‘Gather up them horses-I don’t care what the Fist ordered, we’re going to ride.’
At that Urb glanced over, then approached. ‘Hellian-’
‘Don’t even try to sweet-talk me. I almost remember what you did.’ She drew out her flask and drank down a mouthful. ‘So be careful, Urb. Now, everybody who loosed quarrels go find them and that means all of them!’ She looked back down at the two dead Edur by the entrance.
‘Think we’re the first to draw blood?’ Tavos Pond asked, crouching to clean the blade of his sword on the cloak of the older Edur.
‘Big fat war, Tavos Pond. That’s what we got ourselves here.’
‘They weren’t so hard, Sergeant.’
‘Wasn’t expecting nothing either, were they? You think we can just ambush our way all the way to Letheras? Think again.’ She drank a couple more mouthfuls, then sighed and glowered over at Urb. ‘How soon before they’re the ones doing the ambushin’? That’s why I mean for us to ride-we’re gonna stay ahead of the bad news ‘s long as we can. That way we can be the bad news, right? The way it’s s’posed t’be.’
Corporal Reem walked up to Urb. ‘Sergeant, we got us twelve horses.’
‘So we get one each,’ Hellian said. ‘Perfect.’
‘By my count,’ said Reem with narrowed eyes, ‘someone’s going to have to ride double.’
‘If you say so. Now, let’s get these bodies dragged away-they got any coin? Anybody checked?’
‘Some,’ said Maybe. ‘But mostly just polished stones.’
‘Polished stones?’
‘First I thought slingstones, but none of them’s carrying slings. So, aye, Sergeant. Polished stones.’
Hellian turned away as the soldiers set off to dispose of the Edur corpses. Oponn’s pull, finding this keep, and finding nobody in it but one freshly dead Letherii in the hallway. Place had been cleaned out, although there’d been some foodstocks in the cold-rooms. Not a drop of wine or ale, the final proof, as far as she was concerned, that this foreign empire was a mess and useless besides and pretty much worth destroying down to its very last brick.
Too bad they weren’t going to get a chance to do so.
But then, it does a body good to misunderstand orders on occasion. So, let’s go hunting Edur heads, Hellian faced the courtyard again. Damn this darkness. Easy enough for the mages, maybe. And these grey-shins. ‘Urb,’ she said in a low voice.