Free The Hollow Queen by Elizabeth Haydon

present heard and understood him without question.
    We leave, this night, to destroy those that are killing our people and our land.
    Even in silence there was unanimous consent.
    The Diviner’s instructions and Rule of Engagement were clear: no women were to be raped, no children were to be killed if at all possible. Any material goods, spoils of war, were to be gathered by commanders and returned to the central command center behind Hyvensfalt glacier, where they would be sorted through and distributed as needed.
    When the specifics of the attack had been laid out, the Diviner summed up his commands with a final spoken thought.
    â€œThe Lord Cymrian, Gwydion of Manosse, is a liar and a traitor. Despite professing his friendship and support in alliance to us, he has undertaken to starve and kill our people. The evidence of this is clear. He who finds this man and returns him alive to me will find entrance to the Afterlife upon death. Anyone who brings me his body or a recognizable part thereof shall be rewarded handsomely in this life.
    â€œMay the moon hide you from the enemy. May the Earth give you strength. Should you die, die bravely.”
    In silence, each Iceman raised his arm in assent.
    From the rise, looking down at the fingers of seawater reaching into the coastland of the fjord, Hjorst thought, they looked like a vast and innumerable forest of strong trees, pointing to the sky.
    Then, just as silently, they turned, thirty thousand strong, and began their long journey over the warming permafrost to the Riverlands in the south.
    And beyond.

    WESTERN PASS, KRI’SAN PROVINCE, SORBOLD
    One hundred seventy leagues away, in an entirely different clime, an entirely different set of circumstances, similar instructions were being given, though they varied in several critical places.
    Titactyk, second-in-command of the western division of the army of Sorbold, was indulging in the exact opposite of the Diviner’s vocal artistry.
    Upon receiving his orders from Jierna Tal on the day prior elevating him to command of the first through fourth divisions of the imperial army of Sorbold, Titactyk had crowed with delight, startling the soldiers who were standing nearby.
    The orders were dated effective the next day, so their new commander-to-be had immediately encouraged any of them willing to do so to join him for some celebratory rambles. As many of the soldiers in his presence at that moment had been part of the division that he had led, along with the stone titan sent to accompany them by the emperor, to the Abbey of Nikkid’sar, where the wanton rape and murder of the women and children of the sanctuary, the sodomizing of the abbess, and the flinging of the eleven infants present into the sea via catapult had all been a sanctioned part of their mission, there were few that did not enthusiastically follow him off into the flesh markets of the province in which they were quartered, awaiting deployment.
    â€œMen, it is our mission tonight to prevent the rampant robbery that has been happening across the city,” Titactyk called in great exaggeration from the back of the wagon in which the rabble had ensconced him, a skin of wine in each of his hands. “Women’s purses have been stolen in broad daylight, if you can imagine that! Let us be certain that we not only keep those purses from being taken, but that we spend as much of our coin in them as it is possible to ram in there!”
    Raucous laughter and hooting cheers followed his wagon up the street.
    *   *   *
    One of those who did not choose to join in the merriment toasting Titactyk’s new promotion was the nephew of the man who still officially held that post.
    Kymel Alo’hari Fyn, a young lieutenant in the second division, was the son of Fhremus’s sister and the fifth generation in the family to serve the Empress Leitha, whose passing had elevated Talquist to the Sun Throne. Kymel had been a zealous soldier,