begin the packin’ up directly.” He stuck out his hand, and Kara took it forearm-to-forearm in the dwarven manner. The mercenary nodded in approval and grinned around his pipe. “It’ll be good t’ work with you again, Lady Kara. I go.”
“We’ll speak again soon.” Kara watched the dwarven mercenary climb back into his mule’s saddle and ride off, then returned her attention to the companies wheeling and turning in the field before her. The sergeant’s sharp voices carried over the snowy ground, and from time to time one company or another gave a sudden shout in response. They’re good troops, far better than the foreign blades who make up Marstel’s army, she told herself. The question was whether she had enough of them … and with the Icehammers, she thought she had an answer.
She motioned for her standard-bearer, a young Hulburgan soldier named Vossen, to join her. The sergeant trotted over, the Hulmaster banner fluttering from his stirrup. “Aye, Lady-Captain?” he said.
“My compliments to the captains of the shields, and Sergeant-Major Kolton. Carry on with the day’s drills, and join me with the House War Council in the upper library at four bells this afternoon.”
“Yes, my lady,” Sergeant Vossen replied. The soldier saluted, striking his right fist to his breastplate, and rode down into the drillfield in search of the captains as Kara turned Dancer and cantered back up to the manor. She’d been thinking of the campaign to come since the day the Hulmasters and their Shieldsworn had been driven out of Hulburg. It was time to set events in motion.
A little before four bells, Kara waited for the House War Council to gather in Lasparhall’s fine old library. It was a broad, sunlit room on the upper floor of the manor’s west wing, and for the next few tendays, she intended to use it as her headquarters. A large map showing the lands lying between Thentia and Hulburg hung in the middle of one wall; a great table of gleaming dark mahogany was set up in the center of the room. The banquet hall in the middle of the manor was a larger room, but Kara preferred one that she could lock up and keep guarded without rendering half the house inaccessible.
She busied herself with reading through a small handful of correspondence that Master Quillon had given her earlier in the morning as the chief commanders of the Shieldsworn and the family’s key advisors filed in. First came the shield-captain Merrith Darosti, a sturdy woman of thirty who wore mail much like Kara’s and carried her bold red hair in a long braid. Sergeant Kolton, who looked distinctly uncomfortable at the idea of participating in the officers’ council, followed a step behind her; since he was one of the most experienced sergeants remaining in the ranks of the Shieldsworn, Kara had promoted him to head of the House Guard. Brother Larken, a tall young friar in a brown robe adorned with the yellow sunburst of Amaunator, filed into the room next. Behind Larken two former members of the Harmach’s Council made their way into the room and took their places: Deren Ilkur—formerly the keeper of duties—and Theron Nimstar, who’d been Hulburg’s high magistrate. Neither man was a fighter, but they had good minds and broad experience in running civic affairs. Bringing up the rear of the procession came the stockman Nils Wester, who’d brought more than a hundred Hulmaster loyalists from his Spearmeet company into exile rather than submit to Marstel’s rule. The assorted clerks and seconds for the council members took their own places in the row of chairs along the wall.
“It seems we’re all here,” she observed to Quillon. She handed the letters back to the old halfling, and adjusted the saber hanging in its scabbard by her hip. Since the assassins’ attack on Lasparhall, Kara had made a habit of wearing her arms almost every waking hour. Today she wore her light kit—a shirt of fine mail over a knee-length skirt of reinforced leather and half-greaves, all beneath a surcoat of quartered blue and white much like that worn by any Shieldsworn. She didn’t intend to be caught off guard by Hulburg’s enemies again. Unlike the soldiers’ coats, Kara’s featured a griffon of blue and gold embroidered on the upper left quadrant—the insignia of House Hulmaster, which was only worn by a member of the family under arms.
She approached her place at the head of the table. “Good day, gentlemen,” she said. With a scraping