decision of his career, and lose his army in the process?
As heâd done so often before, he ignored the question. âBut I wasnât entirely certain how Iâd get there. Itâs not exactly easy moving an army across hostile territory, even without organized opposition. I had to be prepared to alter course if Lorumâs forces mustered before I was ready.â
âYes?â
âI mapped out two specific plans, Tyannon. Two campaigns, two routes for my armies to take from our mustering point beyond Imphallionâsborders all the way to Denathere. What I did, almost two decades ago, was in line with one of those plans.â
Tyannonâs voice dropped to less than a whisper, as though her throat were choked with ice. âAre you sayingââ
Corvis nodded. âAudriss followed the other. Somehow, this man got hold of the maps and plans I created twenty years ago. The plan he followed to get his army to Denathere was mine.â
She lay back, goose bumps peppering her arms and shoulders. âSo what will he do next?â
âI donât know, Tyannon.â Corvis, too, lay back, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. âAll my plans culminated at Denathere; whatever he does next is his own.â
WITH THE TOWNâS DECISION MADE âif âwait and seeâ could be called a decisionâthe inhabitants of Chelenshire did just that. Terrifying as the news of Audrissâs depredations might be, there was the sense, prevalent in all isolated communities, that it affected them only peripherally. Regardless of which of Imphallionâs major cities was nextâeven if Mecepheum itself was the warlordâs ultimate goalâthere should be no need to involve Chelenshire directly; there were many routes from Denathere to the other major cities, and Chelenshire was quite some distance from any of them. Certainly, if the rightful government of regent and Guilds was overthrown, there would be consequences for everyone, but the citizens of the village could see no
immediate
threat.
Corvis was rather less complacent. The details of Audrissâs planâof
his
planânagged at him, the final clinging pains of a hangover he couldnât shake. Heâd possessed but a single copy of his targets and strategies for the war he waged two decades past: one lonely document, penned in his own hand. The idea that it could somehow have made its way to a complete stranger, so many years later, was disturbing in the extreme.
But this alone was not the whole of his concerns. What botheredhim beyond the âhowâ of the entire situation was the âwhy.â Tactically, taking Denathere was a piss-poor move. Corvis himself took the risk in search of a goal far more precious than the city itself, and it was a gamble he paid for with the scattering of his armies and the complete collapse of his plans. Anyone with so much as a studentâs understanding of warfare could have looked at the details of his campaigns and rejected their end result as militarily unsound.
Audriss had already proved he was no stranger to the ways of battle, no incompetent tactician. Therefore, for him to have chosen to follow the plan despite its tactical flaws implied one of three things, none of which made Corvis feel any better.
One, the man was utterly insane.
Two, he knew far more about Corvisâs true objective than any man alive should possibly know. Even his closest lieutenants hadnât been told what he sought in those tunnels beneath the city.
Or three, the warlord was sending a deliberate and personal message to Corvis himself.
All in all, not a one of them was a pleasant prospect.
But for all his questions, he could do little enough about it. And though he was distant and distracted for several days, slowly the routine of everyday life lulled him back into the same senseâof comfort, if not of complacencyâthat he and Tyannon had found in Chelenshire. And so he,
A D Holland
Grif Stockley
D. W. Collins
Jane Rusbridge
Christine Warren
Lily Evans
Selene Chardou
Samantha Young
Gary D. Svee
Unknown