Alex stepped silently to the man and clapped a hand of steel over his mouth. He drew Senta-eh’s blade across his throat, cutting it all the way to the man’s spine. The guard made a soft gurgling sound, but never had a chance to cry for help. Alex let him slip to the ground, then hauled the body toward the forest. He stripped the uniform off the corpse and slipped it on.
The pants were much too long, but Alex rolled the legs up. He did the same with the sleeves. He would never pass a parade inspection—or any kind of inspection, really—but he hoped he would pass a cursory glance.
Like any army, there was a hierarchy to Draka-ak the Younger’s force. At the outer ring were the enlisted and the conscripted. Alex remembered that Klipta-ak had told him that he had been pulled from a building project to be part of the raiding party on Winten-ah.
A conscription policy like that made for large armies, but not necessarily well-trained fighting forces.
The grunts slept on blankets on the ground, huddled around fires. Unless one of them had a bout of insomnia, Alex wasn’t too worried about them. They were treating a few days of camping out at Rinta-ah as a three-day pass. He saw jugs of grog scattered about and the quiet sound of his footsteps were more than drowned out by the snores that came from all around.
One layer closer to the middle was the realm of the working soldiers. Men who actually knew what to do and when to do it. Men who ran herd over the grunts of the outer layer. Alex knew this was where he needed to be most cautious.
Luckily for Alex, these seasoned soldiers liked their creature comforts as well. There were two dozen smaller tents scattered about the inner ring. Alex guessed each tent might hold two or three soldiers. With the tents to protect them from the elements, they had let their fires burn down.
That made it easier for Alex to slip through their ranks unnoticed.
One ring closer to the middle was where the officers slept. These tents were bigger and made of a heavier canvas material. They were built with an opening at the top so they could have a fire inside.
Unless one of the officers felt a sudden need to empty his bowels, Alex wasn’t too worried about them.
In the center of the concentric circle was a single tent so grand Alex thought they could conduct a small circus under it. It was made of canvas with decorated cloth laid over it. The top of the tent was at least twenty feet tall, and there was a flag hanging limply from a flagpole.
Alex assumed there would be guards posted at the front entrance, if for show more than anything else.
The tent was big enough that it could have held two dozen men, but Alex desperately hoped there was only a single man asleep inside. If there were more, Alex would take them on, but that would ruin any chance of a quiet escape.
The worst-case scenario would be if there were women or children in the tent. Alex knew he would do what he needed to do to save Winten-ah, but he also knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he was forced to harm an innocent.
Alex probed along the edge of the back of the tent. There was an interior wall of soft cloth that seemed to be anchored by spikes, with additional weights distributed every few feet.
As quietly as possible, Alex lifted the heavy exterior canvas. He couldn’t help but wonder how they had managed to transport such a thing so far. He closed his eyes and imagined the poor horses that had to drag it over the mountains.
He pushed the rocks aside that were used as weights to hold the interior wall to the ground then waited in the shadows to see if that activity had been noticed. No alarm was raised, so Alex laid on his back and shimmied under the canvas.
Inside the tent, he sat silently and took in his surroundings.
There was an actual wood-burning stove in the middle of the tent, piped up to an opening at the top. A comfortable-looking hammock was stretched between two poles on one side and there were several chairs around a table. To the far right was a bed.
As quiet as whisper on the wind, Alex stood and took three steps toward the bed.
His heart leapt as he saw only a single figure there. From his standing position, Alex did a visual sweep of the room to confirm he hadn’t missed some servant sleeping on the floor.
Once he confirmed there was only the solitary figure, he moved closer to the bed and stared down at the sleeping figure.
It was a young man, but Alex could see the resemblance to Draka-ak. The coal-black hair, the heavy eyebrows and thick lips were a match. Based on the small communication Alex had shared with him, he knew that Draka-ak the Younger also shared an attitude with his father.
Alex gripped Senta-eh’s short sword in his right hand, then once again clapped a vice-like grip across the sleeping man’s face.
Instantly, the eyes flew wide with terror.
A grim-faced Alex Hawk was the last thing Draka-ak the Younger would ever see.
JUST PRIOR TO FIRST light, a young Rinta-ah girl walked by the encampment on the way to milk. The eerie quiet was broken by her shrill scream as she saw what was right in front of the entrance to the camp.
Dozens, then hundreds of Lasta-ah soldiers rushed toward the unearthly banshee wail.
One by one, they stopped in fear and superstitious dread. One by one, they were pushed out of the way by the horde behind them. The girl’s mother ran to her, saw what she had seen, and hurried her back to the village. The milking could wait.
Draka-ak the Younger’s second-in-command, a seasoned warrior who
