There were five hundred and twelve men and ninety seven dwarves when the Silver Swords mustered on the northern bank of the Wadi Ira the next morning. They drew up in four infantry companies, joined by Torm’s cavalry and the dwarven engineers under Cadger. Since the fall of Palona they had lost over three hundred men, almost all in the continual rearguard between Botan and the Wadi Ira. The Captain read their names out without emotion, giving them the simple five word epitaph: they died in the south. With the names of the dead recorded, he pronounced their contract with the League at an end, citing lack of reasonable support, and declared the Silver Swords a free company once again. Throughout the entire ceremony the soldiers of the enemy were visible on the other bank, furious but impotent to cross. The Captain turned to face them and spat a glob of spit into the water. As it hit, the dimpling seemed to magnify, and within seconds the skies had opened, rain pouring down hard enough to sting. The monsoon had come.

“Bianca, Torm,” the captain called, raising his voice to be heard over the rain. Some of the men were already raising the sections of timber they had used as rafts into make shift rain shelters. Bianca trotted over, carefully wrapping her pistols in oil cloth to keep them and their powder dry. Water streamed down the old man’s face in rivulets, though if it bothered him he didnt acknowledge it.

“I want you and half of Torm’s knights to go on ahead. We shouldn’t be more than two weeks march from the Fan Cities, but scout the land and see if you can find any preliminary leads on contracts. The rest of us will march to high ground tomorrow and lick our wounds for a few days, then follow along.”

“Sir maybe we should take a wizard, what if we…” Bianca began but the Captain cut her off with a curt shake of his head.

“I can’t spare Black Ryann in case we run into trouble, and we have wounded enough to keep Naambi busy, you will have to manage without magic, at least until we can recruit another wizard,” the captain declared.

“Yes sir,” Bianca acknowledged.

“You had better get moving, a few hours of this and the whole world will be mud,” the Captain said.

It didn’t take a few hours. By the time they were on the trail there was mud everywhere. Bianca’s six scouts spread out in a fan ahead of them and picked their way through the jungle, winding their way up the low laterite escarpment that formed the northern bank of the Wadi Ira. Although he had been right about the mud, copious amounts of red brown sludge that seemed to be sliding down on them from every direction, his assertion about their being a trail was a bit optimistic. The best Bianca could find was what seemed to be a game path through the jungle and that was rapidly being converted into a stream. All around them broad leaved plants hammered with the sound of rain slapping foliage. It was like being surrounded by drummers in a constant drum roll.

“How do people fight in this?” Torm demanded as he forced his great warhorse to leap another fallen log, then coseted it as the breast’s hooves struggled to find purchase.

“Normally people don’t fight in the monsoon,” Bianca told him as she finally reached the top of a low ridge. Visibility was poor but she could make out the shape of a curving valley ahead of them. She shook what seemed like a gallon of water from her broad brimmed leather hat, succeeding mostly in dumping it down the back of her poncho.


“Are there any cities between here and the Fan River?” Torm asked as they started down the far slope into the valley. Bianca shook her head then called for one of her scouts to mark the crossing point for the company.


“We don’t have good maps for this far east, not beyond the coast anyway. We might have marched along the river to Onarang, but I hear the Priestess controls it. If she were feeling spiteful we might have met a column on the way up.”

“Yes well thank goodness she isn’t spiteful or anything,” Torm said as he coseted his nervous steed down over some mudslick rocks.

“The way we are going…” Bianca began but bit off the sentence without continuing. Torm arched an eyebrow and immediately cursed and wiped monsoon rain from his eyes.

“Well the locals dont go far from the river, they say a curse lies on the land between here and the Fan,” she admitted reluctantly, looking out over the rain drenched valley ahead.