“The Great Chief?” Amaranthe found the Nurian way of organizing political and tribal power confusing, at least insofar as remembering which chiefs were which-they had, she recalled, everything from sub-chiefs to lieutenant-chiefs to big chiefs, and then there were hunt- and war-related ones, such as wolf, fox, and bear chiefs-but the Great Chief, that was their equivalent to an emperor.
“The ruler of Nuria, yes,” Tikaya said.
“Are any of the lords trying to get the throne not someone’s puppet?” Maldynado asked. “I’m not surprised my brother would let someone control him-he’s not clever enough to think up a usurpation plot on his own-but Flintcrest too? As a satrap governor, I’d expect him to have a brain of sorts. Those are appointed positions, after all, not inherited.”
Sort of, Amaranthe thought. One still had to be warrior caste to be appointed.
“It’s possible the Nurians are allying with Flintcrest, not trying to control him,” Tikaya said.
“Who’s that?” Mahliki asked, drawing Amaranthe’s attention back to the hovering image.
Her jaw dropped to her chest. In a clearing near Flintcrest and the Nurians, a blond-haired, black-clad man fought with four shirtless soldiers, each covered with fresh lumps and bruises, and two with blood streaming from their noses as well. Not fought, her stunned mind realized after watching for a few seconds, sparred. He was training with the men, taking on four at once for the challenge he required.
Maldynado made a choking sound. “The person who brought those heads in, I’ll bet. But why? What’s he doing with them?”
Sicarius spun, sweeping the legs out from beneath an encroaching opponent, and in that moment, that rotation of his head, Amaranthe knew. “Oh.” She goggled at the glowing stone stuck to-no, embedded in-the flesh of his temple. “Oh, no.”
Chapter 9
In the dark tent, Sicarius listened to the soft exhalations of his Nurian roommates for a long time before rising from his spot at the foot of Kor Nas’s cot. Everyone had drifted off, he was certain of it. And tonight, for the first time since Sicarius had been in the camp, Prince Zirabo slept in one of the cots. There’d been one set up during the prior nights, but it had remained empty. Maybe he had a Turgonian lover somewhere. It didn’t matter. This was Sicarius’s chance-possibly his only chance.
He crossed to the Nurian’s cot and considered his options before acting. If he woke Kor Nas, his chance would be gone. He wouldn’t be able to explain what he was doing without thinking of Starcrest and the letter in his pocket, one he’d written the night before, before the practitioner woke for the morning. It’d been hard enough keep his thoughts away from the topic during the day. Kor Nas had sent him off to collect a few more heads, and that’d served as a distraction. After that, he’d asked for a practice session, ostensibly to keep his skills sharp, but in truth, he’d needed to keep thoughts of his plan away from the surface of his mind, from where Kor Nas kept plucking thoughts, even when Sicarius tried to disguise them.
With few other options, he gently shook the prince’s shoulder. In the darkness, Sicarius couldn’t see Zirabo’s eyes open, but he sensed it in the sudden rigidness of the body, followed by the reaching for a dagger at his waist.
Sicarius had hoped curiosity might stay the prince’s hand, and that he might be led outside for a quick meeting, but it seemed not. Sicarius dropped a hand across his mouth and caught the wrist before the fingers found the weapon. Before the prince could recover, Sicarius hoisted him from the cot and propelled him through the tent flap, barely stirring it despite his captive’s attempts to struggle. The prince tried to yell, and some noise escaped through Sicarius’s muffling fingers, but by then, they were outside, and there were other sounds to mask their quick walk away from the Nurian tent.
This close to the city, with the potential for an attack high, a full night shift remained awake with numerous soldiers patrolling the camp, the inside as well as the perimeter. Sicarius hunted about for a quiet place to take his prisoner, one where they could talk openly, but that wasn’t far from the Nurian tent. From experimentation, he knew he had the freedom to walk off far enough to piss without the stone implant chiming an alarm in Kor Nas’s head, but not much farther.
A lorry rested in the shadows behind the chow hall. Lanterns burned inside the tent, and a few voices and the thunks of tiles being played drifted from within, but the back of the lorry lay dark and empty. Sicarius forced his prisoner in that direction. When they reached the cargo bed, and had to climb up to enter it, the Nurian tried to tear free. He was smaller and lighter than Sicarius, without a lot of muscle on his frame, truly a diplomat and not a warrior, and it didn’t take much to squash the outburst. In a few more seconds, Sicarius had him inside, pressed against a tall pile of bags of rice. There were benches along the walls, and two men might sit, facing each other to converse, but he had to convince the Nurian to talk to him first.
“I wish to speak with you, that is all,” Sicarius whispered. “It’s about Admiral Starcrest.”
The prince didn’t relax, but he did stop struggling.
“You did not seem to want him dead.” Sicarius loosened his grip on the man’s mouth, ready to clamp down again if anything except a quiet response came out.
He didn’t get a response at all. Not surprising. The Nurian would not see him as anything other than an enemy, one that couldn’t be trusted. That Kor Nas had… domesticated him would not change anything. Judging by the exchanges Sicarius had witnessed, the prince didn’t consider the practitioner a close ally anyway. He’d have to keep talking, convince the man they had a common interest. Too bad none of Amaranthe’s charisma had fallen into his boots the time she’d tried them on.
“I do not wish him dead either,” Sicarius murmured.
The prince snorted. “Of course not. He’s one of your people.”
“I’ve killed many of my people in the last two days.”
“Because Kor Nas forced you to through his artifact.”
“I’ve killed many Turgonians in the last few years too,” Sicarius said. “There are few who have ever mattered to me one way or another. Most of those who do-who did-are gone now.”
The prince, still pressed into the rice bags, heavy iron pots hanging on racks all about his head, said nothing. Sicarius searched for something else that might draw him into a conversation. He didn’t know how much time he had. As soon as Kor Nas woke up and found him gone…
“Except Starcrest?” the prince asked.
“Yes. I’ve only met him twice, but he was a brilliant commander in the eyes of our people. In my eyes as well,” Sicarius said, suspecting he’d have to be more open with this man than he was wont to be with others if he wanted to earn his trust in such a short time. “I read all of his books as a boy and those written about him.”
“Strange then that you chose to become an assassin.” Coldness had crept into the prince’s voice. “Enemy Chief Fox was honorable. You are Sicarius, are you not? You were Emperor Raumesys’s personal assassin. You came to Nuria over twenty years ago and killed my uncle. He was my father’s older brother, and he would have been Great Chief. Your emperor did not think my father, who was studying medicine at the time, would be accepted as a leader; he thought there’d be war.”
Now it was Sicarius who didn’t respond right away. He hadn’t known he’d ever been identified by the Nurians as the perpetrator of that assassination. Gaining the prince’s trust in this matter would be harder now. Dissembling or flattery would not do; he could only be blunt and hope the Nurian respected such traits.
“As you have been sent to take advantage of our succession issues, so I was sent two decades ago.” It’d been one of his early missions-he’d been only sixteen at the time-one that had involved months of travel, and it’d been the one that had finally convinced Raumesys of his capabilities and usefulness. “We do as our masters bid us to do. I was raised to be an assassin for the throne. For the first thirty years of my life, it was all I knew. Did you ever have a choice to do anything except serve your father?”