for the man Jarl had told him about and found him quickly. Baron Kirof had been a vassal of the Gyres. With his lord dead and his lands close to the city, he’d been one of the first Cenarian nobles to bend the knee to Garoth Ursuul. He was a fat man with a red beard cut in the angular lowland Khalidoran style, a large crooked nose, weak chin, and great bushy eyebrows.
Kylar moved closer. Baron Kirof was sweating, wiping his palms on his tunic, speaking nervously to the Khalidoran nobles he stood with. Kylar was easing around a tall, stinking blacksmith when the man suddenly threw an elbow into Kylar’s solar plexus.
The blow knocked the wind from Kylar, and even as he hunched over, the ka’kari pooled in his hand and formed a punch dagger.
“You want a better look, you get here early, like the rest of us did,” the blacksmith said. He folded his arms, pushing up his sleeves to show off massive biceps.
With effort, Kylar willed the ka’kari back into his skin and apologized, eyes downcast. The blacksmith sneered and went back to watching the fun.
Kylar settled for a decent view of Baron Kirof. The Godking had worked his way through half of the squads, and Sa’kagé bookies were already taking bets on which number out of each group of thirteen would die. The Khalidoran soldiers noticed. Kylar wondered how many Cenarians would die for the bookies’ callousness when the Khalidoran soldiers went roaming the city tonight, in grief for their dead and fury at how the Sa’kagé fouled everything it touched.
I’ve got to get out of this damned city.
The next squad had made it through ten men without one drawing the short straw. It was almost worth paying attention as the men got more and more desperate as each of their neighbors was spared and their own chances became grimmer. The eleventh man, fortyish and all sinew and gristle, pulled the short straw. He chewed on the end of his mustache as he handed the straw back to the Godking, but otherwise didn’t betray any emotion.
Neph glanced to where Duchess Jadwin and her husband were seated on the platform. “I examined the throne room, and I felt something I’ve never encountered before. The entire castle smells of the magic that killed so many of our meisters. But some spots in the throne room simply . . . don’t. It’s like there was a fire in the house, but you walk into one room and it doesn’t smell like smoke.”
Blood was flying now, and Garoth was reasonably certain that the man must be dead, but the squad continued beating, beating, beating.
“That doesn’t match what we know of the silver ka’kari,” Garoth said.
“No, Your Holiness. I think there’s a seventh ka’kari, a secret ka’kari. I think it negates magic, and I think this Night Angel has it.”
Garoth thought about that as the ranks reformed, leaving a corpse before them. The man’s face had been utterly destroyed. It was impressive work. The squad had either worked hard to prove their commitment or they hadn’t liked the poor bastard. Garoth nodded, pleased. He extended the vir claw again and crushed the corpse’s head. “Your sacrifice is accepted. Thus are you cleansed.”
Two of his bodyguards moved the corpse to the side of the platform. They were stacked there in their gore so that even though the Cenarians couldn’t see each man’s death, they would see the aftermath.
When the next squad began, Garoth said, “A ka’kari hidden for seven hundred years? What mastery does it bestow? Hiding? What does that do for me?”
“Your Holiness, with such a ka’kari, you or your agent could walk into the heart of the Chantry and take every treasure they have. Unseen. It’s possible your agent could enter Ezra’s Wood itself and take seven centuries’ worth of artifacts for you. There would then be no more need for armies or subtlety. At one stroke, you could take all Midcyru by the throat.”
My agent. No doubt Neph would bravely volunteer to undertake the perilous task. Still, the mere thought of such a ka’kari occupied Garoth through the deaths of another teenager, two men in their prime, and a seasoned campaigner wearing one of the highest awards for merit that the Godking bestowed. That man alone had something akin to treason in his eyes.
“Look into it,” Garoth said. He wondered if Khali knew of this seventh ka’kari. He wondered if Dorian knew of it. Dorian his first acknowledged son,