Canice did not look up. "Hush," she cooed. "Hush now. Mother's here. It'll be all right."
"I'll send guards for you at sundown. You'd better be ready." Curane slammed the door behind him.
His FOUL MOOD carried into his briefing. "Well?" he demanded when General Drostan and the fire mage Cadoc entered the room. "Are we ready?"
Drostan nodded. "Nearly so."
"Nearly so isn't enough. Our best chance to strike at the Margolan army will be when it first arrives, before they've had a chance to dig in. If we take the offensive, we might turn them."
Cadoc shrugged. "I doubt they'll be broken quite so easily, even with magic."
"We must terrify them. Teach them that we have the will to endure. Let them understand that we'll hold out."
"Is that why you're smuggling the girl out of the keep?" Drostan's voice was icy. "Hardly proof that you believe this siege to be winnable."
"I learned long ago to hedge my bets. With Canice gone, there will be one less distraction, and it puts one prize out of Drayke's reach before the first salvo is fired." Curane smiled icily. "I'll send you one of the serving girls and her baby. Use your magic to put an illusion on them. We'll lock them up in Canice's place. No one will suspect."
"Even our best strike can't defeat thousands of soldiers," Drostan replied.
"We don't have to defeat them. We need to make them lose heart. Every day the army camps here, my man at Shekerishet moves closer to success. Our people in Isencroft already have Donelan occupied with the divisionists. We have the resources to keep the army tied up here for months. By stripping the land bare, they'll have to travel further for supplies-and we have fighters in place to harry their supply line." He rose and looked out one of the thin windows, toward the plain where the army would camp.
"We'll teach them to be terrified of what comes by night. Sicken them once the harshest days of winter come. Make them hungry. Drayke and his mages will weaken the longer they stay here, while you and your blood mages," he said with a nod toward Cadoc, "grow stronger off the rift in the Flow. They're not a real army, not professionals. Just a ragtag band of volunteers out for an adventure. How long until those volunteers decide to go home?" Curane smiled. "No. We don't have to defeat his army. We have to break their will. Then Trevath will see the opportunity and come to our aid. We'll he rid of Drayke, rid of his heir, and both Margolan and Isencroft "will be ours."
"Everything will be in place, m'lord," Drostan said. "Our scouts expect the' army within two days. We'll strike them hard their first night, before they're ready to respond. We'll see how long Drayke's army can stand its ground."