© 2010, Patrick Hester. All Rights Reserved
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“We’ll be vulnerable until the next lottery and that’s a year away. I don’t have enough men to maintain the patrols.”
“I understand, Captain,” the Magistrate said. “How are the women assimilating?”
Shen snorted. “Well enough. There is a reason they had their own Keep, my Lord. They are most… distracting to the men.”
“The men will have to suffer through,” the Magistrate said wryly. “I’m sure it is a burden, but one they will have to bear.”
“That brings us to another point, my Lord,” Shen said. Suddenly the man refused to look at him. For the past hour he’d been raging like an animal, nostrils flaring, face flushed. Now he looked positively ill. Interesting, he thought.
“Yes?” he said aloud.
“There was an escape.”
“Ah,” it was the Magistrate’s turn to snort. He’d already decided that particular situation was delicious. “Anything North of Evermist is not our concern, Captain. Give it no more thought,” he waved his hand. It was a dismissal. When Shen did not move, his surprise was apparent.
“I am not talking about that which escaped North. I am talking about that which escaped South.“ Shen took a deep breath and then held a piece of paper before him. It was yellowed parchment, folded in the center and used by the military for their official communications. Taking it with a snap, he opened it and read the contents. It was written in a quick, precise hand.
ATTACK ON CORRAC’AMOR
MULTIPLE CATS-AT LEAST ONE DOZEN
DOZENS DEAD, MORE WOUNDED
SEND HELP
The Magistrate crumpled the paper in his hands. “Can you send help?”
“No. Not for days, maybe weeks at the rate the Engineers are… helping.” Twice now, the Magistrate had explained that the word was ‘healing’, but the Captain refused to adopt it. He didn’t know what they were doing, only that wounded men went in one door and came out another feeling better if not fully recovered and he chalked it all up to magic.
Superstitious nonsense.
“If the Engineers can work faster?” he asked.
“Then I could send help, but we are dangerously low on hale soldiers as it is. We can barely muster a skeleton patrol. If I send men to the main land, I’ll have to stop the patrols all together.”
“A large force would be unwise,” the Magistrate said. He had visions of the common man seeing a large, armed military force moving through their townships and shuddered. They would think it some sort of invasion. They send their sons and daughters away to the military but few had ever seen them come back, let alone in large numbers. “We need a squad. Maybe two. Your best trackers and hunters.”
“My best trackers are Jaycn and Eli, and Eli hasn’t woken up yet.”
“Well then,” the Magistrate sighed. “We best wake him up.”
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