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It was some time before the hubbub died down, and Remin let them have it.

It was a shattering revelation by itself, and fit unpleasantly well with the other pieces of evidence that remained to be presented.

“We’ll tell you the rest in the order we learned it ourselves,”

he said, calling them back to order.

“We saw no further strange signs on the way to the Spur.

There were many more devils in the mountains, and Tounot has the numbers for the first four days of our journey.

There were not too many to count,”

he added a little acerbically.

“But the fifth day there was heavy snow, and the devils came upon us in the dark.

I saw at least six wolf demons myself.

We estimate three dozen stranglers killed, and about the same number of ghouls.”

He would have preferred not to linger over the details of the battle with Ophele listening; for a while, her busy quill stopped altogether, and she listened as round-eyed as if he were telling tales by the fire.

But there was much to be learned from the tactics they had improvised, particularly the use of the terrain.

Tounot added his own remarks there.

It had been his task to find a path through the dark and snow and devils, and it was he that secured their refuge for the night, forming up the vanguard with shields to push a frothing pack of ghouls and stranglers off the side of the mountain.

“We lost eight men that night.”

Remin resumed the narrative.

“But it was strange that so many devils appeared there.

There were other places lower on the mountain where they might have attacked more easily.

The next morning, we went on, and came at last to a cave near the top of the mountain.”

Auber was already distributing the sketches they had made, and setting out the map marking its location .

“It was about a half mile above us.

There was no reaching it,”

Remin added, his mouth tightening.

He was still bitter about that.

“I would guess the opening was about twelve feet high, and about ten feet wide.

And it might be like every other cave in the Berlawes, but I have never seen so many devils so late in the year anywhere else.”

“It is circumstantial,”

Edemir agreed, examining one of the sketches.

“But powerfully so.

This is a rockslide beneath it? It looks as if something burst out of the mountain.”

“And recently,”

Juste added, looking over his shoulder.

“There are still needles on those pines.

Not an artistic flourish, is it, Galliard? How long would it take before wind and weather strip the needles off a dead pine tree?”

That was a point.

“There was no reaching it,”

Remin repeated, scowling at one of the sketches as it went by him.

And though he had been wracking his brain, he hadn’t been able to come up with a way to get any closer to it next year.

In winter, the storms would make it impossible, and in warmer weather the devils would be pouring out of the mountains like ants from an anthill.

“It looks promising, but there could be another cave just like it on the next mountain and we’d never know it. Auber.”

“There was some snow in the foothills that delayed us on the way back, but no more devils.”

Auber took over easily.

“Near the Nandre crossroads, two children came upon us as we were making camp for the night.

A girl of thirteen named Amalie Maugher and her brother Iskerren.

I spoke with them at some length on the way here.

Rollon and his men did make it to Nandre. Almost thirty people left with them for Tresingale, and a big devil hunted them down and slaughtered them all the way through the forest,”

he said grimly.

“Rollon was alive, the night before the children found us.

He told them to run and stayed to fight the devil himself.”

Remin had already heard all this, but it was still hard to listen to it again.

“Those are the essentials.”

Auber drew a deep breath.

“I have gotten some of the story of Nandre from them.

Those of us who have been there know that it is nearly a fortress; they have all the stone they want and skill in shaping it.

Amalie said they were doing all right at first.

The devils were noisier than usual, but there were steel grilles over every door and window in town. But around midsummer, there was a new sound, something big that purred. It started smashing through the grilles.”

The word purring had been repeated by a number of Remin’s other men, unprompted.

It was a distinctive noise.

The rest of the story was much the same as that of Meinhem.

After three homes had been smashed apart and the families slaughtered, the town had moved into a nearby cave, walling themselves into the tunnels every night with varying levels of success.

There had been hunger. Some nights the wall held; other nights, it had crumbled, leaving the decreasing numbers of villagers to fight in close tunnels until dawn, often using their own dead as a barrier to the devils.

“They never got a good look at it,”

Auber added.

“Both children said it was a big devil, much bigger than His Grace.

It went on four legs and had poisonous spikes.

They saw the spikes themselves.

Their gran was struck in the face, and they said she sickened and died. Once the quills are embedded in flesh, they can’t be removed.”

“I’ll take them,”

said Juste, carefully placing the quills in the pouch with the tongs.

“There is much we can learn from them.”

“Amalie said a half dozen people died from the poisoned quills,”

Auber said, nodding.

“Twenty-seven were still alive when they left the town.

I guess we can fill in the rest of the story.”

Remin already had.

Two villages lost.

He had already known it, but it struck him all over again to hear it now.

It wasn’t at all the same as losing men in a war.

“It makes a tidy picture,”

Juste said thoughtfully.

“A cave, recently and violently opened on a mountaintop some thirty miles from Nandre.

Exactly where Her Grace guessed it would be,”

he added, with a nod of his head to Ophele that won murmurs of approval.

“A new devil appears, strong enough to break into the stoutest houses in the valley.

We should not assume that this is a complete picture, but in the absence of other evidence, we must proceed based on these assumptions.”

“We can be sure there is a new devil,”

Remin agreed.

“We’ll begin there.”

That by itself was sufficient for a lengthy discussion.

There was debate over what defenses might be effective against such a creature, and whether they might build and supply a new lookout post at Crassege, with signal relays to Tresingale.

The most immediate and urgent measure was the evacuation of the rest of the valley.

It would be difficult enough to keep the Vallethi border fortresses supplied and defended, and five hundred men were going to spend the winter building an overland supply route through the Talfel Plateau, with reinforced waystations a day’s journey apart.

The villages would have to be sacrificed.

From time to time, Ophele jotted down a question on her paper and nudged it toward Remin, to be asked on her behalf if he thought it relevant.

But through most of the meeting, her head was down, and she was scribbling away in her messy, childish handwriting, filling whole pages.

There was some small satisfaction in knowing that her work had already born fruit.

Even if that cave in the mountains was nothing, if she hadn’t sent Remin to the Spur, they would never have found Amalie and her brother.

They would have known nothing of the devil that destroyed Nandre until it appeared at the gates of Tresingale.

“We will adjourn here for the day,”

he said, when the light had shifted far to the west and the conversation had begun to circle.

All known information had been presented and the most immediate decisions had been made; it was time to let everyone go think about it.

“Juste, Edemir, Bram, Tounot, and Auber, stay back.

The rest of you may go.”

“Should I leave?”

Ophele asked, as everyone else rose, murmuring among themselves.

“No, we are telling no secrets.”

Remin resisted the urge to rub his head.

He didn’t even want to think about the quantities of paper waiting for him.

“Bram, you first.”

“No major problems,”

said Bram promptly, knowing what his lord most wanted to hear.

“The Third finished leveling off the road all the way to the riverbend.

We’ll have to come up with some other defenses there.

Seems a shame to spoil it, the men have been fishing there in the afternoons.

The north wall is finished, and the gatehouse is under construction, when we get decent weather. No devils sighted at all for the last week. I’ve had the guardsmen working on the barracks…”

There were two dozen projects underway concerning the Tresingale guard and the Third Company all by themselves.

Several secretaries had stayed back as well, accustomed to this routine, and scratched away throughout this recitation to make note of the things that required Remin’s decision or personal attention.

“No major problems,”

said Edemir when it was his turn.

“There’s a survey crew on the way to have a look at the Cliffs of Marren for our port.

We’ve started receiving responses from those craftsmen you’ve been recruiting,”

he said, producing a list that extended for several pages.

“A surprising number of them have accepted your invitation and will be arriving next year.

I’ve warned Nore Ffloce that we’ll need housing prepared for them.

Tresingale will be an exotic place when you have finished with it, my lord.”

The list pleased Remin.

Woodworkers from Hara Vos, blacksmiths from Rendeva, masons from Daitia, glassblowers from Noreven, who could work glass like thread.

Remin was still trying to come to terms with the Court of Artisans, but he would not allow them to delay him.

If they wanted to keep playing their games, he was perfectly willing to recruit craftsmen from the rest of the known world.

“And the scholars?”

Remin asked, remembering that they had been expected before he left.

“Master Torigne elected to depart,”

Juste said smoothly even as Remin sensed Ophele go rigid beside him.

“He chose to make an issue of Her Grace’s work.

Master Forgess, of the Library of Beasts, has since seen its merit.”

“We expected worse,”

Remin said, slipping a hand under the table to squeeze Ophele’s knee.

“It’s just as well that Torigne is gone, if he came only to make trouble.

How is the housing coming?”

“They’ve started on a new road, the one parallel to Goose Road,”

Edemir said, looking relieved to change the subject.

“We really need to start naming these streets, Rem.”

“We’re not calling it Goose Road,”

Remin objected, displeased.

The filthy creatures had been harassing his people for months and had chased Ophele.

“Are they still there?”

“No, they flew away last week.

At any rate, the first row of houses is almost complete, with another residential district planned near the craftsmen’s quarter.

The paving is finished from the bridge gate to the north gate and they’re starting on the road that is not called Goose Road… ”

Edemir always had the most on his plate.

It was nearly sunset by the time he finished his recitation, and Remin could feel his eyes glazing over.

“All the animals are alive, my lord,”

said Juste, a little dryly.

“We have received the order of chickens, without too many lost in transit.

We have also received a dozen head of cattle and notice that the horses will be here next week.

They bypassed the ferries; the craft are really not up to larger livestock.”

“We’ll have bigger boats next year,”

Remin said absently.

The shipbuilders would also be arriving in spring.

Much of Juste’s real work could not be discussed openly.

Remin knew that there were many messages traveling back and forth to Segoile, where Darri had rented a townhouse in one of the city’s more inconspicuous quarters and begun making strategic contacts.

Darri was not especially accomplished socially, but he was very nearly invisible when he wanted to be.

“We are nearly settled for the winter,”

Juste said serenely, and Remin knew he was not only speaking of Tresingale’s livestock.

“The scholars did not like my work,”

Ophele confessed the moment they were outside, clutching her sheaf of papers to her breast.

She had been so quiet during the remaining reports, Remin had nearly forgotten that she was there.

“Master Forgess said so.”

“In front of you?”

Remin asked sharply.

“He didn’t know I was there.

He apologized,”

she added, as Remin lifted her up before him on Lancer.

“Then he must feel a fool, now,”

Remin said, leashing his temper.

“To so publicly display his poor judgment and reveal the foolish games of the Tower.

I expect you to continue your excellent work and will hear no more about it, unless you wish to make me angry.”

Ophele’s eyebrows winged upward in surprise, and she laughed.

“Just like that,”

she said, and let her head thump back against his chest.

“I didn’t realize how much other work was being done in the valley.

How do you remember it all?”

“They remember a good deal of it for me,”

he said, scrubbing a hand through his hair.

It was a great deal of information to absorb in an afternoon, but the condition of Tresingale was not his primary concern.

Or Ophele’s, apparently .

“You were right,”

she said, a little subdued.

“I didn’t know how terrible it was, in Nandre and Meinhem.”

“I’m sorry you had to hear such things,”

Remin replied, turning Lancer toward home.

He was tired, and his left arm ached miserably, still deeply bruised from the wolf demon’s bite.

“I don’t know what else they could have done to save themselves,”

she said, frowning down at her papers.

“I was trying to think what I would do, if it had been me.

Would they have done better to try to come here themselves?”

“No.

It would have been suicide,”

he said shortly.

“I don’t know how anyone could decide such things,”

she went on, troubled.

“When to send help, or not.

How many to send.

I didn’t realize what it meant, back in July, when all that was happening.

I know it isn’t strictly a matter of numbers, but if thirty-nine men died to bring seventy-six people back, and there are four hundred and thirteen dead in Meinhem and Nan—”

“Next time, I will consult you,”

he said to shut her up, the words biting and acid and far angrier than he meant them to be.

Her eyes flicked up to his, widening with hurt.

“That’s not what I—”

“I know it’s not.

I’m sorry,”

he said, and then couldn’t think of anything else to say.

It was like her to treat it as an intellectual exercise, and no doubt she would have a number of valuable insights, but he didn’t want to hear it right now.

Anything he might say sounded to his own ears like self-defense, justifying a decision that had cost four hundred and thirteen innocent lives so far.

He would never know how many might have lived, if he had tried to send help sooner.

“It’s all right,”

she said softly, and it was a quiet ride to the manor, and awkward in a way that it hadn’t been for some time.

“I’ll settle Lancer and be in soon,”

Remin said in the forecourt of the manor, lowering her from the horse’s back and trying to look reassuring.

It just wasn’t happening today.

He had known this would happen, when he decided not to help.

He had decided to let his villagers die.

What right did he have to feel shocked or upset when it happened? He had weighed the odds and decided that they were doomed, and any men he tried to send to save them would die.

But what if he had been wrong ?

There was no point in dwelling on past decisions.

He knew that, too; they were past, and could not be changed.

But Remin lingered a long time over Lancer, grooming the velvety black hide, dabbing a little more salve onto the healing gashes on his legs and haunches.

The stable was warm with the heat of the horses’ bodies, and quiet, except for occasional stamping and blowing.

Lancer did not thank him for the attention.

He had always been a savage creature, even as a foal; as Remin picked his hooves clean, he kept turning his head to snap, not so much with the intent to bite as to prove he could.

Remin met those dark, ferocious eyes and produced a carrot from his pocket, feeling a fond sort of irritation as Lancer immediately snatched it, then butted him with his nose, demanding to be pet.

It was some time before Remin realized why he was lingering.

But Huber wasn’t coming.

Even if he had been in Tresingale, he wouldn’t have come.

There had been so many times, after a terrible day, when they would meet in the stables or the kennels for the uncomplicated company of beasts.

Remin had always found a little bit of peace there, before.

Not forgiveness; Huber would never forgive him, now that Rollon was gone.

Four hundred and thirteen dead.

The population of Selgin numbered nearly three hundred; tiny, idyllic Isigne was around a hundred and fifty.

Five hundred lives, counting Huber and his men.

That was nothing compared to the nearly ninety thousand men who had marched in his army over the course of the war, of whom almost twenty thousand had died.

Edemir had kept the rolls, with some understandable uncertainty as to the exact number, but it was agreed to be at least nineteen thousand.

And how many Vallethi soldiers had died? How many had died in Ellingen, the Vallethi city he had razed?

Juste said that nothing good would come of asking these questions.

That in the moment, given the same conditions, he would likely make the same decisions.

But at what point did he have to account for the dead?

Maybe this was the real reason he hadn’t wanted Ophele to come this afternoon.

He hadn’t wanted her to know how badly he had failed his people.

He wanted to be the man he saw reflected in her eyes.

But maybe that was foolish.

She had already learned for herself how cruel, short-sighted, and wrong-headed he could be .

But Remin had been dealing with this for years.

People had been dying for him and because of him since he was nine.

There was a deep, dark place inside him where he shoved these feelings, a bottomless pit, locked down tight beneath a weight of stone.

Remin closed it up and went to wash the smell of horse off his hands.

Ophele was in the bedchamber, seated at her desk and scribbling away.

Somehow, he had known exactly where she would be.

With a nod, he dismissed Peri and Lady Verr from the room and went to kneel beside her chair, taking her hands.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you,”

he said, looking up into her eyes.

She was wearing her solemn-owl face.

“I am not…proud of myself today.

I don’t know if I made the right decisions.”

Ophele stretched her arms out and wrapped them around his neck, her soft cheek pressing against his.

“Maybe there wasn’t a good decision,”

she said.

“Sometimes there isn’t a good place to camp.”

That was not something that someone who lived in the shelter of a garden would say.

Remin let her hold him and felt deep down that he did not deserve it, filled with the bittersweet knowledge that he, at least, had come home safe.