Marshal Solvan Krail’s private map room in the upper keep of Stonewake Citadel was a chamber designed to project disciplined power.
A massive eight-sided table of polished oak occupied the center, lit up by six beeswax tapers set in heavy brass sconces. Along the stone walls hung the military working charts of the Cairn Host. Large, varnished canvases showing the passes of the Spine, the grain storehouses of the lower foothills. The toll barriers that funneled mountain commerce into Krail’s treasury.
Krail stood behind the table with his hands clasped behind his back. At forty-nine, the Host commander possessed the lean, weathered stance of an officer who had spent thirty years in the field. He wore a simple buff-leather brigandine over dark wool, devoid of gold-trimmed lace or fancy braid. Only the heavy gold signet ring on his right hand, engraved with the three towers of Stonewake, marked his command.
Beside him stood Captain Hest Vale and Host Cartographer Ulvan Dret, the older land-mapper looking small and tired in his stained tunic. Two armed guards in chainmail stood motionless at the door, their axe-spear shafts lined up with the stone doorway.
Kezra Venn unrolled her presentation chart across the oak boards, using four brass compass weights from Krail’s desk to hold the corners flat.
