Chapter 23
“They know we’ve taken out their reinforcements, so our position may actually be strengthened,” Damiskos explained as he, Nione, Aradne, and Varazda hurried across the beach. “But we do need to get up there quickly, before they begin making other plans.”
Specifically, before they did anything to hurt the male slaves, but Damiskos was not going to say that out loud. Part of the secret to effective command was knowing when projecting calm was more important than impressing the troops with a sense of life-and-death urgency.
He didn’t feel particularly calm himself. They had lost valuable time waiting for the men of the honour guard to receive word from their employer. When it came, it had been, “Give Pharastes everything he needs and invite him aboard the ship,” but Varazda had
