
Tornado said, ‘That’s the biggest load of rubbish I ever heard.’
‘Eilean told me it when I was small, back when I assumed Darkling valley was the whole world.’
Cyan brushed her silky hair back with her jumper sleeve and turned up her face. Rather self-consciously, she said, ‘If god is coming back, wouldn’t San have told Jant?’
‘Maybe even San doesn’t know,’ Tornado said.
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
Everybody looked at Tornado, who said, ‘Um, no…I can tell you haven’t, like, met the Emperor, girl.’
I said, ‘If San wants us to know, he’ll tell us. But the Insects are a more pressing consideration.’
‘You know what your problem is?’ asked Tornado.
‘No. But I know what you think my problem is.’
The veins stood out on his bull neck. ‘Oh, I’m sick of your smartarse comments, you flying streak of piss! Why don’t you step outside?’
I bridled. ‘Gladly!’
Lightning said, ‘Jant, wait until the Circle’s disbanded before starting a new career as a quintain for Tornado.’
‘If we don’t know what will happen,’ I repeated, ‘it’s sensible not to waste time arguing about it but continue with our plans.’
‘Hear, hear!’ Frost’s crackly, desiccated voice came from the direction of her camp bed. My outburst had woken her and she lay propped on one elbow watching us. She said, ‘I will use science to fix the problem that science has caused.’
She reclaimed the reeking coffee pot from her desk, poured herself a cup and scooped powdered milk into it. ‘Only scummy powder left, damn it…Can’t Snow stop that hammering?’
Her voice was faint, as if coming from kilometres away. She rubbed a bloodshot eye and watched wrinkled skin forming on the surface of her coffee. She appeared less like herself and more like an actress adept at pretending to be Frost. She was like a deserted mill relentlessly grinding grain because its mechanism can do nothing else, although nobody is inside to tend it.
She fingered a raisin out of the pile on her desk and ate it. Then she returned to her calculations.
‘Now, as to the Imperial Fyrd,’ said Lightning. ‘I don’t trust them if things get tough-’
‘Dad…’ Cyan interrupted. She was bored to be stranded here, while her father talked with his workmates above her head. The fact she was a minor, helpless in front of the world’s best warriors, embarrassed her even more.
‘Dad.’
‘Eszai should provide San’s bodyguard instead-’
‘Dad…’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Tornado.
‘Why not me?’ said Wrenn.
‘Because I’m the strongest. Officially, like.’
‘Da-aad.’
‘What?’ said Lightning.
‘Nothing. Can I go to the tavern?’
‘No. Stay here where I can see you, young lady.’
‘I have enough money.’
‘I know you have. But there is nothing left in the tavern to buy.’
‘I’m going, so tough!’
Tornado said, ‘Lightning, will you keep your daughter under control?’
‘Oh, she won’t be any trouble.’ He gave her such a warm, conspiratorial smile that it made the whole place seem homely; for a second it shrank the room, but she did not return it. ‘Come sit down by me,’ he added.
Cyan scudded over and slumped onto the bench. She said, ‘You’re all scared, aren’t you? You are, you’re all terrified, you just don’t want to admit it.’
‘Hush,’ said Lightning. ‘We must simply let San see the overall strategy. He will direct us.’
‘God might,’ said Tornado.
I pushed the heels of my hands into my closed eyes until grey-green patterns kaleidoscoped. I had only been back on the ground for two hours and I was on edge already.
‘Are you all right?’ Wrenn asked me.
‘Hmm? Yes. All it is, is…I’ve been on drugs for a very long time and now I’m not and I’m finding it a bit difficult, that’s all. Especially at night…’
Wrenn looked as if he was going to make a remark, but decided against it. Stranded on the other side of the age gulf, all he could do was start pacing again. The lanterns were flickering outside in the square and darkness was trailing in, with the sound of the innkeeper’s baby crying. ‘You know,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t be so terrible if civilian women and children weren’t trapped here too.’
Tornado stood up. ‘Can you hear the watchman’s bell? Someone’s at the gates.’
‘It’s probably god!’ I glared.
‘I hope so,’ he said casually. ‘Only god can stop your nonsense.’
Lightning said, ‘It must be another fyrd troop.’
A minute later the watchman sent a runner in, who stood open-mouthed until I beckoned him to the table. I recognised him as one of the Castle’s servants; I know them all by name. ‘Yes, Eider; what is it?’
‘Carniss manor has arrived, Messenger. We opened the gates because Insects were harrying them-they’ve been fighting off Insects all the way from the mountains. The governor says he’s recruited everybody he can; he has a whole battalion but they lost most of their mules. He requests orders to billet his men.’
Lightning said to me, ‘I’ll greet Carniss. I expect that manor holds unpleasant memories for you.’
‘More likely those bastards will be uneasy taking orders from a Rhydanne.’
‘Do they only have one battalion?’ Wrenn asked. ‘Well, I suppose every little helps.’
Lightning picked his coat off the back of the chair, thrust one arm into it and felt about for the other. He said, ‘Carniss may be a small manor but their archers are superb marksmen. They earn their living hunting.’
I glanced at the ceiling. ‘They’re bastards to a man.’
‘Jant, I know you don’t like Carniss, but we’re very crowded and strained here, so don’t sow discord. Even their General Fyrd bring their own fine bows. We can give them horses; I know they fight better as skirmishers than in formation.’
Frost added, ‘They have excellent master miners too, from the silver mines. They’re tough and they work hard.’
Tornado nodded. ‘I like Carniss. They have a decent attitude for featherbacks; they’re very down-to-earth. Frontiersmen make good garrisons. They’re used to danger, so they stay alert and observant, which is more than you can say for the city fyrds.’
I said, ‘They’re a lot of grubby unmanageable trappers who take deep revenge for slight offences.’
Cyan said, ‘Cool. Can I come and see them?’
‘No,’ Lightning told her. ‘Stay here. Jant, would you look after…No, don’t give her the wine! Bloody stop drinking! And, Wrenn, can you…Oh, forget it. I can’t believe what’s happening to the Circle these days!’ Lightning swung his quiver on his shoulder and stormed out after the servant.
Cyan looked up at me. ‘I want to watch Governor Carniss’s men come in.’
Wrenn said, ‘Let’s go, then.’
She glowered at him. ‘Not with you! And don’t look at me like that!’
‘I wasn’t looking at you like anything.’
‘You’ve been staring at my tits all night, you syphilitic Miroir bogtrotter!’
Wrenn’s face split in a grin. ‘Well, they are nice tits. You must be very sporty. I’ve heard you can shoot straight.’
‘Now you’re leering!’
‘I’m not leering. I’m smiling. Don’t you want a smile from the world’s best swordsman?’
‘The only weapon you handle is your own dick…mangy wanker.’
‘I don’t think she’s feeling the fun of the day,’ Wrenn said to me.
She stuck her nose in the air. ‘No, because a short-arsed whore-monger keeps asking if I want to see his sword.’
‘Come on, Cyan,’ I said hastily.
Sheets of rain hissed down on us as we walked out to the gate. I cupped my tall wing around her to give her some shelter and I felt her warmth. We stood in the archway under the lanterns and watched a line of horses moving above their amorphous rain-pocked reflections. The men’s heads bowed, greasy rivulets ran down their waxed cotton hoods and tent-like cloaks they had stretched over their saddles. Bow cases projected from bundles and panniers on their cruppers. The nearest horse’s ankle flexed, its unshod hoof splashed down shattering the reflection.
Most men were on foot, carrying spears over their shoulders. They walked past wearily, in a worn and handed-down, or looted, assortment of armour; threadbare brigandines with steel scales showing through the rents. Their cuirasses were flecked orange with recent rust, fur scarves tucked into their metal necklines. Mud had rubbed up their boots between their legs to the thighs.
Their standard bearer dipped the Carniss crescent flag under the archway as he passed us. I thought the outpost’s association with the rest of the kingdom was a thin veneer; the slightest battle tension scratched it and showed their harsh settlers’ identity. Their greatest loyalty was to each other.
Cyan breathed, ‘Wow. I haven’t seen anything like this before. Awndyn fyrd never go anywhere.’
‘Wait till the Eske heavy cavalry turn up. Then you’ll have something to stare at. See the man who looks like his mare? That’s Governor Veery Carniss.’
Veery was dismounting to greet Lightning. His teeth were so horsey his voice whinnied. His ears were like bracket fungus and, though he frowned, a duelling scar lifted one corner of his mouth, permanently changing his expression for the better.
Cyan said, ‘Oh no, look at Daddy being bloody effusive.’
I wondered what to say to her. I wanted her to stop making Lightning’s life so difficult, but on the other hand I didn’t want her to end up stuck in a palace all her life, even more jaded than she already was.
I said, ‘Lightning’s torn between his duty to the Emperor and to you. Ten years ago he put his love for you first and it cost him severely. I know in the past he hasn’t given you the attention you deserve. But he’s incredibly busy now and your attention-seeking is distracting him. Have you told him about your brush with jook?’
‘No.’
‘Well, Rayne knows. If you took it again, she would definitely tell him.’
‘God, no. I don’t want to see those things again.’
‘The Gabbleratchet?’
Cyan shot me a look. ‘How did you know?’
‘I was there.’
‘It was just a dream. It wasn’t real.’
‘Oh, the Shift is real, all right. San ordered me to keep it secret from Zascai. I suppose he doesn’t want mortals trying to reach it and dying in the process.’
Her quick temper ignited. ‘You pansy boy! That’s bullshit-all bullshit!’
‘I was there, Cyan.’
‘As a trick of my imagination!’
‘The Gabbleratchet is not a trick of your imagination.’
‘Gabbleratchet.’ She rolled the name over her tongue and scowled. ‘I once longed to fly like you can. I used to dream of the smell of clouds and the thin air, the way you smell. Now I have nightmares of rotting hounds. I woke up screaming last night. Daddy wanted to know what was the matter, but I told him that being lost in Hacilith had frightened me. You’re not joking, are you?’
‘No. There are more worlds than we visited but the distance to Shift would kill us. The Insects’ own domain cuts through thousands of worlds; I meant it when I said they make us look inferior.’
‘God might be in the Shift.’
I laughed. ‘Oh, don’t you start.’
‘God is on a break. Why not in the Shift?’
‘Sure,’ I said sarcastically. ‘San keeps it prisoner in Epsilon and feeds it chocolate biscuits.’
‘Are you the only person to know?’
‘No. Rayne has also been to Vista, when she was your age…’
‘What a scary thought.’
‘Yes. She was young once…so she says. Your father has seen a Shift creature but he wouldn’t discuss it with me afterwards. He won’t say a word about the Insect bridge too, even though he burned it down. It’s too weird for him.’
‘Typical of Daddy to ignore an adventure so important!’
‘He’s denied it, filed it away in the same part of his mind that he’d use if you told him you’d taken jook. He treats me with a bit more suspicion, though; as if I’m having a disordering effect on the world.’
‘I think he blames me for a sea change too,’ Cyan said. ‘But if he can’t deal with it, it isn’t my fault.’
‘Maybe in twenty years I’ll drop the Shift into the conversation and see if he responds.’
The Carniss troops filed in past us. Those on horseback were mainly women, with crossbows slung on both sides of their saddles-two crossbows, to work in duo with their reloaders. They were pulling bolts from bandoliers around their bodies and slipping them point first into the depleted racks attached upright on their saddlebows.
The crossbow bolts’ points gleamed-hard steel moulded to soft iron sockets, which cushion the shaft so it doesn’t split on impact with Insect shell but drives straight through.
Cyan stared at the division captain, who wore a rain-darkened leather apron over her lap on which a hook from her pulley belt rested. She had been spanning her crossbow in the skirmishes. Insect mandibles had slashed her boots and the metal toecaps shone brightly through the cut leather. Her sallet helmet was not as shiny; it had a golden-brown patina from being polished with sheep fat every night.
She bowed her head to me as she passed. She trailed a leash from the saddle, attached to the muzzle of the division’s mascot. It padded beside her on big paws like snowshoes, pasted with mud. Its deep, pure white fur was flattened by the rain, but its galena-grey eyes were keen.
‘What’s that?’ said Cyan.
‘A Darkling white wolf.’
Wrenn appeared beside us. ‘Don’t mind me standing here?’ he asked, risking death by dirty look from Cyan. ‘The others, they…Well, I just feel better to be around you two.’
I understood. He’s only thirty, and the average age of our colleagues in the hall was about eight hundred.
‘It’s good to see Veery again now I’m Eszai,’ he said. ‘I gave him that scar but he seems OK about it.’
‘After all, you did turn out to be Eszai-good,’ I said.
He hopped from foot to foot. ‘The Emperor, coming here! We’re in for it, aren’t we?’
I nodded. We stood there for a while, watching the seemingly endless procession. Sporadic hammering still echoed in the background; rain drove through the spotlights around the palisade. The carpenters, proficient Peregrine shipbuilders drafted to the fyrd, were continuing through the night.
Eventually Cyan said, ‘That captain was a woman.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Not much older than me.’
‘That’s right. Come inside.’
‘I want to watch.’ She stood, stubbornly, and descended into her thoughts again.
I drew my wing closer around her. I don’t know about her, or Wrenn, but I wished I was a very, very long way from here, sitting in a bar.
OUR BRAVE BOYS ARRIVE SAFELY
The Hacilith General Fyrd began arriving at Slake Cross today. The pals from Galt and Old Town marched in with a smart step and big smiles, after 900 km by cart. The Captain of the Ninth Division, Connel, 22, said, ‘We’re raring to have a go at these flying bugs. The people have been great as we came through Awia. The Awians have a spotless record, but now the Hacilith lads are here those bugs haven’t got a chance.’
They are the best that Morenzia has, strong, keen and selfless. We wish them the best!
Smatchet, with the troops at Slake Cross fort
Hacilith Post 27.05.25