Chapter Twenty-Four

Daerton had stripped off his robes, rolled his shirt sleeves to the elbows and trousers to his knees, and was busy on the bank of the river to the side of the bridge constructing... Mud men. About twelve of them lay on their backs in a tidy line, like bodies laid out for burial, each with the torso hollowed out as if their organs had been scooped out by a spoon.

Mesandre and I both tilted our heads to the side.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said without lifting his head. He had mud down the front of his shirt, caked up his arms, between his toes, and clumping his hair together where he had obviously used the back of his wrist to push it back from his face. “Not all magic is clean.”

“These are supposed to cause enough of a distraction that dwarves can scale the wall and open the portcullis?” I was dubious.

He looked up at me with a grin. He had mud smeared across his forehead. I heard Mesan