Destins…
How could this be?
Then we held hands and stared up at the luffing of the canopy bed above us and breathed together in silence, enjoying the ecstatic connection of knowing we would never be alone again, and wondering how in the hell we would tell our respective leaders that we now had an alliance that neither side would ever be able to conquer or supersede…
Twelve
Fenvitz
“They will surely have a contingent of Readers guarding him, Duke Fenvitz,” Barzon said.
I looked at my First Lieutenant with a waspish smile. “Yes, indeed. Which is why it will be so important to get to him while he is alone. He is famous for being a Berserker, the infamous traditional warrior of Vailstor that adheres to traditions of certain styles of fighting and battle readiness. It won’t be hard to bait him into battle without his mental guards present. We will have to appeal to that sense of pride.”
“You think that he and the warriors he brought from Vailstor will come seek us out if we leave a battle invitation?”
“Yes. Something like that will work. I doubt he will be able to foment much loyalty amongst the remaining Harthen warriors. Renin and Damox are skilled military men, it is true, and they are faithful to Kajo, so they will be doing his bidding, of course. But, they won’t easily trust an off-worlder. Not without him proving himself first, of course. So, we won’t give him a chance to prove himself. Not publically, at least.” I rubbed my steadily whitening beard and flicked a knife off the table into a target at the far wall. It landed in a decent mark. I had been working on my precision. Running a Dukedom, my fighting skills had gotten out of practice. I hadn’t expected Kajo to depose me… I had foolishly thought I would have no more need of my fighting skills and had been content to settle into a lifelong rest of ruling my lands.
“So, a covert mission.” Barzon followed up my own throw with one of his own. He was my most skilled knife artist and it showed.
“Yes. We can sneak into the castle and control them during their next evening Berserker herb ceremony.”
“How will we know when they will hold one of those?”
“They will do it the evening before battle.”
“So, we set up a proposed battle, and then sneak into Harthen the night before…”
“Indeed.”
“We still have a few soldiers loyal to us within the ranks left at Harthen.” Barzon flicked his wrist and retrieved all our knives from the targets, floating them back to us.
“Yes, this is true. I will need you to contact them. Not mentally, as I am sure Damox has set up Readers to be watching for communique from the Kall to anyone in Harthen from us.”
“Ok, I will send in someone through the mines.”
“Good. Also, I want new sentries posted along the one route into Harthen from the Kall. I don’t know if Skarde might just try something stupid like exploiting that path and shut us down that way somehow. I don’t know the Vailstor tactics well… Our best chance is to control his mind, get him back to the Kall, torture him for information about what they are really doing with the frajili and use that information to win my place back in the Dukedom for favor with Kajo.”
“I will follow you all the way, my Duke.”
“I know you will, Barzon. And you will be rewarded.”
I lashed three of the knives back into the target and was pleased with their accuracy into the bullseye. I licked my lips and imagined it was Skarde’s head.
Soon. Soon I would control his head, quite literally. And that would be good enough.
Thirteen
Ilisa
“This tunnel is used to transport frajili from the Kall to Harthen in its raw, freshly mined form. It is the straightest route. There is a road aboveground, but you have to traverse the mountains. There is also the path the train follows, which transports supplies from Harthen to the Kall, but that’s rare and has limited passenger cars. This is the easiest path, which is why we can be certain to run into Kall guards if we go too deep within.” Bravo Renin shined his flashlight down the fifteen-foot wide, two-lane railed mining tunnel. “Don’t worry, we won’t go that far, Duke Skarde. We just want to show you the basics, as you requested.”
I walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Skarde as he stepped from railway tie-to-tie and peered through the dimly lit corridor. We had turned on the lights that lined the pathway, but they were dim. Had not been updated for years - budgetary disputes with the Kall.
Renin took the lead with Jalasa, one of the Vailstoran warriors. She hadn’t said much to me, just smiled with narrow eyes when she had spied Skarde and I holding hands that morning when she caught us after breakfast cozying in a corner by his quarters. We had sprang apart like teenagers, even Skarde had looked slightly abashed, but she hadn’t said anything about it. I wondered if Skarde had spoken to his Vailstorans about his connection to me. I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, though I was certain Modifi knew. He was so in tune with my mental connection. He had to sense something was different with me…
I had kept Skarde separate from everyone for three days, using the excuse of mental conditioning. Which was not far off. After that first true mental control, and the bizarre intervention by Kajo, I had been worried that Skarde was indeed compromised. His Will bent so easily to mine. I didn’t want him in a position to be making Duke commands until he was fully back within his own judgement. We had worked hard on his mental blocks, on regaining his Will away from mine, and it seemed he was doing much better. He certainly had a
