down the first wide hallway to the right. Noetos looked twice at an odd suit of armour standing in an embayment, obviously decorative rather than functional given its enormous height and girth.
“Why did he leave us alive?” Duon asked him.
“At a guess, I’d say he wants as much fighting as possible while he deals with Umu in his own way.”
“So why not stand back and let him?”
A good question. “In case of what might happen if he fails. Or succeeds.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We don’t have to understand,” Noetos said. “We’re soldiers. We’ve been given our orders. Let’s seek to carry them out.”
The hallway ended in a locked and barred door. Barred from their side, fortunately, but the lock defeated their attempts to fiddle it open.
“Break it down,” Noetos said, pointing to Duon and Cyclamere. “We’ll charge it together.”
The swordmaster pursed his lips but did not offer a comment. The three men took ten steps back into the corridor.
A shout rang from behind them. Soldiers.
Cylene put her hand on a door in the left wall. “I’ll just look in here, shall I?” she asked.
“Now!” Noetos called. The three men crashed into the door, shoulders forward, and ended in a heap on the floor. The door had rattled in its frame but no more.
“No time for another try,” Duon said, picking himself up. Ten grey-liveried men were almost upon them.
“Follow Cylene!” Noetos ordered the others, as the swordsmen readied themselves.
The grey-clothed men halted just beyond reach. “Surrender,” the oldest of them barked.
“Certainly,” Noetos growled, and the man nodded. “We accept your parole.”
“No, you southern fool, I meant for you to surrender.”
“Ah,” said Noetos, delighted the old trick had worked to unsettle the man. “Sorry. I’m not used to northerners with the power of speech.” He made ready to charge.
“Noetos!” came a cry from behind him.
Damn you, Cylene! the fisherman thought, then smiled as he felt a breeze on his back. “Again, my apologies,” he said to the soldiers. “We’ll talk more about surrender later.” He spun on his heel and dashed for the open door.
With it slammed and locked behind him, Duon and Cyclamere, he leaned on the wood and allowed himself a moment to recover. They stood in a small courtyard open to the stars—or what stars there were: a light mist had rolled in, obscuring most of the familiar constellations. To his right was an arched window, slats broken and thrown wide.
“Thank you, Cylene,” he said.
She dimpled at him. “Would have been for nothing if the key hadn’t still been in the lock.”
“Onward,” Duon said, without his usual diffidence. “The men behind us will figure it out. Eventually.”
It’s time for something to be explained to you, Leith said to her.
I am listening. She rubbed her throat as she trudged after the Destroyer. It’s not as if I can do anything else.
Do you remember the Hall of Fealty? he asked her.
Of course. We sat there not ten years ago, rain beating on the roof, listening to the petitions of the hill men of the Veridian Borders. One of the most boring afternoons I’ve ever spent.
Indeed. The voice seemed amused. Do you recall the first time we were there?
Oh yes, she did. Leith had taken her there the year after the Falthan War had ended, to honour her before the Knights of Fealty. She’d endured as mixed a reception there as anywhere else and Leith had been distraught. “They don’t honour you,” he’d said as they lay together that night, “and yet you were the true hero of the war.”
“They can’t honour me,” she had replied. “I upset their simple notion of a black-and-white world. Someone who served evil yet achieved the purposes of the Most High.”
She’d believed that, back then. It had taken long decades of gritted-teeth endurance for that belief to be eroded away. She’d served no one’s purposes but her own, and failed miserably at that. Leith had risked his life to save her. She’d been nothing but trouble.
Kannwar planted Deorc in our camp as a spy, to confound our plans. The Most High planted a spy in Kannwar’s camp. Do you know who she was?
“Keep up, my queen, or I will bind you,” said the Destroyer.
A troop of soldiers ran past them, saluting as they went.
“Or perhaps detail others to carry you,” he added.
Stella picked up her pace.
I see, she said. I am about to die, my unlooked-for blessing coming after all these years. You’ve been sent here to ease my passing, to tell me things to lighten my