He should have swallowed the insult and kept her talking, convinced her to surrender and then consult the Lake. Buy some time. Leof rode back to the camp in a foul mood, angry with himself, Vi, Thegan, even the Lake itself, ignoring the glances Hodge and the men exchanged behind his back. What was the point of this? Fighting the Ice King’s men when they had attacked the Domains, that had been necessary. This was just politics. Thegan was overseeing the making of fire arrows, checking that the men didn’t wind so much linen onto the arrowheads that they would go wildly off course when fired. Leof knew the drill. The arrows would be dipped in oil and lit just before they were shot into the air to rain down destruction on Baluchston, as they had tried to do to the reed beds. The Lake doesn’t like fire, he thought. She won’t be pleased about this. At noon, they won’t even be spectacular. The thought gave him a thread to follow when he spoke to Thegan.
