Before dropping from the watching bluff to quiet the excited wagon drivers below, Yseld walked the outer edge of the quarry rim, her footsteps making no more sound than dry thistle drifting over gravel. She didn’t look at the distant lights on the dark rock ridge. Instead, she kept her eyes fixed upon the deep, angular shadows cast by the nine freight wagons, the salt-crusted boulders around the water troughs. The dark mouth of the eastern drainage under-road drain where the mountain wind muttered like a prowling dog.
She knew the tactical doctrine of the Cairn Host. That was because she had worn its iron badges, marched in its scouting files. Then she watched its officers dismantle frontier towns from the inside out. Captain Hest Vale didn’t fight even, honorable engagements against entrenched positions when a cheaper, quieter lever lay ready to hand.
“A bright light on a skyline is never just a bright light, Joric,” Yseld said, stopping beside the caravan master as they reached the wagon tongue of the command cart. Her voice was barely louder than the canvas flapping in the night breeze. “When Vale places four bright lamps two miles away on an empty ridge, he doesn’t expect forty veteran wagon drivers to hitch their wagons and gallop into the dark like drunken boys. He knows you have experienced drivers. He knows you have scouts.”
