Winterfinding by Daniel Casey Page A

with a self-satisfied grin. “Before
noon, I should think.” Mikkel reluctantly nodded as he was the last
to leave and Matis caught a glimpse of Tobin looking furious.
    Once they had gone, Evness chuckled, “Well,
that certainly changes things.”
    “ It certainly does,” Matis
turned to face his lieutenants, “Evness you will leave a small unit
here to collect Novosar stragglers and meet the Bandran justiciars,
but you shall lead our troops to Sulecin to camp on the plains
before the city. Vikram, find someone to escort those three back to
Ardavass or get lost on the way. I don’t want to hear any more from
them. They are an annoying remainder in my plans.”
    “ And what is that plan?”
Vikram asked.
    “ We have discovered a
cancer in The Cathedral, one feed by the Essians, and that we must
cut it out.”
    “ Taking control of The
Cathedral by force is not the wisest move, sir.” Vikram
said.
    “ This alm will be our
entry with the vicegerent and will accelerate his rise; we will
prop him up, take the whole of Cassubia under our wing, and then
move on Essia.”
    “ You mean to win the whole
of the world for the Spires.” Evness’s eyes gleamed with a wild
passion for a moment then the reality of the idea crept into his
mind. He looked to Vikram who had a similar look of
anxiety.
    “ I will,” Matis stared
hard at the map, “And then I’ll return to Ardavass, where my
dictates will be law.”

    Stony Shore

    There were several paths out of the Cruor.
Most routes simply disappeared into the forests, some came abruptly
to a dead end, and others were a circuitous knot. Jena never
enjoyed the place, and with what she had planted in the earth
there, she was more eager than ever to get away. She had done her
best to erase any evidence of the Silvincian troop, but there would
always be something. There was always something.
    It had been weeks, so the trail of the
soldiers as well as her own group’s was cold. Any tracker that
could sniff them out would be unescapable, so it wasn’t worth worry
about any longer. Escape was what she wanted; she wanted to be done
with it all. But there was more she needed to do before she could
disappear.
    The boy Colm had guided the soldiers through
the main pass. Roth had told her about the Novosar that had aided
him, Reg. Apparently the soldiers had stolen Colm away using him to
bring them to the Cruor. This meant that Reg was dead. The boy
didn’t speak much; when he did, it was usually in the cant of the
Athingani and only to Roth. Yet Jena could tell the boy was angry,
that the kind of anger that burned just under his skin. Thinking
about it made her flush as she remembered her father’s murder.
    Jena shook her head, trying to banish the
memories. She made her way through the forest and then to a wider
path meandering along and fluctuating between hardly being a deer
trail to a rutted ox-cart path. Finally, Jena skidded down a
gravely embankment out of the trees and onto a proper road—level,
wide, and slightly raised. The blanched tiny stone made a
satisfying crunch beneath her boots.
    She dropped her rucksack with a bit of
disgust and hooked her thumbs into her backpack’s shoulder straps.
This had to have been the way the soldiers had come, but Jena was
hesitant. In front of her, the road curved west, while to her right
it seemed to lose its luster descending slightly and disappearing
into the forest hemming it to the south. She pulled her pack straps
tighter, took a deep breath, and with effort picked her rucksack up
as she made her way south.
    Tired and sore all over, Jena was beyond
foul tempered. There was nothing to be done about it; this was
simply what needed to be done. However, the blisters she felt
bursting in her boots and the throbbing, ever present ache in her
back made doing what was necessary necessarily shitty. She’d spent
the better part of the day wandering down this road. She needed to
stop, to rest.
    Just as Jena was about to reach her limit
the