"This place is empty." Captain Murkagh picked up a tacky plaster bust of the Chancellor off the desk and set it back down with a futile thump. "They didn't invest any energy here. They either just used it as a temporary meeting place or a provisional drop point for stolen children. Look--" He pulled open the top drawer of the foreman's desk, "--they didn't even take his stash of money. It doesn't even look like they cared what was in this desk!"

Faith shook her head. "Sir, this is the place. You saw the bodies."

Grace looked out the window of the loading dock office. "Clear cut of trees for fifty yards, good visibility from here to the tree-line, their backs to a body of water, elevated position defended by a choke-point on the stairs up to the office if they need it."

Faith turned to her twin. "That's why he ran north instead of south. He was going to make his stand here."

Captain Murkagh stopped to listen to them.

Grace folded her arms over her chest. "Then why didn't he use that advantage?"

"He said his help told him who was out waiting for him. He wanted to deal with Lord Hinterstrad personally."

At this point Murkagh interjected. "Trent's a crazy son of a bitch, that's for sure. He likes the wild gambles. Scuttlebutt has it that paid off big for him in Starfall, where you need the fast high-yield strategies. Least that's what my contact in Marraddon City said."

The door opened. A young Staff cadet walked in at almost a march. He stopped by Murkagh and thumped his staff smartly down onto the wood. He saluted. "Sir, we found the bodies of the scouts. Everyone here had iron weapons."

Murkagh squinted, looking to Faith and Grace. They shrugged. Faith said, "We wondered that too. Apparently they mistakenly thought we were fae."

Murkagh nodded to the cadet. "Thanks. Let me know when the tracking dogs arrive."

Faith and Grace looked at each other. "Tracking dogs?" they asked in unison.

Murkagh strode to the door. "Guess he was wrong 'bout me bein' a coward." He slammed the door behind him.

---

Morphiel could not vanish, as his father could, but he did have some powers of invisibility with his glamour. He dodged among the ironwood trees, nimbly stepping from root to root as he went. He assumed there would be patrols, but as he went, he saw not even the sign of them. Owls hooted, some manner of small furry creature darted out of his path, but there were no signs of sentient passage.

Morphiel saw his first signs of people as he approached the clearing of the lake: makeshift hunting blinds, set up to mask sentries that would guard the clearing from approach. Nets stretching from tree to tree, probably to block were-raven spies from other noble houses.

They were certainly not Goblin-make.

But the tracks were not fresh. The forest had already swallowed any other hints that people had come or gone.

Finally, Morphiel came to the clearing. Ahead of him stretched a rocky slope down to a clear lake, littered with the remains of a huge camp. The ashen heaps of several dead camp-fires dotted the land-scape. The wreckage of wood and chicken-wire cages lay scattered about. Morphiel moved among them, inspecting.

The fires were nothing special. A few bore wooden spits, on them the remains of small meals, animals or fish who fell into the clutches of those who had stopped here. One particularly large fire bore a spit large enough for an ox or something similar. No remains told any tales of what was cooked there, but the reek of dead fish hung heavy over the camp.

The largest disturbances of the ground were in one particular part of the beach, where it appeared something heavy had been dragged up out of the water. The rut of cart wheels ran deep in the mud here. Morphiel glanced about, wondering what purpose a cart served where there were no roads.

Finally, Morphiel came to the wreckage of the wooden crates. He fingered spots of dried blood, two, maybe three days old. The wood stank of urine and feces and sweat. Morphiel felt a stone settle on his stomach.

Was this the kind of place that the Miller's daughter saw before she escaped? Morphiel wondered if he should ask the Staves what she said, but what good would it do? They couldn't come here to investigate. And what was the next step, anyway? Contact Lord Laszlofi? Morphiel knew already what the result of that would be. Either he did not know there was a flesh ring in his county, in which case he would be surprised and dismayed, or he did know, in which case he would feign surprise and dismay. Either way, nothing would be accomplished.

Morphiel growled. He quickly ran through the possible outcomes in his head if he simply hired a platoon of mercenaries to come in here and clean it out, regardless of the ettiquette of invading another lord's fiefdom. Morphiel knew from experience how good, how cathartic it felt to just ignore the rules and do what had to be done.

But--Morphiel shuddered--he already well knew the dangers of hiring mercenaries to do your dirty work. It was tempting, it sounded so easy, but there were some responsibilities that could never be delegated.

He stared at a spot of blood on the wreckage of a crate.

This was what it came to. There were no Staves, no young pretty Mirrorfolk paladins, no woodsmen, not even a sympathetic miller. For the first time in his life, he didn't even feel the support of the small fiefdom he looked after as a noble of Rendru. Morphiel was alone.

He surveyed the remains of the camp on the beach one last time, to get a idea of what he was up against alone. Suddenly, Murkagh didn't seem so cowardly.

Morphiel took a deep breath. There was nothing to do but deal with what was in front of him. He turned to go back home and start making a plan of attack.