"Well, I look forward to seeing more of you, then! Any last-minute questions before I track down Savil?" 

"And you as well."

No, he can't think of anything. He'll just take the opportunity while she tracks down Savil to toss his farsight south, if he can do that without straining himself too much - anything useful he can pick up about the condition of Karse or the terrain while he waits?

The terrain is pretty gnarly! Especially on the southern side of the Border, and even moreso to the west of the river, it's all hills and ravines and excessively large boulders. A few miles downstream, on the Karsite side, the river is less frozen over, but this is because it's entirely fast-moving rapids. 

He can find what looks like the main Karsite war camp, on the other side of one of the hills. It's not really any more organized than the Valdemarans, but it's differently organized, with a very clear division between the central command area - where the tents are laid out in a tiny radiating-spokes pattern, and made of higher-quality dyed red canvas with yellow accents - and the rest, which is even more haphazard than the Valdemaran camp. 

... Well, fast-moving rapids sound like an excellent reason to not launch his attack by water! South Trade Road it is!

In that case, he's going to stare off vaguely into the distance (i.e. spy on the Karsites and build a mental map of the ground he's going to be fighting on) until he thinks Savil and Lissa are coming back or he starts to get a headache.

(The tents themselves are shielded against Farsight as well as scrying, if Janos tries to look inside, but the technique of laying purely area-effect wards against Mind-Gifts, without a physical wall or structure to anchor them, is very fiddly and difficult, and not one that either Valdemar or Karse possesses.) 

He can spot some other, smaller encampments on the Karsite side, more to the east than west, and get a better sense of the land. It's also notable that the South Trade Road is much less well-maintained south of the Valdemaran Border and the main Karsite camp. 

Savil is back with Lissa after about five minutes. She looks better-rested than before, but also significantly more cranky. 

Another Herald is with her, a man with stringy greying hair, swinging a stick as he walks and, it looks like, carries on a Mindspeech conversation with Savil. 

"This is Herald-Mage Kilchas," Savil says tightly. "You would be working with him, if you end up down this way. Ready to go now?" 

"Hello, Herald-Mage Kilchas," Janos says (in the Valdemaran of someone who has picked up the word 'hello' over the past 48 hours from listening to people talk), giving a polite bow. And, once the introductions are over, "And - if you have no objections, Herald-Mage Savil."

"Then let's get back. Whatever pile of work is waiting for me by now isn't getting any smaller." 

She exchanges a nod with Lissa, who's still hovering nearby, and then starts raising another Gate on the nearest doorway big enough for a Companion to pass. 

(It's not just the pile of work that has Savil impatient to return to Haven. She doesn't think it's likely that the Karsite priest-mages are watching Horn closely enough to notice her and prepare a raid during the handful of candlemarks they've been here, and with her and Kilchas working together and the Web to provide advance warning, it wouldn't be likely to succeed, but - if she were on the other side of this, it would seem worth trying. Also, she's worried about Vanyel.) 

Back in Haven, it's snowing - small, icy-sharp flakes, blowing in a cold grey wind. Gates always disrupt the weather, and it's not as though Vanyel was up for fixing it on the Haven side. 

It's snowing in Haven, and there are starving children in the streets. Some of them will freeze. Most of the children who will freeze would have died soon, anyway; the life expectancy of starving homeless children has never been very high, and very few of them survive to adulthood - but one of them might spend his last copper on shelter, who would otherwise have spent it on food, and so starve, and one of them might get minor frostbite in the fingers, and so not be able to get a marginal apprenticeship, and one might develop a cough and never grow to full size and die at fourteen because he was too small for a man's work.

Janos doesn't have the information to know if anyone is dead, because it snowed today in Haven. But he does know that the reason it snowed today in Haven is because Janos wanted to visit Horn. Why did he want to visit Horn? The legitimate military reason is to scout it out, but he could have done that in a week's time, when Valdemar might have two more Adepts available. No, the reason was so the Valdemarans would think that he wasn't just joining the first side that told him a sob story, even though he really did not believe that they were constructing an elaborate lie. He could probably truthfully say that he was doing it to verify the Heralds' story, but the reason he needed to verify the Herald's story was because he wanted them to think better of him, and now children are dying for his power. It was the correct decision, he thinks; he needs a good deal more political power to save Valdemar and the world, and getting power trades off a great many other things. But what he wants to do is start weather-working, to clear the snow away and let the sun shine in. He isn't going to; he's not a weather-specialist and he was horribly drained Gating and needs to recover - even if he could, he should let his mage-channels rest.

But he wants to.

Savil doesn't stagger visibly as she crosses her own Gate, but this is mostly because she's holding firmly onto the pommel of Kellan's saddle and leaning against his flank.

She gives the snow a very tired glare, and then starts taking down her Gate, reclaiming the energies tied up in it. 

(To Janos' mage-sight, she is visibly doing this very inefficiently, with around 20% of the mage-energy initially put into the structure being lost to the Void or the physical surroundings. The Eastern Empire's mage-education standards think that an Adept should be able to cast an entirely-freestanding Gate, without a physical threshold at all, and lose less than 10% of the energy given to the setup.) 

Once the Gate is down, Savil starts walking back toward the central wing of the Palace, despite the fact that she's feeling pretty lightheaded and has no idea what they're actually supposed to be doing after this. 

See, Janos would love to explain to her how to Gate better! Except that she's a cranky old woman who would be very annoyed at him telling her how to do her job. Janos is, in fact, having trouble coming up with literally anything that she would not take as an insult, up to and including complimenting her family.

"Thank you," he settles on. "Do you know who I should speak to for the next step?" He wants a SECRETARY. He's used to having a staff of servants, but the important one is the secretary. Secretaries would rule the world if ruling the world did not automatically make one busy enough to require a secretary of ones' own, and therefore incapable of functioning as a secretary oneself.

(Janos's actual list of priorities, which he would be happy to share with anyone in the Valdemaran leadership who does not look like she needs to fall over, would be:

- Intensive language tutoring for him.

- Magical tutoring by him to help bring their Adepts up to Imperial levels in a few important fields.

- Meeting rear officers in charge of army logistics and procurement to carry out vitally important reforms.

- Getting a formal military position that comes with a license to reorganize army logistics and procurement.

- Getting his grand-strategic directives from high command setting long-term strategy within the context of national grand strategy for him to work out operational plans for the next year's campaign. (Translation: Randi telling him if he should be trying to win the war this spring or if he should use this year for reforms and win the war next year.)

- Other military priorities dependent on war-winning timescale.

- Civil priorities dependent on war-winning timescale.

(Once he's recovered:)

- Regular visits to the front line with him managing his own Gates.

- Covering for other Adepts when he has spare time.)

"Think Tran's coming to meet us," Savil manages after a few beats of walking on in exhausted silence. "And - oh, Kellan says Van would like to hear your impressions of Horn, if you're up for meeting with him in a bit." 

"Thank you," says Janos. "And - always."

He's going to pause for a moment, and then quietly murmur, before anyone else gets here, "Also, your niece is also very impressive."

That earns him a genuine smile, though tired and brief. "Isn't she just." 

And then Herald Tantras is jogging out across the snowy field to meet them. "Savil, you go, I'll take it from here. Janos? Did you want to meet and discuss further plans now, or do you need to rest and we should plan something for tomorrow morning?" 

He'll nod goodbye to her. "I mislike wasting time. If you have the time, I'm ready now." He is FINE, it was days ago when he was stabbed in the chest and he's had lots of healing since.

(Tran might notice that beneath the cool mask, Janos seems significantly happier than he did the last time Tran saw him; more energized, less stressed. Something about the trip suited him.)

Tran is glad that SOMEONE is having a good day even if that person is definitely not him. 

"Of course. We all want to move ahead on planning as fast as possible. Er, if you're willing to meet in someone's room in the wing with the Heraldic quarters, Vanyel was released from Healers' while you were down south, but he's under instructions not to go wandering around outside." 

"That certainly sounds like Herald-Mage Vanyel." A person who'd disobey healers' instructions for no particularly good reason just to get back to work faster! He could be like a member of Janos's family, except less murderous! "I have no objections."

Then they can head to the Heralds' wing to meet with Vanyel and whoever else from the Senior Circle is also available! 

Keiran is the only other Herald available for the meeting, and offers to host it in her own room, which is somewhat bigger than Vanyel's or Tantras' quarters. 

Vanyel makes his way over while Keiran is offering Tran and Janos tea or wine. He's still moving slowly, and looks tired and wan, but not visibly in pain. 

"Janos. You met my sister, right? What did you think?"