“Fostered?”
She chuckled. “It’s something the nobility does. Most children are sent to live with a different family when they reach a certain age. It helps to create connections between families of power.”
“But Nerrow didn’t send Laina away,” observed Will.
“He wouldn’t. Not with me there,” she answered. “Besides, he’s too soft. I don’t think he could stand to be parted either of his girls.”
In the darkness, Will watched the first patrol he had seen pass by for the second time. He had a good grasp of the timing now. There were four groups of three men. Each group completed a full circuit of the camp roughly every twenty minutes. It would be six or seven minutes before the next patrol came by. Since they were bundled together, he held onto Selene, and they stood together. “It’s time.”
Chapter 60
They moved forward through the shadowy region beyond the lanterns of Barrowden, and soon they emerged into the light. It wasn’t that late, so there were still a few people moving about, but since it was a military camp there were fewer than if it had still been a village.
“Shouldn’t there be more guards?” Will muttered.
“I think since this region is so well protected by the pass they don’t think there’s much threat,” suggested Selene.
As they walked, Will began to notice the difference in how much sound they made. Their feet were completely silent, and their clothes didn’t rustle, but their voices were completely normal. As many times as he had had to sneak around thus far in his career, he figured he should insist that Selene teach him the spell after they were done.
Barrowden as he had known it was completely gone. The village homes and buildings had been razed, and whatever could be salvaged—along with a significant amount of new timber—had gone into constructing the new Darrowan base of operations.
Unlike the Terabinian army camp and the Darrowan camp in the pass, Barrowden’s tents and new buildings had been arranged in a neat grid. Wide lanes separated the tents and intersected each other at ninety-degree angles. He supposed that the layout facilitated ease of movement and made everything easier to find.
The camp was also well lit, and though the lanterns weren’t that bright there were very few truly dark regions within it. Again, that made it easier for people to move about after dark, but it also made it harder to hide. Will and Selene both tensed when a few soldiers passed them in the street, but the men barely glanced at them.
“This might be easier than I anticipated,” Will observed.
Selene nodded. “Don’t get too comfortable, though. Eventually we’ll have to do something, and it won’t be so easy anymore.”
They continued on in a straight line, following the lane they had first entered on. Most of what they had passed thus far consisted of pavilion tents with short, temporary walls that rose four feet high along their margins to create semi-permanent dwellings. As far as Will could tell, they served as barracks, and they seemed to go on forever. The first section they went through was occupied, but the next was empty. It must have belonged to the units that have already gone to the pass. What worried him most was that there were obviously many more such sections, and soldiers still occupied many of them. The Patriarch’s army was huge.
They went by much larger tents occasionally, and by the smell Will figured they were mess tents, but they found nothing resembling the centralized stores that they were looking for. Still, they had only walked through a small fraction of the enemy base so far.
Two men waited on one corner of an especially large intersection ahead that marked the center of the camp. Given the lighting, they had already seen Will and Selene, so there was no point in avoiding them, so they kept walking.
As soon as they were within twenty feet, one of the pair stepped out and challenged them, “Show your pass.”
Will scratched his head. “I didn’t realize it was that late. We’ll head back to our unit.” He made as if to turn back.
The guard wasn’t going to let them off easily, however. “Stop. Which unit are you—”
Will had already connected his source-link spell to both men, and he began rapidly draining their turyn. Unaware of what he was doing, neither of them made the connection between their fatigue and the newcomers until it was too late, and both slowly collapsed to the ground.
Selene stared at him in surprise. “That would make me sick for hours, but there’s a better way.”
“Hey!” someone called from their left. Four more men were emerging from a small, wooden building that must serve as a guard station.
“Show me,” muttered Will. “Or things are about to get ugly.” He waved to the guards. “Give us a hand; something is wrong with these two!”
The newly arrived soldiers weren’t buying his act, and they lowered short spears in his direction as they approached. The sword at Will’s side felt woefully inadequate. He readied himself to cast his linking spell again, but he knew he could only get two. Shit.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a spell come together in Selene’s hands. The runes had a light green color to them, and when she released it, the spell shot toward the men before expanding and slowly fading from his sight. All four collapsed to the ground.
“Damn!” said Will. “Are they dead?”
“Asleep. Let’s get them off the street.”
Make that two spells I want to learn from her, thought Will. The silence spell and the sleeping spell. Together they dragged the six unconscious soldiers back into the guard building, lining them up on the floor.
“How long will they sleep?” he asked.
“Hours, until the next watch shift comes and wakes them up.”
“Or someone passes by and wonders why there’s no one asking for passes,” said Will. Stepping outside, he looked down each lane that led away from the intersection. The one to their left seemed much the same as the one they had walked down—more barracks—but the other two showed larger tents and buildings in the distance.
The sheer size of the base was daunting. From what they had seen, even if they found the stores and supplies, there would probably be far too many. Setting fire to one would raise the alarm, making it difficult to destroy the rest. “Even if we find the supply tents or warehouses, how are we going to destroy them all?” said Will.
Selene gave him a harsh look. “This was your plan.”
A man emerged from a tent on the opposite side of the lane and walked toward him. The stranger wasn’t dressed as a soldier though; he wore a black robe, and Will could see something like a black flame hovering above his shoulder. A sorcerer. “Stay inside,” warned Will, hissing over his shoulder through the doorway behind him.
Will stepped out boldly. “Show your pass.”
The man stopped, a look of surprise crossing his face, and Will worried that he’d made a mistake. A second later the stranger relaxed. “Certainly. Let me find it for you.” The man lifted his hand, and the black flame pulsed. A spell formed above his palm.
Will snatched his sword from his sheath and ran forward, but he was too late. The sorcerer finished his spell, and a tangled web of black lines shot toward Will. It expanded when it reached him, and he felt a burning pain across his skin before the spell faded and fizzled out. The sorcerer looked at him in surprise, but before he could do anything else, something flashed across the lane and tore through him. Will saw a hole three inches across that went entirely through the man’s body before he collapsed.