men across the Sutireh Sea with him, the best, I hear, from the mercenary bands of Ogogehia-across-the-Sea. Theyâre going to be the toughest to face, got their own officer cadre, sappers, engineers expert at building and working siege engines. Two thousand light armed foot soldiers, fast and flexible, many of them competent archers and slingers, all of them expert with those short swords they carry, handle a pike better than a master reaper swings his scythe. Been watching them work out and got a shiver in my belly. Expensive, too. Floarinâs beggaring the mijloc to pay them. Next most dangerous, the Plaz Guards. Theyâre being used mostly to officer the conscripts from the Cimpia Plain. About two thousand of these. Farmers, clumsy and unskilled, just meat to throw against the Wall, far as I can tell. A few exceptions. Two bands of slingers, ragged slippery types, look to me like landless poachers, but theyâre good and accurate. Just how much use theyâll be in a battle is hard to say. About thirty of them. A few others are archers, can hit a target before it bites them. Maybe another thirty. The rest they give pikes to and shields and set to marching until they sweat off a lot of suet and can more or less keep together. About a third of these look sullen and slack off when they can, maybe wouldnât fight if their families werenât hostage for their good behavior. The others are convinced Followers. Wonât stop before theyâre dead. Norits and norids. I didnât bother trying to separate these; itâs hard to tell them apart unless you see them in action. Anyway, of the Nor, there are maybe five hundred. One last thing, the army goes through food like a razimut gorging for its winter sleep, so Floarin keeps the tithe wagons rolling, the butchers up to their necks in blood, the fishers hauling their nets. The outcasts up in the mountains are really hurting her when they take the wagons. If we could free the fisher villages, that would be another telling blow against her. She rides out in her warcar whenever she gets worried, harangues some of the men about the moral principles theyâre defending. They hear her patiently enough, considering that most are there for her gold and donât give a copper uncset who rules in the mijloc or why. Oras-folk get out to listen, thatâs about the only time we can pass the gates, officially at least; generally me and the others, weâre out to see what we can and only listen for the look of it.â He lifted his head. âThatâs all thatâs on here.â He looked a last time at the paper, rolled it into a tight tube and passed it across the table.
Coperic was a small wiry man, shadow like smears of ink in the deep lines from his nose to the corners of a thin but shapely mouth, in the rayed lines about eyes narrowed to creases against the wisps of greasy smoke rising from the lamp. There was a tired cleverness in his face, a restrained vitality in his slight body. âHow soon before you can leave?â
Vann slid the tube back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. âSoon as the storm passes.â He was a lanky long man with gray-streaked brown hair and beard twisted into elaborate plaits, thin lips pressed into near invisibility when he wasnât speaking. âThis norit fights wide of storms and the blow out to sea, heâs a monster, too much for trash to handle. Norit likes him; a nice following wind and a flat sea and thatâs what he give me when itâs him Iâm taking south.â He moved his long legs, eased them out past Copericâs feet. His mouth stretched into a tight smile. âHeâs got a queasy belly.â
âYour usual ferrying job, or is this one special?â Coperic leaned farther over the table, his smallish hands pressed flat on the boards, his eyes narrowed to slits.
The Intii stroked his beard. âThey donât talk to me.â The oiled plaits
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