Farah said nothing for it was unnecessary to remind him that six did hit their target and some of the others did serious damage, even if it was not what was intended.

True did not touch on that either.

“They may have trained in their aim, but they were not trained archers,” he continued. “And they may not have leaked vital secrets of this Rising, but all of them eventually talked. And we learned that they were all recruited through Go’Doan temples, or Go’Doan priests, but this Rising is clearly not officially of the Go’Doan religion. Indeed, they speak of the overarching faith in a sneering manner. Thus, it is a subset of the Go’Doan who have an aggressive mission that does not coincide with that of the Dome City, making it not truly Go’Doan at all.”

“Then this is good,” she noted.

“Yes, though we cannot tell who is of this Rising and who is Go’Doan, which will serve to make things difficult. We also learned that information within this Rising is highly compartmentalized, something else that will make things difficult. Their leader, the one who recruited them, called them to this mission, trained them, strategized it and carried it through, was the one who fled and died in the fleeing. He was a priest of the Go’Doan. They know not names of others. And the two priests taken, who likely know more, refused to say anything at all.”

“And this is bad,” she murmured.

He gave her a careful squeeze. “Not exactly. First, they are not soldiers. This is definitely in our favor. And it leads me to believe whoever is at the top of this is not trained in that manner, which could also be in our favor. I do not think they realize they declared war, in a sense, back at Catrame Palace, and definitely that declaration was made today. And you cannot win a war if you don’t realize you’re waging one.”

“Are you sure they do not think this?”

He shook his head. “The only thing I’m sure of at this time is that this is not a house of cards. You can’t pull one from the bottom and it all comes tumbling down. The hammer has to fall at the top. Thus, we must find our way to the top.”

“It does seem this is true,” she muttered.

He gave her another careful squeeze and a small smile before he went on, “Second, they are not Go’Doan, so although they recruit amongst the people of the realms in which they serve, if we can disseminate information, citizens can be made aware, or even come forward with information.”

“This would be most useful.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “And last, it is far away, but it could be even more useful considering the lower downs know little, thus we need information about what is happening higher up. And Lorenz, Mars’s captain in Fire City, has a priest who is formerly of this Rising, though this faction does not know this is ‘formerly.’ And he’s willing to learn what he can of their plans and share it.”