Reign of Ash by Gail Z. Martin Page B

a blond man with the manner and look of a dockhand. His hair was cut short for a helm, making his neck appear even thicker than it was. A scar ran across the left side of his face, from the bridge of his nose across one cheek. His right temple was still bruised from the altercation with McFadden’s group, and his eye was blackened.
    “It wasn’t just McFadden and his guards, sir,” he replied. “We got attacked by another force of armed men who joined in the middle of the fight.” He paused. “Gods’ truth, m’lord, I think the second group happened upon the battle. We couldn’t make out their uniforms. They were a mangy lot, but they fought like real soldiers, and they were better armed than I’d have expected from their appearance.”
    Pollard began to pace. “So you’re telling me, Captain, that you were fighting with McFadden and his guards and a second set of soldiers appeared, out of nowhere, and took up McFadden’s part?”
    Berit nodded. “Aye, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
    “What makes you think they weren’t with McFadden all along?”
    “They didn’t hail him or join ranks with his men, sir,” Berit replied after taking a moment to replay the scene in his mind. “They fired on us from a distance and ordered us back. I believe they thought we were brigands attacking a group of peddlers.”
    Pollard shook his head. “Amazing. McFadden and his convict friends get rescued by a group of wandering soldiers looking to rid the kingdom of highwaymen?”
    Berit looked abashed, but he nodded once more. “I don’t say that it makes sense, m’lord, but then again, few things do these days.”
    “So where is McFadden now?”
    Berit shifted in his chair. “Our survivors retreated, then we sent back a scout. Once we were gone, the other soldiers moved in and captured McFadden’s men, then marched them all back to their camp.”
    “How in the name of the gods did your scouts miss the camp of rogue soldiers?” Pollard thundered.
    Berit stiffened his spine. “Like McFadden, they weren’t keeping to the main roads. Their camp was set back, out of sight, and more of a beggars’ village than a proper army encampment. There were more of them than there were of our men, so we fell back to await new orders.”
    Pollard ran a hand through his thinning hair. The terror of his encounter with Reese was still fresh in his memory. “Unless you’d like to explain, in person, to Lord Reese how McFadden keeps escaping your men, I suggest you adjust your patrols,” he replied.
    Fear and defiance sparked in Berit’s eyes, but the man merely nodded. “Yes, sir.”
    Pollard looked to the third man, Nilo Jansen, his second- in-command. Nilo was small and wiry, with dark eyes that missed nothing and hair close-shorn in a soldier’s cut. Inventive, ruthless, and fiercely loyal, Nilo was one of the few people Pollard trusted to have his back.
    “What have we heard about Penhallow?” Pollard asked.
    Nilo smiled, reminding Pollard of one of the fish he had seen down on the wharves, a monstrous thing with a maw of needle-sharp teeth. “He hasn’t been back to Rodestead House since the Great Fire. It’s empty, badly damaged, and even his mortal servants appear to have left for good. Our
talishte
soldiers burned out one of his crypts and nearly caught McFadden in the process, but we know we injured several of Penhallow’s people and killed more than a few of his brood.”
    “Good,” Pollard grunted, “but not quite good enough.”
    Nilo nodded in agreement. “We put watchers on places he had been known to go and people he was known to contact. We managed to bottle him up inside Traher Voss’s fortress, along with the mortal who’s been traveling with him, Lord Garnoc’s former assistant.”
    Pollard looked up. “So you have him pinned down with Voss?”
    Nilo sighed. “No. Voss is a clever bastard. I’ve had reports that Penhallow and his servant and a man my source couldn’t identify have been