off mid-sentence. The vanguard of the first company, which had arrived as reinforcements, was already approaching the foot of the citadel, and the second had just emerged fully onto the town’s central square, yet no further soldiers appeared behind them. Warriors emerged from the alleyway, clad in sand-coloured leather armour and lion skins draped over their shoulders like cloaks. They wore helmets shaped like jackal heads, held short spears in their hands, and carried chepes at their belts. Bleist counted twelve foot soldiers, and right behind them, mounted on a massive karven, a priest clad in a sand-coloured robe and a black-and-silver jackal mask. Right beside him rode Lieutenant Al-Satar, reporting something, or so one could gather from the officer’s gestures. Behind them came another twelve warriors and the rest of the infantry. ‘You were right, Rex,’ Bleist merely muttered. ‘The high priest of Arnas has been appointed investigator, though I’ve no idea what a desert god’s hierarch has to do with solving drug investigations.’ He pushed himself away from the railings and set off at a leisurely pace towards their current headquarters. ‘I just hope he knows his stuff and isn’t as arrogant as the other priests of Arnas I’ve met,’ he said when the corporal caught up with him. ‘In any case, talking to him is going to be a struggle.’ He sighed almost martyr-like, but received no consolation.
