After a number of passes the Seti drove the Imperial cavalry from the field. Many bright and shining Untan family pennants had fallen to the man leading the charges. This man, the Wildman, peeled off from the column with a small escort and rode back to Ullen's position. He reined in his mount, hooves stamping. Blood and lather soaked the animal's forequarters. The rider's lances were all gone, as were his javelins. One war-axe was missing, shattered perhaps. His armour was rent across the hips, shiny where blows had fallen, scraping the iron. His helmet was gone and blood sheathed his neck. Blood and gore darkened his gauntlets. The fellow appeared to be ignoring wounds that would have left anyone else prostrate.
‘My thanks,’ Ullen called to him. ‘Though I do not think it is enough.’
The man wiped a handful of bunched cloth across his face, gestured back to the field. ‘It isn't. Let's just call that the settling of old debts.’ He regarded Ullen levelly, his eyes hardening. ‘What will you do? Will you yield the day? Men and women are dying down there for no good reason.’
Ullen was already nodding. Yes, that was all that was left, though he could not bring himself to actually speak it. He gestured to a messenger, swallowed the tautness of his throat. ‘Raise the surrender.’ This messenger glanced about the assembled staff, none of whom spoke. His face paled to a sickly grey but he nodded, kneed his mount forward.
The Wildman inclined his head to Ullen in grudging admiration of what it must have taken to reach that decision, and he turned his mount to descend again to the battlefield.
‘Bala!’ Ullen called, his voice savage.
‘Yes, yes,’ she answered, just as testy. ‘I am still here. Do you think I have fled already?’
‘No, of course not! Send word to Urko, Choss and V'thell. Surrender.’
‘Shall I inform the Imperial High Mage?’
Ullen's clenched stomach lurched. ‘The what?’
‘She's been watching. Had I intervened in the battle she would have struck. And though I do not consider her worthy of the title, her attack would no doubt have eliminated you and your men.’
‘Thank you so very much, Bala,‘ Ullen ground out. He waited for a retort but none came. ‘Bala?’ Silence. Ullen dismounted, walked to the carriage on legs weak and numb from sitting all day. He wrenched open a door and peered in. Empty. Completely empty. Not even a dropped cloth or a fleck of dirt.
Possum spent the entire battle keeping an eye on the grand pavilion raised to house Laseen. Certainly, a number of Claw operatives had no doubt been posted by his lower echelon commanders. But Possum no longer knew whom to trust. Frankly, he'd always been of that policy, and it had served him well all through his career, saving his life more often than he could count. Now, however, he had more than his usual nagging suspicions and doubts. He had material indications of a parallel command structure organized by a subordinate, Coil, pursuing her own ends. This he could not tolerate – mainly because those ends no doubt did not include him.
And so he did what he did best, watched and waited. Laseen had imposed a moratorium against any head-hunting for the time being and so he did not have to be on the job. He could wait. He did not think Coil so clumsy as to ignore that edict. He stood, sorcerously hidden, in the shade of a small tent that offered a view of the rear of the Imperial residence, and waited. He kept watch both over the mundane grounds and through his Warren of Mockra.
The noise and turmoil of the battle to the west rose and fell and frankly Possum did not give a damn. It was not his job. Staffers, higher-ranking soldiers and nobles came and went. Noncombatants as well – servants, cooks, craftsmen, chamberpot emptiers – everyone necessary to the maintenance of such an august dwelling. It was these who interested Possum the most. The faceless servants who came and went without notice. How often had he himself taken advantage of the selective blindness of his social betters?
The day waned; the late afternoon sun broke through to clear sky far to the west and found his position against the tent canvas. Possum squinted. Sweat dripped down his arms. Nothing. All day and nothing. He was offended… No, more than that: he was disgusted! What was his profession coming to? Surely he was not alone in his – how should he put it… his professional curiosity? He decided to replay through the day's comings and goings, searching for a pattern. Some betraying slip or detail. And after sorting through so many individual moves, glances and gestures of those who passed, he believed he found it. A woman. Civilian. An officer's woman – wife or mistress. Seven times the woman's errands and apparently random wanderings had taken her in a near circumnavigation of the tent's walls. And her walk and carriage! No camp-follower her. Each time she made a show of coming to watch the battle but she spent more time studying the tent and its guards than looking west. A pity, really; more training and experience and she'd be almost undetectable.
Possum edged up and down slightly on his toes to keep his legs limber, ran his fingers along the pommels of the knives slipped up his sleeves. Come back, little lady. Who are you? But more importantly – who do you work for?
He waited and he waited. The noise of battle waned. A flurry of message riders came and went. Had someone won the blasted dreary battle? They had, he supposed. A crowd gathered of the camp-followers, wounded and servants, kept distant by the Imperial guards. Yes, from everyone's excited smiles he imagined they must have won. And then there she was. He stepped out after her, wrapped in veils of Mockra, deflecting attention.
No raised Warren flickered about her that he could sense. She gawked westward for a time, shot glances to the Imperial tent, then headed away back to the encampment. A slim wisp of a thing; a pleasure to watch. Long black hair. From time to time Possum wasn't the only one following her. Her path took her back to the officers’ tents. He saw no gestures that betrayed her awareness of his presence. She entered the tent of a rather lower-ranked officer, a lieutenant perhaps, lifting the canvas flap then letting it fall behind her. Possum paused next to the neighbouring tent. Really, now. That's a give-away. There's no way talent like that would settle for a lieutenant. Her walk alone rated a captain. He sensed as passively as possible past and through the tent. No active Warren magics that he could detect. She was there, sitting. Very well. He dropped his favoured blades into his hands. Time to earn his pay.
He pushed aside the tent flap, his Warren dancing on the tips of his fingers, both blades raised, faced where she had been sitting and a hand clasped itself at his neck like the bite of a hound and pushed him to the dirt floor. Face jammed into the dirt he slashed, kicking. He raised his Warren once again but the hand clenched even impossibly tighter, grating the vertebrae of his neck. Such strength! Inhuman! A woman's voice breathed in his ear: ‘Don't.’
He recognized that voice. He'd heard it before the day of the attack of the Guard. This was the second time this girl-woman had got the better of him. He let his Warren slip away. ‘Good.’ She yanked the blades from his hands as if he were a child, dug one against the side of his neck. ‘Now,’ she whispered, so close her breath felt damp. ‘What should I do with you? By that I don't mean let you go… oh, no. What I mean is – how shall I kill you? I will let you choose. Do you want me to push this blade up under your chin or into your eye? Shall I ease it through your ribs into your heart?’ She crouched even lower so that her lips touched his ear. ‘Tell me what you want,’ she breathed huskily.
Despite the stark certain knowledge that he was about to die a lustful rush for this girl-woman murderess possessed him. He wanted her more than he could express. He opened his mouth to tell her what he wanted when the tent flap opened and a woman shouted deliriously, ‘They've surrendered!’ Then she screamed.