‘You speak of your half-brother,’ Sethvir rebuked, hoping against chance to shock back some buried spark of conscience.
But Desh-thiere’s curse had imbedded irrevocably deep, and old malice resurfaced in force. ‘He’s bastard-born, and no relation of mine.’
‘Ill-feeling cannot alter fact, Teir’s’Ilessid,’ Asandir cracked back. ‘You go to spill a kinsman’s blood.’
Lysaer was unmoved. ‘I go to redress an injustice. Mark this. When I find your lying get of a s’Ffalenn pirate, I’ll see him dead and thrown in pieces to the headhunters’ pack of tracking dogs!’
‘Then we have no more to say.’ Asandir arose, cold to his core. He stepped over Dakar, who drowsed in an inebriated heap.
Lord Diegan, commander of Etarra’s garrison was first to move toward the door the sorcerer swung open. Tight-lipped in vindication, he said to Lysaer, ‘I admire your ambition. But first, my friend, we have to hunt down this prince of shadows.’
‘He’s prince of nothing! And finding him should be simple.’ Lysaer matched step beside the elegant Lord Commander. Urgently speaking, he departed without a backward glance.
From the wardroom, Lord Diegan’s shout cast back echoes. ‘Gnudsog! Forget about the spare arms. Assemble a patrol double-quick! Dispatch them to the warehouse district to scour the alleys. If fortune favours, the Master of Shadows will be there. Hustle, and we’ll take him in the act of freeing convicts!’
The wardroom doors boomed closed. Shut off from the din in the streets, a contrary draught eddied between bowstaves and halberds and showered red sparks from the torchflame. Left amid crawling shadows and the slow- falling dust of the armoury, Asandir sat on a shot cask. The glance he cast after the vagrant breeze was balefully focused and grim. ‘Arithon’s been and gone from the warehouse quarter, I trust.’
Luhaine’s staid tones answered. ‘I couldn’t be sure. The child convicts were released within the hour. The locksmith and the waggoners hired to free them were paid off with gold acquired from pawning a crown emerald. The gem took some trouble to recover.’
‘The children?’ Sethvir cut in. For a fast check into the district had revealed the same wagons overturned by the fury of the mob.
‘Dispersed. They’ll hide like rabbits, then bolt for open country as they can.’ Luhaine resumed his report. ‘Arithon’s horse is gone from the stables. A half-canister of the narcotic herb tienelle was taken from Sethvir’s saddle-packs.’
The Warden of Althain brightened. ‘Let Arithon keep it. He’s not unschooled in its use, and against Etarra’s armed garrison he’s going to need every advantage.’
‘So I thought, also.’ Luhaine paused. ‘I contacted Kharadmon.’
‘To reverse the storm?’ Sethvir sucked in his cheeks to stifle a harried, madcap smile. ‘But that’s brilliant! If Diegan’s going to roust out the garrison, let his search-parties rust their gear to a fare-thee-well in a cold northeasterly downpour.’ Next moment, his expression distanced into self-satisfied relief. ‘Bless Ath, he’s shown sense.’
‘Arithon?’ Asandir cut in. ‘You found him?’
No small bit irked, Luhaine said, ‘How? Where?’
Long used to untwisting the myriad affairs of five kingdoms, the Warden of Althain tugged out a tangle he found in his beard. ‘There’s but one dun mare in this region with a white splash marked on her neck.’ Then, in delight undimmed by the reproof of expectant colleagues, he answered the original question. ‘She’s past the main gate, and driving at speed down the north road. Which means Arithon eventually must ride into the patrols of Steiven, regent of Rathain.’
‘That’s no good news,’ Dakar grumbled from his pose of flat-out prostration.
Luhaine was swift in agreement. ‘Steiven has just one ambition, and that’s to collect every Etarran guildmaster’s severed head.’
Sethvir threw up his hands. ‘Bloody war’s a fine sight better than the s’Ffalenn royal line cut dead by a sword in an alley!’ He subsided in belated recollection that Luhaine was yet uninformed; the renewed priorities forced on them by the Mistwraith’s warped ties to humanity had yet to realign his opinion.
While Asandir in tart chastisement jabbed a toe in the ribs of his apprentice, who seemed inclined to drop off snoring. ‘Arithon dead, don’t forget, would doom your Black Rose Prophecy to failure.’
‘You
Shadow lay thick over Etarra’s streets, the torches in their rusted brackets smothered to haloes of murky orange. The strife, the cries, the clash of steel weaponry and Gnudsog’s gruff oaths sounded eerily muffled; as if the unnatural darkness lent the heavy air a texture like wet batting. Kept insulated from the jostle of the mobs, embedded like fine treasure amid the fast-striding tramp of armed escort, Diegan regarded the ally but lately forsworn from the Fellowship sorcerers’ grand cause.
Lysaer looked angry-pale: white skin, gold hair, bloodless lips. His expression remained remote as smoothed marble as they passed some rich man’s door-page being bullied by ruffians from the shanties. The curve of Lysaer’s nostrils did not flare at the stench of spilled sewage that slimed the cobbles. His wide, light brows never rose at the measures the guard escort took to clear a rampaging gang of masons who had smashed a butcher’s door to steal cleavers. Torches and halberds reflected in those eyes; but their gem-stone hardness stayed untouched.
From a side-alley too squalid for lanterns a woman cried entreaties. A man’s bellowed curses ended with the sound of a smack against flesh, and a cur with raised hackles raced into the vanguard ranks, caught a boot in the flank, and tumbled yelping. The advance guard turned another corner in their progress toward the town hall, and Lysaer stepped over the crippled dog with barely the flicker of a glance.
Diegan fastened his braided cloak ties against a shiver of discomfort. ‘Is it true?’ he asked softly.
That splintered sapphire gaze disconcertingly turned on him. ‘What?’ Lysaer blinked, and seemed partially to come back to himself. ‘Is what true?’
