A knock on the door pulled him up from his book, and he glanced over his shoulder.

“Enter.”

One of Magus’s most trustworthy men, Signifer Weiss, walked into the center of the room and then saluted. His face was heavily scarred from a citywide fire started during their campaign subjugating the people of Noth-Wall. It was that campaign that had earned Magus his position as Imperator, and he had made damn sure that Weiss came with him after his promotion.

“Pray, forgive me for coming at such a late hour,” the Signifer said. “But the nature of this communiqué does not allow me to wait until morning.”

That got Magus’s interest. Something new from our mysterious turncoat? He swiveled his chair around and held out his hand for the rolled piece of paper the Signifer carried.

“Let’s have it, then.”

The scroll was smaller than his hand, and it bore no seal or signature. Magus unrolled it and read the three short sentences. What they promised set his blood to racing.

“You’re sure this is from our informant?” he asked.

“It was delivered in secret, in the same manner as all the other messages.”

Magus read it a second time. As before, the lettering was in Thanese, with clumsy, ragged lines meant to disguise the writer’s actual writing style.

The Villasa mansion. Exactly one hour prior to midnight, no sooner, no later. Come, and capture the Vagrant and his believers.

“Have you located this mansion?” he asked.

“It’s in the outer ring,” Weiss explained. “According to our records, the Villasa family have fallen under suspicion before, and were punished with a heavy fine for allowing their servants to abdicate their daily duties to celebrate last year’s Midwinter.”

“Small heresies hide larger ones,” Magus said as he stood. “A lesson we learn in Thanet time and time again. We have an hour, so tell everyone to make haste. I’ll be leading the mission to grab that bastard myself.”

Magus ensured they held exactly to the time his informant demanded. The moment the bells of the city chimed the eleventh hour, he gave his order. Four hundred men accompanied him, each broken into a squad of one hundred positioned on different sides of the mansion so that all four cardinal directions were covered. The Signifer with him raised a horn to his lips and blew a single, long note.

“And so the hounds give chase,” Magus said as his soldiers rushed the mansion. “I pray the fox finds the strength to fight instead of flee.”