The Warlord's legacy

Chapter Eight

THE ROYAL SOLDIERS of the Black Gryphon of Cephira never did learn precisely what happened on that muggy summer night. Or rather, they ascertained most of what happened, but never why.

The blush of dawn hadn't fully covered the face of the eastern sky, and the nighttime breezes had faded into sputtering, wheezing breaths. Pre-morning dew was swiftly coalescing on the grasses, the leaves, and the eaves of Rahariem's homes, courteously making room in the air for the new day's coming humidity. The soldiers on night duty stifled their yawns, struggling to keep alert or maintain proper cadence, grateful that the rising sun would soon signal the end of shift and the opportunity to get breakfast, get drunk, and get to bed-probably in that order.

Until a scream of inchoate rage shattered the calm, a rock rudely hurled through the brittle glass of silence. From atop one of the engine platforms, a Cephiran guard leapt upon a passing patrol, naked sword in hand. Maddened spittle spattered the shocked soldiers, followed immediately by the warm blood of their commanding officer. The crazed attacker was already lunging at his next target before the officer's head fetched up against a wall, and two more men were down before the remainder had so much as pulled steel.

Drawn to the hideous shrieks and the clash of battle, soldiers from neighboring posts came running, ready to aid their brethren against any attack, stunned briefly into immobility when they realized just what form that attack had taken. The murderous warrior seemed driven by a fury not even so much "berserk" as "utterly inhuman." Blades rebounded from mail, bruising flesh to the bone, yet he barely staggered before launching a blistering counterattack, more raw fury than training or skill. The tips of swords dug into thighs and arms protected only by leather-backed padding, and still he remained oblivious to their efforts. One soldier, already wounded, ducked under his guard and ran her broadsword across the back of his knee; only then, as tendon separated and his leg buckled, did he finally slow. Staggering in a tight circle, dragging his now useless leg, he fought on until the limp and the blood loss finally took their toll. Face paling, he wavered, his body quivering, and a Cephiran morningstar crushed the life from his skull.

And it was then that the Cephiran soldiers-panting hard, bleeding, horrified at their maddened brother-discovered that the entire affair had been only a terrible diversion. For it was then, when the tumult of battle and the groans of the dying had faded, that they heard the ominous creaking of wood and hemp from above.

All unnoticed in the tumult, the rest of the man's squad had heaved a three-hundred-pound block of masonry from their ammunition stores into the trebuchet's great sling. Far too late to take any action save an openmouthed gape, the troops below could only watch as the massive weapon ratcheted into position and heaved its monstrous payload.

End over end the missile tumbled, a child's block hurled in a divine tantrum. In a perfect arc, calculated by a skilled team of operators, it sailed over the roofs of Rahariem for more than two hundred yards…

And finally plummeted to crash, in a cloud of dust and timber and debris that blotted the moon and every star from the sky, upon the city's western gate.

Against such a massive assault-had it come from without-the thickest of the city's walls might have held fast. Against the gates themselves, from the direction opposite that which they were braced to hold, the boulder might as well have been punching through bread crust.

Wood and stone exploded. The walls of neighboring structures cracked beneath the shrapnel, or merely from the shuddering of the earth. Panicked citizens clogged the streets, fleeing the devastation raining from above. The guards-save those at the gate itself, who formed a trail of broken bodies in the tumbling masonry's wake-dived for cover, emerging only long minutes later when the dust began to settle and it was clear no further projectiles were inbound.

The first soldiers to reach the platform found the trebuchet's crew lying dead, scattered near the base of the engine. All had weapons in their hands and protruding from their bodies; they appeared to have murdered one another in a savage rampage of shared insanity. Strewn around were charts of the city and its surroundings, inked by the invaders when they'd first set up their defenses. Carefully indicating angles and distances, those charts ensured that the engine crews were practically incapable of missing any attacking forces-or, as they'd just proved, any targets within Rahariem itself. Physicians and alchemists examined the corpses, their food, their water, and found no signs of drug or poison that might explain their behavior. In the end, though it satisfied no one at all, the officers of the Royal Soldiers were forced to conclude that these men had gone mad for reasons unknown, and unleashed their terrible weapon upon the city before turning on themselves and their fellow Cephirans.

That the entire sequence of events might have been orchestrated purely so a band of insurgents could depart the city via the shattered gates, during the few precious moments when the soldiers were cowering against further attack, was a notion that wouldn't occur to anyone for quite some while. ON THE FLOOR OF THAT same broken house, Cerris lay shaking. The remains of everything he'd eaten that day pooled across the room, congealing into a harsh, pungent sludge, and still his stomach lurched, distending his jaw in dry heaves. His head pounded as though last night's dreams sought to batter their way free, and his entire body shivered beneath a sheen of feverish sweat.

Only once before had his body been so terribly ravaged by the casting of that ancient spell, on the day he'd arrived in Mecepheum-well disguised-to ensure the election of Duke Halmon to the regent's throne. Then, he'd scarcely escaped the Hall of Meeting before the illness overcame him, rendering him naught but a quivering, agonized wreck for a day and a half. That time, he'd extended his mystical influence over a score of men and women, a strain that he truly believed had come close to killing him. He wasn't remotely powerful enough a sorcerer to be fiddling with such magics, and well he knew it. Tonight, he'd needed to command only six, but forcing them to betray their nation, to slay their friends and even themselves, had taken more effort than he'd anticipated. This was only the fourth time he'd ever used the spell-and only the second time on more than a single individual-and he couldn't help but idly wonder if a fifth attempt would finish him off entirely.

And he hoped, to the extent he was capable of hoping for anything other than for the pounding and the nausea to stop, that he'd never need find out.

Cerris was never certain how long he lay there before he finally recovered the strength to raise his head and even consider lifting himself off the floor. The sun was high enough for its light to creep through the ill-fitting doors and shutters, to transform the room into something akin to a small kiln. The stench of slowly baking vomit made his eyes water, but Cerris appreciated the heat. The sweat he shed now felt somehow cleaner than the film it was washing away.

Leaning on Sunder he rose, pleased to discover that his legs, though wobbly, were willing to support him. He'd be weak for some time, but this was the weakness of simple fatigue, no longer the sick helplessness it had been.

Again his stolen tabard served him, for so great was the throng of activity around the shattered gates that nobody noticed another soldier in their midst. Cerris lifted a chunk of rubble (a small one was all he could manage just yet), carried it through the open wall, and disappeared behind the growing heap of broken stone accumulating on the roadside. As there was no tree line this near Rahariem, he moved at a diagonal, struggling to keep the refuse pile between himself and casual observation until he'd passed some distance from the walls. He tried to maintain a steady jog, but his exhaustion-'Are you sure it's not your age?' the inner voice taunted-held him to a rapid walk. He prayed that his departure had attracted no attention; at his current pace, and with the trail of perspiration he was sure he'd dripped into the grass behind him, a toddler could probably run him to ground.

But at least, as he drew nearer the copse that marked the ambush point, he felt as though he were getting his second wind.

'Or your third, or your fourth…'

And he felt, as well, that he was likely to need it.

He sensed something wrong before he rounded the bend in the road, though he wasn't initially certain what. From ahead echoed the clash of steel, the shouts and grunts and screams of battle. That was to be expected. He'd known the caravan might pass at any time, that the ambush might launch before he arrived. But something about the sounds-he could not, just yet, put his finger on precisely what-was off, made his hackles rise and his fingers tighten about Sunder's haft.

And then, as he drew near, he found himself recalling the many battles and sieges of his life, and he knew. The calls from ahead were too measured, too disciplined, too clear. These were the shouts of trained soldiers, not the eager, passionate cries of a diverse resistance.

Cerris dropped to his belly, worming through the dirt and twigs until he could just poke his head beyond the copse's undergrowth. He grimaced, biting back a vicious oath at what he saw.

Four horse-drawn wagons lined the roadside, the tarps that had once covered their contents lying crumpled beside the wheels. But those tarps had apparently revealed no cargo, for the wagons now stood empty. Corpses littered the crimson-stained earth, and most were the bodies of men and women Cerris had known. The Cephiran soldiers were gathered in groups, battling the last pockets of opposition or moving to chase those who had fled. Even from his limited vantage point, the tired old warrior couldn't help but note that there were far more soldiers than should have been assigned to a supply caravan moving across Cephiran-controlled territory.

He knew, then, what-or rather who-had lain beneath those tarps. The whole damn caravan had been a trap.

He'd worry later how they'd known, who must answer for this treachery. Now, through a haze of sudden panic, Cerris scanned the wagons, the road, the ongoing skirmishes, and yes, even the corpses, for a head of auburn hair…

There! Amid a knot of Cephirans, a trio of insurgents struggled to survive. One was old Rannert, his short sword a bolt of steel lightning as it darted in and out, keeping the soldiers on the defensive, but even from a distance Cerris could see the old man tiring, his shoulders drooping, his arms beginning to quiver. Cerris couldn't recall the name of the second fellow, younger but wilder, whose wide slashes with a woodsman's axe would leave him open any minute to an enemy thrust.

With them, wielding a narrow blade longer than her arm, was the Lady Irrial. And if her stance, parries, ripostes were perhaps a touch stiff-the result of formal training without hint of genuine experience-then at least that training was comprehensive, and the baroness a fast learner. For the nonce, she held her own.

But for all their valor and all their efforts, they were merely three, facing an experienced band of thrice that number, with reinforcements close at hand. They would fight well-they might take several of the enemy with them-but they would lose. Of that, even a blind man could have little doubt.

His rudimentary disguise would not hold, not here, for these soldiers were a unit and knew one another by sight. Still, as Cerris rose and sprinted from the copse, his tabard bought him precious seconds before the enemy recognized him as an outsider, seconds that would have to suffice.

He stumbled on weakened legs, and his side ached as though a Cephiran blade had already punched through his hauberk, but Cerris dared not stop. He nearly collided with the first of the wagons, his chest heaving, and shattered a wheel with the Kholben Shiar. On he ran, crippling the second vehicle, then the third, while soldiers closed from all sides. At the fourth, he took his blade not to the wheel but to the harness, and clambered awkwardly atop the horse he'd freed. The beast glanced back at him curiously, but if it was not a trained warhorse per se, it had seen sufficient combat that it shouldn't readily panic.

The first soldier reached him, stabbing with a short-hafted spear. Cerris kicked it aside and brought Sunder down upon the man's helm. It was an awkward blow, made more so by the lack of saddle and stirrups, but still the Kholben Shiar cleaved steel and bone. Cerris hauled on the reins, kicking the body toward another of the onrushing enemy as he guided the horse about. A Cephiran broadsword swung as the beast moved, drawing a thin line of blood across a tan-mottled flank. The horse whinnied and leapt away from the sudden pain, and only three fingers curled in a death grip through its mane kept Cerris from tumbling off the rear end.

Kicks, tugs, shouts, and possibly even a few vicious threats finally brought the beast under control; and indeed, it was already heading where he needed it to go. Sunder held aloft, hollering to draw attention away from Irrial, Cerris charged the cluster of crimson tabards surrounding her.

The outermost soldiers scattered, unsure at first what sort of menace thundered their way. Two of the men nearest the sore-pressed insurrectionists split their attentions just a heartbeat too long and dropped, bleeding, to the earth.

Drawing nearer, horse surging beneath him, Cerris saw that the man whose name he'd failed to recall had fallen, leaving Irrial and Rannert to face the Cephirans alone. Sunder whirled in an underhanded arc, catching an approaching soldier from the side, lifting him briefly off his feet before shearing through him. More of the warriors who'd leapt from the charging mount's path were up and converging once more, and Cerris could only curse, wondering if he'd could reach Irrial's side in time.

And then Rannert-stiff, staid old Rannert-broke past the nearest soldier facing him, ignoring what must have been an agonizing blow to the ribs, and hurled himself at the wall of Cephirans separating the baroness from her would-be savior. Sword and fists, feet and even teeth pounded flesh or glanced from armor. Cephiran blades pierced aged skin, broke weakened bone, but the faithful servant steadfastly refused to fall. Not now, just a moment more…

Cerris gawked, awed, at the venerable butler as the horse galloped on, and damn if he couldn't have sworn that, for the first and last time, Rannert smiled at him. Then he was past, slipping clean through the corridor Rannert's wild assault had opened in the Cephiran ranks. Cerris tossed Sunder to his left hand, reaching to catch Irrial's arm with his right. With a grunt of sudden pain-Cerris never was certain which of them it had come from-she was off the ground, swinging awkwardly up and around behind him.

In an instant they were gone, leaving the Cephirans far behind, though Cerris knew better than to slow down lest a swift-thinking soldier free another of the horses and pursue. He felt her hands clasp tight about his chest, her face pressed against his neck, the wet touch of tears trickling down his skin.

But with his own fingers wrapped tight about Sunder's haft and the horse's reins, his voice trampled beneath the pounding thud of the hooves, Cerris couldn't even try to comfort her. "THERE'S ALMOST NO ONE LEFT," she told him softly as evening neared, the first words she'd spoken since the disastrous battle. "A few ran, but I don't know if they got away."

Cerris had driven the poor horse mercilessly, running it ragged across uneven grasses far from the highway. Finally the panting, lathered beast had snapped its leg in some animal's burrow. Irrial, eyes encircled in red, had looked away as Cerris and Sunder ended its pain.

But the horse had done them proud before the end, carrying them in a wide circle behind the Cephiran wagons, almost back to Rahariem, before it fell. The fugitives had once more blended with the scurrying workforce of citizens and soldiers, still hauling rubble after all these hours, then vanished into the city. They huddled now in the cooper's workshop where the stillborn resistance had been conceived.

Cerris, limbs aching, his entire body limp with exhaustion, forced himself to sit upright, to place what he hoped was a comforting hand on Irrial's arm.

"They knew we were coming, Cerris," she said. "There were so many soldiers waiting in those wagons, they must have been expecting trouble."

"It was a trap," he agreed. "I just wish I knew who…" His shoulders bunched in a sad shrug.

"Someone in the resistance?" Irrial asked. "Is it safe for us to be here?"

"I think it should be." Cerris rose and began slowly to pace, the mindless repetition helping his fatigue-swaddled mind to think even as it sent new complaints through sore calves. "If someone in the group had betrayed us, the Cephirans wouldn't have needed to set a trap. They could have hit us during any one of our meetings." He jerked to a halt as a thought struck him across the face like a gauntlet. "Is Andevar…?"

Irrial shook her head sadly. "He led the ambush, Cerris, and he tried to hold them off so we could run when he realized what was happening. He was one of the first to fall."

"Damn. Damn. I liked him."

"Me, too."

Silence, save for Cerris's pacing steps. And again he halted abruptly, brought up short this time by Irrial's sudden intensity.

"Yarrick," she spat. "It had to be!"

"I don't know, Irrial. I told you before, he has no real reason to love Cephira. They-"

"They could have paid him off! Or made him gods-know-what promises. But who else could it be? Nobody outside the resistance knew we were going to hit that caravan!"

"Yarrick didn't know we were going to-"

"But he knew you were asking about it. If they knew an underground was forming, and that you hadn't fled town after your escape… Well, it wouldn't be hard to figure out the real reason you were asking, would it?"

"It doesn't sound right," he protested, but it sounded weak even to his own ears.

No, that wasn't true at all. He just didn't want it to sound right. Because if Yarrick was a collaborator, that meant Cerris himself tipped them off. It was his fault those men and women, Rannert and Andevar, were dead.

'It was your fault the moment you agreed to support this stupid insurgency. You're only feeling guilty about it because they failed. But then, you've always looked smashing in that particular shade of hypocrisy.'

"That's not true!" he hissed, ashamed that he was once more arguing with himself, grateful that Irrial hadn't heard him-and terrified that, just maybe, that mocking tone spoke truth.

Irrial stared at the floor, Cerris at the far wall. Neither provided them with any answers. TOO MANY OF THE CEPHIRANS had seen them this time, Cerris reluctantly decided as Rahariem bedded down beneath its blanket of night. Even if the names Baroness Irrial and Cerris the Merchant weren't known through the ranks of the soldiers, the descriptions of those who had escaped their trap would surely be making the rounds. Someone might even have sketched them. They couldn't be seen out and about any longer, but neither could they indefinitely sit in the back of Rond and Elson's shop. For one thing, they had to know if anyone else had escaped, if there remained any ashes of the resistance from which a phoenix might arise.

And so, with no other options available, Cerris admitted to Irrial just how he'd escaped from his work gang and his Cephiran overseers. On any other day, Irrial might have reacted to the revelation that he was a wizard on top of everything else-even one of only middling talent-with no small degree of amazement. Tonight she said only, "I wish it had been more help."

Cerris began to wonder if something more than the loss of their companions, devastating as that might be, was eating away at her.

She brightened a little, though, when he explained that those same magics might enable them to hunt for other survivors. "Though I'm not saying it'll be easy," he warned her. "I'm tired as a succubus with a quota, my spells aren't very potent at the best of times, and I've never tried maintaining one of these phantasms on someone else at any great distance. We can't afford to rely on them for more than a few hours, and you need to avoid speaking with anyone who knows you well. There's a good chance they'll see through it."

"I understand. Do it."

Moments later, a man and a woman who only somewhat resembled Cerris and Irrial departed the cooper's workshop.

The better to avoid running into anyone whose familiarity might prove troublesome, Irrial headed toward the late-night taverns she'd never frequented in her prior life as an aristocrat, while Cerris donned the Cephiran tabard that was starting to feel as familiar-and as much in need of a warm bath-as his own skin, and took to the streets.

As the moon flounced through the sky, leaving a wake of brokenhearted stars, Cerris meandered from block to block, chatting with guards standing post, off-duty squads working on a friendly drunk, even an officer for whom he offered to carry a crate of charts and records (aggravating his back in the process). Most had heard only third- or fourth-hand accounts of the engagement, in which the size of the attacking force and the valor of the Cephiran warriors were both obscenely exaggerated. All accounts agreed, however, that only a very few insurgents had survived, and most of those were held under heavy guard, awaiting brutal interrogation. Cerris felt as though his heart had sunk so low he was in danger of digesting it, and he held precious little hope that anyone but Irrial and he remained.

By the time he returned to the cooper's, it was all he could do to drag his feet across the cobblestone streets, and his neck ached abysmally from the strain of supporting a head stuffed with sand. It had been a very long day, filled with exertions physical, emotional, and mystical, and Cerris was frankly surprised that he hadn't simply collapsed like a sack of grain-very, very tired grain-hours ago.

Irrial, apparently having taken his warnings to heart, was already back, waiting for him on the workbench.

"I'm afraid," he said, dropping hauberk and tabard in an untidy heap by the door, "that I didn't-Irrial! What's wrong?"

For he'd seen, finally, that the gaze she'd turned his way was harrowed, her face so terribly pale that her freckles stood out like blotches of rust, the dark circles beneath her eyes as gaping sockets.

"I think my cousin's dead, Cerris," she told him softly.

"What-Duke Halmon?" He'd meant to go to her, to comfort her, but found himself sitting down hard, all but falling, on a barrel across from the bench. "How…?"

"They're just rumors," she admitted, chewing the ends of her hair, "but so many…

"I spoke to friends and family of half the resistance," she said after a moment, regaining some measure of composure. "But nobody's heard from anyone. Either everyone left is hiding very quietly, or…" There was no need to finish. They both knew what or meant.

"It was while I was in the taverns," she continued, "that I heard the rumors. Some of the people the Cephirans have rounded up from other towns say that there's a reason beyond the normal squabbling that's keeping the Guilds and the nobility from responding to the invasion. They say a lot of Guildmasters and nobles have died recently. Including-including Halmon."

"I heard a little something about that," he said, deciding that now wasn't the time to mention precisely who had told him. "But I never heard anyone named, or I'd have told you. And they didn't say exactly what-"

"Murdered," she told him intently. "By Corvis Rebaine."

The barrel tilted beneath him. Cerris's legs twitched, his arms flailing as he struggled to keep his balance against what felt like a physical blow. "Wh-what did you say?"

She shook her head incredulously, misinterpreting the cause of his shock. "I know. Of all the times for that godsdamn bastard to crawl back out of his hole. If it's true, no wonder the nobles are so hesitant to give up their soldiers. And no wonder the Guilds are that much more determined to have them. This is all we bloody needed, isn't it?" Then, more softly, "Hasn't he hurt us enough?"

Cerris actually trembled, just a bit, his jaw hanging mute.

"Oh, Cerris, I'm sorry." Casting her own grief aside, she rose and laid a gentle arm about his shoulders. "You must be exhausted. Come, we've got some cots back here that'll do for the night. We can decide what to do tomorrow."

Numbly, he allowed the baroness to lead him across the room, to tuck the blankets around him as though he were a child. But despite a weariness so deep it pressed upon his soul, Cerris found sleep an elusive quarry for many hours to come.

"My sincerest apologies, good sir." The speaker had a greying beard and heavily lined face, but though his physique was running to fat, the peculiar rippling of his flesh suggested a powerful musculature beneath. He wore a leather apron scorched a dozen times over, and smelled strongly of smoke. "I didn't rightly expect it t' take me so long."

"Quite all right," the younger fellow replied as the blacksmith led him past the forge and into the workroom beyond. "I knew it was an unusual commission from the start." He grinned without much mirth. "I'd have to have been crazy not to, really."

The blacksmith wisely chose not to respond to that. "I know we've been over this," he said instead, "but I have t' ask once more. Are you certain this is what you want? You'll find no better armor'n mine, but those spikes you asked for… Someone strikes 'em at the wrong angle, they'll guide the blade right to you when it might've missed."

"I'm willing to take that chance. May I see it, please?"

A callused hand yanked away a heavy cotton blanket. Both men stood rigid, a faint chill running up both spines even though the younger had designed the abomination before them, and the elder had forged it.

Even unoccupied, it loomed, straining forward on the rack as though ready to wrap metal fingers around exposed throats. Black steel, white bone, spines sharp enough to skewer anyone who so much as looked at them wrong…

But it was the helm to which they were irresistibly drawn, rats staring up at a swaying serpent.

"If nothin' else," the old man offered with a forced chuckle, "nobody who sees you in this monstrosity's goin' to forget you anytime soon."

"That," the other said, "is entirely the point."

The gaping sockets of the iron-banded skull looked into their souls, and the jawbone laughed in silence. CERRIS AWOKE, blinking away the dream and the afterimages of that blasted skull, to find the blankets twisted into a veritable rope around his body. Obviously, his fatigue notwithstanding, he'd not experienced the most restful sleep.

'Why, it's almost as though you had something weighing on your mind.'

Disentangling himself and tossing the blankets to the floor, he sat up and peered blearily about. The light gleaming through the high windows and the sounds of the street outside suggested that he'd slept away not only the morning, but part of the afternoon as well. No surprise, that. As the various shocks and disappointments of the past days filtered slowly into his brain from wherever memories hid at night, he rolled off the cot, made quick use of the copper pan currently serving as a chamber pot, and stumbled halfway across the workroom. Then-limping on a newly aching toe and loudly cursing the leg of the workbench, but substantially more awake-he crossed the rest of the chamber, dipped a mug into a barrel of lukewarm water, and washed some of the nighttime grit from his mouth and throat.

And it was only then that his mind caught up with his senses, and he realized he was alone.

"Irrial?" And a bit more loudly, making a slow circuit of the room as though she might've been hiding behind a barrel. "Irrial? Are you here?"

Nothing.

All right, no reason to worry. She could be elsewhere in the shop, perhaps arranging with Elson or Rond to acquire some food. She might even have darted out for supplies, or to find out what was happening in the city, though he wished she'd waited for him to cloak her in another illusion. Or perhaps-

He stumbled to a halt at the far wall, where a polished sheet of brass hung as a makeshift mirror. A large pair of shears lay open on the floor, amid a scattered heap of auburn tresses. Cerris nudged it with his bare feet, seemingly unable to comprehend its presence. Despite the poking and prodding, the hair revealed nothing new.

Now, perhaps, it was time to start worrying. Obviously, whatever she was doing, she'd taken rudimentary steps to keep from being recognized, and that assuredly meant it was something Cerris didn't want her doing alone. He dressed swiftly, ready to go hunting for her, scooping up Sunder and reaching for-

The Cephiran hauberk and tabard were gone.

"Oh, gods…" Cerris burst through the door and pounded into the street, legs pumping, only just remembering to cloak himself in an illusory disguise. And if it proved insufficient, if any of the "Royal Soldiers" made to stop him, he'd cut them down. By pairs, by squads-it didn't matter.

Because he knew, as surely as if she'd tattooed a map into his flesh, exactly where Irrial was going.

'Ah, you're just pissed that she has the stones to do what you should have…'

Maybe he'd been blessed with an extra dollop of Panare's fortune that morning, or perhaps, after the past few days, the sight of a crimson-clad soldier racing pell-mell through the streets didn't draw much attention. Whatever the case, while he received more than his share of startled glances, nobody made any effort to stop him as he pounded across the cobblestones, twisting around or even leaping the occasional vendor's stall, until he finally arrived at Rahariem's Merchants' Guild.

He blew past the clerk at the desk-who may well have shouted a protest, but Cerris never heard it-and hurled doors from his path, sometimes hard enough to crack wood against an adjacent wall. A hired guard stepped into his path, more likely to ask his business than to stop him, but Cerris drove a knee into the man's groin and two fingers into his sternum, and was off and running once more before the man finished crumpling to the floor. Stairs flashed by beneath his feet, three, even four at a time, until he'd reached the highest floor. Around the corner, down the hall, praying he wasn't too late…

Irrial spun, sword outstretched, as he burst through the final door, and for an endless breath they didn't know each other. Her hair was chopped short in crude imitation of a military cut, and the hauberk weighed heavily on her shoulders, but her arm was steady. Blood dripped from the blade, adding to a larger pool of crimson that spread across the carpet from the body of Guildmaster Yarrick.

Sunder fell slowly, as though wilting, to Cerris's side. "Gods, what have you done?"

"What had to be done," she said flatly, daring him to argue.

He accepted, slamming the door behind him. "Damn it, Irrial. We needed him! We needed to know why, who else was involved-"

"I'm not an idiot, Cerris. I tried! But he came at me, I didn't have-"

"Don't you dare! You had a choice, all right. You could have asked me to come with you! We could have taken him without killing him."

"I thought-"

"You didn't think! You were angry, and you acted blindly. So how did you enjoy murder, Irrial? Is it everything you'd hoped?"

The baroness staggered as though he'd slapped her, nearly tripping as her heel struck the corpse by her feet. Her jaw worked soundlessly, and the sword fell unnoticed to the gore-soaked carpet. Even within the heavy hauberk, her shoulders quivered visibly, and she seemed unable to pull her gaze from her open hands.

"Cerris…" It was not the voice of an adult, but the call of a distraught child. "Oh, gods…"

Cerris understood, then, just as clearly as he'd understood where to find her. Taking a deep breath, he shoved his own anger aside and crossed the room, holding Irrial as her entire body shook with racking sobs.

He said nothing, for there was nothing to say. Both of them knew what she'd lost; knew for what she'd grieved, all unknowing, since the attack on the caravan. And they both knew that her tears, no matter how many she shed, would never wash the stain of blood from her hands. JUST AS THEY HAD THE PRIOR EVENING, Cerris and Irrial took the long way home, avoiding streets on which he might have earlier been seen. And just as they had the prior evening, they made the trip in silence.

Cerris helped her from the tabard and-as gently as the awkward mail allowed-the hauberk, dropping both in the corner near the scattered strands of hair. The rest of her clothes followed, not out of any romantic ardor but because they were spattered with Yarrick's blood. The normally modest baroness seemed disturbingly unaware of, or indifferent to, her nakedness. He handed her the nearest tunic and trousers; she climbed into them stiffly, mechanically.

Cerris, who could scarcely recall the years before he'd first learned to kill, found himself utterly at a loss. He didn't know what to say, or how to comfort her.

And gods damn him, more than a small part of him just wanted to shake her, to demand she get over it. To insist that they had larger worries than guilt.

'Well, finally! Now you're thinking like yourself again!'

He ruthlessly smothered those feelings, but every now and then he'd glance her way and feel not sympathy, but a flickering ember of irritation.

Some minutes later, she apparently came to the same conclusion. With a literal shake of her head, as though she could shed the crush of emotions like so much water, she took a deep breath and faced him. "What now, Cerris?"

"Now? Now we get the hell out of this damn town."

"What? But-"

"Irrial," he said, perhaps more sharply than he'd intended, "there's nothing more we can do here. The resistance is over. The Cephirans know our faces. Dying for a hopeless cause may sound noble, but I've come damn close to doing it myself, and it's really not as much fun as you'd think."

"I know," she admitted. "But I can't just abandon my people."

"You want to help Rahariem? The way to do it is out there." He gestured vaguely in what he was pretty sure was a westerly direction. "Find out what's keeping the Guilds and the nobles from reacting to this invasion, and fix it. I promise you, the armies of Imphallion have a much better chance of driving the Cephirans out than you do."

'Oh, right.' Gods, he wished that inner voice would just shut up, but it kept right on yammering. 'Like that's the reason you want to be out there. You couldn't care less about Rahariem. You want to find out about-'

"We already know part of the problem, don't we?" she asked. "It's Rebaine."

'Yeah. That.'

"It's not him, actually," Cerris said carefully. "Someone's lying, or-or something."

Irrial blinked twice. "What would make you think that? It's not as though he hasn't done this sort of thing before."

"I just-I just don't think it sounds right."

"Why not?"

"Look, it doesn't matter-"

"Cerris." She rose, stepping toward him, and there was something he didn't recognize, and didn't like, behind her expression. Her gaze flickered to his face, to Sunder, and back again, and while they still showed no sign of recognition, he could swear he saw the first gathering clouds of a terrible notion in the depths of her eyes. "Why not?"

He was utterly exhausted, his last reserves drained. He was worried, even terrified, at the repercussions of those rumors. He was furious at having been betrayed by Yarrick, at whoever or whatever was behind the falsehoods spreading through Imphallion. And maybe, just maybe, he was falling in love for only the third time in his life.

And even though he knew it was a mistake from the moment the words passed over his lips, a part of him exulted in freedom as Cerris spoke the truth he hadn't uttered to another living soul in years.

"Because I'm Corvis Rebaine, Irrial."

Irrial's features went so utterly slack that he wondered briefly if she'd passed out, even died, on her feet. It was the clenching of her fists, the slow flushing of her cheeks, that convinced him otherwise-and convinced him, as well, that it never once occurred to her to doubt his word.

After all, what halfway rational man would lie about such a thing?

"You bastard…" It wasn't even a whisper, barely a wisp of breath.

"Irrial, I-"

"You bastard!" No whisper, now, but a shriek of such fury that it almost, almost, hid the agonized heartbreak beneath it.

He never saw it coming. One instant he was standing, reaching for her with a pleading hand, and the next he was on the floor, his jaw throbbing, blood trickling from where his lips had split against his teeth.

Irrial stood over him, fists shaking, and he truly believed in that moment that had she held a weapon, Yarrick would not have been the only man to die at her hands that day.

"Irrial, please. I'm not the same man I-"

"Not the same man? Not the man who conquered Rahariem? Not the same man who slaughtered more people in one day than the Cephirans have killed in the last month? Not that man, Cerris?"

"Not anymore," he insisted, propping himself up on his elbows. "You've known me for three years! Do you really think those were all a lie? How about the past weeks? Were those?"

She glared, mouth twitching around two or three possible answers.

"Irrial, I don't even think of myself as 'Corvis' anymore. It was so long ago…"

"Long? Not so long that I don't still have nightmares. Not long enough to un-kill all the people-some of them my friends, my family!-that you butchered. No, Cerris, it hasn't been that long at all."

"Irrial, I'm sorry. I truly am. I lo-"

"If you say it," she hissed, "I swear to every god that I'll slit your damn throat!"

"Fine!" He surged to his feet, shoving her aside, anger rising to reflect her own. "Then how about the fact that I saved your damn life? How about the fact that you need me to save your precious city?" He stopped, breathing heavily, struggling to rein himself in. "Irrial, whatever happened in the past, whoever I am and whatever you think of me, Rahariem needs us both. Imphallion needs us both. And we need each other."

She glared up at him, he down at her. "You're right," she said, shoulders slumping and head bowing, a marionette with its strings gone slack. "We do… for now.

"But make absolutely no mistake," she added, stiffening once more. "We're allied in this because I want what's best for my city and my people. But that's all we are: temporary allies. Nothing more, not now, not ever."

"Irrial…"

"That's Lady Irrial," she corrected, turning away with her head held high.

And Corvis Rebaine, the Terror of the East, could only stand and watch as she stalked from the room, leaving him to make his own preparations for the long journey ahead.