Chapter 18:

Insurrection

The scene that greeted Rohde's blinking eyes was more stable than he had expected. Rolling along from his seat at the center of the Cannon, he scarcely noted the narrow corridor between two small, stone houses that his group emerged from, his attention being focused on the tense crowd in front of them.

He spotted no more than fourteen liveried guards of Granseal, though he supposed there might be more about, and a tight clutch of city folk, bunched up at the entrance of one of the larger taverns of the city. Rohde blinked twice, looking from side to side, trying to place himself geographically. The castle rose sharply just off to the left; it could not be more than twenty feet distant. Then the underground passage he had come from was part of the castle proper?

His attention was wrenched away again, by a sudden scream. One of the soldiers, the leader by the looks of things, took a sharp step forward, and slashed his sword. It bit into the cheek of one of the closest city folk, a tall lumbering man. He fell to the ground, with a sharp scream, cradling his bleeding face. "Enough of this," the leader of the guards shouted.

Rohde frowned. He couldn't make out the guard's face from under his helm, but the voice sounded familiar. He started to whirr forward, but Padric was already ahead of him. "Ho, guard! What's this, then?" Padric strode out from alleyway, his stance tense but mobile.

The guard started and turned to face him. "Stand back," he snapped. He thrust his blade forward for effect, blood still dripping from the edge. In the glint of torchlight it was an unnerving sight. "We're about the king's business, citizen, and there is no cause for you to be involved!"

Padric didn't flinch. "King's business you call it to see our blood running in the streets?"

The guard's sword still pointed menace at Padric, but he turned his body slightly the better to address the whole of the crowd. "The city is to be locked down! Return to your homes and leave matters of security to us until safety has been declared!" There was a moment of sullen silence, but some of the tension was evaporating. The guard nodded, and began sheathing his sword.

"Hold." Another man stepped forward from the ranks of the soldiers, wearing a long black and gold cloak, patterned with white stars. "Arrest that man, Captain," he said, pointing a finger at Padric that was almost as lazy as the arrogance in his voice. "I don't like how he just appeared here."

Rohde stared, his mouth momentarily slack. The cloaked man was the sneering youth who'd tried to encompass his own murder. He shook his head in a daze, his mind processing a welter of analogies. Negotiation with such a man was worse than futile; he knew that from his own experience even better than history. He blinked, coming back to himself and realized that the situation was deteriorating even while he gaped like in owl in the sun.

"Nobody's arresting any of us," Padric shouted, his hand darting inside his vest. "We got rights!"

The Captain stood stock still, glancing between his superior and Padric. "I'm waiting, Captain."

Padric took the delay for encouragement and waved an urgent hand, beckoning the handful of armed men who'd joined them in this dash to the city center. His friends spread out on either side of him, and Rohde saw their numbers at a glance. The question had previously eluded him. Only five total, against, what, at least fifteen armed guards? The Cannon started to whir forward, those arcane gears and mechanisms somehow responding to the sick knot of tension in his chest.

The Captain looked to Rohde's smirking nemesis, his stillness speaking more to his indecision than any relaxation of his fighting stance. "Adjutant…"

The Adjutant's smirk flickered, then reduced, a slight tightening of the mouth. "Arrest these malcontents. It's what you're here for."

The Captain's left hand lifted, and he reluctantly waved two fingers forward. A rank of seven of the guards advanced, spears at the ready. Rohde's eyes swept from side to side, realizing that the situation was even more hopeless than he'd reckoned. Seven on five wasn't horrible odds, but a further five were advancing just behind the first rank, leaving the Captain, the Adjutant, and six more guards filtering out from the alleyways to back up the inevitable assault. Seven including Rohde and Claude against twenty guards? That was a full detachment.

Rohde looked over at the clutch of villagers, but they were huddling together more closely than before, looking from one force to the other, but showing no inclination to do anything. And why would they? They're shocked and scared and King Granseal's been good to them before. They must hope it's all some horrible mistake.

Padric, in the meantime, was brandishing a dagger that he'd produced from his vest. The others were armed, such as they were, but only one of the men held anything as formidable as a sword. In close fighting, that might be all to the good, but against spears? Padric's face was gleaming with sweat, but his courage held steady. "You do this, you'll be sorry," he warned. "We ain't lying down and taking it."

The Adjutant's lips perked back up. "Or what?" He chuckled.

"Or this!" A higher voice burst out, somewhere above them. Even as all eyes darted upwards, an arrow darted down from the sky, striking the Captain, somewhere between his chest and shoulder. The man cried and spun around, falling to the ground. A pretty centaur had already taken the time to reload her bow in the time it was taking the assembled combatants to gawk in incomprehension.

The final piece of recognition clicked into place for Rohde, even as he noted an opening between two of the guards closest to the center. "May!" He shouted in relief, the Cannon bursting resolutely forward towards the gap in the ranks.

The Adjutant, ducking an arrow, blared, "Kill them you fools! Treason! Tre—agh!" He was nearly bowled over as the Cannon rolled into him, but impossibly the man regained his stance. His eyes bulged and, face so much closer now; Rohde realized that he was sporting a black eye. "You!" Still unsteady on his legs, he aimed a frantic slash of his recently drawn sword at Rohde. The steel whistled towards him, before bouncing backwards, caught half on the rim of the Cannon's top aperture, and half, or so it seemed to Rohde, on the air itself.

The man staggered back two full paces, his face twisted with fury. "What means this?" He shook his head and lunged forward again, but not with sword outstretched this time. The man seized onto the smooth metal curve of the opening on top of the Cannon and began to pull himself forward, scrabbling onto the device itself. A grin split his lips, as his fist wrenched forward, seizing hold of Rohde's beard. "Not again you don't!"

Rohde grunted, twisting painfully against the plucking fingers. "Get off," he half-mumbled, half hoped. A thunderous roar and incandescent white light answered him. Rohde's eyes squinted against the brilliance even as the Adjutant's horrified face hurtled away from him. Rohde heard a distinct crunch, and watched, still slightly dazed as the man struggled to surge back up. One of his knees was clearly paining him. Rohde paused only a moment more, but he wanted to see what had happened in the meantime, and, as always, the Cannon pivoted and turned to match his desire.

Fire raged behind him, the tavern having caught ablaze, though Rohde couldn't identify the source. The city folk were largely milling about, some engaged in fruitless fist fights with the guards others running back and forth across alleyways. Rohde's mind was curiously calm in the face of this chaos, and it occurred to him that what he was seeing was less a battle between clearly defined opponents than it was a full-fledged riot.

Blood was dripping out of Padric's mouth; the man looked like he was getting the thin end of the stick. Two guards were facing up against him, one using his spear butt to try to knock Padric's balance off, the other jabbing forward, to stop Padric from taking any initiative. At least one of the other men was on the ground, dead or unconscious. Claude was rumbling ponderously forward, swatting aside guards foolish enough to try to stop him. Hope began to blossom in Rohde's heart again. So long as he could break through the guards assaulting Padric right now, they could still win. He just started rolling forward when white hot pain blazed through his shoulder.

He half spun around in the shock of it, the Cannon completing the turn before he could. The Adjutant was there again, a look of manic frustration on his face, a dagger clenched in his mailed fist. Favoring his left leg, the Adjutant straightened up slightly as his other hand seized hold of Rohde's shoulder. The knife started to swing in for his throat, when the Adjutant gave a hoarse shout of alarm, whipping away through the air. Rohde stared as the man slammed against the wall, the end of his cloak caught in Claude's clenched fist.

The Adjutant slid down, clearly wounded, but still alive. Tears streamed from his eyes as Claude rumbled closer. His head darted back up, and his face went wide with fright. "Please… no, ple—" Claude's fist crushed the Adjutant's head into pulp, and the body slid lifelessly down. The golem turned and stood, static and unmoving at Rohde's side.

Rohde slapped his face lightly for a moment, trying to process the quick turnaround. He looked back to the fighting, and could have slapped himself again. "Claude… help them!" The gleaming red eyes looked down at him. Then the golem rumbled off, again. Rohde sighed and relaxed into the back of his seat for a moment. He wanted to fight too, but he wanted to understand what it was the Cannon was doing better. The device must have sensed his ambivalence, because for once it didn't rumble forward on the strength of a half-formed thought.

An arrow whizzed down just to the side of the Cannon and Rohde looked up sharply. May was there, her cheeks prettily flushed. "Uh, Rohde? We got more company coming." She gave a proud toss of her head in the opposite direction.

The Cannon pivoted around immediately this time and Rohde saw the dark shadows and glinting helms of at least a fresh detachment of troops jogging down the alleys towards them. Perhaps more. He gaped for a moment and forced himself to consider. Of course. If I could summon that white light again, more powerfully… They're bunched together. The Cannon lurched forward and then rolled back, following his thoughts almost faster than they formed. The roar and incandescent light burst out in an arc, angled just slightly to the side…

It collided with a building, and Rohde watched, with some sense of relief as a shower of rubble, stone and timber, came crashing down, blocking the reinforcements from view. A little shaken by the display of raw power, he looked up towards May again. The centaur winked brightly at him. "I'll scout out ahead!" She galloped off without another word.

Rohde simply shook his head. May. Always so strange. He turned his attention back to what actually mattered: the fighting. As his gaze swept over the scene, however, he had to amend that. It was only the remnants of fighting, and those seemed to be wearing down.

Bodies strewn the ground. The detachment of guards had been worn down to only four, three of them clustered around the trembling figure of the Captain. May's arrow had punched clean into his shoulder, and the fear was plain in his eyes. As for Padric's group, only two of them remained on their feet. Padric himself was lying flat on his back, an ugly gash stretching across his stomach. Claude was stamping resolutely towards the terrified knot of guards.

Rohde whirred forward, his hand held up high, "Claude! Stop!" The golem sank into stillness that somehow reminded Rohde of reproof. Rohde puffed his chest out, running through every truce speech he'd ever read. What was it King Pao the Magnificent had said to Konstans of Bustoke at the end of their three year struggle? Something about his own victory? "We have beaten each other," he remarked without conscious intent to the wary looking guards.

Their spears were held at the ready, but the three without rank looked to the Captain. He licked his lips. "You've killed soldiers of Granseal about the king's business. On his own streets! You've—"

Rohde waved a hand, cutting him off and simply repeated, struck by the significance of the fact, "We have beaten each other." The Captain remained silent, and Rohde realized that he'd have to go on. "I know you're obeying orders. But I could see before… I mean, we all could. You don't much like them. You didn't want to make those arrests. And you didn't want to be the first to kill." He nodded over at the gory mess of the Adjutant. "Not like that fellow over there."

One of the guards burst out, "You're the ones we wanted! I got your number, you're the cripple! And… and that!" His face paled as Claude straightened up, to his full seven feet of height.

Rohde paused for a long moment at that, his mind processing the possibilities. So they were still after him… Which meant that everything still tied back to Bowie somehow. In and of themselves, Rohde and Claude were nothing. And Padric had been concerned about his connection to Bowie too. That was why he'd offered Rohde any kind of protection, wasn't it? Rohde came to a decision. "You can take a message back to court. This whole thing was a misunderstanding, you understand? Too many words said in anger, it got out of hand, describe it how you like. But tell King Granseal… his people want this explained to them, themselves. Face to face. Not steel in hand."

Silence stretched on. Finally the guard who'd broken his peace before said, "Captain, we can't just—" He fell silent as Claude took another one of his rumbling steps forward.

The Captain nodded slowly. "We can. We will. My word on it…" He stared nervously at Rohde, and the survivors slowly backed away.

Rohde found his hands trembling. He muttered, "I hope they won't be too hard on those poor fools. What a mess." Sighing, he swung around yet again. He frowned. Somehow, the need to defuse any further fighting had driven the important thing from his mind; Padric's pitifully poor contingent was badly wounded, nearly to a man. The Cannon carried him over to Padric himself.

"I was wrong about you." Padric's voice was hoarse with pain, and blood was seeping from his belly to the cobblestones. "Can fight damn well… after all."

Rohde shook his head. "Enough of that, we'll have this cut of yours looked after. You can tell me more about what this all means."

Padric laughed, and blood frothed across his lips. "Think I'll pull through, huh?"

A brief flash of panic seized Rohde. "Someone down below must be something of a healer… or you've got herbs or something."

"Herbs. Yeah." Padric's breath was short and filled with wheezing. "Never seen anything like you pulled. Only your damn head and shoulders poking out of that thing. Makes you look like a…" He began coughing fitfully.

"Claude can carry you. There'll be more time for this, my friend." Rohde glanced back over his shoulder. Shouldn't May be back by now?

On command, Claude scooped up the wounded man. Padric kept wheezing as the others—only three had managed to find their feet Rohde noted—fell alongside them. "Looks like a… what'd you boys call it? Man who won the damn thing for us looks like some kind of animal, like some kind of…"

"A bear," Claude boomed.

Smiles began cracking all around and one of the other men, repeated thinly, "Bear!" Within moments a chant had gone up amongst the lot of them. "The Bear! The Bear! The Bear!"

Zellar covered his mouth with his hand and bit the glove, he was so frustrated. Tark's detachment in addition to about a dozen other swords he'd been lucky to collect on the way out of the castle were milling around a bit, although their discipline hadn't broken too badly. Tark cautiously drifted up, close to his left shoulder.

"Well," Zellar barked quickly, having no desire to be bombarded with questions, "we'll simply have to clear the street." It was the most disappointing anticlimax he could have imagined.

Tark cleared his throat. "Oughtn't we to try moving over the rubble first, General? To fulfill the mission."

Zellar inhaled slowly. He did not want to lose his temper with Tark, if, for no other reason, only because the other men were watching. This is their chance to see what sort of general they have! The thought warmed and chilled him all at the same time. They'll finally see. "And risk getting hit by whatever just did this? No." He shook his head. "We'd need more men for that."

Still nothing was happening and it occurred to Zellar that he hadn't actually given the order. He snapped his fingers and shouted, "Get to it, boys! Clear the rubble." After some minutes of confusion, the guards had worked themselves out into something like a relay system. Zellar shook his head in disgust.

He'd had high hopes for tonight. If Graig wanted a crackdown on the city (and Zellar rather liked the idea on its own merits) then it could serve just as well for strengthening his grip on the army. Will would purposely overdo the severity of the command, some sort of brawl would break out and Zellar would ride in for a few glorious arrests. Now that plan was scotched and he needed something different. Something better. Something more.

"I know it's not what you signed up for, lads," he said, shouldering through to the top of the rubble. His hands busied themselves with the largest piece of stone he spotted. "Not exactly heroic stuff… and you won't get too many women admiring you for this night's work!" The touch of humor started off more than few chuckles, and Zellar realized that he'd hit upon it.

He worked alongside the men for a time, until sweat started streaming down his face. Respect. That's what they'll give me. He stepped back from the pile, and stood watching the work. His good humor began to curdle. At this rate, the job'll take all damn night. "Tark," he snapped.

Whipcord lean and taciturn as ever, the lieutenant popped up to his right. "General?"

"You hear anything? I mean, past all this."

Tark listened for a moment. "No, sir."

Zellar fingered his beard, thinking quickly. "Sounds like that fighting may be done. Which makes it sound like it may have been isolated." He was silent for a moment, absently noting that Tark was a good enough officer not to interrupt before he'd clearly been invited to speak. "Means we might try a few different things." Zellar threw an arm around Tark's shoulders, drawing him in close. "What do you make of this lot, Tark? They're younger men mostly; I don't know them all. What are they up for?"

"They'd obey any order you chose to give, General."

Zellar shook his head with impatience. "That's not what I mean. What can they stand? What do they have the guts for? They ready to risk another charge?"

"Not a man of them would hesitate, General."

Zellar nodded and lapsed back into thought. "Let's just have a couple of them inch up near the top, see if we can get a good look." Tark nodded, and jogged forward to give the orders. Zellar stood silent and imperious.

A curious sort of giddiness was swelling through his chest. Here was something not even Bowie could take away from him. Even his father may have cracked a smile at this sight. Two of the guards rose up, and after listening to Tark's instructions began to make easy progress up the heap of rubble, equal parts stone and wood. The other men stopped digging for the nonce. The taller of the two was about three steps from the summit when an arrow came whizzing out of the sky and struck the boy in the neck. There was a brief shower of blood and he went tumbling down the rocks.

"The blazes!?" Zellar's eyes darted to get his bearing, but an arrow came hissing down at him. He yelled, and through himself aside, rolling along the way. He glared narrowly up at the rooftops, and saw the silhouette of a centaur galloping in the opposite direction. Above it all, he heard a silvery peal of laughter.

Zellar clenched a fist as he pushed himself into a crouch with his other hand. Damnit! They can't see me like this! "Away from the rubble!" He searched himself for commands to give and hated himself for needing to take the time to think. "Tark! Station men, around corners to watch each avenue of approach! Get somebody up on those roofs, find that treacherous bastard!"

Lord Minister Graig stood upon the balcony of the castles battlements for what seemed to him to be a very long time, his hands clenched to an almost painful tightness against the stone bannister. A dim fire still burned in the distance, but there was only the one and the frantic pool of movements, at least down below at the castle entrance had slowed and finally stopped.

King Granseal had long since retreated back into the castle, and even his bellowing had stopped. Graig relaxed one hand and brought it up to his chin, staring fixedly at the one fire he could see. He needed to think this through now. Had he misjudged young Zellar? The possibility seemed to him to exist in either direction.

He had appreciated the then colonel's ardor and with Zellar at least, it had been no struggle to get him to move against Bowie. But was the general the same as the colonel?

Graig released a pent up sigh. The exhalation calmed him. The situation did not seem to be as dire as he had at first feared. Although it did prove, if any proof had still been necessary, that Bowie's friends still held sway in parts of the city. And that is where young Zellar's zeal will be most necessary.

A soft pattern of footfalls sounded behind him, but Graig did not immediately turn.

"You wanted to see me, Lord Minister?"

His lips thinned in a grimace of distaste. The ratman. "Master Slade," he said, taking a final moment to stare out over the city. He concluded that the situation was truly beyond his control and at last turned to face him. "What do you know of this catastrophe?"

Slade offered him an insolent smile, his silken black robes standing out starkly amidst the white stone of the walls. "A completely random outpouring of violence, as far as I am concerned." He shrugged with the same easy insolence. "I could conjecture several theories as to why, but as far as knowing?"

Graig glared at him, fearing the mockery implicit in Slade's bearing. "There are at least two of your former friend's allies completely at liberty. You did nothing to help us apprehend either of them and you don't immediately suspect—"

Slade held up a paw and with breathtaking rudeness, simply interrupted. "My dear Lord Minister. Your demands are unreasonable." The ratman walked forward and came to a halt next to Graig, resting his paws on the bannister. "It is true that neither Claude nor Rohde have been apprehended. But Lord Bowie remains much loved in Granseal regardless while neither of them is particularly known." He smiled agreeably. "That's the golem and the historian, by the way. In that order."

"Enough japes." Graig struggled to control his mounting rage. Still, a lifetime of council meetings had taught him the value of patience. "You swore you'd do good service to Granseal when the king put you on his council."

"We all swore that oath, Lord Minister. Three of us who did so no longer sit the council."

Graig's nostrils flared, but he knew well enough that he needed to tread cautiously here. How much did the ratman already know? That was the heart of the matter. Graig did not like sparing Slade's life, but it had seemed… expedient at the time. He returned to the earlier point. "You think it likely that those two have nothing to do with this?"

Slade puffed out a small sigh. "You high lords are all the same." He sounded almost amused. "Because I gather intelligence I must know everything about everything everywhere at all times. That's not how it works. I didn't know what you were up to, if you recall, Lord Minister and in the wake of Sir Astral's abduction I asked you outright." He paused and turned to look Graig in the eye. There was none of the customary humor on his face now. "You still haven't answered that question."

For a moment Graig considered the possibility that he could simply fling the ratman over the battlements. He was certainly small enough… but such days of physical exertion were long past Graig now. "State security," he began, "necessitates—"

"Why don't we be honest with each other, Lord Minister?" Silence hung over the two of them; Graig's voice constricted by rage at the presumption… and fear at the confidence. Slade suddenly smiled. "Well, why don't I begin by being honest with you? I know that you've been trying to establish contacts in Galam… or rather, my contacts there know that you have been." Sweat beaded the ruts of skin on Graig's forehead, but he said nothing. "I know that you goaded Lord Bowie in an effort to persuade him to make pursuit, without saying so. I know that General Mrell goaded him into splitting his forces." He paused for a moment and then added, "I know that the city gates are closed now, and that you comb over the city for treason."

"You know a great deal." Graig tried to purge his voice from uncertainty. The ratman hadn't said the most dangerous thing… yet. "We must trust each other, it would seem."

"Yes… Forgive me, Lord Minister, but I don't understand. What point is there in condemning Lord Bowie to a war that he will, in all likelihood, win?"

Graig's heart was starting to flutter in his chest. "You think the odds so certain?"

"You forget, Lord Minister, I have fought alongside Lord Bowie. Although if you prefer to beg the question, very well. What good is it for Granseal to condemn a skilled contingent alongside its commander? I've no doubt that Lord Bowie could have been… singly removed. As was Sir Astral."

Graig twisted his hands. "I had nothing to do with that."

Slade studied him for a moment. "But you expected it. Or something like it."

Damn the ratman! He kept coming too close for comfort. He'd already all but said that he knew about the letters Graig had exchanged with Galam. That alone was reason enough to either kill him or take him into fullest confidence. Graig considered for a moment. His long years of political experience told him that Slade was here to make a deal, not to issue threats. In which case… "Master Slade. After tonight, a full council shall have to be held. You'll learn more of these affairs there, but you'll forgive me if I do not wish to discuss them privily." With no witnesses.

"A full council," Slade repeated, his own expression turning thoughtful. He stepped away from the battlements, performing a slight bow as he went. "Will you answer me one question then, Lord Minister? One which I doubt will have any bearing on matters of policy?" Graig nodded a wary assent, recognizing the game they were playing. "Why are you so confident that whatever Lord Bowie's performance, Granseal benefits?"

Graig stared at him, taken aback. He'd expected the question to have some hidden agenda, some unseen attempt to force Graig to reveal more. But this was simple tactical curiosity. Something he could afford to indulge. "The details aren't important; there's a group working to those ends in the Yeeli mountains."

"Ah," said Slade. The ratman nodded and smiled. "Thank you."

In the end, all the attack proved to do was to make the pace of work even more infernally slow. Zellar kept up a steady barrage of curses in his mind as he glared lethally at the pitiful progress that was being made.

This was not… what he'd intended.

It had been almost an hour since the ambush and no other interruption had happened around. Zellar had eventually waved the men back to work, seething with frustration that there was no other order he could give. He'd maintained the sentries, of course, but for all that they'd seen since being stationed he might as well have had the four extra sets of hands working on the rubble.

Worst of all, every sound of conflict had completely ceased. It was hardly going to be a good report, however he made it. The rioting hadn't been widespread enough to give him an airtight case for immediate extension of military authority; on the other hand, he couldn't claim credit for that. He smacked his fist against his other hand. How had the plan gone wrong? Or did Will change the plan? Zellar shook his head darkly. Will always had been a slippery bastard.

"General Zellar!"

Startled out of his contemplative reverie, Zellar looked up to see the easternmost sentry escorting forward a battered looking group of four guards centered around Captain Randall. He moved his hand up to his mouth for a moment, feeling the conflicting tug interest and alarm. "Captain. What's all this?"

Randall came to a halt before him, his legs trembling with what Zellar assumed was exhaustion. There was even an arrow sticking in the man's shoulder, the fool hadn't removed it. An arrow… And Zellar understood. "You four are all that's left?"

Randall nodded shakily. "Our… dishonor is complete, General. We tried to fulfill your orders, but a band of insurgents set upon us." He swallowed. "The Adjutant is dead."

Zellar fought off the urge to crow with exultation. "What insurgents?"

Randall's face was glassy and blank. One of the other guards, after waiting a moment, piped up, "Forgive the Captain, sir… He's still in shock." Zellar impatiently nodded, waving the man forward. The guard swallowed. "They were led by that cripple we were to keep an eye out for. The cripple and the rock monster."

Zellar turned his face aside, the better to conceal his glee. Bowie's friends after all! Now, he only had to decide what to do. The immediate problem was still with these demolished buildings. The question was, would it behoove him more to continue on his own initiative, or did he have more to fear from the council placing a dagger in his back? Graig would likely be easy enough to deal with, but there was no telling what temper this news would find the king in. After a moment of contemplation he turned back, "We'll talk more of this after you've rested. Back to the barracks. You've done well enough." He waved a hand, and watched their receding backs. Then he shouted, "Tark!"

The lieutenant dashed up at a short run, and watching his legs at work made Zellar's mind up for him. "Send a runner for Lord Minister Graig. Tell him what's happened here tonight. We had bad fighting, organized by some sort of underground. Bowie's people." Tark had always been a taciturn man, but Zellar could feel the pause hanging on the air, so he hurried on, "The same ones that were left behind."

"Yes, sir. What about the casualties?"

Zellar shrugged, savoring the gamble he was making. "Don't say anything about the Adjutant. Lord Minister picked Will for the job, I'd better report that myself." He nodded for a moment, wondering. Would this news be enough for Graig to order his command extended for the night? Even if not, Zellar couldn't discount that it was Graig's authority alone that was weighing against Bowie right now. It was better to protect himself. He realized that Tark was still standing there. "Well, send the runner. We'll see if there are any new orders now that we know what's going on. Oh," he added as an afterthought, "let's get another detachment together so we can get a fresh shift working here. We'll stay on the spot for now."

Tark inclined his head fractionally and turned to go about Zellar's orders. Zellar could have hugged himself with delight. Bowie discredited, even indirectly, before the very eyes of the army, his every order obeyed and Will gone on to a well-deserved grave? It wasn't such a bad night after all.