Chapter 50

A horse was never quiet, not with footfalls like those.

And though the little camp looked slack enough, on Velen’s soil, anyone who kept no watch in the wild had long since turned to dung.

“Who goes there?”

First came the clatter of steel, then the head of a polearm thrust out from beneath the tarpaulin.

At first it was held level. Only when the blade had fully cleared the flap did it rise upright.

The man who stepped out after it was a soldier, fumbling to straighten his helmet.

His face was dark, but not from complexion or honest labor.

Lannor knew at a glance what it was, a greasy black crust of sweat, dust, and oil, caked there through sheer slovenliness.

His beard was a tangle, wild and untended. By then Lannor had already led Pope close enough to peer into the shelter.

A quick look showed two more soldiers sprawled inside, dragging themselves upright with the help of a couple of storage chests.

The dark-faced soldier who had called out first was already losing patience. He repeated himself.

“In the name of Sir Vserad, stranger, tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.”

Lannor lowered his gaze and did not answer. Instead, he asked a question of his own.

“Vserad? You serve the lord of Velen?”

“Ha. Isn’t it obvious?”

The dark-faced soldier rapped a knuckle against the silver lilies of Temeria on his cuirass, wearing the look of a man confronted by an idiot.

Though calling that thing a cuirass was generous.

Phillip Strenger’s men were another breed altogether. Those battle-worn soldiers wore proper Temerian issue, nearly to a man.

Not splendid armor, perhaps, but decent enough. Mail beneath, plate over the chest, steel guards on hands, knees, and shins, a full soldier’s harness.

The man in front of him, by contrast, wore a ragged padded jack with little more than a curved iron plate strapped over his belly.

Even the quilting was worse than Lannor’s starter gear.

Compared with proper issue armor, it was not even worth mentioning in the same breath.

Lannor flicked his eyes up for an instant, then let them fall again.

At least the insignia was genuine.

And now he understood why Vserad’s men were here.

Phillip Strenger’s troop of professionals served under Vserad as something like an elite unit.

But no lord kept hold of his lands with a single elite force alone.

The true reach of Vserad’s rule in Velen lay with the masses of trash soldiers like these.

A few men in each village, never many, three or four would do. Rotated from time to time, given pay and rations.