Among the others, eight were lightning-wielders: Magister Lambent and seven others. The General could have asked for more, but eight would be enough for his purpose. He wanted to test their range. And he had another test in mind for them as well.

To that number, Klamath had added seven Magisters of wind. He saw more possibilities in them than the King’s other advisers did. He hoped to learn what the power of wind could do—especially in bad weather.

The snow was coming down as thick as a wall. Even the looming mass of the keep itself was barely visible. Inexperienced riders might lose their way without guidance. As a precaution, Klamath had assigned a rifleman to keep track of his charges.

He counted the Magisters again when they had mounted. He expected eighteen, but he found one more.

Squinting through the snow, he scanned his company until he identified the hedgehog shape of Magister Pillion.

Whose Decimate was earthquake.

Under other circumstances, Klamath would have questioned the man immediately. But the snow enclosed the riders like a shroud, and they had a long way to go. The distance would strain a vexed Magister like Lambent despite his past experience. It would seem cruel to people who had not spent countless hours on horseback. To spare them more waiting, he led them out of the bailey. He could speak with Magister Pillion along the way.

The General and his rifleman carried lanterns. Magister Trench had brought one. And a Bellegerin Magister of lightning, a woman named Visible, had done the same. Falling snow dulled their flames to the faintness of swamp-lights; but even that dim glow might keep the riders together.

Following Klamath, his company passed from Belleger’s Fist through the fortifications of King Brigin’s original city and out into the Open Hand. The riding was not difficult there despite the high drifts and packed sheets of snow. Winter slowed the busyness of the city, certainly, but did not stop it. The Hand held too many people with too much to do. Carts and horses, servants and workers plodding to and from their tasks, families needing food and water and wood, children at play: all had combined to pack distinct paths along the streets. Even Magisters who rode poorly, like Pillion, and those with bad eyes, like Lambent, moved with comparative ease.

Beyond the fringes of the city, however, there was no road. Of course, riders traveled between the Hand and the bay every day: messengers, riflemen, servants, occasional recruits. Three of them had left ahead of the General, dispatched to warn Captain Flisk and Commander Forguile that he was coming. But snowfall had obliterated their tracks. Outside the Hand, Klamath and his company seemed alone in the world, muffled by dusk and cold. Flakes hissed on the glass of the lanterns.