The taproom of the River Lantern had emptied before the eighth bell had finished sounding across the wet slate roofs of Harth.
With the north-gate sentries doubling their patrols and the rumor of Host cavalry spreading through the lower alleys, the rivermen and carters had retreated to their own hearths to bar their shutters and hide their copper shillings beneath the floorboards. Only two tallow candles remained lit in the sconces along the timbered wall, casting long, wavering shadows across the empty trestles.
Sir Cael Ardent sat alone at the heavy corner table nearest the taproom counter.
His ancestral greatsword, broad as an ash plank and sheathed in scuffed black leather with dull iron fittings, leaned against the settle beside his knee. He had stripped off his blued steel gauntlets and laid them on the bench, revealing long, pale fingers scored with old sword-calluses and faint white scars from parried blades. His breastplate was still strapped across his chest, the enameled white rose of his house scratched and blackened by soot from some past skirmish along the border marches, but he had loosened the buckles at his throat to ease his breathing.
On the table before him lay three separate parchment scrolls, weighted down with a chipped stoneware salt cellar and an iron knife. The sheets were covered in cramped, meticulous lines of ink: troop tallies, archer counts, grain requirements, and estimated casualty ratios for each sector of the town’s perimeter.
