the way, do you still have that sword? Cold Heart or something.”
“Ice Heart. Kept it under my bed all those years.” Urake pulled back his cloak and drew the sword. Seeing that Redzyn suddenly looked a little nervous, he handed it to the colonel for a closer look. Redzyn accepted and began examining the blade carefully, murmuring all the time about the exquisite workmanship.
“They say that you held this blade to the King’s throat once.” Redzyn glanced up and scrutinized Urake.
“At least you haven’t accused me of trying to kill the King. I was misled as to his identity and removed the sword from Illiad’s throat as soon as I recognized him.” Urake crossed his arms and leaned against the wall opposite Redzyn.
“I suppose that in your line of work, no one tells you they want you to kill the King.” Redzyn handed the blade back to Urake carefully.
“The instant that I recognized the King, I knew that Reigns was behind it. That hafling already had more than enough power; besides, he wasn’t just after the King.”
“Very true. We should have put out a contract on Reigns. Enough money and if you had killed him all those years ago, we wouldn’t be hiding from him now.”
“That isn’t how I worked. I did the occasional paying contract, but only so I could afford to maintain my other activities. Even then, I never killed for the money.” Redzyn looked confused.
“Why did you do it then? For fun?”
“Most of the people that Reigns hired me to kill, I relocated and gave them a new life. I only killed the ones that were dangerous to the people.” Urake tried to explain.
“If this is true… then you must know a lot of people that hold a grudge against Reigns.”
“I do. Most of them work for me now.”
“Could you get any of them to come and swell our ranks? Only a few of the noble houses have given us their support so our numbers are a little slimmer than we had hoped.”
“House Inarack has assisted me in a limited manner. If they gave as much effort to your cause then they should have sent maybe twenty men?” Redzyn laughed before responding.
“I won’t ask how you know about their involvement. They have been our largest supporter. Most of our men are from their vassals, I for one. Mostly just low ranking men. They can’t send any more support without betraying themselves. But back to the original question, could you get any of your contacts to join us?”
“They trust me. They don’t trust much dealing with the government. For now, they would be better placed where they are. It isn’t like they would be doing much here besides taking up space and consuming supplies.” Urake saw Redzyn flinch and open his mouth to argue before thinking better of it and saying something else.
“You are probably right. I'm not at liberty to divulge more of the plan.”
“What is your opinion of Gifted people?” Urake abruptly changed the topic.
“All you ever hear about is one of them committing some atrocity. They seem inclined to harm others.” Redzyn parroted some of the prevalent propaganda that Reigns circulated in the hopes that he could convince people to turn in anyone suspected of being Gifted.
“You claim to hate Reigns yet you speak his words. Hypothetically, if the Princess was Gifted, what would your opinion be?” Urake pressed Redzyn on the point.
“Humph. Impossible although; hypothetically speaking, if she were, then I would be inclined to embrace anyone Gifted. As it is, I agree that they can’t all be evil. We could actually use the help. I hear that they can perform some incredible feats.”
“Indeed. Quite incredible. I witnessed several of them and have myself worked with a few over the years. How are things going here? Is there anything that I can do to help?” Urake had extracted what he needed to know from Redzyn and felt it safer to keep secret the identities of those he knew to be Gifted for the time being. Revealing what he knew would be more uncomfortable than dangerous.
“Oh, I suppose as well as they can be. I'm sure that there are a few things that you could do, but aren’t you exhausted?”
“For some reason, I'm not. I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to. Emeck is sure to be tired though, so he can have the bed for now.” Urake thought back and realized that he hadn’t felt tired since he and Emeck had saved Em’risi. Muscles had