“Dralm bless your Majesty; of course we will, all of us!” he babbled. “Why, I spit in the face of Styphon! You think any true god would suffer his priests to be treated as we’ve been?”
* * * *
Xentos reached Sask Town that evening. The news from Nostor was a little more definite: according to his sources there, Gormoth had started mobilizing for a blitz attack on Hostigos on hearing the first, false, news of a Hostigi disaster at Fyk. As soon as he had learned better, he had used his troops to seize the Nostor Town temple of Styphon and the temple-farm up Lycoming Creek. Now there was savage fighting all over Nostor, between Gormoth’s new mercenaries and supporters of Styphon’s House, and the Nostori regular army was split by mutiny and counter-mutiny. There had been an unsuccessful atta
