The faintest orange of dawn had barely begun to color the eastern sky outside the windows of the dwelling in Hasjyl when Secca looked down at the image Richina had called up in the glass on the oblong table. Alcaren, Palian, Delvor, Delcetta, and Wilten—the others with them—also looked into the scrying glass.
Early as it was in the day, the Sturinnese force was leaving the hamlet to the north, clearly headed toward the trade pass, since the maps showed that the northern road went nowhere else.
Secca nodded for Richina to sing the release couplet, and that the younger sorceress did, easily and with a composure she had not possessed two seasons earlier.
“How many days’ travel would it be for us to reach the pass?” Secca asked.
“Three,” suggested Wilten. “Two, if we hasten.”
Delcetta nodded in agreement.
“I think we need to hasten,” Secca suggested. “For the first day, it is almost eastward along the river road, is it not?”
“For a half day, according to the maps,” Alcaren replied. “Then the road to the trade pass separates and makes its way north along a stream.”
“That stream is the one that comes from the trade pass and feeds into the Envar River, is it not?” asked Delcetta.
“It is,” replied the broad-shouldered sorcerer. “Most passes have rivers or streams, but this is a narrow pass and a small stream as such go.”
Secca glanced at Wilten, then Delcetta. “How soon before all can ride?”
“Less than a glass.”
“Good.” Secca stood, turning to the chief players. “And the players?”
“They will be ready,” Palian affirmed.