“A caravan?” Cosa asked, her jaw clacking open and shut as she tended to her apple trees. “How many?”
“We didn’t think to ask,” Myth replied.
“Fools,” Cosa tutted, rolling her glass eyes in their wooden sockets. “I ought to throw the two of you to the wolves. They’d be better messengers than you useless sacks of skin.”
“We only sought to get to you faster, Cosa,” Levy replied. “In our haste we neglected our questioning.”
“Do not lie to me, Levy. I know you are slothful and slovenly. Do not forget that I see your every move. Each and every step. Even those you try to hide.”
Levy looked at her hooves, unable to maintain eye contact with the unblinking doll. Mercifully, the construct turned away, tapping its hollow fingertips against each other in a percussive roll. Cosa paced for a while, ignorant of the awkward atmosphere her silence created.
“They will need more than a caravan to penetrate the ruins of Sylcara. They will need an army. Surely they must know that? If they don’t, they wouldn’t have made it so far. But if they do, they must have some provision, some hidden weapon. One or more of their number are hiding something. Elven supplies, you said?”
“Supplies for the elves,” Mercy responded.
“A subtle distinction that matters naught as they are lying,” Cosa snapped. “Whatever they have in that wagon must be capable of breaching the ruins. Unless these humans are not who they claim to be. Curious indeed.”
Cosa descended once more into silence, the pacing resumed. Mercy and Levy fidgeted uncomfortably in suspense, awaiting their patron’s commands.
“Well, whether or not the humans know what they’re doing, we do. We need an army to enter Sylcara, which means we need Boaz.”
The pair of satyrs gulped, and exchanged a worried glance.
“You might well look nervous,” Cosa laughed. “Because it is you two I will send. Perhaps a little time spent with the horde will make you appreciate the freedoms I typically afford you more, and you might think to serve me a little better. The Odious Legion are currently camped out south of the Vastglen. Get yourselves to the hobgoblin’s side as fast as your fleet feet will allow. Tell him his goddess wishes him to march on Sylcara.”
*
Cosa watched as the pair of satyrs stamped out of her presence, hooves clattering on the cobbles as they went. It always seemed they were fleeing from her, even when their task was a daunting one. She had no certainty that the Odious Legion—the ramshackle horde of goblinoids flying Boaz’s tattered banner—would follow him into the Vastglen, but she knew that Boaz was her best bet at amassing an army quickly. Not only would the warlord be keen to please her, but she knew he sought out a fortress from which to base his raids to the west.
So what did this caravan want from the ruins, she wondered. Perhaps she could use Esula to find out? It was a good omen that the dryad had come to her, instead of her mother Sylvia. The wood was beginning to rot from within, it seemed. Looking about her, she picked up a stray crow’s feather and caressed it between her wooden fingers, deep in thought. She would send Esula to follow the caravan, she decided and, pinching the finger between thumb and forefinger before her, she breathed life into it. The dark bird which grew from the feather looked somewhat like a crow, certainly, but with more teeth. Nevermind. It would do. She whispered the dryad’s name into the bird’s ear and its eyes glistened with malevolent intelligence. As it took to the air, each wingbeat scattered a fine black powder. Dust? Ash? It mattered not. The bird would fly true and fast, and she’d have her answers before long.