“We received word from our scouts that Roland and Lessa took control of Triaucourt in the night,” he said. “If he holds to his pattern – and I think he will – they’ll remain under cover, taking oaths from those his militiamen round up, and then move on again tonight.”

“Then why aren’t we looking at Triaucourt?” I asked.

“Because the same gambit isn’t going to work twice, and we don’t have the clout,” he gave an apologetic look to the twins, “to take them on directly.”

He picked up a map and laid it out in front of me, and I noted the marks indicating the villages Roland had either destroyed or taken over. “This process of taking oaths eats up time,” Chris said. “Time that people could use to flee their homes and seek refuge in the mountains. The militiamen are rounding up those in the smaller hamlets, but Angoulême has groups of two or three trolls capturing and holding the more middling size villages until Roland has time to reach them. Revigny is one of them.”

I traced a finger over the little dots on the map. “Why bother?” I muttered. “These places can’t have more than a hundred people living in them. I hate to say it, but they’re hardly worth the effort. Why doesn’t he just attack Courville? In one fell swoop he’d have the human army he needs.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Chris replied. “If he attacked Courville, Tristan would likely intervene before Roland could take control of the city, and he’d be risking a direct confrontation with his elder brother, which he wouldn’t win.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but I kept my doubts to myself.

“But by doing it this way, building his army in small attacks, the risk of Tristan leaving Trianon unprotected – especially with their father’s plans remaining unknown – are much less.”

“And once he has this army, then what?” My mind filled with the image of families driven to take up pitchforks and shovels, rusty swords, and pistols that hadn’t been fired in years, and then to attack their countrymen. Not because they wanted to, but because they had no choice.

“When he’s ready, we think he’ll have them march en masse on Courville,” Vincent replied. “Tristan would have to leave Trianon unprotected to save the other city from his brother’s army.”

“While Roland and Lessa backtrack to Trianon and take it while it’s undefended,” I said, not waiting for him to finish. “They have to know he won’t fall for such a strategy.”