Orren knew where Auren was.
He had known, or suspected, for several days — the information assembled from supply route documentation, coalition command communication patterns he had observed at the staging area, and the particular logic of how a campaign's commanding general moved through its final phase. He had not said anything because he had been waiting to see if Kael arrived at the same destination independently.
Kael had.
Orren spread his map on the table in the room they had taken as a working space and pointed to a location three days east of Vethara — a regional administrative center called Dorn's Crossing, the kind of city that existed at the intersection of trade routes and had the infrastructure to host a command operation post-campaign.
"Coalition command will establish a formal presence here for the treaty phase," Orren said. "The final phase battle is over or nearly over. The political machinery follows the military machinery. Auren will be present for the transition — the treaty work requires his signature as commanding general."
"He's accessible," Ysse said. She was sitting with her wounded side supported, moving carefully, but present and focused. The four days had been three.
"Within the formal structure, no. He will have security, staff, the full apparatus of a general receiving the end of a successful campaign." Orren paused. "Outside the formal structure, possibly. Generals of his experience tend to conduct personal assessments of their engagements. They walk ground. It's a professional habit."
"He'll visit the front," Kael said.
"He'll visit the aftermath. The northern territory. Probably without a large retinue — that's not how personal assessments work."
Kael looked at the map. Three days east. The northern territory was two days north of Dorn's Crossing.
"We'd be going back toward the war," Bren said.
"Toward the edge of it," Orren said. "The engagement is over. The northern territory is in post-phase transition. We would be four people in a large area being reorganized, which provides cover that the active front did not."
"And if Auren is part of the design," Ysse said. "If Kael is wrong about him."
"Then we're four deserters with stolen documents in the presence of the commanding general of the coalition that wants us either in front line positions or not existing," Kael said. "Which is bad."
"But you're not wrong about him," Bren said.
Kael looked at him.
"You're not," Bren said simply. "I was there. I saw the pause. That wasn't the way someone looks at a resource."
Kael held the map and thought about the fraction of a second on a ridge, the specific quality of recognition in a general's eyes moving along a column.
"Three days," he said. "Ysse, can you —"
"I said three," she said.