Free Three Coins for Confession by Scott Fitzgerald Gray Page A

Chriani that there was a mutable line
between actually having authority and simply sounding as if you did.
    The sentry shot to something resembling attention. “They arrived
just at dusk, three missing and Sergeant Thelaur dead.”
    “One of the injured was Kathlan of third squad. You’d have seen
the arrow she was holding in her shoulder.”
    “She was with them, and headed for the healers, I heard.”
    Chriani spurred forward with a nod. Ahead of him, he saw Grus
turned back and watching darkly.
    Makaysa led them to the southwest stables, one of four set deep
within the camp as protection from direct attack. They made their way along mud
paths packed down with straw, passing between tents set onto wide platforms.
Those platforms were arranged in tight arcing rows, spreading in semicircles
cut through with radial paths for ease of movement within and across the camp.
    The stations of the Brandishear rangers were mobile defensive,
scouting, and attack platforms, setting up for a season or a year, then
shifting to keep pace with weather and threats. They had long been a staple of
the southern frontier, keeping watch on the old mountain passes and the Orcish
war-bands that still made use of them, or hunting the fell wolves that appeared
on the southern plains with dread predictability in the last days of winter.
    The Greatwood had been of less concern since the end of the
Ilvani Incursions of a generation ago, and it had been almost that long since
the camps had been seen along Brandishear’s forest frontier. The patrols that
kept a watchful eye on the Ilvani had long been content to range out from the
fortified towns flanking that frontier, anchored between the eastern
cities — Cadaurwen and Alaniver, Welbirk and Addrimyr, and Caredry
to the far north, whose gates and walls marked the entrance to the Clearwater
Way.
    A year and a half ago, the long sense of uneasy peace and
isolated skirmishes along the forest had changed.
    East and south of Alaniver, Konaugo
Post was a day’s easy ride from that city, and less than a league from the wall
of the forest. The impermanence of the ranger camps was designed to balance
their close proximity to the Greatwood, allowing them to stay close to towns
and cities along the frontier for defense and resupply, but to not give the
Valnirata a reason to increase their own standing forces like a permanent
presence would.
    Building permanent forts so close to the forest created an
invitation for Ilvani raids, though it had been long years since the Valnirata
had ventured out in numbers to assault settlements in Brandishear. Many said
that was changing, though. The Prince’s Guard of Brandishear had been actively
recruiting as it hadn’t for a generation. Another sign of the events of a year
and a half before.
    As they dismounted and led their horses toward the grooms,
Makaysa brushed dust from her leathers, the other rangers pulling personal gear
from their saddlebags. Chriani grabbed a waterskin from off his own borrowed
horse before it went, stifling a wince where he felt his injured arm
stiffening. He caught the groom’s look of unfamiliar appraisal, clearly
recognizing the horse but not its rider. As he drank, then splashed water to
his face, Chriani thought on how that suited him fine this night. He didn’t
know how long he would have before Umeni found him, but the fewer people who saw
him until then, the better.
    “First squad on duty,” Makaysa called. The others stood to
attention, Chriani managing to lift himself out of the slouch of too long a day
in the saddle. “But all of us are to the war-mages, now.” She met the eyes of
each of her rangers in turn as she spoke, but Chriani didn’t nod as the others
did. “Debrief on what was seen. No discussion among yourselves first. When the
mages are done, the five of you are off duty.” The sweep of her hand made a
specific point of excluding Chriani from the second half of her orders. To him,
she added, “When you’re