Veysuul: The Devoted Trilogy, Book Three by Kim Wedlock

Author:Kim Wedlock [Wedlock, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

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As hours wore on and October light misted its ways through the trees, the quiet concentration of the camp evolved into a steady, clamouring bustle. Tasks were undertaken, orders given, and the smaller command hierarchies emerged.

Training ensued first; from appointed clearings, soldiers fought against each other and dummies, sending the clatter of steel and equally sharp curses ringing through the morning air, while around the perimeter, the earth shuddered beneath the passing feet of platoons in full mail, running single-file in a never-ending circle until their captain finally gave them permission to collapse.

Of everyone else, anyone who wasn't on guard duty or under other orders were either being put through drills or recovering from them, while encouragement and verbal beat-downs were barked all around in the rapid, clicking Doanan tongue.

The wildlings, too, saw to their own preparations. They built yet more traps, knowing all too well the skills of professional scouts and skulkers, and ran their own climbing-running-jumping drills, tended their own weapons, and maintained their own watch. Some ditchlings even joined in on the soldiers' run, deciding the game great fun – and even more so when they practised their own hasty trap-making in the process. Their best results were the curses and yelps when the runners came around on a second pass.

Rested horses were collected from the stables and runners sent out to scouts and camps, while others arrived and reported in, delivering mostly obligatory check-ins from farther afield. Pigeons, too, were dispatched in case these runners were late or compromised, who in turn were dispatched in case the birds were caught or shot down. Ditchlings would have negated the need for either, but would also have certainly been killed on sight by both sides.

By early afternoon, work had begun on the rolling siege weapons, and it was right there that the previous night's trouble returned: the military wanted the thick, revived trees rather than the flaking ones lying further out, and the vakehn had spearheaded the protest with kvistdjur reinforcement. It had been ready to descend into an armed brawl until Hlífrún herself had stepped in, who, in an a show of co-operation that astounded even Aria, not only allowed them to use the revived trees, but rapidly uprooted them herself. Whole swathes were preserved while she eyed and chose the individual sacrifices, and within two hours they had all the wood they needed and all the time to use it.

But the ma'asa continued to deny her value. "The time she saved in uprooting, she wasted in being particular," he'd said, and though Rathen vehemently disagreed, he privately found her co-operation nothing short of concerning. He had the distinct feeling he was going to pay for it later, and dearly.

All throughout the day, meals were cooking on a constant rotation across countless pots, puffing the smell of herbs and spices, onion, meat, beans and toasting rye bread. But that was as far as the pleasure went. Somehow, but for one or two more careful cooks, everything was

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