"Best of luck."

"Back to our original topic, do you have a ballpark for how long it'd take under expected conditions to hit a target and regroup?"

"I'm afraid that also depends on the circumstances, sorry. If you can storm it by force, most places take less time to clear than the grey garrison did, but if you have to siege somewhere with clerics they can hold out as long as they have food and ammunition. And demons don't need to eat, which means if you can't storm somewhere they're holding the battle lasts however long it takes to pick off the defenders or break down the walls. In this situation in specific... anywhere you don't feel confident forcing your way in safely I'd advise withdrawing and either avoid it or come back with reinforcements, and anywhere you can attack should be done inside an hour."

"Oh, I like that answer substantially better than some of the range I considered likely. Travel time to a likely spot?"

"Anywhere more than a day from the army is a lot harder to reinforce or support, and I definitely wouldn't advise going more than two days ride unless you're bringing a regiment along with. ...I'm tempted to advise you to stay closer than that, but you'll have a better sense of what benefits you're expecting to get from a given fight."

"Field experience, command experience, one less den of cultists."

"All important things, but not worth your life to go ranging afar from the army to get. The casualty - and disappearance - rates of unsupported detachments in the wound is high enough to make a hellknight think twice."

"Right. So where are we going, or who should I ask?"

"Major Ansger is in charge of the scouts, though last I heard he was off on patrol so you might need to talk to his adjutant. The report from this morning is that they've seen signs of cultists at Sinner's Rock, Haakon Ridge, and Fivetrees, but I don't know the dispositions there."

She has a map of the wound on her, though the details drop off sharply the further it gets from the wardstone barrier. Two of the locations are en route towards Iz, a sign of desperate and foolish cultists or someone trying to throw off the trail, while the third is up the Sellen and off slightly on one of the smaller tributaries.

"How long's his patrol?"

Irabeth looks at the sun.

"I'd guess an hour and a half from now, unless there were delays."