who had long since fled Lescar for exile in cities like Vanam and Col?
But this sorry vagabond didn’t look like any of the guildsmen’s allies that Tathrin had seen slipping out of the inn’s back door in the dead of night.
“How many of you?” Reher took his boot off the man’s chest and hauled him up by his collar.
“I won’t say.” The man spat on Tathrin’s boots.
Gren clouted the back of his head. “Mind your manners. He’s here to help you.”
“Him and the rest of you pissing thieves,” the man retorted, unexpectedly bold.
One of Gren’s many daggers was already in his hand. He gestured towards the man’s crotch. “Do you want to keep your berries on their twig?”
“Don’t.” Tathrin saw their captive’s fingers twitch towards his own knife. “You’ve no hope of making a fight of this.”
The man subsided, seeing the Wyvern Hunters emerging from the thickets, sunlight glinting on their swords. They walked behind men wearing ragged and dirty clothes, some with bruised faces and shallow wounds to forearms and thighs. Most had their hands prudently clasped on top of their heads. To Tathrin’s acute relief, he recognised none of them.
“That’s them all flushed out.” Arest waved a massive hand, broad as a spade. “Salo, run and tell the captain-general’s adjutant.”
Reher surveyed them. “Any of you from Carluse Town?”
“I am, and I can hear it in your voice.” A man with a broken nose, too furious to be cowed, stepped forwards. “What are you doing with these dogs?”
“Do you know Master Ernout?” demanded Reher.
“Priest at the shrine of Saedrin?” The Carluse Town man was confused. “Of course.”
But Tathrin could see he didn’t know that the courageous old man was one of those priests conspiring with the master craftsmen to stop the abuse of honest men and women. Along with his niece, Failla. Tathrin allowed himself a moment to wonder how she was. When would he see her again? How long before peace allowed him to pursue their tentative understanding? If she hadn’t already forgotten him.
“If you swear, all of you, not to raise a hand against us as we pass, we’ll leave you unharmed.” The smith looked around the vagabonds, his dark eyes intent. “I swear it by Saedrin’s keys. If you doubt me, send to Master Ernout in Carluse Town and ask him if Reher’s word can be trusted.”
For an instant, Tathrin was horrified. Did Reher want to forewarn their enemy? Then he realised there was no way these men would give themselves up to Duke Garnot. Come to that, the chances were minimal of anyone here reaching Carluse Town before the duke knew exactly what threatened him.
“Will you take his word for it?” Arest enquired genially. “Or do we have to kill you?”
Now the ragged men’s eyes were irresistibly drawn to the main track. The first companies were marching past. Tathrin saw the vagrants blanch as the tramp of the approaching column shook the ground beneath their feet. Well, Tathrin wouldn’t have believed the army that Evord had assembled if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.
The vagabonds muttered among themselves as they saw the battle standard fluttering above Evord’s retinue. Against the unbleached linen, the circle of hands stitched from cloth of gold shone like a sunburst. Each fist grasped a symbol of honest toil, of learning, of home and family. This army was bringing peace for all Lescari to enjoy such things, or so Tathrin fervently hoped.
“But—” the broken-nosed man gaped at Reher, unable to frame a question.
“You’ll know what it means soon enough,” the smith promised him.
“Till then, why don’t you run off and hide up your own arseholes?” Arest menaced the vagrants impersonally with his sword.
The ragged men swiftly melted into the woods. Tathrin could only hope they had the sense to stay lost.
“Come on.” Reher began walking back to the column as Arest reassembled his men for their duties in the vanguard.
The smith glanced at Tathrin. “Your friends need to tell that Parnilesse man, Reniack, to spread his pamphlets and songs towards Carluse as fast as he can.”
“Do you think these strays can read?” But Tathrin knew he was right.
“We can’t afford delay each time we trip over some runaway.” Reher lowered his voice to a rumble. “I could drive them off but I don’t want to show my hand.”
“No,” Tathrin said hastily.
Did anyone suspect the two of them shared more secrets than Carluse blood? If someone did, would explaining that Tathrin’s father and Reher both worked with the Woodsmen suffice?