"Let me see if I understand our general plan here.
We intend to beat our hapless prisoners unconscious, sneak into a town infested by a plague we know not how to cure or keep from getting infected by, look around, sneak back out through the quarantine, then ride halfway across the continent to a major population center.
If anyone gets in our way, we will fight them to death.
You'll probably want to have someone besides me talking then. It's not that I mind telling people we're the good guys, but I studied diplomacy, not bluffing.
Do we have any volunteers for that, or shall we just raise the red flag and leave a trail of corpses in our wake?"
Clerics of Sela disdain sarcasm that can be cut with a knife. Selan sarcasm spreads with a trowel: like mortar it is thick, caustic, gritty, and the binding agent for tremendous walls of disapproval.
Michael pauses for a moment as he plans the second course of the wall.