He gathered what little he knew about both men and stored it away for future use.
Even now, he told himself, in the face of this devastation, you’re scheming and plotting, old man. But why? He’d needed to see for himself that it was gone. He couldn’t wait for the birds or the other messengers-no one’s description, written or spoken, would’ve been good enough. He needed to see it himself.
Beyond that, what did it matter? There were two kings on the field, both having kin-clave with the fallen city. And both men were competent-albeit different-leaders.
You’ve seen what you came to see. Go home now. Return to your boat and your nets and your quiet life.
He turned away from the blasted plain below him, recovered his reins, and then turned back.
“There’s nothing here that I can do,” Petronus said out loud. “It’s not my place.”
But in his heart he knew it was a lie.
Jin Li Tam
Jin Li Tam knew they were close when the boy stopped. The magicks had not only enhanced her speed and her strength, but also her sight and her sense of smell. The trade-off was the buzzing in her ears and the shifting headache. Her father had seen to it that she was trained in all manner of subterfuge, including the use of stealth magick even though it was considered unseemly for a noble to use the Elder Ways.
She looked at the boy when he stopped, and what she saw raised the fine hair on her forearms. Alternating waves of anger and relief washed his face, and he kept looking behind them, pulling at the string.
“We’re nearly there,” she said in a low voice. “Keep moving.”
Then he d Smannt›id the unexpected. His hand snaked out, catching the magick pouch that dangled from her neck and tugging it so hard that the cord snapped. With his other hand, he snapped the silk thread that bound him to her. She reached out to grab him, but he was already running back toward the camp.
Cursing beneath her breath, Jin Li Tam followed him. She knew that she could catch him easily, but the sky above proclaimed the cusp of morning and every minute she spent going in the wrong direction was a minute closer to being caught. But she couldn’t leave the boy knowing what Sethbert’s state of mind was. She moved quickly after him.
She overtook him and caught his shoulder, spinning him around and to the ground. She pounced on him. “I don’t know what you’re playing at,” she whispered, “but nothing good awaits you there.”
He struggled against her, his mouth working and his eyes rolling.
I should’ve drugged him and carried him, she thought. He’s less well than I thought.
“I think,” a new voice said low in her ear, “that you should release the boy now and stand up slowly.” She felt the cold steel tip of a knife pressed in against her ribs, near the back of her heart.
She released the boy and did as she was told. Shadow hands grabbed the boy and pulled him to his feet. More hands gripped her and held her away from him.
A shadow face leaned in to hers. She could make out the blond stubble on the chin and could smell the roast pork on his breath. A single blue eye took form just inches from her own eye.
Another whisper cut the night, drifting across the forest. “What do you have there, Deryk?”
Jin stayed quiet.
“A woman and a boy.” The blue eye blinked. “She’s magicked, too.”
Another shadow slipped into the clearing. Jin Li Tam carefully looked around. She could see the patches in the soft forest loam where their boots were-or at least had been. She could pick out the faintest breeze as they shifted around her. But the magicks held, and unless they were inches apart, she could not see them. Still, standard Academy tactics suggested a half-squad loosely surrounded her.
She looked at the boy. He seemed unafraid. The pouch he’d taken from her was nowhere to be seen, and she wondered if he’d hidden it in his shirt. If so, they’d find it soon enough.
“The boy looks familiar to me,” the voice said again. “Aren’t you the lad we brought down from the ridge? The one with the wago S wir tn?”
The boy nodded.
The voice moved now across the clearing to Jin’s side. Hands fumbled with the hood of her cloak. “And who do we have here?”
Another eye appeared near her face-this one brown and speckled with green. It widened and he gasped. “Well this is a surprise.” A smile formed in the shadow.
“You’d do well to release us now and go about your business,” Jin Li Tam said, her voice barely above a whisper.
The scout captain laughed. “I don’t think you’ll convince us of that, Lady Tam… no matter how persuasive your courtesan ways may be.”
Jin Li Tam relaxed the muscles in her shoulders and in her arms; she willed her legs to unlock. “I can be very persuasive.”
The sky was purpling now, and she knew that when the sun rose, what little of the scout magicks that remained would be half as effective. There was no time for preferred strategies in the face of this present crisis.
“I’m sure you can-”
She dropped before he could finish his sentence, and as she fell to her knees, she flicked her wrist and felt the small knife’s handle fall into the palm of her hand. Pitching forward, she ran the knife once around the back of his boot as she rolled toward the boy. As she came up, her hand wove the air, the blade slipping in and out of cloth as she cut where the magicked scouts should be if they were following their own field guides. The howls told her she was not far from the mark.
The one behind her-the one whose knife had pressed into her back-growled and lunged forward, knocking her over. And then she was all knees and elbows, whipping the cloak around his knife hand as she brought her own blade up to the side of his throat.
“Be still,” she said. “You don’t have to die here today.”
But he moved and she didn’t give it a second thought. Father trained his daughters very well indeed. Pulling herself into a crouch, she looked around the clearing. She could smell the blood and she could see the wet patches of black on the gray shadows that lay groaning and thrashing on the ground.
The boy was gone now. She could hear him running full on for the Entrolusian camp, and she knew that she could catch him. But what would she do when she did? The look on his face spoke to more than just having left something valuable behind. It spoke of compelling need, of resolution, of a decision being made.
She would let him run. But she would also do what she could to protect him right here, right now. It didn’t matter that the injured scouts had recognized her-she would be under Rudolfo’s offered protection in a matter of hours. But they had also recognized the boy. And for whatever reason, the boy was returning to Sethbert’s care.
One by one, speaking quiet words of reassurance to the hamstrung scouts, she moved from man to man and cut each throat with careful, practiced precision.
She wiped the blood from her knife onto a twitching, silk-clad corpse and stood, facing west. Then she ran, and the thought came to her again, unbidden but true:
Father trained his daughters very well indeed.
Rudolfo
It took less than two hours for the apprentice to teach Isaak his trade. When Rudolfo returned to his tent, the metal man sat at the table, sifting through the pouch of tools and scrolls, and the man was gone.
“Do you know enough?” Rudolfo asked.
Isaak looked up. “Yes, Lord.”
“Do you want to kill him yourself?”
Isaak’s eyelids fluttered, his metal ears tilted and bent. He shook his head. “No, Lord.”
Rudolfo nodded and shot Gregoric a look. Gregoric returned the nod grimly and left in silence.