For ten long minutes, Sybyll stood silently before the walls of Hanrahan Town.
Deep within her heart, she knew that Ian Hanrahan wasn't a man who would answer her challenge. He wasn't a man who would strap on his armor and face death, alone or at the head of an army. At best, he might send his brat, Bastian, to face the woman who had come to claim her birthright, but he would never have the courage to face her directly.
Still, she gave him the time, standing in the cold and the snow at the head of her army, she waited with her face bare to the wind and her long-handled ax planted in the frozen earth while she cradled her helm in one hand.
While she waited, she listened, training the senses that had been honed just as much as the rest of her body on the defenders of Hanrahan Town and straining her ears to the limits until she could separate all of the individual threads of conversation.
