The Ghost's Crusade

XX: Tiernan

The day they set out from Morvayne Matron Crenanta looked disappointed that Hallia would not be staying. She actually kissed the little girl on the forehead in farewell and it was all Tiernan could do to keep Akkali from descending into hysterical laughter at the sight. In the two days they had been gathering their things to leave she had gotten enough information on Crenata, likely from the scullery maids and stable boys with whom she seemed to prefer spending her time, that she knew the woman typically spat on Enkiri that spoke to her without being explicitly instructed to do so. But even through the woman's smothered giggling and tearful eyes the illusion that Hallia was just another orphaned human girl who liked to wear scarves held up until they were gone.

For their ride to Wessinberg Akkali had procured a rather handsome tan courser and provisions from the Antenox outpost, though what exactly she had done to acquire the woman's trust was a bit of a mystery to him. Sachiel wouldn't even give him the time of day now that Drystan had left, and for the most part she ignored him and let one of her squires do the talking. She had also been given a small satchel of notes to deliver to someone, though none of them were marked with a recipient and she traveled with them lashed to her body beneath her gray hooded overcoat as though they were state secrets.

After sending word off to the Inquisitorial barracks in Morwall as to his plan to take Hallia east to see if she had any remaining family, he had bought himself a gray rouncey from Matron Crenanta's stockyards as well as enough provisions for himself and Hallia. The last message he had received told that the remainder of his regiment was camped in the forests outside Baedorn, patrolling the countryside between it and Wessinberg for any sign of more constructs. The past two weeks had been rather busy as far as homunculus-hunting went, but the Inquisitor General had a score to settle with the Ovans and there was nothing anyone could do to stop him. As long as he finished chewing the men out before the Cardinal got word of it the consequences would be insignificant, or at least that was what Tiernan hoped. The proof of the homunculi forces, however, would be incontrovertible, and if the General was tactful, no one would find themselves reprimanded. In fact he and Tiernan both had already written up missives to request special commendations for Lieutenant Orion and Sergeant Jakobi for their parts in staving off the surge and protecting most of the people in Baedorn until the rest of the regiment arrived.

The word was that Wessinberg had lost over three quarters of their standing army when the horde attacked them at Baedorn, having been prideful and foolish enough to send their entire military might south in the first place. With Baedorn deprived of a quarter of its own defenses in the form of its now-crumbling outer wall and a significant number of its farmholders either dead or missing, both city-states were practically free for the taking. It was likely that by winter both cities and the trivial silver mine they had been arguing over for generations would be in the hands of Morvayne—and knowing how the triad of Dukes usually handled power transitions, each Ovan would be headless come the thaw. Tiernan wasn't all that certain that it would be a bad thing considering what the two fools had done to their people.

Hallia split her time riding with Tiernan and walking on the road playing fetch with Jansa. He had gotten the distinct impression that she wasn't all that fond of being on a horse when they were headed into Sonnes, but he had believed it was just due to her recent trauma. Now it was clear that she simply did not like riding horseback. It was something he wondered about, and when he finally asked he learned that she'd been kicked by one while traveling with her father to a blacksmith. Apparently the man had been shoeing a horse at the time and she had been standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Akkali had laughed rather cruelly at her for that, then revealed that she had been kicked by horses dozens of times—usually at the behest of some noble in Harenholl who decided the sight of the Enkiri slave displeased them.