“I’d appreciate that, my lord.” He paused for a long drink of whatever he’d filled his mug with. I assumed it was ale, but you never know. “We fought three engagements after you moved on. The first was very small, which I was glad for, because it happened only a couple of hours after we parted, and my men and our horses were tired. We came upon a small group of drants that were heading to Ansdron and were able to ensure that none survived to join the siege of the city.” He took another, smaller, drink. “We didn’t encounter any other drants the rest of the day, which was welcome. Warders Rissia,” he nodded to her, “and Ganileth were most helpful to us, acting as scouts. We setup camp a ways off the road in a wooded area. We were all looking forward to getting some rest. We had already lost nearly one hundred men out of the two hundred and fifty we set out with. We set plenty of sentries around the camp and that was what saved us. A larger group of drants, accompanied by their cursed warg wolves, attacked us during the night. The sentries perished to a man but gave us the time we needed to organize so we could drive off the drants and their filthy beasts.” He took another drink, emptying his mug then waited while Kralnik filled it for him. “Thank you, sir. He said and Kralnik grunted in reply. He took a small sip and smiled. “This ale is pretty good, especially today.” His smile faded away. “It was close. If there had been but a few more of them, or if my men were not so well trained, it might have gone the other way. So, we lost about seventy-five men last night, including Warder Ganileth, who had been on sentry duty. That was half of our remaining force. In the morning we set fire to the dead and made our way here as quickly as we could. I was afraid you might have run into drant trouble of your own, which turned out to be true, although I never imagined what seems to have happened here. I thought it would be while you were making your way here.”

“We did run into a fairly small group of drants that may have also been on their way to join the siege of Ansdron, I’m not sure.” I said, motioning toward Rissia. “But I assume Warders Rissia and Ganileth told you all about it because they were still with us during the attack. In fact, it was the very reason they ended up with you. We lost some horses in the fight and didn’t have enough spares for everyone so they wouldn’t have been able to keep up with us. We didn’t see any other drants on the way here. We made it before nightfall, commandeered a couple of rooms and the town was attacked early this morning.” I had chosen wine to drink and I paused to take a small sip. “We manned the walls and tried to organize the townspeople, and whatever travelers were here, into aiding in Tarn’s defense. We were barely able to survive, and if it hadn’t been for the mages accompanying us, I imagine you would have arrived to the drants celebrating their complete victory.”

“What did the mages do?” Captain Klote asked.

“After the drants broke through the gates they put almost all of the ones that made it into the town asleep. It was a good thing they did, because we were vastly outnumbered and with all of us tired and wounded there was no way for us to force them back out.” I motioned toward Kralnik. “We also had drants who had made it over the walls and into the town itself. Perhaps Kralnik can tell us about that. Or Delik Slin or Stern.” I pointed out each of them in turn. “They were all involved in fighting them, I believe.”

Kralnik grunted and Stern just nodded so Delik Slin stepped in to describe what happened. “The three of us started out together, trying to get the townspeople and visitors to man the walls or at least bring arrows or water where they were needed. That seemed to be working, until we ran into our first drants. It was only two, but they had managed to start a fire. We killed them quickly enough but realized we needed to organize some people to search out any drants that managed to get into the town before they could cause too much damage. We rounded up some people to help us and split up to cover different areas of the town. I was kept busy doing that, and occasionally helping to put out fires, until it was all over.”

Captain Klote nodded. “How many drants did you find?”

Delik Slin tilted his head to the side, seeming to search his memory. “At least two dozen, and perhaps three, but only in small groups. One or two drants at a time except for one time there were three.”

The captain nodded as he drank some more ale. “I just have one question for you all. How did two mages, with but one apprentice, manage to cast sleep spells so strong that they affected all the drants that broke through the gate? There looked to be over a hundred in the courtyard inside the gates. From what I know they should only have been able to knock out perhaps a quarter of that.”

“I don’t know exactly what they did,” I said, “and they were rendered unconscious by it, except for the apprentice, who was killed. But Padral said they were going to attempt to link together and cast just one spell.”

Klote set down his mug in surprise. “What? I thought only the Elvish Warrior mages of the Silver Circlet could do that?”

I didn’t even know that much. “I’ll definitely ask Padral and Stegen when they wake up but until then I have no answers for you, Captain.” The discussion was put on hold as the food arrived and for a few minutes no one spoke. We were too busy eating.

When I finished I pushed back my chair and stood. “I’m going to check in on Padral and Stegen. Please continue eating. I’ll be back to let you all know what I find out.”