‘Stone-tipped arrows-you are truly a fool. They will break against Letherii armour. I can expect nothing from you. At least I discover that now, instead of in the midst of battle.
Toe Anaster settled back on his haunches and watched Torrent march out of the firelight. Off… somewhere. Somewhere important. Like the latrines. He resumed examin-ing the fletching on the Imass arrows. Gift of an old friend That clunking, creaking collection of droll bones. He could barely recall the last time he was among friends. Gruntle perhaps. Another continent. A drunken evening-wa: that Saltoan wine? Gredfallan ale? He couldn’t recall.
Surrounding him, the murmur of thousands-their moving through the camp, their quiet conversations around the cookfires. Old men and old women, the lame, the young. A fire burning for each and every Awl.
And somewhere out on the plain, Redmask and his warriors-a night without fires, without conversations. Nothing, I imagine, but the soft honing of weapon edges. Iron and stone whispering in the night.
A simple deceit, its success dependent on Letherii expectations. Enemy scouts had spotted this camp, after all, As predicted. Countless fires in the darkness, appropriately close to Bast Fulmar, the site of the impending battle. All the way it was supposed to be.
But Redmask had other plans. And to aid in the deception, Toc suspected, some arcane sorcery from the K’Chain Che’Malle.
An elder appeared, walking into the fire’s glow on bowed legs. Toc had seen this one speaking to Redmask, often riding at the war leader’s side. He crouched down opposite Toc and studied him for a dozen heartbeats, then spat into the flames, nodded at the answering sizzle, and spoke: ‘I do not trust you.’
‘I’m crushed.’
‘Those arrows, they are bound in ritual magic. Yet no spirit has blessed them. What sort of sorcery is that? Letherii? Are you a creature of the Tiles and Holds? A traitor in our midst. You plot betrayal, vengeance against our abandoning you.’
Trying to inspire me, Elder? Sorry to disappoint you, but there are no embers in the ashes, nothing to stir to life.’
‘You are young.’
‘Not as young as you think. Besides, what has that to do with anything?’
‘Redmask likes you.’
Toc scratched the scar where an eye had been. ‘Are your wits addled by age?’
A grunt. ‘I know secrets.’
‘Me too.’
‘None to compare with mine. I was there when Redmask’s sister killed herself.’
‘And I suckled at the tit of a K’Chain Che’Malle Matron. If tit is the right word.’
The old man’s face twisted in disbelief. ‘That is a good lie. But it is not the game I am playing. I saw with my own eyes the great sea canoes. Upon the north shore. Thousands upon thousands.’