3
WAITING
Syrina was bored. She was used to waiting in uncomfortable places, but she’d milled around the villages in the foothills for eight weeks waiting for Mann to show up. Now she’d spent another three watching his bored army waiting for him to come back through the tunnel. She’d decided two weeks ago that watching a mob of bored people was the only thing more boring than being one of them.
Things hadn’t been too bad until she’d reached the Black Wall. She’d taken the Great Road from Fom, and reasoned that if Mann and his army had somehow passed her on their way to Valez’Mui, at least she’d hear about it.
They hadn’t passed her. She’d waited in Valez’Mui for three months before Mann arrived from the south. Some misplaced desire for secrecy had compelled him to travel by sea around
