Trindai smiled when he read the message on the farwriter. The brigade apparently had no problems patrolling Verd.

He'd force marched two companies of infantry until they nearly dropped, but it had proven worth it. Now Krante was garrisoned, even if with soldiers tired beyond belief, and he had gutted her of all but a single platoon of cavalry. Together with the bulk of the Imperial Guard the council had ceded to his command he now had close to three full regiments of cavalry and dragoons.

It would be enough to handle any skirmishers they would encounter, but he was well aware he lacked the strength to both take the enemy's northernmost army and push south to join General de Markand. Wherever that elusive man had gone with his army, but that was another question and one Trindai had no way of answering before he had more information on what happened in the southern client states.

The young count of Mintosa was overly eager to take the fight to the enemy at all costs though. He never spared a moment to egg officers and soldiers on, and Trindai thought of restraining him forcefully more than once. In the end he didn't. Trindai remembered what it was to be young and angry. And besides they could use a client count to their benefit. Keen needed allies now.

Trindai didn't much care for that need. Client states never trained armies. They weren't allowed to. Keen made certain they adhered to that law, but client states sent most of the men wanting to join the Free Inquisition, and one result of the religious frenzy spreading like wildfire this spring was the inevitable counter reaction. Men eager to stand against evil sought entry into the yellow and green, much to Trindai's dismay, and, he suspected, in an equal degree to Minister de Levius' glee.

Hepaten was as much a fanatic as anyone he sent his goons to hunt down. Magehunting needed to be, and Trindai could see why. That didn't mean he had to like it. And he didn't. The Free Inquisition were a bunch of undisciplined thugs no matter how soldier like they looked in their official uniforms.

Even the Holy Inquisition scoffed at them, and they were the most fanatic of them all. Fathers, brothers and sons alike. Steady farmers or craftsmen who took the sabre and crossbow together with the wow to fight magic in any form it took. Never warlike until the moment they sniffed out their prey. Trindai feared that mild mannered fanaticism a lot more than the bullying attitude of those in the yellow and green.

Which made the vanguard his main concern. Olvar de Saiden had ordered him to take command of more than a hundred of Keen's finest, and the reason Minister de Levius had so readily agreed was something Trindai preferred not to linger on longer than absolutely necessary. That Count Mintosa never as much as blanched didn't make things any better.

Worries or not. The sunny day, almost but not really stifling hot saw them crossing the Avarin river in good order. Not that they needed, but Trindai had thought it would be good training voiding the use of the bridge. The latest arrivals in his army didn't. The outworlder wagons couldn't handle the steep river banks, and he didn't want to risk the precious medical equipment they carried.

To be truthful he was as happy as surprised that the sky kingdom had agreed to bolster his baggage train with ten doctors, as many nurses and four hovercraft with drivers attached.

He was even more surprised to learn that the Terran Federation had ceded all lands around and including the sky port to Keen. They still manned it, under the supervision of New Sweden and the Republic of Mars, even though the latter hardly had sufficient men here to do any real supervising.

That also brought back the most horrible of all news they had received. Of the refugees around the sky port only a handful were alive. First they though the mad general there was to blame, but he wasn't. Not directly anyway. Trindai didn't understand it fully, but somehow the outworlders had come up with a way to cure diseases before they could break out. The army landing had received no such cure, and by now doctors from New Sweden were driving frantically all around Keen in their hovercraft setting up small hospitals to prevent the plague from spreading.

A sudden sound brought him out of his thoughts. A wagon overturned in the river and men swore as they brought the horses under control while trying to save the contents of the wagon. They barely managed. Trindai swore some on his part as well. He didn't like the prospect of losing supplies, but he liked the possibility of them losing it all during a hasty retreat even less. So he let the crossing go on and tried to pretend he didn't hear the angry words shouted at the men he'd placed on the bridge to prevent anyone from taking the easy way across the river.

***

"And they haven't stopped it yet?"

"I'm afraid not, Minister."

That was bad news. They hardly had time to celebrate one obstacle overcome before the next disaster struck. Well, it would be Tenanrild's problem. She was responsible for transportation and that made her indirectly responsible for forcing the population to stay where they lived. Olvar helped out with armed muscle, as did Hepaten. Mairild wasn't too happy about the last, but they were spread thin and the latest recruits weren't trained enough to take up soldiers' duty yet.

"You may leave. Send messengers to Hasselden. They are to continue rebuilding the fleet, but if they run out of timber shipbuilding will have to stop until the plague is contained." Mairild waited for the courtier to nod understanding. "These are orders signed by Minister de Dagd." She handed the papers over and waited for the woman to leave.

The day could have begun better. Now she had to send message to Roadbreak by farwriter. The plague couldn't be allowed to spread into Vimarin, but using the farwriter for her message spelled danger for her personally. Speed was more important than secrecy though, and she needed the magehealers in Ri Khi to know of the invisible killer that was headed their way.

The plague had started in Keen. It was their responsibility to warn others now. For once they had the luxury of doing so while treating a disease safely at home, or rather, the outworlder medics did the treating. Keen had no knowledge sufficient enough in those matters.

Mairild hurried to the wing set apart for New Sweden. They were the only sky kingdom here in force now, and they supplied help to Keen in a scale the federation had never done. That made them Keen's most important ally at the moment, and so the council had agreed to temporarily cede them two floors of the Imperial Castle's east wing.

Anita Kirchenstein-Yui was there for once. The last days she had occupied the rooms assigned for her and her staff more and more often. Maybe she had finally agreed that her primary task was that of an envoy, or maybe she'd been directly ordered to by her queen. No matter what, it made Mairild's work easier.

Mairild was on her way to beg. With Tenanrild halfway to Krante on a mission to sort things out after Trindai's forced acquisition of most anything on wheels. The grand caravan and the sudden need to feed Vimarin and Erkateren alike had drained Keen's resources of vehicles to almost nothing. She suspected the general would even have forced carts into his use hadn't speed been a priority of his.

Which was the reason she was taking the steps two at a time to meet with the outworlder envoy. The sky kingdom had a seemingly endless supply of those hover craft. Since they had started handling the daily operations of the sky port one or two of the incredibly fast vehicles had arrived in Verd each day. If Mairild could only lay her hands on three or four of them on Tenanrild's behalf.

They should able to exchange information with the client states on the Ming Peninsula, and more importantly, with the isolated villages in marshy Levs. If what Mairild had heard was true those hover crafts could run on water which would make those marshes open fields to traverse rather than a deadly maze.

She ran on, paused and straightened her clothes and strode into the New Sweden quarters as if she'd just happened to stroll in that direction. Time for begging. She'd grown skilled at that art the last eightdays.