Modai were now dead. More than fifty meisters dead, at a stroke, without any explanation except rumors of some mage with more Talent than anyone since Ezra the Mad and Jorsin Alkestes. The Ceuran invasion ended before it began. The Godking’s son murdered just as he completed his uurdthan.
The Sa’kagé would have to be brought to heel, fires literal and figurative would have to be put out. Someone would have to answer for it. Neph Dada was trying to figure out how to make sure it wasn’t him.
“Why is there an empty pike on my bridge?” the God-king asked. “Anyone?”
Commander Hurin Gher shifted in his saddle, stupidly looking at the empty pike. “We haven’t found prince’s—I mean, the pretender’s—um, Logan Gyre’s body yet, sire. We, we do know that he’s dead. We have three reports confirming his death, but in all the fighting. . . . We’re, we’re working on it.”
“Indeed.” Godking Ursuul didn’t look at Hurin Gher. He was studying the faces of the royal family above him. “And this Shadow that killed my son? He’s dead, too?”
Neph felt a chill at the quiet menace in the Godking’s query. When the Khalidorans had first gone into the throne room, they thought some elite unit must have wiped out all the Khalidorans in the room, but Neph had been able to revive a man who’d had his feet cut off. He swore he’d seen most of the fight before he passed out. It was one man. A shadow. The Night Angel, he called him. The story was already getting out among the men.
A man who walked unseen, who could kill thirty highlanders and five meisters and one of the Godking’s own aethelings. A man impervious to steel and to magic. It was nonsense, of course. With all the blood they’d found, the man must be dead. But without a body. . . .
“Someone dragged his body away, sir. We followed the blood trail through the hidden passages. It was a lot of blood, sire. If it really was just one man, he’s dead.”
“It seems we have a lot of dead people without bodies, Commander. Find them. In the meantime, put up another head. Preferably one that looks like Logan Gyre’s.”
It wasn’t fair. Ferl Khalius had been among the first highlanders on Cenarian soil. He’d been one of the few to get off the burning, sinking barge, and that only because he’d had the wits to throw off his armor before jumping in, so he didn’t drown like so many others had. He’d joined another unit and fought barehanded until he could arm himself from the highlanders who died in the first assault on the courtyard. He’d personally killed six Cenarian soldiers and two nobles, six nobles if you counted children, which he didn’t.
And what had he been given to recognize his heroism, his cunning? The shit duty. Certain units were being given looting privileges—the good units on the west side, what the barbarians called the Warrens, and the best units looting the remains of the east side with the officers. Ferl’s unit was all dead, so he got assigned with clearing the rubble on the east bridge.
It wasn’t only dirty—it was dangerous. The wytches had extinguished the fire, but many of the planks were weak, some of them cracking or breaking if you stood on them. The pilings were fine: sheathed in iron, they were impervious to the fire, but you couldn’t stand on the pilings, so a fat lot of good that did.
The worst part of the job was the bodies. Some of them were like seared steak, crusted black on the outside, but cracked and oozing inside. And the stench of burnt flesh and burnt hair! He was picking through the bodies, taking whatever looked promising and dumping the bodies over the side of the bridge. Some of the units would be glad to have their dead back for proper burial, but Ferl wasn’t going to carry the damned stinking things across this bridge. To the abyss with them.
Then he saw a sword. It must have been under one of the bodies when the fire had started, because it was untouched. There wasn’t even smoke damage on the hilt. It was a beautiful blade, the hilt carved with dragons. It was the kind of sword that befitted the leader of a warband. Or a warlord. With such a sword, Ferl’s clan would hold him in awe. Awe he deserved. He was supposed to bring anything unusual he found