was one of the rare men who looked more daunting half-naked than he did in full armor. There was no fat on his body, and where most quick swordsmen were built with lean muscles like Kylar, Garuwashi had the upper body of a blacksmith, each muscle sharply defined—and big. He had a smattering of scars on arms and chest and stomach, but not one of them was deep enough to have cut muscle and thereby impede his motion. They were the wounds of a man whose mistakes had been infrequent and small.
He shook his head as if to shake off sleep, but Kylar thought it was more calculated to rattle the bound ends of those sixty-odd locks in his own hair like a bowl full of marbles. Lantano Garuwashi grinned joylessly at Kylar. “I’ve been expecting you,” he said.
Kylar couldn’t believe it, but how else would he sleep so lightly that he woke at the sound of papers being turned fifty feet away? “If you expected me, there’d be fifty sa’ceurai ringing this tent.”
“I knew you were coming as soon as my sentry reported that someone tied his leggings together.”
Kylar’s jaw dropped. “He reported himself?”
Garuwashi smiled, self-satisfied. Kylar wanted to think of him as smug, but it was an infectious kind of smile. “I punished him lightly and rewarded him well—as he expected.”
“Son of a—” Every time Kylar took something for granted, he got hit in the face with it.
~Is there a lesson here?~
Kylar ignored the ka’kari. “So, if you expected me. . . . All this is guttershite.” He dropped the papers on the table. “There’s no supply train.”
Garuwashi’s grin faded. “It’s coming,” he said. “If you don’t believe me, wait two days. You tell me, do you think all those reports could have been written between the time you were playing with my sentry and now? That would be a massive effort, wouldn’t it? And it would be stupid of me to throw it away by telling you I expected you.”
Kylar blinked. “So what’s the game?”
Garuwashi began pulling on his clothes. “Oh, are we being honest with each other?”
“Might be quicker than lying.”
Garuwashi hesitated. “Fair enough. I’m preparing to be a king, Night Angel.”
“A High King?” Kylar asked.
Garuwashi looked puzzled. “You say this like it means something to you.”
Kylar cursed his ineptitude. “A rumor I heard.”
“Why would I wish to be a high king? Cenaria and Ceura are neither large nor distant from each other. Naming under-kings would simply give me rivals.” He waved it away and tied the thin silk robe around his waist. “In a year, I will be king of Ceura. I have a reputation now and most of it serves my purposes. But in our capital Aenu, the effete nobles call me a barbarian. ‘Skilled at war, yes, but can a butcher be king?’ This is how they attack a man who is too excellent. So I have a small interest in capturing this city without killing. We both know that I can take Cenaria. I let you read long enough to see that, yes?”
“So what do you want?” Kylar asked.
“Surrender. Unconditionally. I will give you my word to be merciful. We will leave in the spring to claim my throne, and once I take it, I will grant this realm once more to your queen.”
Kylar couldn’t stop a twitch of annoyance.
Garuwashi caught it. “You prefer Duke Gyre be made king? Done. I will even restore half of the royal treasury. Beyond this, my men will spend the winter wiping out the Sa’kagé. Tell me, is not that alone worth the price of feeding and housing us? Is it not worth more than half the treasury?”
~Especially considering that the treasury’s empty?~
Then Kylar realized Lantano Garuwashi knew that the Khalidorans had taken everything. Garuwashi was merely offering the queen a victory for her pride: You want half the treasury? Here’s half of nothing! And letting his Ceurans talk of Garuwashi remitting half of the Cenarian treasury would help his reputation for magnanimity, no matter how little half was.
“You would have Cenaria trust you? You’re saying this to a people who recently suffered under the most brutal tyrant imaginable?”
“It is a difficulty.” Garuwashi shrugged. “We can do this however you please. But if my men must pay for this city with their blood, they will take blood in return. Take those papers to the queen. Take a few days to see if I’m bluffing. And by the way, this attack this morning, it’s not a good