Snap, snap, snap.
Eri turned. Jarid eyed the guard suspiciously, as if ready to scream out harsher punishment.
He wasn't always this bad, was he? Bayrd thought. He wanted the throne for his wife, but what lord wouldn’t? It was hard to look past the name. Bayrd’s family had followed the Sarand family with reverence for generations.
Eri strode away from the command post.
"Where do you think you’re going?" Jarid howled.
Eri reached to his shoulder and ripped free the badge of the Sarand house guard. He tossed it aside and left the torchlight, heading into the night toward the winds from the north.
Most men in the camp hadn’t gone to sleep. They sat around firepits, wanting to be near warmth and light. A few with clay pots tried boiling cuts of grass, leaves, or strips of leather as something, anything, to eat.
They stood up to watch Eri go.
"Deserter", Jarid spat. "After all we’ve been through, now he leaves. Just because things are difficult".
"The men are starving, Jarid", Davies repeated.
"I’m aware. Thank you so much for telling me about the problems with every bloody breath you have" Jarid wiped his brow with his trembling palm, then slammed it on his map. "We’ll have to strike one of the cities; there’s no running from her, not now that she knows where we are. Whitebridge. We’ll take it and resupply. Her Aes Sedai must be weakened after the stunt they pulled tonight, otherwise she’d have attacked".
Bayrd squinted into the darkness. Other men were standing, lifting quarterstaffs or cudgels. Some went without weapons. They gathered sleeping rolls, hoisted packs of clothing to their shoulders. Then they began to trail out of the camp, their passage silent, like the movement of ghosts. No rattling of chain mail or buckles on armor. The metal was all gone. As if the soul had been stripped from it.
"Elayne doesn’t dare move against us in strength", Jarid said, perhaps convincing himself. "There must be strife in Caemlyn. All of those mercenaries you reported, Shiv. Riots, maybe. Elenia will be working against Elayne, of course. Whitebridge. Yes, Whitebridge will be perfect.
"We hold it, you see, and cut the nation in half. We recruit there, press the men in western Andor to our banner. Go to . . . what’s the place called? The Two Rivers. We should find able hands there". Jarid sniffed. "I hear they haven’t seen a lord for decades. Give me four months, and I’ll have an army to be reckoned with. Enough that she won’t dare strike at us with her witches . . ".
Bayrd held his stone up to the torchlight. The trick to creating a good spearhead was to start outward and work your way in. He’d drawn the proper shape with chalk on the slate, then had worked toward the center to finish the shape. From there, you turned from hitting to tapping, shaving off smaller bits.
He’d finished one side earlier; this second half was almost done. He could almost hear his pappil whispering to him. We’re of the stone, Bayrd. No matter what your father says. Deep down, we’re of the stone.
More soldiers left the camp. Strange, how few of them spoke. Jarid finally noticed. He stood up straight and grabbed one of the torches, holding it high. "What are they doing? Hunting? WeVe seen no game in weeks. Setting snares, perhaps?"
Nobody replied.
"Maybe they’ve seen something", Jarid muttered. "Or maybe they think they have. I’ll stand no more talk of spirits or other foolery; the witches are creating apparitions to unnerve us. That’s . . . that’s what it has to be".
Rustling came from nearby. Karam was digging in his fallen tent. He came up with a small bundle.
"Karam?" Jarid said.
Karam glanced at Lord Jarid, then lowered his eyes and began to tie a coin pouch at his waist. He stopped and laughed, then emptied it. The gold coins inside had melted into a single lump, like pigs’ ears in a jar. Karam pocketed this lump. He fished in the pouch and brought out a ring. The blood-red gemstone at the center was still good. "Probably won’t be enough to buy an apple, these days", he muttered.
"I demand to know what you are doing", Jarid snarled. "Is this your doing?" He waved toward the departing soldiers. "You’re staging a mutiny, is that it?"
"This isn’t my doing", Karam said, looking ashamed. "And it’s not really yours, either. I’m . . . I’m sorry".
Karam walked away from the torchlight. Bayrd found himself surprised. Lord Karam and Lord Jarid had been friends from childhood.
Lord Davies went next, running after Karam. Was he going to try to hold the younger man back? No, he fell into step beside Karam. They vanished into the darkness.
"I’ll have you hunted down for this!" Jarid yelled after them, voice shrill. Frantic. "I will be consort to the Queen! No man will give you, or any member of your Houses, shelter or succor for ten generations!"
Bayrd looked back at the stone in his hand. Only one step left, the smoothing. A good spearhead needed some smoothing to be dangerous. He brought out another piece of granite he’d picked up for the purpose and carefully began scraping it along the side of the slate.
Seems I remember this better than I'd expected, he thought as Lord Jarid continued to rant.
There was something powerful about crafting the spearhead. The simple act seemed to push back the gloom. There had been a shadow on Bayrd, and the rest of the camp, lately. As if . . . as if he couldn’t stand in the light no matter how he tried. He woke each morning feeling as if someone he’d loved had died the day before.
It could crush you, that despair. But the act of creating something—anything—fought back. That was one way to challenge... him. The one none of them spoke of. The one that they all knew was behind it, no matter what Lord Jarid said.
Bayrd stood up. He’d want to do more smoothing later, but the spearhead actually looked good. He raised his wooden spear haft—the metal blade had fallen free when evil had struck the camp—and lashed the new spearhead in place, just as his pappil had taught him all those years ago.
The other guards were looking at him. "We’ll need more of those", Morear said. "If you’re willing".
Bayrd nodded. "On our way out, we can stop by the hillside where I found the slate".
Jarid finally stopped yelling, his eyes wide in the torchlight. "No. You are my personal guard. Yo
