Page 31 of The Threadbare Queen

He had been sneaking through the hills, making sure the magical flares the Queen’s Herald had acquired to burn the Rising Wave and most of the countryside down would never be used.

He hadn’t realized he’d missed this feeling of purpose and focus as they approached an enemy.

He rode ahead, and Massi and Rafe kept pace with him.

The scouts waited for them near a stand of trees.

“Soldiers,” Erinne said, voice a soft whisper. She was fast and light, the perfect scout, and her mount danced beneath her, still eager to run. “They look like stragglers from the Kassian army.”

Luc waited for the first line of horses behind him to catch up and twirled a finger in the air.

They streamed right and left, surrounding the group.

A faint sound of a bird call let Luc know when they had closed the circle, and he moved forward, his big horse making it necessary to duck under a few branches as he found himself in a wide clearing.

The soldiers were expecting them.

They were on their feet, weapons in hand, but they looked ragged and thin in the face.

One of them stepped forward, and Luc watched him as he took in Massi, Rafe, then Luc, and glanced behind him.

They knew they were surrounded, that much was clear.

“You going to kill us?” he asked eventually.

“No.”

That set him back on his heels.

“What then?”

“You Kassian army?” They clearly were, but Luc asked anyway.

“You must know the answer to that.” One of the other men in the group called out.

Luc inclined his head. “Go to Fernwell. You’ll be decommissioned, given work.”

“What’ll the Turncoat King say about that?” the leader asked.

Rafe chuckled. “You’re talking to the Turncoat King.”

That quietened them all down.

“What are you doing here, then?” someone else asked.

Luc ignored the question. “Were you part of the Kassian border force that came up behind our supply train?”

The leader gave a slow nod. “Spent six months on the Jatan border. We were close to crushing them.”

“So I hear.” His words seemed to give the Kassian soldiers some succour, because they relaxed. “And then you escaped General Ru. That’s hard to do.”

“She came up behind us. We thought we had the element of surprise. Turns out General Daikin was wrong about that.” The leader of the group sounded bitter. “He wasn’t right in the head, that one. Not at all.”

Luc remembered the name. Remembered the man.

Daikin had been in charge of the fortress close to the border with Grimwalt where Ava had been held prisoner. The general had hunted him and Ava down when they’d escaped.

Ava had bested him while Luc was badly injured, and Haslia, the traitorous spell caster who’d been working as a spy for Daikin, had confessed to Luc that the Kassian general had never forgiven Ava for it.

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