Eighteen miles north on the high, wind-scoured bench of Empty Choir, the afternoon sun had lost its strength, casting long, razor-thin shadows across the parade ground of Stonewake Citadel.
The mountain castle sat in its ancient rock socket like a stranded giant beast. On the western castle walls, the square pennons of the Cairn Host were whipping wildly in a freezing northern gale that smelled of rime and pulverised granite. Down in the paved bailey, three hundred and eighteen armored infantrymen, four company commanders, and twenty junior officers had formed into a hollow square around the central command table, their steel breastplates dull and frosty in the thin alpine light.
At the head of the square stood Marshal Solvan Krail.
He had removed his parade helmet. But his heavy gold-inlaid cuirass was strapped tight across his chest. His broadsword hung sheathed at his hip. His eyes were bloodshot from a sleepless night spent pacing the castle walls, his heavy jaw set in a rigid, feverish grimace of denied defeat.
Beside the command table stood Captain Hest Vale, her arms crossed over her chest, her dark riding cloak pulled tight against the gale. On the table between them lay Voss’s yellow oilskin packet—the signed road survey, the water logs, and Kezra Venn’s plain letter of strategic trick.
