Harshini

begging for mercy. She was standing there, staring at him with utter contempt. There was not a trace of fear in her eyes, only a quiet confidence that she finally and unequivocally, had him under her control.

“Get the Squire out of here, Captain.”

Mathen was bundled from the room, leaving R'shiel, Garet, the tall stranger and three other Defenders to deal with Joyhinia. She watched them warily. She knew what would happen next. They would tie the First Sister hand and foot and make her grovel before that Harshini bitch, who would take her vengeance as slowly and painfully as possible.

Loclon knew it was over. His reign as First Sister was done. He had no idea how the Defenders planned to deal with the Karien host, but men like Garet Warner didn't undertake suicide missions. They knew they could win.

The First Sister would die. And R'shiel was standing there, staring at him like she had been planning his suffering almost as long as Loclon had been planning hers.

But Loclon wasn't done yet. His mind occupied the body of the First Sister, but his own body lay empty and waiting in a room in the First Sister's apartments. That was far from this room and probably not worthy of the attention of the Defenders who were taking up arms throughout the Citadel and turning on their Karien masters.

Loclon didn't stop to think about it. With a wordless cry, Joyhinia charged at the nearest Defender. The startled soldier raised his blade in surprise as she threw herself onto it, welcoming the pain as it tore through her body - the old woman's body that Loclon was suddenly desperate to be free of.

“No!” he heard R'shiel scream in anger, realising what he was doing.

But he was too quick for her warning, and perhaps only she truly understood what was happening. The Defender jerked his sword clear and she collapsed on the ground with a smile of intense satisfaction.

“Brak! Help me! Don't let her die!” R'shiel cried, rushing to the First Sister's side. She dropped to her knees beside the body of her foster-mother, her eyes glistening with furious, unshed tears.

Joyhinia didn't die immediately. The old bitch may have been witless, but her body clung tenaciously to life. For a moment Loclon was afraid that the wound had not been fatal. That would have been the ultimate irony - to survive, trapped in an old and ruined body racked with pain. R'shiel grabbed at her shoulders and shook the limp body in fury, but she was fading fast - too fast for R'shiel to stop it; too fast for her to call on her power to save Joyhinia's broken body. Through a red wall of pain Loclon saw her, saw the look of anger and frustration in her eyes as he robbed her of the one pleasure she wanted more than anything else in this life - his death. It made everything worthwhile.

Then he felt a sudden jerk, as if he was being ripped apart - as if some giant hand had reached inside of him and turned his body inside out. Darkness smothered him and he let out a wordless cry of triumph.

Joyhinia Tenragan was dead.

CHAPTER 40

Tarja slept surprisingly well the night before his hanging. Perhaps it was because he was clean for the first time in weeks. Or perhaps it was just that his fate seemed so inevitable he had given up worrying about it.

Whatever the reason, he woke at dawn feeling remarkably refreshed and far too healthy to dwell on the fact that he would most likely be dead in a few hours. As the small square of sky he could see through the cell's only window changed from pink to blue, he dressed in the uniform Andony had left for him and sat down to wait, feeling nothing but a serene sense of fatalistic calm.

It did not last long. Voices sounded in the hall outside, followed by the sounds of fighting, then the door to his cell flew open. The young man who opened it was wearing a captain's uniform, panting heavily and grinning like a fool.

“Captain Tenragan, sir! Commandant Warner sends his compliments and wondered if you'd like to forgo your hanging for a good fight, sir? Oh, and R'shiel said to say hello, too.”

Tarja stared at the young captain. He was beyond being surprised. He had ceased being amazed by his ability to escape certain death some time ago - about the time he had gone to sleep a broken man and woken completely healed in this same cellblock more than a year ago. And he was long past being astonished at R'shiel's ability to appear when he least expected it. She got him out of trouble almost as often as she landed him in it. But he was relieved that she was not the one who had found him. He had been ready to face death, but he wasn't sure he was ready to face R'shiel.

“Find me a sword.”

The captain laughed and tossed Tarja his own blade. He was obviously having the time of his life. Tarja snatched it out of the air and followed him into the hall.

Sir Andony and his men were lined up with their faces pressed against the wall as a score of Defenders expertly disarmed them. The young Karien knight looked stunned. He saw Tarja emerge from the cell and made to turn, but the Defender who stood behind him pushed him back against the wall.

“How far you think you get?” he snarled over his shoulder.

“Far enough,” Tarja replied with a grin, catching the mood of the Defenders around him. Every one of them looked delighted. These men were not trained to deal with defeat and the last few weeks with the Kariens in control of the Citadel had been eating away at them like slow burning acid. Now that they were finally doing something about it, there wasn't a Defender in the room who could hide his glee.

“What are you going to do with them, Captain... ?”

“Throw them into the cells for the time being,” the young man replied. “And the name's Symin. You probably don't remember me. I was a Lieutenant when you...”

“When I deserted? It's all right, Symin, you can say it.”

“Well, I just didn't want it to sound as if... you know...”

Tarja smiled at the young man's discomfort. “Yes. I know.”

“You not get away with this!” Andony insisted in his broken Medalonian. Tarja looked at him and shook his head.

“Sir Andony, why don't you just shut the hell up,” he said in Karien, “before I decide to shut you up myself.”

“Kill me if you want,” Andony declared angrily in his own language, lacking the words in Medalonian to express how he felt. “I will be welcomed into the House of the Overlord! You, on the other hand, will perish and freeze in the Sea of Despair! Don't you think we were expecting something like this? By now the Citadel is swarming with Karien troops. You won't get past the front door.”

“Well, that's our problem, isn't it?” He turned to Symin. “You do have a plan for getting past the front door, don't you?” he asked in Medalonian.

“We're taking back the Citadel,” Symin told him happily. “The gates are locked and by now we should have control of every key position in the city. Now we've got you out, we have to free Lord Jenga.”

“Where's he being held?”

“We thought he was here with you, but he must have been moved.”

Tarja's brow furrowed. He kicked an overturned stool out of the way, grabbed Andony by the shoulder and turned him around.

“Where have they taken the Lord Defender?”

“Go to hell, you atheist pig!”

Tarja hadn't really expected any other response. Andony tensed, obviously expecting Tarja to hit him. It would have been a waste of time. Andony wanted to suffer for the Overlord. Dying simply meant granting his wish by sending him to meet his god sooner. But if Tarja couldn't threaten his life, he could threaten his soul, and that, he suspected, would frighten him more than any promise of physical violence.

“Symin, did you say R'shiel was here?”

“Yes, sir.”