The Guard was easiest to deal with; the Lord Marshal simply called all the officers together, and with Alberich present to verify exactly what had been said and done, related to them the entire true story. The officers of the Guard, for the most part, had never associated closely with Orthallen; thus, while they were shocked by his betrayal, they took the tale at its face value. They were far more worried about the army Ancar would bring against them, for they numbered something around a thousand to Ancar’s three thousand. The magicians they dismissed out of hand.

“My lord,” one veteran officer said, his face as scar-seamed as Alberich’s “Begging your pardon, but there’s nothing we can do about mages. We’ll leave that in the hands of those that deal with magic—”

His gaze flickered to Alberich; the Armsmaster gave him a barely perceptible nod.

“—we’ve more than enough on our plate with what’s coming at us.”

And Ancar’s army was on its way; Alberich and the Lord Marshal knew that for a fact. There were two Heralds in Selenay’s entourage gifted with Farsight who had also been in Hardorn on more than one mission. They had bent their talents beyond the Border during the night, at Alberich’s urging. They had seen Ancar’s army, plainly camped for a few hours’ rest. More disturbingly, they had “looked” again for that army with the coming of dawn—and found nothing, nothing but empty countryside.

“So there’s at least one mage with them,” Kyril deduced, as the warleaders conferred over breakfast. “And he’s concealing their movements from our Farsight somehow.” Knowing what they now knew about mages being in Ancar’s entourage—however little that was—Kyhl and Alberich had been made co-equal with the Lord Marshal. Their task was to lead the assembled Heralds in combat—either by steel or by Gift. One of the Heralds’ most important tasks was communications; each officer would have a Mindspeaking Herald with him at all times, and Kyril would be with Selenay to coordinate all of them. That was the trick that had won the Tedrel Wars for them, the one thing no other army could match.

“Doesn’t matter,” the Lord Marshal replied, “at least not at the moment. We know where they were; we know by that how fast they’ve come, and how soon they’re likely to get here. We also know those mages haven’t been moving ‘em somehow—etse they wouldn’t have needed all the horses your Heralds ‘saw.’ ”

“My lord?” One of his officers had appeared beyond the open tent flap, saluting smartly. He was scarcely old enough to have grown a beard; morning sun gilded his fair hair, and he was having a difficult time repressing a grin. “We’re getting the recruits you warned us of.”

“Recruits?” Kyril said, puzzled, as Alberich nodded.