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supplies through our people in Scallow, but the Sejeend and Oumetra cabals have decided to reduce their contributions."
    Mazaret's heart sank. "Why?"
    "They're impatient, Ikarno. Damn it, everyone is impatient. They all seem to think that you're sitting up here in charge of ten, fifteen, twenty thousand hardened warriors, each ten feet tall and able to blow arrows from their nostrils!" He gave a lop-sided grin. "Of course, I couldn't confirm or deny such speculations, being a mere messenger."
    Mazaret sighed and ran a hand through his bushy, greying hair. "What about the Mogaun troop strengths? Any reliable numbers?"
    "Some, yes. In Cabringa the tribes can field about four and a half, five thousand, mostly light cavalry; in Kejana, about three and a half thousand split equally between cavalry and foot soldiers; and in Dalbar it comes to roughly nineteen hundred, again half cavalry, half on foot. The Ogucharn Isles scarcely matter - there's only a couple of minor tribes there, totalling maybe eight hundred."
    "And Yasgur?"
    The trader smiled and examined his fingernails for a moment before looking up. "At least fourteen thousand, of which two thousand are heavy cavalry, another four thousand light cavalry, and the rest foot troops."
    Mazaret looked away, not wanting Gilly to see the dismay in his eyes. Instead he gazed at the nearby stream as it rushed away over the edge of the cliff and tried to make sense of the numbers and totals that filled his head. Since the invasion sixteen years ago, the military strength of the tribes had waned, some by nearly half. Except for Yasgur.
    Son of Hegroun, the Warchief who led the Mogaun invasion seventeen years ago, Yasgur had held northern Khatris and all Mantinor during the chaos that followed his father's death just months after the fall of Besh-Darok. In the years since he had forged an alliance with several noble families, initially as a response to the incursions and raids by neighbouring warchiefs eager to grab Hegroun's prize. His army was now the largest of any warlord, its ranks filled with recruits drawn from the native Khatrisian and Mantinoren peoples as well as his own tribe.
    "Can't be done, can it?"
    "No such word as 'can't', Gilly," Mazaret said. "They may have the numbers but we have the strategy and the unity of purpose."
    The trader gave him a piercing look. "As well as the numbers, they also have all the towns, forts and outposts, whereas we have, what, two thousand would-be knights - "
    "Two and a half thousand, plus a thousand of the Hunter's Children."
    "Ah yes, the Hunter's Children. What a unity of purpose that is!"
    Gilly's face was stonelike and Mazaret glared at him, feeling a sudden resentment at the man for speaking aloud the very doubts and fears that clouded his every day. Then a ghost of a smile crept across the trader's features, and Mazaret shook his head ruefully.
    "I seem to recall having a similar discussion about ten years ago," he said. "You were so scathing back then that I almost decided to give up any idea of resistance or rebellion, sail away to Keremenchool, perhaps. But I didn't."
    "You should have," Gilly said softly. "It was a madman's dream then, and it still is." He drank off the last of his wine. "But what sort of madmen would we be to let things stay as they are?"
    They were silent for several moments before Gilly spoke again.
    "Earlier, while I was on my way here, I heard a rumour that Suviel returned last night, and not alone."
    "And what else did you overhear?" Mazaret said testily.
    "That one of her companions was none other than Korregan's bastard and thus heir to the Imperial throne." Gilly smiled widely. "Which could upset your agreement with the Hunter's Children, if it's true." He gave Mazaret a sidelong glance. "Is it?"
    "Bardow and the other mages certainly seem to think so," Mazaret said. "They also think that he will lose an arm."
    "How so?"
    "Apparently the boy was tortured by his captor, one of the northern Honjir