done his or her duty and that was what mattered. The horror of the moment would fade; the memory of the dying would soften. In the not so distant future, no one would even think on it.
When the heavy armor appeared, he sent them back in with portable flash rips to burn everything that was left, bodies included. “Leave no trace of any of it,” he ordered.
He waited until he saw the fires spring up and smelled the stench of burning flesh permeating the sea air before turning and starting back with the others. The remains of this day’s work would disappear with the first strong storm off the Tiderace. After that, only blackened stones and shattered walls would mark the ruins of what had once been Arbrox.
The sun rose from behind the Tiderace in a haze of gray and silver, chasing the marine layer and brightening the blackened ruins of Arbrox. Trailers of smoke rose from those ruins in slender threads that were quickly snatched away and dispersed by the sea winds. Gulls and cormorants and other seabirds began to wing their way in from distant haunts, settling down to feast on the remains of the dead, uncaring of the loss represented, caught up in the appeal of easy food and an uninterrupted meal.
West, the Federation warships and transport were just disappearing into what remained of the fading night, winging their way toward the city of Sterne.
The man in the black robes stood outside what remained of Arbrox and its dead, watching. His gaze shifted between the fortress and the warships, living and dead, thinking thoughts so dark that if it were possible to touch them it would be as touching shards of fire.
A single question dominated his thoughts.
How could they do this?
Yes, Arbrox was a pirate fortress, and its people were pirates and the families of pirates. Yes, they had raided Federation shipping as a means of subsistence even though they knew that retaliation was likely and that it would put their lives at risk each time they set out on a hunt. Yes, they lived on the edge of the sword and point of the spear.
But to kill off every last man, woman, and child? To destroy an entire population and raze a village back into the earth as if it had never existed? His fury was all-consuming. This was a mark of such darkness that it must be avenged. Though the hunt had not been for him—or at least not exclusively for him—it felt personal in the extreme. The people of Arbrox had taken him in when everyone in the rest of the Four Lands had been intent on hunting him down. These people had fed and cared for him, they had treated him as one of their own. They had given him back his life, and they had asked nothing in return.
They did not deserve to die as they had. They did not deserve to be wiped out like vermin.
He would have died with them if he had not chosen this night to sleep apart in the coastal shore watchtower he favored when his darkness most consumed him. He would not be seeing this sunrise if he did not know when it was time to step away and remain apart until the blackness passed and his good humor returned.
Pure chance that he was still alive. And fate, perhaps?
He pulled his cloak closer about his shoulders and looked down one final time on Arbrox and his friends. Someone had betrayed them. Someone had known of their lair and given them away to the Federation. The Slash could not have found them otherwise.
Time enough to settle that score—to settle with betrayer and killers both. But a way must be found that would catch them all up at once and feed them into a chamber of horrors equal to that which had consumed the people of Arbrox.
And who better than himself to find such a way?
Who better than Arcannen Rai?
FOUR
SIX WEEKS LATER, ON A RAINY NIGHT MADE CONSIDERABLY less pleasant by a sudden drop in the temperature just before dusk, Reyn Frosch walked into the Boar’s Head Tavern in the village of Portlow shortly before performance time. Shivering with the damp and cold in spite of his heavy all-weather cloak, he stood in the tavern doorway and brushed himself off, shedding raindrops and discomfort while he scanned the faces of the patrons gathered in the great room.
More than a hundred, he guessed. Many more, in fact. They were