Paul Kemp: Shadowrealm

"Tales and naught else," Enken said, pointing his blade at the young soldier. "Shadovar bleed as well as any and better than some." He looked to Reht. "We could turn the clerics on to this Shadovar's scent. Follow him. They must have wanted the general alive or they would have killed him here."

"Agreed," Reht said.

Hess looked like he'd eaten bad beef. "He warned us not to follow."

Reht and Enken stared blades at the boy. "What? Who?"

"The Shadovar."

"And?"

"And… that is all," said Hess and looked away.

Enken grunted in disgust, took Hess by the back of his cloak, and shoved him toward the tent flap.

"You left your balls out in the rain, soldier. Get out there and find him 'ere I see you again."

Reht, Enken, and Strend chuckled at Hess's expense as Hess sulked his way out of the tent. The moment he stepped outside the questions from the loiterers flew as heavy as the rain.

"Lorgan has not reported back," Enken said. "That leaves the rank to you or me."

"Fight you for it?" Reht said.

Enken smiled, showing his chipped front teeth. He sheathed his knife. "I would, but we can't afford to lose you."

Reht chuckled.

Enken said, "You're longer in the Blades, anyway, known the general and the men longer. You take it."

Reht considered that, and nodded. While he had always been a tactician, a leader of small units, not a strategist, he could assume command until the overmistress replaced Forrin with another general.

"When Lorgan shows, he'll rank me and can have it."

"If Lorgan shows," Enken said. "His silence bodes ill. Meantime, keep a light around you. Shadovar seem to have a liking for anyone leading this army."

Reht smiled but it was forced. To Strend, he said, "Take Hess and get me Mennick and Vors, and the rest of the Talassans. Let's find out what happened here."

Strend saluted and started to bound from the tent.

"Wait," Reht said, and Strend stopped.

"Sir?"

"Bring the Corrinthal boy back with you, too. If Vors has a problem, you bring him to me."

Strend nodded and hurried out, and they heard him call for Hess.

"Vors," Enken said, and spit as if the name itself left a foul taste.

Reht thought that said everything that needed saying. He walked the confines of Forrin's tent, trying on his new rank, looking over Forrin's personal effects. Forrin had traveled light, still a mercenary footman despite his rank.

"Blade and armor are gone," Reht said to Enken.

"I noticed."

"Could be the general put up a fight before Hess and Strend entered the tent."

"Could be. But if so, it wasn't much of one."

"Bold, taking him out of his own tent," Reht said.

Enken nodded, his expression thoughtful.

Reht didn't have an eye for clues or a head for mysteries. He'd leave it to Mennick and the priests. He turned his thoughts back to his men, his army, things he understood.

"Extra discipline with the men for a time, to keep things in order while they stomach the news. We'll need to get word to the overmistress."

"Agreed to both," Enken said. "If she replaces you with someone political, I think the Blades will take it ill."

Reht nodded, listened to the patter of rain, and pondered his course. A third of his forces under Lorgan had not reported back. Likely they had been delayed by the weather or cut off by Saerbian forces. He knew a sizeable force of Saerbians had mustered on the shores of Lake Veladon. He suspected Endren Corrinthal was among them.

Reht was inclined to meet them in the field. He knew that Forrin's orders had been to raze Saerb and disrupt any potential muster of Saerbian forces. They'd razed Saerb but at least a partial muster had gone forward anyway.

"I am tempted to move against the Saerbians at Lake Veladon."

"The commanders will support that," Enken said. "Gavist and I had been advocating as much with Forrin before… this."

"Well enough. It'll give the men a focus. Call the commanders together."

Enken saluted, grinning through his beard the while, and stepped out of the tent.

"Reht has command until further notice!" Reht heard him shout to the gathered men outside. "Pass the word."

They would assemble the army with the dawn and formally announce Reht's promotion with all the assembled commanders at his side. He expected no resistance. He knew he was respected, even liked. He'd led many of the men in the army personally, fought beside them, bled beside them. They would follow him for as long as he had command.

But in the privacy of his own thoughts, he felt himself smaller than the task, a halfling in a giant's boots. He did not have Forrin's nose for strategy. The weight of authority felt heavy on his shoulders. He'd have to rely on his commanders.

He found a bottle of Forrin's wine and two tin chalices in a small chest. Spurning the chalices, he pulled the cork with his teeth and took a long swallow directly from the bottle. It'd be the last he had for a time.

A commotion from outside the tent rose above the sound of the rain. Reht set down the bottle and started out but before he did Strend burst into the tent, dripping rain, breathless, his face red from exertion.

"Speak, boy," Reht said.

"They killed Vors, too," Strend blurted. "And the Corrinthal boy is gone."

"Damn it." Reht strode past Strend and out of the tent. The weight of two dozen gazes settled on him as he emerged. He stopped and looked his men in the eye. He kept his tone even but authoritative.

"Stand your posts, stay alert, and do your jobs. We will avenge all that has happened."

Nods and grudging acknowledgements from all around.

Reht saluted, was answered in kind by all the men in sight, and walked through the camp. As he passed, men saluted, hailed him as commander. Word had spread.

On the way to Vors's tent, he met Gavist, a skilled junior commander who could not yet grow a full beard. Gavist, too, saluted him.

"I am tired of that already," Reht said.

Gavist smiled.

Reht said, "The general is taken and Vors is dead."

Gavist's young face showed no emotion. "I heard as much."

"Anyone else?" Reht asked.

"Not that I've heard," Gavist said.

"Precise strike," Reht said.

They fell in together and marched through the camp. By the time they reached Vors's tent, they trailed two score soldiers in their wake.

Othel stood at the entrance to Vors's tent and greeted Reht and Gavist with a nod. Reht was thankful Othel didn't salute.

"Ugly in there, Commander," Othel said.

Reht stepped through the tent's flap and looked inside.

"Tempus's blade," he swore.

Vors lay on the ground in the center of the tent, his breastplate at his side. A spear impaled his guts, stuck out of his body like an oriflamme. His open eyes, glassy and swollen from a beating, stared upward at nothing. His mouth hung open in an unfinished scream of pain. Blood caked his lips, his beard. The pungent, sour stink of blood and worse hung thick in the tent.

Vors had died in pain, prolonged and deliberately inflicted. He would have taken a quarter hour or more to die with the spear in his belly.

Gavist chewed his upper lip, as if feeling for the nonexistent moustache with his teeth. "Looks personal. And why take the boy?"

"The Shadovar are allied with Selgaunt and Selgaunt is allied with Saerb," Reht said. "The Corrinthals are important among the Saerbians. Rescuing the boy makes sense, either to earn goodwill or use as leverage." He nodded at the slaughter. "Not sure why the assassin would do it this way, though."

"Vengeance for the boy?" Othel said.

Reht thought it might be possible. "No one heard anything?"

Othel shook his head.

"What is it?" some of the soldiers shouted from outside the tent. "What happened in there?"