Harshini

will be scores of them, and they know the demon child is abroad. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a Watching Coven posted, just waiting for you to slip up.”

“What's a Watching Coven?”

“A group of priests who link through their staves, sometimes up to twenty or thirty of them. A Coven's power could give either of us a run for our money.”

“How can they be so strong? They don't have access to Harshini power.”

“No, they have access to a god who doesn't mind bending the rules.”

“The gods!” she muttered in annoyance. “It always comes back to them, doesn't it?”

“In the end, yes.”

She smiled grimly. “Don't worry, Brak. I'll watch myself. Squire Mathen isn't the only one who can get what he wants by subtle means.”

“Oh? You have a plan then?” There was an edge of scepticism in his voice that she didn't much care for.

“I'm going to take a leaf out of your book, actually. I'm going to go straight to the best source of intelligence in Medalon.”

“Garet Warner?” he asked with amusement. “I thought the first thing you'd want to do when you saw him again would be to run a blade through him.”

“No. Garet helped me as much as he could, I think. I'm not going to kill him. Unless he doesn't want to help us.”

Brak didn't answer her and she could not tell if he approved or condemned her intentions.

* * *

They reached the Citadel just on sundown, halting on the slight rise in the road to stare at the scene before them in horrified awe. A blanket of humanity covered the plains surrounding the Citadel: the Karien army camped about the fortress of their newest subject nation. R'shiel could not begin to guess their number, but as far as she could see, the grasslands were thick with tents and men and the panoply of war. Both sides of the shallow Saran River were crowded with them. The bridges curved gracefully out of the plain, the only part of it not swarming with the enemy. A pall of smoke from the countless cooking fires lay over the whole scene, touched with ruddy light by the dying sun, making it look like a painting of some nightmarish vision of a pagan hell.

“Founders!” she swore softly. “I didn't think there'd be so many of them.”

“Having second thoughts?”

She glanced at him, then smiled. “No. I figure between you and me, we have them outnumbered, Brak.”

He returned her smile briefly. “I think I preferred it when you were scared.”

They urged their horses on and rode down through the Karien host that was camped right up to the edge of the road. For the most part, the soldiers ignored them, too engrossed in their own business to care about two unarmed travellers on the main thoroughfare into the Citadel. She avoided meeting their eyes while despair threatened to overwhelm her.

As they crossed the bridge over the Saran River she looked up at the high white walls. Bile rose in her throat. There was a head, or the remains of one, mounted on a pike over the gateway. It had been there for some time. The eyes were empty sockets picked clean by the ravens and the skin of its face hung in strips of desiccated flesh. The hair, or what was left of it, was grey and straggling, but long enough to identify the hapless skull as once having been a woman. With sickening dread, R'shiel wondered who it had been, afraid that she knew. Unless the Kariens had murdered Joyhinia, there was only one woman in Medalon likely to incur such wrath and she had never deserved such a fate.

“Brak,” she said softly.

He followed the direction of her gaze then shook his head sadly. “Gods!”

“I think it's Mahina.”

He studied it more closely then shrugged. “There's no way to tell, R'shiel.”

“Loclon is going to die very, very slowly,” she said with frightening intensity.

* * *

R'shiel had feared the Defenders on the gate might recognise her, but she need not have worried. There were no Defenders guarding the Citadel. There was, however, a large contingent of Kariens and they were interrogating anybody seeking entrance to the city.

“Let me handle this,” Brak said.

“What are you going to do?” she asked suspiciously.

“Cause a fuss,” he told her as he kicked his horse forward. “Hey you! Do you speak Medalonian?”

R'shiel cringed as he called out to the guards, wondering what in the name of the Founders he was up to. This was hardly her idea of sneaking into the Citadel.

“Halt!” a Karien trooper called out in Medalonian - probably the only word he knew.

“Halt yourself!” Brak retorted. “I demand to see whoever is in charge!”

The guard looked at him blankly.

“Where is your superior, young man? I demand to see him at once!”

“Halt!” the guard repeated.

“What's the problem?” The man who spoke was a Defender. He emerged from the gatehouse with another Karien, this one wearing knight's armour. He was very young, just out of the Cadets, R'shiel guessed. She did not recognise him and that hopefully meant he would not recognise her.

“Ah! Someone who understands me!” Brak declared. “Young man, I demand to be taken to whoever is in charge of this... invasion, or whatever you call it, at once!”

The Defender translated Brak's words for the benefit of the Kariens, which explained his posting on the gate. His Karien was quite fluent but he wore a sullen expression. She could imagine how this duty must irk him. The Karien knight said something to the Defender, who then turned back to Brak.

“Why do you want to see Lord Roache?”

“Lord Roache? Is that who's in charge?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to the First Sister?”

“The First Sister is assisting Lord Roache and Squire Mathen,” the young Defender informed him in a voice loaded with scorn.

“Well then, I wish to see this Lord Roache, young man, to lodge a formal complaint against the behaviour of these... these... hooligans who have invaded our country. Do you know what they've done? Do you?”

“I can guess,” the Defender muttered. “What have they done?”

“What have they done? My shop is in ruins! My wife and I are homeless! My servants have all fled in fear and I am on the verge of destitution! I intend to see this Karien fellow and demand compensation.”

The Defender appeared genuinely amused at the idea. “Good luck, my friend, but I don't like your chances.”

“Well!” Brak declared indignantly. “We shall have to see about that! Come, Gerterina! Let us go find this Lord Roache person and set him straight on a few things!”

Brak urged his horse through the gate, with R'shiel following close behind. The Defender and the Kariens stood back to let them pass. As the young man explained what they were doing in the Citadel the Kariens roared with laughter, which followed them down the street.

“Gerterina?”

He shrugged apologetically. “It was all I could think of.”

“And that was your plan? Make such a fuss at the gate that they'll never forget us?”

“Sometimes it's easier to hide out in the open, R'shiel. People trying to sneak into the Citadel don't start by