The Conqueror's Shadow (21 page)

“All right. The ogres are a good start, but they're not an army by themselves. We need soldiers. Lots of them.”

“Great,” Davro spat. “Know anyone with a few spare battalions lying around? Maybe you should blackmail a Guild.”

“Davro, if I have to hear that word one more time—”

“Gentlemen!” Seilloah barked. “Focus!”

Corvis, his face flushed, glowered at the ogre for another moment, then nodded once. “Fine. No, I don't know of any spare battalions. We need mercenaries.”

“You have to pay mercenaries,” Davro pointed out, also forcing himself to stay calm. “Unless you have a few chests of gold hidden someplace I don't even want to think about, we're short on funds.”

“There are ways to get money,” Corvis said. “The problem is getting
the soldiers. I've been away too long; I don't know where to go to gather men quickly. We can't exactly just start putting the word out. Audriss is sure to hear of it, and it takes too long.”

“Can't help you there,” Davro told him.

Seilloah shook her head. “Nor I.”

“I know. But I know someone who can.”

“Valescienn?” Seilloah asked.

Corvis nodded. “I seriously doubt
he's
retired. War was all he knew. And I know he's got connections. He helped me acquire a pretty sizable chunk of my army last time.”

“So what are we waiting for?” Seilloah asked. “Where is he?”

Corvis glanced downward. “Umm, about that …”

The ogre grinned. “What the Terror of the East is too embarrassed to admit to you is that he doesn't know. Seems the spying spell he cast on us didn't stick to Valescienn.”

“The spell on Valescienn failed?” she asked with some surprise. Davro's face fell when he realized she'd already known about the spell, and there was therefore no forthcoming explosion.

“It worked fine at first,” Corvis insisted.

“So when did it cut out?”

“I'm not entirely certain,” he acknowledged. “Truthfully, until I needed to find you and Davro, I hadn't tested the links in years. Never thought I'd need them again.”

“So how are we going to do this?” she asked.

“The old-fashioned way. I know where Valescienn lives, or at least where he used to. Kervone, a small village not too far from Denathere. If he's there, great. If not, we ask around until we find someone who can tell us where he's gone.”

“You realize,” Seilloah told him as they guided their mounts southward, “that if he
has
moved on, this could take a while.”

“You have other plans?”

Davro snarled darkly, but wisely chose not to comment.

The past couple of decades had not been kind to Evislan Kade.

Oh, he'd managed to make a halfway decent living, continuing his career as a bounty hunter and occasional assassin even in the wake of his embarrassing encounter with the young fugitive Corvis Rebaine. But it hadn't been remotely the same, not without Sunder hanging at his side. Kade was good, and always had been—but it had been the Kholben Shiar that made him
great
.

Now? Now, Kade was nearing the far border of middle age, reaching the point where no amount of constant practice and brutal exercises could keep his arm from slowing or his chest from aching after exertions that would, in the past, have scarcely winded him. A few more years, and he wouldn't be able to keep working at all, and he hadn't accumulated nearly enough coin to retire. Only the
great
bounty hunters ever struck it
that
rich, and of course, Kade wasn't great anymore.

But all that was about to change.

It had taken him years of searching, of squeezing in what research he could between the various commissions that paid for his room and board. He had delved into libraries deep in church basements, perused the private collections of a dozen nobles,
purchased many a drink for village elders who might just remember a tale with the tiniest smidgen of truth behind it. There were times, many times when the quest seemed hopeless, but giving up had never been even remotely an option. Not for someone like Evislan Kade.

And finally, those tales had borne fruit. His heart hammering in his chest, Kade had wound his way into a great stone ruin, a half-buried ziggurat beyond the farthest borders of Imphallion. There, legend had it, was entombed the great Emperor Sahn Vakraad, one of the last rulers of an ancient nation that had fallen generations before the time of Imphalam the First. And there, too—those same legends claimed—was buried alongside him the blade he wielded in every battle, a blade capable of cleaving through the thickest shields or most well-forged armors.

Many a pitfall and trapped portal strove to take Kade's life, but throughout the many winding corridors of Sahn Vakraad's tomb, he persevered. And in the end, he had prevailed. Standing in the sepulchre of the fallen king, he hefted overhead that ancient weapon, watched it reshape itself into his familiar longsword, and heard it speak deep in the recesses of his mind, even as Sunder had done.

Evislan Kade would be great once more. He had a few good years remaining, and in those years, his name would again be whispered in taverns and throne rooms. He would once again be paid the riches he deserved and which would keep him content through his twilight years.

His inner celebration lasted just as long as it took him to stumble exhaustedly back through the upper passageways and out into the surrounding wilds. There he stopped, blinking not so much at the brightness of the sun, but at the assembled throng awaiting him—and the dozens of crossbows that aimed their deadly projectiles his way.

From the heart of that gathering stepped a man without a face, clad in a peculiar armor of stone.

“I appreciate you doing all the hard work,” the faceless man told him, “but I believe you have something I want.”

The great bounty hunter—well, the
good
bounty hunter—Evislan Kade had to fight down the urge to whimper.

ONCE MORE
, Audriss and Mithraem sat beside a parchment-laden table. It stood within the Serpent's personal tent, an enormous pavilion sufficient to house a dozen men comfortably. Within were all the comforts of home: the table, several capacious chairs, a down mattress, and, finally, an iron maiden, just in case the warlord felt the need to deal with any prisoners personally. A marvel of engineering, it possessed levers to control the length and angle of its inner spines with pinpoint accuracy.

At the moment, the black-clad Serpent was seated in one of those comfortable velvet-lined chairs, his feet propped up on a matching footstool, one armored hand wrapped carefully around the stem of a silver goblet. He glanced passively at the thin vessel, swirling it slightly and taking a long drink, lifting his face mask just enough to reach his lips.

Mithraem paced in the center of the tent. His face was tense, and his eyes flickered on occasion to the third figure in the room, the large ogre who now knelt before them. (It was more than merely a gesture of respect. The tent, large as it was, wasn't tall enough to accommodate his height, and no one wanted to deal with Audriss's reaction if a carelessly placed horn was to rip open the roof.)

“Sit down, Mithraem,” Audriss offered magnanimously, his attitude blunted ever so slightly by the wine he'd consumed. “Relax. He's not going to be able to tell you anything now that he couldn't five minutes ago, is he?”

Mithraem ignored him, focusing instead on the ogre. “You were sent,” he spat coldly, “to keep an eye—” Audriss chuckled once at the unintentional pun; Mithraem continued to ignore him. “—on Rebaine and the others. Was there some misunderstanding? Did you find your task too difficult?”

“No, Master,” the thing said in Urkran's voice.

“So tell me again why you've brought an incomplete report.”

“As I said, Master, there was a great deal of commotion when they first reached the ogres. Between the return of Corvis Rebaine and the homecoming of the one called Davro, there was little to be done. When Rebaine and the chieftain finally decided it was time to negotiate, they went off into the chieftain's own home. There was no opportunity to get near.”

“So then, of all times,” Audriss asked from his seat by the table, waving the goblet gently for emphasis, “you chose
not
to fade into mist? You do it so often, I can't keep track of you lot as it is.”

The other three eyes in the room glared at Audriss and then turned back to regard one another.

“Well?” Mithraem said simply.

“I'm afraid that wasn't possible either, Master. While Rebaine and the chieftain were in discussions, most of the tribe gathered to celebrate Davro's return. It seems this one …” He gestured down at the body he currently wore. “… was known to look up to Davro, to emulate him, as do many of the warriors. There was a great deal of tale telling and drinking.” He shuddered in barely suppressed horror. “I had to eat
food!”
he spat. Then, more calmly, “There was no opportunity to slip away, not without arousing a great deal of suspicion.”

Mithraem shook his head, his dark hair glinting in the torchlight. “It would, I think, have been worth it. I doubt we'll have need of this particular vessel again—but I suppose one never knows, does one? Very well, so what, precisely,
do
you know?”

“I know that Rebaine
did
come to some sort of agreement with the chieftain. I've no idea what offers or guarantees might have been made, but the tribe is preparing for war. When Rebaine is ready to march, the ogres will be with him.”

Mithraem glanced over at the Serpent, distractedly examining one of his maps. “You heard?”

“Of course I heard, Mithraem! I'm aggravated, not deaf.”

“And do you not feel something should be done?”

“Eh.” Audriss waved a dismissive hand at him. “This was to be expected,
given Rebaine's past alliances. The ogres are a problem, but not an insurmountable one.”

“You're dismissed for now,” Mithraem told the not-quite-ogre. “We'll continue this later.”

Urkran nodded once and faded into mist, seeping out through the tent flap and leaving a bloody swath on the floor as he passed. Mithraem snarled after his absent minion, then he, too, departed.

/These people,/
Pekatherosh complained with an exaggerated sigh,
/are absolute murder on carpeting./

“This is a tent, Pekatherosh,” Audriss replied under his breath. “I haven't got any carpeting.”

/That's because they murdered it./

“I wonder,” Audriss muttered, “what sort of arrangement Rebaine came up with?”

/Worried about the ogres? I thought you said they weren't an issue./

“Not substantially. They're dangerous, and they'll cost us some troops if it comes to direct conflict, but we can handle them. I'm more concerned with Rebaine. He's raising his army, but so far he hasn't taken any more dramatic steps.”

/I told you it wouldn't be that easy. What you're trying to get him to do is, in his mind, a last resort. He'll need some additional motivation./

“Fine. Let's motivate him.” Audriss grinned behind the mask. “And I think I know just the man to do it.” He clapped once, his stone gauntlets producing a dull cracking sound on impact. Instantly one of his soldiers stood in the tent's entryway.

“Yes, my lord?”

“Find Valescienn. Bring him here.”

“COMMANDER?
Sir, you'd better come with me.”

Garras Ilbin, a career soldier in the Regent's Army of Imphallion, muttered darkly under his breath as he turned away from the current object of his attentions. The young woman only scowled in response to his apologetic grin, and wandered off.

He squeezed his eyes shut for one brief moment—gods save him
from fools and small villages—and ran a leather-gloved finger across his red-brown mustache.
Can't face the boys with ale in the facial hair; wouldn't be proper
.