Bastion

caves marked with a green dot. “What you can’t see on here is that with care, you can probably bring the caravan down as far as here and get it back up again. As you can see, you can easily reach all the provisions from this spot without going outside. There’s a water source in there, an actual ‘well’ of sorts right here. My personal feeling is that it is actually an opening leading to a deeper water cave. I wasn’t able to explore that, but I did test the water, and it’s sweet and good. Also, there’s a chimney crack here; the bandits built a firepit under it. I tested it, and it draws, so there’s no danger of waking up choking to death. Keep the fire going, and the heat should keep the opening up top free of snow.”
    “At the risk of having it drip right down into the fire, but I think we can put up with that,” Jakyr said with a slight smile. “Sergeant Milles, we are already indebted to you. You’ve done brilliantly by us.”
    The Sergeant, who was a lanky, dark-haired fellow with a baby face and was probably much older than he looked, nodded appreciatively. “It’s good to get a Herald up here; maybe with your entourage we can put a dent in the local pattern of being closed-mouthed and actually get something accomplished. That nest of bandits that holed up in The Bastion? They’d been there for decades. I’m fairly certain half or more of them were related to villagers around here, so of course, the villagers wouldn’t say a word about them. We only started getting somewhere when someone started a blood feud with someone else who was related to the chief. And even then, mostly we got half-literate messages and sketchy maps left stuck to the door with thorns or in the top of the feed bins.”
    Jakyr just nodded. “I’ve run up against that very situation before,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do, but you’re coming up against custom that dates back centuries, and that’s mighty hard to dislodge.”
    Mags nodded to himself. Now the situation with Cole Pieters was even clearer. The mine-kiddies hadn’t been related to anyone around the mine, so no one really cared a toss about them. Cole Pieters, meanwhile, had a lot of money, a lot of influence, and a lot of offspring he could arm up to cause trouble if anyone caused it for him. There were two powerful reasons why no one had ever done anything about the conditions at the mine. Anyone he hadn’t bought off—like the visiting priests, who were supposed to ensure that conditions were good for the orphans—he could easily have intimidated.
    “You recollect that situation over on Lord Astley’s lands with the mine full of slavey-kids?” he asked, wondering if the story had gotten this far—and if there was anything like the same situation.
    The Sergeant shook his head. “Too far away; there’re at least two Lords with holdings between us, two whole districts and Astley has his own Guardpost, he doesn’t use ours. The only time we ever hear of anything from that far off is when someone transfers here.”
    He recalled how Dean Caelen had said that this district was “not that far” from the mine where he had grown up. Too far away, hmm? I guess “not that far” is pretty relative when you’re sitting in Haven . . . Ah well, it wasn’t as if he needed his own story known in order to be effective here.
    The Sergeant rolled up the rest of the maps and handed them to Jakyr. “These are all for you, Herald. I’ve made maps that show your Circuit as being a series of spokes coming off of The Bastion, rather than the usual spiral you Heralds do. I think that will help you a fair bit. We’ll be off first thing in the morning; it’ll take us a good day to get to The Bastion. We’ll camp with you there overnight and leave you. After that, you know your own business better than me, I’m sure.”
    “I’d better after all these years.” Jakyr chuckled, and the sergeant joined him.
    “Beer?” Milles suggested.
    “Don’t mind if I do.” Jakyr glanced over at Mags. “Go off and find that girl of yours, give her a tour of the Post or something. You know the drill around here. Meet me up for supper.”
    Mags laughed. “Yessir, I do,” he said, since at least a fortnight—or more—of his first days as a Chosen had been spent in a Post exactly like this one, recovering from the abuse and neglect he’d suffered at the hands of his master. Without that considerable rest period he would never have been able to make the