“The Count!” came an anguished sighing cry from half a dozen throats at once, and all fighting ceased instantaneously.
Mandralisca had given no indication that he intended to follow them to this place. So far as anyone knew, he planned to remain behind in his tent while they went in search of the Vorthinar lord’s stronghold. But here he was, all the same, he and his bandy-legged little aide-decamp Jacomin Halefice and a bodyguard of half a dozen swordsmen. The men of the scouting party, caught like errant children with smudges of jam on their faces, stood frozen, staring in horror at the fearsome and sinister privy counsellor to the Five Lords.
The Count was a lean, rangy man, somewhat past middle years, whose every movement was astonishingly graceful, as though he were a dancer. But no dancer had ever had so frightening a face. His lips were hard and thin, his eyes had a cold glitter, his cheekbones jutted like whetted blades. A thin white vertical scar bisected one of them, the mark of some duel of long ago. As usual he wore a close-fitting full-body garment of supple, well-oiled black leather that gave him the shining, sinuous look of a serpent. Nothing broke its smoothness except the golden symbol of his high office dangling on his breast, the five-sided paraclet that signified the power of life and death that he wielded over the uncountable millions whom the Five Lords of Zimroel regarded, illicitly, as their subjects.
Shrouded in an awful silence now did Mandralisca move among them, going unhurriedly from man to man, peering long into each one’s eyes with that basilisk gaze from which you could not help but flinch. Thastain felt his guts churning as he awaited the moment when his turn would come.
He had never feared anyone or anything as much as he feared Count Mandralisca. There always seemed to be a cold crackling aura around the man, an icy blue shimmer. The mere sight of him far down some long hallway inspired awe and dread. Thastain’s knees had turned to water when Criscantoi Vaz had told him, after selecting him for this mission, that it would be headed by none other than the formidable privy counsellor himself.
It was unimaginable, of course, to decline such an assignment, not if he hoped to rise to a post of any distinction in the service of the Five Lords. But throughout the whole of the journey out of the Sambailid domain and up into this region of forests and grassland where the rebels held sway he had tried to shrink himself down into invisibility whenever the Count’s glance ventured in his direction. And now—now—to be compelled to look him straight in the eye—
It was agonizing, but it was over quickly. Count Mandralisca paused before Thastain, studied him the way one might study some little insect of no particular interest that was walking across a table in front of one, and moved on to the next man. Thastain sagged in relief.
“Well,” Mandralisca said, halting in front of Criscantoi Vaz. “A little bit of knockabout stuff, was it? Purely for fun? I would have thought better of you, Criscantoi Vaz.”
Criscantoi Vaz said nothing. He did not flinch from Mandralisca’s gaze in any way. He stood stiffly upright, a statue rather than a man.
A sudden gleam like the flicker of a lightning-bolt came into the Count’s eyes and the riding crop that was always in Mandralisca’s hand lashed out with blinding speed, a scornful backhand stroke. A burning red line sprang up on Criscantoi Vaz’s cheek.
Thastain, watching, recoiled from the blow as if he himself had been struck. Criscantoi Vaz was a sturdy-spirited man of much presence, of great sagacity, of considerable quiet strength. Thastain looked upon him almost as a father. And to see him whipped like this, in front of everyone—
But Criscantoi Vaz showed scarcely any reaction beyond a brief blinking of his eyes and a brief wince as the riding crop struck him. He held his upright stance without moving at all, not even putting his hand to the injured place. It was as if he had been utterly paralyzed by the shame of having been discovered by the Count in such a witless fracas.
Mandralisca moved on. He came to Agavir Toymin and struck him quickly with the crop also, almost without pausing to think about it, and, reaching the end of the row where Stravin of Til-omon stood, hit him also. He had put his mark on the three oldest men, the leaders, the ones who should have had enough sense not to fight. To the others it was a sufficient lesson; there was no need actually to strike them.
And then it was done. Punishment had been administered. Mandralisca stepped back and scrutinized them all with unconcealed disdain.
Thastain once more tried to shrink himself down into invisibility. The intensity of Mandralisca’s frosty glare was a frightful thing.
“Will someone tell me what was happening here, now?” The Count’s gaze came to rest once again on Thastain. Thastain shivered; but there was no recourse but to meet those appalling eyes. “You, boy. Speak!”
With extreme effort Thastain forced a husky half-whisper out of himself: “We have found the enemy keep, your grace. It lies in the valley just below us.”
“Go on. The fighting—”
“There was a dispute over whether to go down to it immediately and set it on fire, or to return to your camp for further orders.”
“Ah. A dispute. A dispute.” A look that might almost have been one of amusement came into Mandralisca’s stony eyes. “With fists.” Then his visage darkened again. He spat. “Well, then, here are the orders you crave. Get yourselves down there at once and put the place to the torch, even as we came here to do.”
“It is guarded by Shapeshifters, your grace,” Thastain said, astonishing himself by daring to speak out unbidden. But there it was: his words hung before him in the air like puffs of strange black smoke.
The Count gave him a long slow look. “Is it, now? Guarded by Shapeshifters. What a surprise.” Mandralisca did not sound surprised, though. There was no expression whatever in his tone. Turning toward Criscantoi Vaz, he said, “Well, they will burn along with everyone else. You: I place you in charge. Take three men with you. The enemies of the Five Lords must perish.”
Criscantoi Vaz saluted smartly. He seemed almost grateful. It was as though the blow across the face had never occurred.
He glanced around at the group of waiting men. “Agavir Toymin,” he said. Agavir Toymin, looking pleased, nodded and touched two fingers to his forehead. “Gambrund,” said Mandralisca next. And, after a brief pause: “Thastain.”
Thastain had not expected that. Chosen for the mission! Him! He felt a great surge of exhilaration. The thumping in his chest was almost painful, and he touched his hand to his breastbone to try to still it. But of course he would have been chosen, he realized, after a moment. He was the quickest, the most agile. He was to be the one who would run forward to hurl the firebrands.
The four men descended in a triangular formation, with Thastain at the apex. Gambrund, just behind him, carried the bundle of firebrands; flanking him were Criscantoi Vaz and Agavir Toymin, armed with bows in case the sentries saw them.
Thastain kept his head down and went forward with great care, mindful of the helgibor he had seen and such other low-slung predators of the grassland that might be lurking hidden in all this thick growth. The bright glassy sheen of the tawny grass, he realized now, was not just a trick of the eye; the blades did not simply look glassy, but actually felt like glass, stiff and and sharp-edged, unpleasant to move through, making a harsh whispering sound as he pushed them aside. They provided a slippery surface to walk on when they were crushed underfoot. Every step Thastain took was a tense one: it would be all too easy, sliding and slithering as he was, to lose his footing and go stumbling headlong down into the enemy camp.