Thomanji’yheri leaned forward and rested his hands heavily on the surface of the leather battle-map that lay unrolled down the full length of the table. The locations of the Sillicaosi forces following their most recent incursion into Thhia were marked with carved wooden hippopotami. Although slow on land over long distances, the massive beasts had long been favored by the Sillicaosi for amphibious operations. The forces that had crossed into Thhia had done so on the backs of hippopotami through the River Myersy, a northern tributary of the Deiluyne. Those encamped forces now stretched along three miles of the river, but in no place were they more than a hundred yards from the route of escape the waterway offered them and their beasts.

  “I do not like it,” Thomanji’yheri said. He stood straight, which required little motion for a dwarf of his short, broad stature. Of habit, he tucked the five tight braids of his beard under his wide belt. From the belt hung his blacksmithing hammer—a secondary weapon he kept at hand should he find himself in close combat poorly suited for the massive broadsword that hung across his back.

  “Then it is in good company,” Yorrin, Thomanji’yheri’s chief of staff, said in his high trill from where he stood on the map near the inked border of Sillicaos and Neecrus. “During our travels, I have recorded a list of every item we have encountered that you have liked.” The gnome walked across the map to the border between Sillicaos and Thhia, where he leaned with an elbow on the back of one of the carved hippo markers, which was nearly half as tall as he was. From a pocket so small Thomanji’yheri could not see it, Yorrin drew a stamp-sized piece of parchment and examined it dramatically. “It is a short list,” he said and looked past it to find Thomanji’yheri’s eyes. Yorrin had long ago become accustomed to the enchanted red corral orbs with which Thomanji’yheri saw not light but heat. ’Thermal vision,’ Reeve, the visitor of years ago, had called it.

  Thomanji’yheri grunted. “I still do not like it.” He swept his hand over the map, gesturing from their current position near the Sillicaosi forces over the great empty expanse that lay between his forces and Deilmarkt. “With each prior sortie, they have sought to probe deeper into Thhia. Now,” he waved at the line of hippos, “they wallow by the river, no farther from Sillicaos than a fledgling bird’s first flight.”

  Yorrin pocketed the tiny piece of parchment and adjusted his red cap. “Considering your distaste for the situation, do you intend to continue scowling at this map until the Sillicaosi feel your disapproval and retreat, or might you have something more, shall we say, purposeful in mind?”

  Thomanji’yheri turned his fiery coral gaze upon Yorrin, who did not flinch. “Is the scouting party returned?”

  “No. They should be back soon,” Yorrin said. “They were delayed in leaving during the night due to some laggardly behavior following the…,” he waved his tiny hand toward the roof of the tent and the unseen dawn sky beyond, “…repositioning of the sun the night before last.”

  Thomanji’yheri scowled. “Are we an army or a social club of pampered townsfolk seeking fresh air in the country? Dawn or Dusk cast one of their little time shifts, and our scouts have trouble following an order to be back by dawn?”

  Yorrin waved away the complaint. “It has been handled. The scout who was late to the departure point—he was only recently promoted into the Scouts’ ranks—was given an honorary rucksack to look after on the mission.”

  Thomanji’yheri snorted. “That was the extent of the punishment?”

  Yorrin shrugged. “It contained ingots of Shiqokuan iron weighing fifteen stone. I’d wager he’ll be the most punctual scout in the unit for some time.” Yorrin’s eyes followed Thomanji’yheri, who began walking a slow circle around the table. “While we wait,” Yorrin said, “perhaps we could review the Quartermaster’s latest report. With the hot weather we encountered during the march, some foodstuffs have spoiled, and we may soon need tighter rationing.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Thomanji’yheri scowled. “I don’t like Quartermaster’s reports even more than I don’t like an irrational enemy force.”

  Despite the urge, Yorrin chose to waste no energy on rolling his eyes and instead began relaying the report.

  After more than an hour of discussion painful to both conversants, Thomanji’yheri shouted, “Enough! Enough! Enough of your torture for now. I must stretch my legs before you destroy what shreds of my intellect remain after your confounded…” He cast about for a word suitably vile to match the situation.

  “Administrative paperwork,” Yorrin said, rising from the hippo marker on which he’d been sitting sidesaddle for the last half of their discussion.

  “Indeed,” Thomanji’yheri said with hatred in his voice. He walked toward the flap of the tent but stopped as it was pulled open from without, and the commander of his personal guards, an Orc named K?yvf, leaned into the opening and—at fully twice Thomanji’yheri’s height—almost completely obscured the world without. The black mail and plate armor she wore had been wrought by Thomanji’yheri himself some six years prior, and as he always did, Thomanji’yheri silently noted the innumerable scars upon the plates. K?yvf’s pewter face and neck sported similar scars, almost all of which she had earned in defense of Thomanji’yheri.

  “The lead scout, Sir,” K?yvf said in her low voice.

  “Bloody time,” Thomanji’yheri said. “Send her in.”

  K?yvf nodded and turned away from the opening. A moment later, the lead scout, Trillium, ducked through the opening and then stood at attention as the flap fell closed behind her. She kept her head cleanly shaved, and with her clean scalp and elvin ears, she reminded Thomanji’yheri of Leaf when Leaf had been one of the Fallen.

  “Out with it,” Thomanji’yheri said. “I understand I’ve been waiting on this reconnaissance because one in your ranks needed his beauty sleep.”

  “Sorry, Sir. Won’t happen again.” Trillium’s face was impassive.

  Thomanji’yheri nodded.

  “They were waiting for us, Sir. The Sillicaosi.”

  “You were attacked?” Thomanji’yheri cast his eyes over Trillium’s cloak but found no signs of recent combat.

  “No, Sir. Despite the pre-dawn hour, they were simply waiting for us. In a field just this side of the ridge above the river. They had a tent erected. An honor guard and no more. The standard-bearer carried a white flag.”

  “You betrayed your presence?”

  “No, Sir. We had no order from you to engage. We remained concealed well back from the edge of the forest through which we’d been approaching. We’d been surveilling them no more than a few minutes when one of them rode directly toward us.”

  Thomanji’yheri frowned. He’d never known Trillium to be discovered when she wished to remain concealed. And, at night, she and her scouts moved like shadows. Only his magical vision allowed him to see them when others couldn’t. “How did they detect you?”

  For the first time, Trillium’s expression betrayed emotion—frustration and disappointment—though only for a moment. “I do not know, Sir.”

  “This new recruit, the one with the rucksack of honor?”

  “He could not have been what betrayed us, Sir,” Trillium shook her head. “We sent him in the opposite direction to ‘serve as rear guard.’”

  “The opposite direction?” Thomanji’yheri said. “Up the ravine?”

  “Aye, Sir. He should return by lunch, if he doesn’t collapse under his load before then.”

  Thomanji’yheri snorted. “And the Sillicaosi who approached you?”

  “He stopped out of bow range and requested you. By name, Sir. ‘Thomanji’yheri of the Forge,’ he said. Their leader would meet with you.”

  Thomanji’yheri’s hand rested on the head of his hammer. “Would they?” He narrowed his eyes. “What think you?”

  “My scouts could ensure that there were no other Sillicaosi in the woods surrounding the field,” Trillium said. “If it remained only their honor guard, and you brought the same, you would be well able to look after yourself and far enough from their main force that there could be no opportunity for falseness.”

  “Then let us go,” Thomanji’yheri said. “Get it over. I, too, would be back by lunch. Let us find out what these invaders say.”