Kard shook his head.

‘You have something to say?’ Torvis scowled. ‘I am just laying out the facts.’

‘Yes I do.’ Kard pushed back his chair and began to circle the table slowly, all eyes following him. ‘That kind of sentiment leads to conflict. Saying “we’re not changing and you can’t make us even by killing us” would lead me to do just that if I was hearing my friends and family dying beyond the walls. I’d kill you just to ensure you died with those pushed into the Shroud.

‘If you want these people behind you for the maximum time, you have to make them believe that, no matter the suffering outside, the consequences of surrender are worse. You have to link their minds to the lives they will live enslaved to Senedai and the Wesmen. You have to remind them the Dordovans are coming, and you have to never mention the survival of Julatsan magic as an issue. Appeal to them, don’t dictate to them.’

‘Why don’t you do it, if you know them so well?’ challenged Vilif. Kard stopped his movement, finishing at the end of the table facing Barras. He nodded.

‘All right. I will.’

While the new stockade rose around Understone and the stone fortifications of the pass were put in place by his prisoners, Tessaya waited.

Time was precious. Darrick and The Raven were on their way and the dread force would be running again. All of them heading east, all heading for battle. He had to try to stop them linking with the remaining armies in the south, with the Colleges and, most particularly, with Korina.

He knew four days wasn’t much but he had expected Taomi to be close to Understone, having encountered little resistance crossing the Bay of Gyernath and on the sparsely populated route north. Senedai, at the Colleges, would have come across considerably more trouble.

Tessaya spent hours scouring the cloudy skies from the third morning onwards. He looked south, waiting for the tell-tale dark dots in the sky that would signify his approaching birds. And on that afternoon he was rewarded. A single bird, high in the southern sky. Tessaya tied the hair back from his face and watched its approach, his keen eyes following its course as he stood in the newly completed southern watch tower.

It was definitely one of his birds. He could tell by its flight pattern, alternating gliding rests on the wing with sharp beats, fixing its position by subtle nuances in the currents of the air and in the roll of the land.

With the bird nearing, Tessaya tied the green and red marker ribbon to his wrist and waved it slowly above his head, the striped material snapping in the stiff breeze. In a flutter of wings, the grey and white woodruff landed on the rail of the guard tower. Tessaya scooped the bird up and held it gently to his chest with one arm, bending his neck to press his lips to its head and taking the messages from its legs. Then he set it to flight again, to the roost above the inn where it could rest and eat.

‘More reliable than smoke, eh?’ he asked of the watchman. He unrolled the coded papers.

‘Yes my Lord,’ replied the man, the embryonic smile dying on his lips as Tessaya, having read the import of the first message, caught his eye.

‘My Lord?’ ventured the watchman.

‘Curse them,’ grated Tessaya. ‘Curse them.’ Ignoring the frightened guard, he strode to the ladder, descending more quickly than was safe. His riders had not found Lord Taomi. But they had found his men and Shamen butchered and left to rot. They had found pyres built in the eastern manner. And they had found evidence of a hasty retreat southwards. They would continue but their pace would be slow. To run into the rear of the army pursuing Lord Taomi would be foolhardy.

Who could it have been? The advance was supposed to be too fast for any pursuit from Gyernath to overhaul them. That left the rich Baron Blackthorne, whose wine tasted sour in Tessaya’s memory. But he found it hard to believe that Blackthorne, well-armed though he was, could muster enough of a force to seriously trouble Taomi. Not without help.

He read the notes one last time before striding away towards the barracks where his prisoners were held. The fat man, Kerus, would have to supply some answers. Either that or lose some of his men to Wesmen executioners. The time for reason was past for now. Tessaya had to have knowledge of the forces he was against and he found himself able to consider almost any method to get it.

Dawn was threatening to slit the eastern sky. Barras stood on the Tower’s highest rampart, looking down into the quiet city, a cool breeze blowing fresh air across his face.

At a time like this, it was easy to imagine that all was as it had always been. That no army of Wesmen was in occupation beyond the College walls, that first light would not bring the slaughter of fifty innocents. Innocents whose souls would feed the demons’ insatiable appetite and sit heavy in Barras’ heart forever.

But two things gave the lie to Barras’ fleeting ease of mind. The oppressive DemonShroud that surrounded them, its evil casting a pall of anxiety over him; and the Wesmen’s tower, now all but complete, which overlooked them.

They had been wrong about its purpose. The Wesmen had no intention of attempting to breach the Shroud using the structure, which scaled perhaps eighty feet into the sky. Its wheels were for manoeuvring it around the College walls, its steel cladding protection against fire and spell. They wanted to see inside the College and Barras conceded the common sense in that while cursing its invention.

The old elven mage, Julatsa’s Chief Negotiator, surveyed the perimeter of his city, his eyesight sharp and clear in the dark before dawn, the grey veil of the DemonShroud growing visible as light began to crack the sky, a hideous reminder of the horror that lived with them every day. The Wesmen, or rather their prisoners, had not been idle and the evidence of long-term intention to occupy was everywhere.

Other fixed watch-towers were already built in half a dozen locations and now the stockade was going up. It would be a slow job. Suitable timber was not in plentiful supply close to hand and Julatsa was a sprawling city. Even so, three weeks and the ranks of pole timber would encircle them and the Wesmen would be that much harder to shift.

Barras moved his gaze to within the College walls. The Tower and its many service and official buildings dominated the centre of the grounds. In front of him, the trio of Long Rooms, where range spells were tested, stretched away from the opposite side of the stone-flagged courtyard which encircled the Tower. Each Long Room was over two hundred feet in length, low and armoured and had seen some of Julatsa’s greatest successes and most awful tragedies over the course of the centuries. Now, though, they were emergency accommodation.

The same was true of all the lecture rooms, the old Gathering Hall, the principal auditorium, and the Mana Bowl where fledgling mages hoped to discover their acceptance of mana and feared the consequences for their sanity if they did not. Only the Library and the food stores remained off limits.

Despite the hour, around a hundred people milled about in the courtyard, many, because of Kard, now aware of the fate that was about to befall the unfortunates in Wesmen hands. The General had not slept. Instead, he and a member of the Council in rotation had visited every pocket of the population within the College walls, explaining the situation as completely as he could. So far, his words had caused sadness and anxiety but no anger. Barras was due to attend the last meeting but first, he had to try and buy the College some time.

He hurried from the Tower, walking quickly across the cobbles to the North Gate where he climbed up to the gate-house and came face to face with a surprised guard.