Broken Company

Arran glanced at Muna. "You've been in the Desolation," he said. "What's it like?"

"Worried about your captain?" she asked. She shook her head, and continued, "As I told you before, I can't tell you about the Blight."

They were sitting atop one of the tall hills that overlooked the mining camp, eating a small meal of fresh bread and cold meat while watching the priest grant the mercenaries their citizenship.

Even from a distance, Arran could see that the white-haired man looked weary. And no wonder — already, the man had turned over a hundred mercenaries into proper Darians, and although he barely spent a minute on each of them, it still added up to hours of work.

"I know you can't tell me about the Blight," Arran said. "But what about the Desolation itself?"

He'd asked Muna about the Blight many times, and each time, her answer was the same: that only those who traveled into the Desolation were allowed to learn of it.