Free Fall of Thanes by Brian Ruckley

gloom of the hall. It was empty save for a single table at its centre, lined with chairs. Serving girls--whether brought from the north with the armies or prisoners pressed into service, Kanin could not say--were lighting torches along the walls and setting out beakers of wine and ale and plates. At the far end of the hall, standing by small doors that must lead to the kitchens or other antechambers, were White Owl Kyrinin. They were hateful in Kanin's sight, and he averted his eyes from them.
    One or two of those already seated regarded him with curiosity, perhaps even suspicion, as he took his place at the table. He ignored them. They were nothing to him, these latecomers to the war his family had started. Not one of them had offered his father any support; not one of them had crossed the Stone Vale until they, or their masters, caught the scent of victories already won, and of spoils and glory to be claimed. He clasped his hands in his lap and stared fixedly down at them, watching his fingertips redden as the tension within him tightened its grip.
    He heard the wide doors of the hall scrape shut. The last of the daylight was excluded and they were left with the yellow flamelight and the scent of smoke. The servants went out, one by one, past the woodwight sentinels, and a heavy silence descended.
    "Where's the halfbreed?" a man asked at length. Kanin had met him once or twice before, long ago: Talark, Captain of a castle on the southern borders of the Gyre Blood. A relative, by marriage, to Ragnor oc Gyre himself.
    "He will join us shortly," Shraeve said placidly. She had taken her twin swords from her back. They rested in their scabbards against the side of her chair. "He is preparing himself."
    "For what, I wonder?" Cannek asked, almost mirthful, as if some unuttered jest was pleasing him.
    Shraeve ignored the Hunt Inkallim. "There are other matters to talk of first. Kilvale. Kolkyre."
    "Food, if you've any sense," Talark muttered irritably. "Half my warriors are starving. Most of my horses have gone into their bellies."
    "All the more reason to keep moving on. Conquest will feed our armies. Every town we take, every village, has stores laid in for winter. That promise, and the strength of their faith must keep them --"
    "They have stores only if they don't burn them or empty them before we get there," Talark interrupted her. "And if the farmers and villagers who flee before us haven't already eaten them."
    "The Battle has arranged for supplies to be brought down through the Stone Vale," Shraeve replied. "A hundred mules, all fully laden, reached Anduran only two days ago."
    "Mules!" Talark scoffed. "It's wagons we need, and oceans of them. Not a few mules."
    "Perhaps if the High Thane, your master, gave more than half his heart in support of us, you could have those wagons."
    The Gyre warrior glowered at Shraeve. "It's difficult to get wagons across the Vale at this time of year. You know that."
    "Indeed. Yet you sit in the hall of a Kilkry-Haig town. It seems we--those who came before you, Talark--have already proved that even the impossible can sometimes be possible. If the will is there. The faith."
    One of the Gaven-Gyre warriors cut short the burgeoning argument by rasping her chair back across the floor and rapping the back of her hand on the table.
    "If it's conquest that concerns you, our time might have been better spent busying ourselves with that task instead of riding all the way back here to indulge in petty disputes. There's more than enough chaos already, without our absence to help it along."
    "She knows that," Talark grunted. "She's got her ravens out there taking charge of everything while we're dragged back here. This serves no purpose save that of the Children of the Hundred."
    "No purpose?" Shraeve snapped, anger colouring her voice for the first time. "There is only one purpose in any of this. The service of the creed. Raising it up until all the world falls beneath its shadow. None who would