‘Oh, be quiet! Please!’ Quick Ben stood on the river’s north shore. Mud covered his leggings to mid-thigh, the price for minimizing as much as possible the distance of the paths he had fashioned for the columns of troops, the wagons, the livestock and the spare mounts. He only awaited the last few stragglers who’d yet to arrive, Whiskeyjack included. To make his exhaustion even more unpleasant, the spirit of Talamandas whined unceasing complaint from his invisible perch on the wizard’s left shoulder.

Too much power had been unveiled here. Sufficient to draw notice. Careless, claimed the sticksnare in a whisper. Suicidal, in fact. The Crippled God cannot help but find us. Stupid bluster! And what of the Pannion Seer? A score of dread warrens all trembling to our passage! Proof of our singular efficacy against the infection! Will either of them simply sit back and do nothing in answer to what they have seen here?

‘Silence,’ Quick Ben muttered.

Kruppe’s wiry brows rose. ‘One rude command was sufficient, Kruppe haughtily assures miserable wizard!’

‘Not you. Never mind. I was thinking aloud.’

‘Curious habit for a mage, yes? Dangerous.’

‘You think so? How about some more loudly uttered thoughts, Daru? The display is deliberate. The unveiling of power here is precisely intended to kick the hornet nests. Both of them! Clumsily massive, an appalling absence of subtlety. Thunder to those who had been expecting the almost soundless padding of a mouse’s feet and its whispering tail. Now, why would I do that, do you wonder?’

‘Kruppe does not wonder at all, except, perhaps, at your insisting on explaining such admirable tactics of misdirection to these squalling seagulls.’

Quick Ben scowled down at the round little man. ‘Really? I had no idea I was that obvious. Maybe I should reconsider.’

‘Nonsense, Wizard! Hold to your unassailable self-confidence – aye, some might well call it megalomania, but not Kruppe, for he too is in possession of unassailable self-confidence, such as only mortals are capable of and then rightfully but a mere handful the world over. You’ve singular company, Kruppe assures you!’

Quick Ben grinned. ‘Singular? And what about these seagulls?’

Kruppe waved a plump hand. ‘Pah! Lest one should land on your left shoulder, that is. Which would be another matter entirely, would it not?’

The wizard’s dark eyes thinned suspiciously on the Daru at his side.

Kruppe blithely continued, ‘In which case, poor ignorant bird would be witness to such potent plurality of cunning converse so as to reel confused if not mercifully constipated!’

Quick Ben blinked in startlement. ‘What did you say?’

‘Well sir, were we not suggesting the placement of corks? Be quiet. Shut up. Kruppe simply advised of an internal version with which seagull’s ceaseless bleating complaint is silenced, indeed, stoppered up to the relief of one and all!’