to increase in intensity until he becomes quite out of his mind with rage.”
“You can’t be serious.” Sebastian didn’t want to believe such a thing, although after what he’d just seen, it didn’t seem impossible.
Zaniolo’s smile dropped away. “I’m deadly serious, Captain. I don’t tell you all this because I enjoy gossiping. I tell you because I’ve grown rather fond of you, and the knowledge might just save your life.”
As if to punctuate Zaniolo’s point, Vittorio burst through the front doors of headquarters, roaring like a lion, his face crimson. Several officers scurried behind him as he stormed over to the armory and began shouting at Costa, demanding to know why his troops had not been properly equipped yet.
The old sergeant’s face was expressionless as he stood his ground, weathering the storm of verbal abuse. But his calmness seemed to further infuriate Vittorio. The commander raised his fist as if to strike him. It was only then that Costa spoke. Sebastian couldn’t hear what he said, but it brought Vittorio up short, his clenched fist raised in the air. The commander stood there a moment, as if frozen, then suddenly turned and struck one of the cowering officers nearby. Then he stalked back into headquarters, his face still livid.
“My God…,” whispered Sebastian.
“You see what I mean?” asked Zaniolo. “The commander is an impeccable leader, so long as things are going his way. But I have learned that in battle, things rarely go one’s way.”
Sebastian felt as if the ground were dropping away beneath him. Could it really be true that this man, whom he had trusted to guide him, was unstable and given to fits of madness? If that was so, what did it say about the choices Sebastian had made? Had he been laboring under poor, possibly deranged guidance this whole time?
No, he assured himself. The commander’s advice might now be somewhat suspect, but if Sebastian had truly done something terrible, his beloved Galina would have told him.
59
Sonya had some difficulty locating any bandits. She suspected that the coming conflict had driven most of them into hiding. But finally she got a lead from some villagers that there was a group holed up in the western foothills of the Cherny Mountains.
She didn’t mind taking her time, however. She was fond of her allies, but it was wonderful to be back in the wilderness with no one but her faithful steed, Peppercorn, for companionship. Her beloved Perchinka had put on some weight while in the care of the villagers of Zapad. It was clear they had spoiled him outrageously with far too many apples and far too little exercise. As the steed of a Ranger of Marzanna, that simply wouldn’t do, so she had run him pretty hard when she’d reclaimed him from their care. He’d seemed a little resentful at first, but it didn’t take long for him to adjust.
She found some likely tracks and followed them through the snow into the foothills until she caught sight of an abandoned salt mine. She dismounted and tied Peppercorn to a tree near the entrance. Not because she was afraid he would wander, but because she knew he would try to follow her, and horses were not known for their stealth.
The entrance was fairly large, probably so that it could accommodate the wagons that once trundled in and out. There wasn’t anyone guarding the entrance, but bandits rarely took such precautions, so that didn’t mean it was truly abandoned.
She crept quietly into the mine and followed the main shaft as it slowly descended. It was dark, but her fox eyes allowed her to see well enough.
There were a few narrow tunnel branches from the main shaft, but none of them bore any trace of the bandits, so she kept moving forward and downward. For a while, the air grew steadily colder. But then she saw a faint, flickering light ahead, as if from a fire, and the air began to warm slightly.
Finally she reached a large open area roughly fifteen yards wide and thirty yards long. The smooth walls made it clear that this was not a natural cave, but had been laboriously hand dug over a number of years. To prevent a cave-in, the sides were stacked from floor to ceiling with wooden frames packed full of the loose rock that had been cast aside while mining.
Four men sat around a small cooking fire in the center of the space. They held skewers of meat on sticks over the fire,