Memories of Ice

'Mortal Sword. Not likely — once, long ago, that title was for real. Long before the Deck of Dragons acknowledged the place of Knights of the High Houses, Fener's cult had its own. They've got the serious titles down with exactness. Destriant. Hood's breath, there hasn't been a real Destriant in the cult for a thousand years. The titles are for show, Whiskeyjack-'

'Indeed,' the commander cut in, 'then why keep it a secret from the Fener priest on the Mask Council?'

'Uh. Well… Oh, it's simple. That priest would know it for a lie, of course. There, easy answer to your question.'

'Easy answer, as you say. So, are easy answers always right answers, Quick?'

Ignoring the question, the wizard drained his goblet. 'In any case, I'd count the Grey Swords as best among the bunch over there, but that's not saying much.'

'Were they fooled by the "accidental" contact?'

'I think so. I'd shaped the spell to reflect the company's own nature — whether greedy and rapacious, or honourable or whatever. I admit, though, I didn't expect it to find pious faith. Still, the spell was intended to be malleable, and so it was.'

Whiskeyjack climbed to his feet, wincing as he put his weight down on his bad leg. 'I'd better track down Brood and Dujek, then.'

'At the head of the column, is my guess,' Quick Ben said.

'You're sharp tonight,' the commander noted as he made his way out.

A moment later, when Whiskeyjack's sarcasm finally seeped into Quick Ben's thoughts, he scowled.

On the other side of the street, opposite the barracks gate and behind an ancient bronze fence, was a cemetery that had once belonged to one of Capustan's founding tribes. The sun-fired columns of mud with their spiral incisions — each one containing an upright corpse — rose like the boles of a crowded forest in the cemetery's heart, surrounded on all sides by the more mundane Daru stone urns. The city's history was a tortured, bizarre tale, and it had been Itkovian's task among the company to glean its depths. The Shield Anvil of the Grey Swords was a position that demanded both scholarly pursuits and military prowess. While many would hold the two disciplines as distinct, the truth was in fact the opposite.

From histories and philosophies and religions came an understanding of human motivation, and motivation lay at the heart of tactics and strategy. Just as people moved in patterns, so too did their thoughts. A Shield Anvil must predict, anticipate, and this applied to the potential actions of allies as well as enemies.

Before the arrival of Daru peoples from the west, the tribes that had founded Capustan had only a generation before been nomadic. And their dead are left standing. Free to wander in their unseen spirit world.

That restless mobility resided still in the minds of the Capan, and since the Daru communities held to their own, it was scarcely diluted despite the now dozens of generations who had lived and died in this one place.

Yet much of Capustan's early history remained mysterious, and Itkovian found himself pondering what little he could piece together of those times, as he led the two wings of riders down the wide, cobbled street towards Jelarkan's Concourse, and beyond it to the south-facing Main Gate.

The rain was abating, the dawn's steel smear pushing through the heavy clouds to the east, the wind falling off into fitful gusts.

The districts making up the city were called Camps, and each Camp was a distinct, self-contained settlement, usually circular, with a private open ground at the central hub. The wide, uneven spaces between each Camp formed Capustan's streets. This pattern changed only in the area surrounding the old Daru Keep — now the Thrall and home to the Mask Council — called the Temple District, which represented the sole Daru-style imposition of a gridwork layout of streets.