Pieces of Eight

Chapter 14

Sabina was a hunch-backed, hook-nosed women with dark hair, sallow complexion, and hooded eyes that had permanent bags underneath them who perfectly resembled the vulture whose form she so often borrowed. She had a squirrely sort of look about her that suggested she was a bit off, or simply ill-tempered, but she was neither of these things. Her bird-like face had come from her mother, a common woman who worked in a brothel to pay her way, and her father, a noble who had paid dearly to be kept anonymous. Her rounded back and shoulders came from many long days and nights poring over books and scrolls and ledgers and other such academic pursuits. The bags under her eyes came from just as many nights spent sleepless. But she was invaluable, because all of those sleepless nights had taught her much, and her humble beginnings had grounded her in a way that little else could.

It was for that reason that Urai had placed her in charge of the sacking of Muorne, Jysen noted. But even Sabina was hard-pressed to defeat the unexpected prowess of Muorne's own general, a tall man bearded and muscular who rode a massive charger the same fiery red color as his beard. The man was good-too good, Jysen had decided, especially when he put his head together with the Duchess. Both of them were proving difficult to overwhelm, and the battles they had fought so far had been disappointingly indecisive.

Still dressed in full plate from the battle not two hours prior, Jysen reported to the command tent with a debriefing for Sabina. As usual, the woman was bent over her work, a mass jumble of paper spread out over an even larger table. Some of it was immediately obvious, like the enormous map that served as more of a base than any real function, but some of it appeared to be a series of letters or messages in code. Just as he entered, Sabina gave a hiss of irritation and swept half of it aside with one drastic motion of her skinny arm. Being no warrior, she garbed herself in no armor, but chose instead black robes of indiscriminate gender. Jysen ignored all of this.

"We held the bridge, but barely," he started, placing his helm on a corner of the table while Sabina sank back down into her chair, not even sparing him a glance. "I'm starting to wonder if we have a mole, they're that good at thwarting our plans-"

"If we had a mole, they would have known about the archers underneath the bridge, which, from what I could see, they did not," Sabina replied roughly, sifting through her papers again before giving it up as a bad job, leaning back in her chair, and at last looking Jysen in the eyes. "Casualties?"

"More than I'd like," Jysen admitted. "We started with four thousand men. To hold the bridge, I figured we would need half of that. But somehow, our enemy carved away a thousand of them."

"Which means we can still hold the bridge, but we can only fuck this up one more time." Sabina's eyes drifted to the map again; after a moment of staring at it, she decided she wasn't happy with it, and pulled forth another, half the size of the first, that offered her much greater detail of the area they were attempting to raid. The bridge in question was a vital link connecting the two halves of Muorne, as the River Dinel ran through the exact center of the province. While it was vital for providing its inhabitants with fresh water for both them and their crops, it was also serving to be a point of contention between Sabina's forces and Duchess Diana's. With the new map in front of her, Sabina pondered their situation for several minutes, in which Jysen, used to this, merely sat and waited.

"We need to move," Sabina finally determined. "If we keep sitting here, they're going to keep hitting us, and now that they've had practice, they're going to be better at it."

"What do you propose?" Jysen asked. "We have settled in what is strategically the best location this side of the bridge."

"So we cross the bridge," Sabina said simply. "And then we destroy it."