“I want you…” his voice was intimate, each word precise. “… to stay here and guard my pumps.”

She blinked at him.

“I want that water running and the castle standing when I come back. Do we understand each other?”

Oh, you epic, epic ass. “Yes,” she said.

“Good.”

She heard footsteps in the hallway and turned. Stoyan, Lamar, Bale, and Felix were approaching.

“Run along now,” Hugh said.

She ignored him. “Why are all of you here?”

Nobody said a word.

“Answer her,” Hugh said.

“We’re here to plan the battle of Aberdine,” Stoyan said, clearly wishing to be anywhere but here.

“We have to defend it,” Lamar said. “If we lose Aberdine, we lose access to the ley line. They’ll cut us off from the rest of the state.”

She would kill him.

“Too bad it took you so long,” Hugh said. “You missed a stirring performance, complete with emotional appeals to my better nature. Apparently, my wife wants me to save Aberdine for the babies.”

She pictured him exploding into bloody mist. No. Too quick.

Stoyan looked at his feet. Lamar stared at the ceiling. Bale studied his nails. Felix turned back and checked the hallway behind them. Nobody was looking at her.

“Explaining doesn’t quite do it justice.” Hugh invited her with a sweep of his hand. “Honey, would you mind doing an encore for the guys?”

She spun on her feet and walked out.

Behind her Lamar murmured, “One day that woman will drown you in the moat and I won’t blame her.”

“Honey?” Hugh called.

She kept walking.

“Elara?”

She stopped and turned to look at him.

“Any plans on helping me with any of this? Or is it pouting time? You can walk away to beat your fists prettily on your pillow or you can tell us more about Aberdine.”

The bastard got off on goading her. “Ask nicely,” she said.

“Please join us, my lady.” He bowed with exquisite grace, sweeping his arm to the side with a flourish, as if he were some medieval knight bowing before a queen.

Bastard.

She launched her magic into the room and stepped. The centurions jerked back. One moment she was in the hallway, the next she stood next to Hugh, wisps of her white magic melting into thin air.

He stared at her, his blue eyes amused.

“Dugas,” she called, sending her voice through the castle. “I need you.”

Bale shivered, his eyes wide, looking like a freaked cat. Felix crossed himself.

She walked to Hugh’s chair and sat in it. His lips curved.

Elara rolled her eyes.

They waited.

“How many people are you leaving me?” she asked.

“Lamar and his entire century.”

“That means you’re only taking two hundred and forty people. Aberdine has almost two and a half thousand people in it. You said the mrog handlers would come in large numbers. Is that going to be enough?”

“It will have to be,” Hugh said.

“How many people can we press in Aberdine?” Stoyan asked.

Elara frowned. “Not many. These same people threw rocks at us when we tried to ward them. It will take a lot to make them trust you. Unless you do something impressive enough to cut past the fact that they’re scared of us, you won’t get much help.”

“Let’s assume I’ll do something impressive,” Hugh said.

“There are two thousand two hundred and three people in Aberdine,” she told him. “Forty-seven percent men, fifty-three percent women. About half are between the ages of twenty and sixty. They are used to fighting the forest every day, so they are armed, and they won’t have a problem defending themselves, but they’re not professional killers.”

“That’s fine,” Bale said. “We are.”

Dugas walked into the room, nodded to her, and parked himself to the side.

“Let’s cut that in half,” Lamar said. “Accounting for the infirm, parents who have to stay with children, and cowards. That gives us about four to five hundred people.”

“I’ll give you half of my archers,” Elara said. “Forty people, all very good.”

“Thank you,” Hugh said.

He stepped to the desk. The centurions and Dugas clustered around him. She got up and walked over. Stoyan and Lamar made a space for her. A map of Aberdine lay on the desk.

It was a typical post-Shift settlement. Once a small town spread out in the shadow of Coller’s Knob, Aberdine compacted under the onslaught of the magic waves. Coller Road ran through town, snaking its way ten miles to the southwest to touch Baile castle and stretching another three miles to the northeast to catch the ley line. Somewhere around the first few houses inside Aberdine’s city limits, Coller Road turned into Main Street. The forest took no prisoners, especially during the magic waves, so to keep themselves safe, the villagers walled in Main Street and the few surrounding blocks, protecting the municipal buildings, the marketplace, grocery store, the gas station and a few other essential places with a concrete wall topped with razor wire. Two gates punctured the wall, where it crossed Main Street. Each gate had a guard tower. All of that was painstakingly marked on Hugh’s map.

Most of the houses hugged the wall, with braver or stupider homeowners venturing further into the cleared land, their homesteads wrapped in fields guarded by deer fence and barbed wire. About a hundred yards or so of cleared land ringed the farms. The rest was dense forest. The woods tried to take back the land and Aberdine’s residents spent a great deal of time holding it back. Elara knew the struggle very well. They had to do the same thing to keep the land around Baile cleared.

In times of crisis, bells would ring, and the residents would run for the safety of the wall.

“You’ll have to evacuate them,” Dugas said. “The ley line seems like a natural point, but moving fifteen hundred people to it will be a nightmare.”

“I can take evacuees,” she said.

Hugh looked at her.

“We have experience in caring for refugees,” she told him. “We can keep them for a day or two.”

“What if the mrog dickheads burn the town down?” Bale asked.

She looked at him. “Make sure they don’t.”

“We split the evacuees,” Hugh said. “Anyone able to walk, ride, or drive ten miles will come here. Everyone else will go to the ley line. Stoyan, set up two squads to escort them.”

The dark-haired centurion nodded.

Lamar leaned over the map. “For a settlement this size, we can expect several hundred enemy troops at a minimum. They rely on surprise, armor, and their mrogs. We know they are coming, so the element of surprise is on our side, but it takes three of us to kill one of them because of that damn armor.”

“We draw them inside the walls,” Hugh said. “It will negate the number advantage.”

“If there was some way to confuse the mrogs,” Lamar thought out loud.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but the standing theory says they follow visual cues from their masters?”

Hugh nodded.

“Would fog help?” Dugas asked.

“What kind of fog?” Stoyan asked.

“Magic fog.” Dugas wiggled his fingers at him.

“Can you control it?” Stoyan asked. “Will it stay inside the wall?”

“Yes,” Dugas said.

“Fog is good.” Hugh bared his teeth. A dangerous, sharp expression twisted his features, and Elara fought a shiver. No matter what kind of life Hugh d’Ambray lived, a part of him would always look for the most efficient way to kill.

He was going to Aberdine, she reminded herself. It was all that mattered.

Elara hugged herself. From the window in Hugh’s room, she could see most of the bailey. Iron Dogs and their horses swarmed, filling the entire courtyard. A mass of men and women in black on dark horses. The day was overcast, the sky choked with gray bloated clouds, and the gray light only made everything look grimmer.

The centurions had left. Hugh sat in his chair, putting on a new pair of boots. He was dressed in black from head to toe. She should’ve left, but she had stayed, and she had no idea why.