The barrack door slams, rattling the wall. I look around the corner again. The men inside the building have left. All the soldiers are moving to the center of camp.
“Let’s go.” I tug on Rohan’s sleeve. “Stay close.”
We slip into the empty tents. Rohan does as I ask, sticking to my side. I toss him a soldier’s jacket that was left behind. I am still wearing mine. He slips it on, and the too-long sleeves hang past his knuckles. I hand him a machete and select a khanda for myself. The familiar military-grade sword feels right in my hand, but the wrongness of standing in the imperial army’s camp as a traitor makes me restless.
If I do not belong here, where do I belong?
Gripping our blades, we tiptoe to the nearest barrack, and I open the heavy door. Bunks and cots and personal bags fill the one-room building. I back out, and we go to the next barrack, and then the next. I assumed the demon rajah would hold captives in a more secure shelter than a tent, but none of the barracks we investigate house prisoners.
At my questioning glance, Rohan shakes his head. He has not heard our siblings. I consider returning to Yatin and Natesa, but our search has led us deep into the campsite. The soldiers congregate ahead. We work our way through them in search of another barrack, skimming the perimeter as much as possible. When we have no choice but to move within the throng, a voice cuts through the night.
“Welcome, troops!”
Rajah Tarek stands above the crowd on a platform that rings the outpost’s water tower. His dark hair is trimmed short, like his tidy beard. His rather average physique is made regal by the finery of his tunic and trousers. His puffed-out chest and calculating gaze exude an inherent arrogance that demands esteem. Even when he stands on equal ground with others, he has a habit of looking down his nose at people. His charismatic, boyish smile and smooth voice counterbalance his majestic poise, trickeries that convince his subjects they can trust him. A deception I once fell for.
He’s not Tarek, I remind myself. Or his son. Rohan tugs on my jacket, warning me to stay back, but I slip farther into the audience, so we’d better blend in.
“You are a marvelous sight!”
Criers repeat the demon rajah’s pronouncement to the outer reaches of the audience. The soldiers cheer for their leader. But this counterfeit version of Tarek possesses a malevolence to his voice that the tyrant rajah was careful not to exhibit in public.
The demon rajah—Udug—lifts his arms. “Today, we welcomed five hundred men into our ranks! Many of them were run out of Vanhi and their comrades were beheaded by bhutas.” Udug sneers on the word. “They tell me the bhutas’ corrupt leader, the traitorous warlord, sits on my throne. But his rebellion will not prevail! With the gods behind us, we will unseat these vermin from our imperial city and send every last soulless demon back to the Void!”
The men applaud a liar. He is the vermin they need to eradicate.
Udug signals to guards waiting below. Up the ladder, they haul a man wearing a green uniform—a Janardanian soldier. His yellow armband distinguishes him as a bhuta. They throw him onto the platform at the demon rajah’s feet. The prisoner’s wrists bleed from where his captors let his blood.
“This abomination is a Galer,” announces Udug. The spectators boo and spit, and Rohan sidles closer to my side. “This demon can read your thoughts. He can hear your inner fears, even from far away, and use them against you.”
Rohan blanches. Galers can do no such thing.
“Our prisoner told me the warlord is aware of our approach. The rebels are fortifying Vanhi in preparation for our arrival. But the warlord does not know all.” Udug’s smugness drives fear into my gut. “We have contacted four more imperial outposts. All of them have employed their units to join us. By the time we reach Vanhi, we will be ten thousand men strong!”
A hard lump drops in my belly. The army will be more than double the size of the Lestarian Navy.
Rohan’s voice trembles in my ear. “I don’t know how the demon rajah is managing it, but he’s directing sound away from camp.”