Beyond the Shadows

“Guards! Take this bastard to the dungeon.”

26

Men were gathering in the great yard before the city’s south gate when Kylar arrived. The queen’s messengers canceling the attack wouldn’t arrive for a few more minutes. Kylar was almost certain that they would. However, Durzo had taught him that when you deal with human beings, never count on logic or consistency. Either way, Kylar’s work wasn’t finished.

The sa’ceurai were still sleeping. Kylar didn’t make the mistake of thinking that this meant the morning’s attack would take them off guard. They simply could sleep in and still slaughter Cenarians without missing breakfast.

The sleet had stopped, so Kylar was able to make good time to Lantano Garuwashi’s tent. The war leader was asleep on a simple mat on one side of the room.

Kylar stopped at a table full of maps. He’d never seen such detailed maps. There were maps of the city with three different colors of blocks put on different objectives. Kylar wasn’t even sure what the colors signified. There were maps of the city’s surroundings, with elevation marked, the conditions of roads labeled, and a remarkably accurate chart of the Smugglers’ Archipelago. Blocks with regimental flags stuck in them represented the various forces arrayed within and without the city, even the new Rabbit regiments, which meant they already had spies in the city who were managing to pass messages out. There were broader national maps, with both knowns and unknowns marked. They didn’t know who held Screaming Winds in the north. They weren’t sure of the Lae’knaught’s strength in the southeast. But on the last map were blocks representing Cenaria’s death.

Blocks on that national map represented Logan’s force, guessed to be slightly larger than it was, and behind them, Ceuran reinforcements.

I’m not a general, I’m only a killer. And a fool. Kylar had glanced at what was in front of his eyes and thought he had a more accurate view of the situation than the city’s generals. Lantano Garuwashi had rushed to the city without horses or baggage, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t told them to follow.

He had. They were just a few days out, behind Logan’s army, and Logan had never seen them. In the meantime, Garuwashi had already dispatched a contingent of sa’ceurai to skirt Logan’s force and go back to guard the supply train.

Among the papers were plans to hire pirates to cut off smugglers’ routes into the city and others to encourage insurrection in the Warrens. They were already in negotiations with the Sa’kagé, which the generals knew had smuggling routes into the city. Currently, the Sa’kagé wasn’t offering good terms, but the generals were confident that the Sa’kagé’s offers would get sweeter as soon as the supply train arrived and the hungry Cenarians watched them feast.

Kylar felt sicker the more he read. Of course the Sa’kagé would treat with the Ceurans. It was one thing to refuse to collaborate with Khalidorans who wanted to wipe out all of Cenaria, quite another to betray a disliked queen to a reasonable man who wouldn’t interfere with the Sa’kagé’s business. As soon as that supply train arrived, Momma K would see the end. She would try to minimize the bloodshed, but which was better: For thousands to starve in the Warrens, or for a hundred noble heads to roll? The smuggling tunnels would soon fill with sa’ceurai.

“Night Angel,” Lantano Garuwashi said in greeting, rising from his mat.

Checking, Kylar was sure he was still invisible. He looked at the papers in his hand, apparently hanging in midair. He dropped the invisibility. “Good morning, warleader.”

Lantano Garuwashi was one of the rare men who looked more daunting half-naked than he did in full armor. There was no fat on his body, and where most quick swordsmen were built with lean muscles like Kylar, Garuwashi had the upper body of a blacksmith, each muscle sharply defined—and big. He had a smattering of scars on arms and chest and stomach, but not one of them was deep enough to have cut muscle and thereby impede his motion. They were the wounds of a man whose mistakes had been infrequent and small.

He shook his head as if to shake off sleep, but Kylar thought it was more calculated to rattle the bound ends of those sixty-odd locks in his own hair like a bowl full of marbles. Lantano Garuwashi grinned joylessly at Kylar. “I’ve been expecting you,” he said.

Kylar couldn’t believe it, but how else would he sleep so lightly that he woke at the sound of papers being turned fifty feet away? “If you expected me, there’d be fifty sa’ceurai ringing this tent.”

“I knew you were coming as soon as my sentry reported that someone tied his leggings together.”

Kylar’s jaw dropped. “He reported himself?”

Garuwashi smiled, self-satisfied. Kylar wanted to think of him as smug, but it was an infectious kind of smile. “I punished him lightly and rewarded him well—as he expected.”

“Son of a—” Every time Kylar took something for granted, he got hit in the face with it.

~Is there a lesson here?~

Kylar ignored the ka’kari. “So, if you expected me. . . .  All this is guttershite.” He dropped the papers on the table. “There’s no supply train.”

Garuwashi’s grin faded. “It’s coming,” he said. “If you don’t believe me, wait two days. You tell me, do you think all those reports could have been written between the time you were playing with my sentry and now? That would be a massive effort, wouldn’t it? And it would be stupid of me to throw it away by telling you I expected you.”

Kylar blinked. “So what’s the game?”

Garuwashi began pulling on his clothes. “Oh, are we being honest with each other?”

“Might be quicker than lying.”

Garuwashi hesitated. “Fair enough. I’m preparing to be a king, Night Angel.”

“A High King?” Kylar asked.

Garuwashi looked puzzled. “You say this like it means something to you.”

Kylar cursed his ineptitude. “A rumor I heard.”

“Why would I wish to be a high king? Cenaria and Ceura are neither large nor distant from each other. Naming under-kings would simply give me rivals.” He waved it away and tied the thin silk robe around his waist. “In a year, I will be king of Ceura. I have a reputation now and most of it serves my purposes. But in our capital Aenu, the effete nobles call me a barbarian. ‘Skilled at war, yes, but can a butcher be king?’ This is how they attack a man who is too excellent. So I have a small interest in capturing this city without killing. We both know that I can take Cenaria. I let you read long enough to see that, yes?”

“So what do you want?” Kylar asked.

“Surrender. Unconditionally. I will give you my word to be merciful. We will leave in the spring to claim my throne, and once I take it, I will grant this realm once more to your queen.”

Kylar couldn’t stop a twitch of annoyance.

Garuwashi caught it. “You prefer Duke Gyre be made king? Done. I will even restore half of the royal treasury. Beyond this, my men will spend the winter wiping out the Sa’kagé. Tell me, is not that alone worth the price of feeding and housing us? Is it not worth more than half the treasury?”

~Especially considering that the treasury’s empty?~