Lyrna pushed away the image of Marven’s bleached, panicked face, weeping as she pressed the cloth to his burning brow. He would rather have just gone home to suffer his wife’s cutting tongue.

“A thousand prisoners?” she asked Al Hestian.

“Indeed, Highness. I intended to ask what you wanted done with them.”

“The river’s deep and fast-flowing,” Baron Banders pointed out. “Spare us the effort of cutting so many throats.”

The other captains exchanged nods and murmurs of agreement, though she noted Nortah’s grimace of disgust. “No,” she said. “They are to be preserved. Wounded are to be cared for and food provided. I understand from Brother Hollun most hail from this province.”

“They do, Highness,” Al Hestian confirmed. “They’re an uncommonly poor lot for Volarian soldiery, I must say. Few veterans among them, most little more than boys conscripted barely two months ago.”

“I believe there is a town several days’ march along our road, I assume many will hail from there.”

“Urvesk, Highness. A sizeable place from all reports. I was going to advise we bypass it, the garrison is unlikely to be numerous enough to threaten us and a siege would cost time and lives we can’t afford.”

She shook her head. “No. We will march there with all dispatch. Please make the army ready to move by dawn tomorrow. We’ve lingered here too long.”

She dismissed them and stood regarding the view as they trooped down the winding stairwell, though, as expected, one decided to linger. “You have words for me, Lord Antesh?” she asked without turning.

He moved to stand at a respectful distance, though his darkened visage told of a simmering anger. “I cannot command my people to follow that man, Highness,” he stated. “When they hear of this . . .”

“Lady Reva would have followed him,” Lyrna said. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Lady Reva had a soul blessed by the Father himself. I do not, neither do my archers. When we lost her . . . we lost our heart.”

“Then you will no doubt rejoice to hear you have a chance to regain it.” She turned, meeting his gaze squarely. “I have sound intelligence from the Seventh Order that Lady Reva lives and is captive in Volar.”

She watched his face transform from dark anger to pale shock, soon followed by hope. “This . . . this has been confirmed?”

“Speak to Brother Lernial, he will provide assurance. Then I assume you will wish to share this joyous news with your people.”

“I . . . yes.” His head jerked in a bow and he backed away. “My thanks, Highness.”

She turned back to the view as his rapid footfalls echoed up the stairwell, stumbling occasionally in his haste. “They really think their god talks to her?” Murel wondered allowed.

“Who’s to say they are wrong.” Lyrna’s gaze tracked to the markings on the flat surface that topped this tower, the mass of meaningless symbols carved centuries before.

“Wisdom tells me,” she said, “that each tower in the temple was allocated a priest upon construction, one said to have been touched by the gods. It was their lifelong mission to carve whatever insight the gods had imparted to them into the tower, from the lowest step to the very top. A lifetime spent etching their visions into stone, forbidden any other task, never allowed to venture from their towers. Little wonder they were insane by the time they finished, their messages no more than the scrawl of gnarled and maddened hands. And when they were done . . .” She went to the edge of the platform, her slippered toes protruding into space as she raised her arms, the wind whipping her gown and hair. “They would fly and the gods would reach down and snatch them from the air.”

“Highness?”

She turned to see Iltis moving closer, reaching out a tentative hand to draw her back from the edge. She lowered her arms and waved him away with a small laugh. “Worry not, my lord. It’s not my time to fly, I still have so much to do.”

• • •

She had Al Hestian send the North Guard ahead to Urvesk with orders to make themselves as conspicuous as possible. The Nilsaelin cavalry were divided into companies and dispatched north and south with the mission of freeing all the slaves they could find, though Lyrna fully expected their talent for looting to be given free rein. They had been cautioned to spare the free populace where possible and send them east with a full appreciation of their queen’s intent. Accordingly, as they marched away from the temple and the dusty plain into the verdant hill country beyond, the horizon on either side was marked by tall columns of smoke rising from villas burned in the Nilsaelins’ wake. From their reports it seemed many in this region had been told not to flee since the invaders would soon be crushed by the Empress’s invincible forces.

By the fifth day many companies had returned, somewhat burdened by sundry valuables, but also trailing a collection of freed slaves, soon growing to more than a thousand over succeeding days. Lyrna made a point of personally greeting as many as possible, finding most to be young and prone to addressing her as “Honoured Mistress.” Their older brethren were apparently too steeped in lifelong fear to accept this new queen’s offer of freedom.

“Some of them wept when we burned their master’s house, Highness,” a baffled Nilsaelin captain told her. “A few even tried to fight us.”

She had Nortah take charge of their new recruits, with Wisdom’s assistance since the Lord Marshal spoke no Volarian. “It’ll take months to turn this lot into soldiers,” he told her as she toured his makeshift training camp. They had paused in a broad valley ten miles short of Urvesk, taking up residence in a plush villa the Nilsaelins had been thoughtful enough to spare for her comfort.

“You turned former slaves into fighters before, my lord,” she pointed out.

“They had only been in chains for a few days, weeks at most. And their hatred burned bright enough to overcome a lack of skill and discipline.” He gestured at the recruits labouring under the tutelage of sergeants from the Dead Company, who seemed intent on compensating for a lack of shared language with volume. “Most of these have known nothing but bondage.”

“I’m willing to wager their hatred will burn bright too,” Lyrna said. “When sufficiently roused. Keep at it my lord. We move on in three days.”

• • •

The city of Urvesk lay close to a fork in the river that ran alongside the road, birthing a smaller tributary snaking off to the north. It reminding her vaguely of Alltor with its high walls; however, the similarity faded at the sight of the many gaps, and the sprawl of mean housing that spread beyond them to the edge of the river. The price of stability is unpreparedness, she decided as Lord Adal galloped towards her.

“The place grows less populous by the day, Highness,” the North Guard commander reported. “They’ve been fleeing north or east in a steady stream since they first caught a glimpse of us. No sign of any soldiery beyond some sentries on the walls, perhaps two hundred at most.”

“Thank you, my lord. Please rest your men.”

“Highness, I . . .” He hesitated, a keen entreaty in his eyes. “I had hoped to lead the assault.”

What is this man’s hunger for glory? she wondered. She greatly valued him as a captain, being one of the few true professionals in the army, but grew ever more concerned over his desire to place himself in peril. Accounts from the battle of the temple were rich in reports of his reckless valour, though he contrived to emerge from it all without a scratch. “There will be no assault, my lord,” she told him. “Conserve your courage for Volar.”

She turned Jet and cantered to where the prisoners had been arrayed, just over a thousand grey-faced men and boys standing shackled in four loosely ordered ranks. “Are there any officers here native to this city?” she called in Volarian.

They shuffled in fearful silence, many not daring to raise their heads, one boy near the front weeping openly.

“Speak up, you filth!” Iltis barked in Realm Tongue, making his meaning clear with a vicious crack of the overseer’s whip he had secured from somewhere.

A man with a bandaged face in the third rank slowly raised a hand and was soon dragged from the throng by Iltis.

“You are an officer?” Lyrna asked the prisoner as Iltis forced him to his knees before her.

“A captain,” he said in a wheezy voice. The bandage on his face covered his right eye, dark with dried blood, his complexion telling of a man moving closer to death with every step. “Called from the reserve to fight the Empress’s glorious war of defence.” He gave a bitter laugh and Lyrna divined he fully expected to die in the next few moments.

“Get up,” she told him. “My lord, remove his chains.”

She guided Jet closer as the one-eyed captain stared up at her in bafflement, seemingly uncaring of the blood that seeped from his chafed wrists as Iltis removed the manacles. “You will go home, Captain,” she told him, pointing to Urvesk. “And tell whoever holds charge of this city that your comrades here will be freed, for I do not come to this land for slaughter, but justice. In return the city will release every slave in bondage and open its gates to me. If they do not, I will kill ten prisoners every hour until they do. If reason still does not prevail, they will find themselves drowning in ash and blood when I send my army through their ragged walls.”