Never send a man to do a woman’s job, Ardela thought to herself, recalling the Brotherhood’s failed assault on the Ruby Tower a few months before.
She watched Ruhen put his hand to his temple and felt a cruel sense of satisfaction rise inside her. The venom was already starting to act. Dizziness was the first sign. She just had to hope that it was also a symptom of sea-diamond venom, the poison that had almost killed Aracnan. If even half of what the Brotherhood said about Illumene was true, he would know all the vicious little details; she didn’t need him to realise too soon a mage could be used.
Venn raised a hand towards Ruhen, but Ilumene grabbed it and shook his head. Ardela was too far away to hear their words, but she could imagine the debate easily enough: how long would they have? How long before the venom could not be purged and they would need a healer instead? How lethal was seadiamond venom when amplified by magical energy?
Ardela was fifty yards away when she saw Ilumene come to a decision. He wrenched the wrapped sword from his back and began to unroll it.
What in the name of Death’s bony cock is going on there? Ardela started to struggle against the bodies pushing her away, fighting to maintain her view. Another prickle went down her spine, this time one of foreboding. A sixth sense told her the glory of her success was about to be stolen, though she had no idea how Ilumene’s spare sword could help.
The last fold of cloth was removed just as a bulky man moved in front of her, shielding her view. Ardela bit back a curse and battered the man aside just in time to see a glitter of light emanate from the wrapped weapon. Ruhen put his hand around the shining sword and cried out in pain, his high voice clear against the scuffle of feet and muttered protests from the crowd. Ardela gasped in astonishment and stopped resisting the press of bodies around her, allowing herself to be carried away by the crowd.
What just happened? What the fuck just happened? she wanted to scream, knowing that if she did her death was assured.
What was that shining sword? How can a sword counteract ice cobra venom, for Fate’s sake? What just happened to my victory?
The prickle down her neck became a cold shard of ice.
Ardela took the long route to the Deragers’ wine shop, then spent an hour watching the Beristole, the dead- end street where it was located, as well as the surrounding tangle of alleys. A less paranoid agent might have missed the signs, but Ardela had survived this long only by assuming everyone was trying to kill her.
The busy dead-end street was a street market during the day. Normally that meant a dearth of city guardsmen around the Beristole — the merchants had licence to police the area themselves — but not today. And they’re not useless amateurs either, Ardela noted as she watched a thin prostitute briefly catch the eye of a man at a window over the road. There are altogether too many innocent little gestures going on in this street — they might still be a bit green and lacking subtlety, but whoever trained them knows what they’re about.
She’d stopped for a hurried scrub in the cracked basin at the inn where she’d left her belongings and a change of clothes. That turned out to be all for the better; if it was her they were looking for and she’d managed to get here first, she’d have not been getting out of the wine shop any time soon.
The prostitute loitered within the shelter of a tavern’s side door, keeping a low profile in a dress modest enough not to induce the ire of the local matrons. She could have been a merchant’s young wife herself easily enough, but for the symbols of Etesia, Goddess of Lust, incorporated into the posy of flowers on her bodice. At the front window was a barman who was paying too much attention to the mug he was drying, while over the street a pair of drivers lounged on their empty cart rather too obviously to be in the employ of anyone nearby.
Add that to the face at the window, a pair of labourers waiting for work on the corner and complaining about their feet, and a beggar near Ardela whose patter lacked the usual mix of resignation and hope, and she was pretty sure she had marked out each assigned section of the street.
Eight at least and almost certainly more on the Beristole itself. That’s a lot of bodies for one foreign agent.
She slipped away from the main highway and into a side street and waited by a street vendor’s stall to watch for anyone following. A scarf covered the uneven mess of her scalp, but there was little she could do about the bruising on her face and she saw a spark of something other than pity in his eyes as he turned to her.
‘Over from Burn today?’ he inquired in a soft accent, looking her up and down as he continued rolling out flatbreads with the ball of one hand. He was more than a head taller than Ardela, and white wispy tufts of beard that made a man of middle years look past his prime.
‘You think men round here don’t beat their wives?’ she murmured softly. She kept her eyes fixed on his cart as she spoke; he was a Litse; he would take her staring him down as more of an insult than her actual words.
The man shrugged and gestured to the small iron stove that comprised a third of his stall. Ardela nodded and he tossed on a handful of thin meat strips, so heavily spiced they were dark red. With a practised hand he kept the strips turning until they were starting to blacken then scooped them all up into a cooked flatbread. She dropped two copper houses into the dish behind his stove and accepted the small parcel of food, using the time to think on her predicament.
So what’s suddenly so interesting about the Farlan’s agent in Byora? And how was Derager’s cover blown in the first place?
She started eating, barely registering the strong flavour of the meat until her stomach reminded how hungry she’d been the last few days.
Well, why did I come here? Because Legana told me King Emin had a communication slate here. She paused mid-mouthful as realisation dawned: Damn, he must know. The Brotherhood adopted Derager as their agent here and moved the slate to his shop to coordinate their assault on the Ruby Tower. So somehow Ilumene must have found that out. Clearly he’s set up a separate intelligence network here — that couldn’t have taxed him too greatly, not when he knows the Brotherhood’s faces and their methods.
But this isn’t the usual surveillance; they’re ready to pinch someone — which means he’s willing to risk revealing what he’s found out — that taking me is worth the loss. But is it to find out what poison I used, or to prevent King Emin hearing what I saw after?
She finished the flatbread and turned away. She was certain now she’d not been spotted by the watchers, and even more certain she wanted to be clear of them as swiftly as possible.
Time to start the long walk home, Ardela realised, heading for her lodgings to collect her remaining belongings and plan a quiet exit from the Circle City.
Whichever’s true, there’s a reason I’ve forced their hand and that’s something King Emin’ll want to know. Might not be the glorious return I was hoping for, but it’ll have to do.
CHAPTER 4
They stopped only when the ghost-hour came, not speaking except to quarrel and even then fatigue and hunger meant those quickly petered to nothing. General Gaur was the last to dismount. While his men flopped from their saddles and sprawled on the crushed moorland grass, Gaur stared off into the distance. His furred face was matted with blood, his right arm bound in a filthy sling, but he made no sign of noticing his injuries beyond the deeper hurt he bore.
‘Gaur?’
There was no response, though a few soldiers glanced up at him nervously. The beastman had already demonstrated the murderous rage within him that day, and none of them believed it had subsided. Gaur had only ever cared for two living beings, Kohrad and- and the lord they could no longer name. The lord who’d been stolen from them by some monstrous magic of King Emin’s devising, the lord they would have gladly followed to the ivory gates and beyond. They still could not believe he was gone so entirely.
‘Gaur!’ The speaker towered over the Menin soldiers who scrambled to clear his path. Even Larim’s robes were torn and dirty and marked with blood, his own and that of many others. That the Chosen of Larat had survived at all was a testament to his white-eye heritage as much as magery. Of the troops he’d led to attack the south flank of King Emin’s fort, only the Byoran allies at the rear had survived, by abandoning their comrades.
