Soen considered the young human warrior. Perhaps seventeen years of age, if he was any judge of human growth. The ears seemed to push straight out of the sides of his bald head, but the youth had a strong jaw. The scar across his forehead told the Inquisitor that he had already seen battle, but he was still young.
“You are an Octian commander?” Soen asked, his black eyes narrowed.
The boy flushed. “No, sire! That honor is not yet within my grasp. Perhaps one day, sire.”
“Why, then, am I speaking to you?”
“Sire! My Octian commander ordered me to report to you on my observations during the time of our approach as we ran through the folds before our approach to House Timuran.”
Soen smiled slightly as he folded his arms across his chest. They really take themselves seriously at House Megnara. This slave acts as though he were in the Imperial Legions. “And your name is?”
“Mellis, sire!”
“Then let us have your report, Warrior Mellis, by all means.”
“Sire! This was four folds before we arrived at House Timuran. We had exited from the previous fold from the riverbank marshaling field and had arrived at the canyon marshaling field with the objective of surviving the mad warrior onslaught and finding another fold by which we could return to our quarters in House Megnara. We had nearly completed our crossing toward that objective when I realized that I had neglected to secure an important item of my field gear.”
Soen glanced sideways toward Gradek.
The manticore leaned over slightly as he explained. “He dropped his sword.”
Mellis flushed once again.
“Go on,” Soen urged.
“I was rapidly approaching the fold from which we had just arrived when I saw several figures approaching outside the line of totems surrounding the marshaling field.”
“Several figures, Mellis?” Soen leaned forward. “How many are ‘several’?”
“Three humans, a pair of manticores and a chimerian, sire,” Mellis said, straightening his back at once. “Oh, and a dwarf. . I remember wondering about the dwarf. They passed right between the totems as they were making their way to the fold, sire.”
“Fold? Which fold?”
“The fold we had just exited.”
“You mean they were going toward the chaos?” Soen asked.
“Yes,” Mellis replied at once. “That’s what caught my attention. Everyone was trying to get away from the mad warriors-and these were trying to go toward them.”
Bolters, Soen thought with a grimace. Seven of them.
Dawn broke with agonizing slowness over the eastern horizon. Soen was impatient for its illumination, for he needed to examine the garden of the fallen House Timuran and could not do so properly without the aid of its light.