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the
narrow side passage along the left side of the house.
The woman halted ten paces from Rautos and bowed.
'Master, a message from Invigilator Karos Invictad.'
    'Very good,' Rautos replied distractedly. 'I will attend to
it in a moment. Does the messenger await a response?'
    'Yes, Master. He is in the courtyard.'
    'See that refreshments are provided.'
    The watcher bowed then departed.
    'Venitt, I believe you must prepare to undertake a
journey on my behalf.'
    'Master?'
    'The Invigilator at last perceives the magnitude of the
threat.'
    Venitt Sathad said nothing.
    'You must travel to Drene City,' Rautos said, his eyes
once more on the mysterious construct dominating the
lower terrace. 'The Consign requires a most specific report
of the preparations there. Alas, the Factor's own missives
are proving unsatisfactory. I require confidence in those
matters, if I am to apply fullest concentration to the threat
closer to hand.'
    Again, Venitt did not speak.
    Rautos looked out onto the river. Fisher boats gathered
in the bay opposite, two merchant traders drawing in
towards the main docks. One of them, bearing the flag of
the Esterrict family, looked damaged, possibly by fire.
Rautos brushed the dirt from his hands and turned about,
making his way back into the building, his servant falling
into step behind him.
    'I wonder, what lies beneath those stones?'
    'Master?'
    'Never mind, Venitt. I was but thinking out loud.'
    The Awl'dan camp had been attacked at dawn by two
troops of Atri-Preda Bivatt's Bluerose cavalry. Two hundred
skilled lancers riding into a maelstrom of panic, as figures
struggled out from the hide huts, as the Drene-bred wardogs,
arriving moments before the horse-soldiers, closed on
the pack of Awl herder and dray dogs, and in moments the
three breeds of beast were locked in a vicious battle.
    The Awl warriors were unprepared, and few had time to
even so much as find their weapons before the lancers burst
into their midst. In moments, the slaughter extended out to
encompass elders and children. Most of the women fought
alongside their male kin – wife and husband, sister and
brother, dying together in a last blending of blood.
    The engagement between the Letherii and the Awl took
all of two hundred heartbeats. The war among the dogs was
far more protracted, for the herder dogs – while smaller and
more compact than their attackers – were quick and no less
vicious, while the drays, bred to pull carts in summer and sleds
in winter, were comparable with the Drene breed. Trained to
kill wolves, the drays proved more than a match for the wardogs,
and if not for the lancers then making sport of killing
the mottle-skinned beasts, the battle would have turned. As
it was, the Awl pack finally broke away, the survivors fleeing
onto the plain, eastward, a few Drene wardogs giving chase
before being recalled by their handlers.
    Whilst lancers dismounted to make certain there were
no survivors among the Awl, others rode out to collect the
herds of myrid and rodara in the next valley.
    Atri-Preda Bivatt sat astride her stallion, struggling to
control the beast with the smell of blood so heavy in the
morning air. Beside her, sitting awkward and in discomfort on
the unfamiliar saddle, Brohl Handar, the newly appointed
Tiste Edur Overseer of Drene City, watched the Letherii
systematically loot the encampment, stripping corpses naked
and drawing their knives. The Awl bound their jewellery –
mostly gold – deep in the braids of their hair, forcing the
Letherii to slice away those sections of the scalp to claim their
booty. Of course, there was more than just expedience in this
mutilation, for it had been extended to the collecting of
swaths of skin that had been decorated in tattoos, the particular
style of the Awl rich in colour and often outlined in
stitched gold thread. These trophies adorned the roundshields
of many lancers.
    The captured herds now belonged to the Factor of
Drene, Letur Anict, and as Brohl Handar watched