"How can we know, with the Lord Malraun nowhere to be found? Why, you could have murdered him and rolled his body under the bed, and we'd be none the wiser!" "No, she couldn't," one of the brothers Esdagh said flatly. "I sent in some good men to look around. No bloodstains, no one hidden anywhere, alive or dead. No sign of the wizard, either, beyond what the two of them did to the bed—fair tore it apart, they did. And yes, we looked under it." The other Esdagh—Mulzurr, the silent one—leered at Taeauna, but she ignored him, glaring coldly at Norgarl and Korauth. Hairy, unlovely, coarse old Norgarl had brought the largest band of warriors into Horgul's host, and everyone saw him as the senior commander in the army. Korauth, with his fiery temper and fearlessness, was the loudest of the army commanders, the most feared. The most likely to cause trouble. The other battle-lords standing around the fire—Lanneth and Mulzurr Esdagh, ever-present axes at their belts; tall Tamgrym Buckhold, staring out at the world through his mass of scars, as terse as ever; and the old, hollow-eyed Stormar, Dzundivvur, who looked more like a worn-out merchant than a warrior—watched Taeauna to see what she'd do.
