The midday wind blew cold across Stonewake’s southern service courtyard. He carried the bitter scent of horse manure, wet wool, and wood ash from the barracks chimneys. Marshal Solvan Krail sat motionless on his black mountain gelding, his leather-gloved hands resting on the handle knob of his saddle. It looked down at Kezra Venn with the cold, measured impatience of a commander whose strategic calendar was slipping by hours. Around the outer edge of the courtyard, fifty off-duty spear guards and three wagon drivers had gathered in the cold, their breath rising in pale plumes. They watched the young woman from Kilnstep stand her ground against the master of the pass.
Beside the horse’s flank, Captain Hest Vale tapped an iron-shod baton against his boot. Meanwhile, Ulvan Dret stood half a pace behind. He grabbed a brass-bound folio of old survey scrolls against his chest as if it were a shield against a headsman’s blade. Ulvan’s left knee was trembling inside its stiff leather brace. His breath came with the faint, wheezing whistle of chronic lung scarring. He looked at Kezra with a mixture of skilled shame and desperate, silent pleading.
“Mistress Venn,” Krail said. His voice dropped into the smooth, managerial register he used when negotiating grain contracts with recalcitrant burghers. “Let’s speak of practical realities rather than academic scruples. Stonewake Citadel isn’t an archaeological ruin. It’s an active military castle of the first rank. My engineers are currently quartering three hundred and ninety-two soldiers inside these walls, along…
