“Go!” Sturnin gasped as blood gushed from his side. He slammed the Kiran Thall into the wall a second time.
Indecision twisted inside of Thealos. He watched the knight struggle and then he saw the Deathbane dagger rise up and fall, stabbing Sturnin in the stomach. The knight let out a yell of pain – as if the scream had been ripped from his lungs. Thealos watched in shock as the knight twitched and convulsed as the flood of Forbidden magic swelled in eddies through the cell. Thealos saw Sturnin’s life wink out like a snuffed candle. All his years of training, all the battles he had fought. Gone in the flicker of a moment. His skin started to shrivel and blacken.
“Sweet hate!” Ticastasy breathed in horror.
“Run,” Thealos said, grabbing her arm.
He slammed the cell door shut behind them, hearing the lock click into place. But he knew somehow that the cell door would not hold Secrist long.
*
Tsyrke stared dispassionately at the aging Bandit leader. He didn’t know how Ballinaire had survived so many years of war without his bones ending up snapped and broken, but here he was, with a stride full of stamina and vigor. The man will bloody never die.
Ballinaire held his white-plumed helmet in the crook of his arm. His face was hard aged skin, split by wrinkled crags. Even his eyebrows were flecked with gray. A thin white beard garnished his lower jaw. Five gold general bars and a golden star were pinned to his cape along the shoulder. It was all about rank. All about authority and position. As if anyone in Owen Draw or Dos-Aralon remembered anymore about the good he had done early in his life. Tsyrke wanted to chuckle. All they would remember was his angry defiance and the countless lives lost. Blackened fields and ashes, all of it.
“You look like Pitan,” Tsyrke said, offering Ballinaire some honeyed mead. “Do you want a drink?” As a true Shorelander himself, Tsyrke never took the Inland customs of deference to rank seriously.
“I did not come here to get drunk, Commander,” Ballinaire said with a clip and rasp in his voice. “You’d better pray to the Druid god Achrolese that you didn’t come here for that reason either. Are you sober?”
“Very,” Tsyrke replied, setting the goblet down. Mage sat in a chair to one side, watching them both. “Though after I heard what happened last night…” He took another sip from his large cup.
“You should have been here sooner,” Ballinaire said, pacing on the other side of the desk. His eyebrow twitched. “You should have been here weeks ago!”
Tsyrke held the glare and matched it with one of his own. “I came when I could,” he replied. “It is no easy task keeping a regiment moving and fed, not staying any place long enough to get pinned down by the brags at Dos-Aralon. Hiding in the mountains is one thing, but roaming the Shoreland without getting caught is totally different. I got my troops into the Shadows Wood for you. But what about Dairron and Folkes? Are they moving?”
The Bandit leader stopped and lifted his chin peremptorily. “Why wouldn’t they?”
“Are they moving?” Tsyrke repeated.
“Commander Folkes’ regiment is nearly to the Dayspring Rush,” Ballinaire replied with full confidence. “Soon yours will be reinforced. I think you are too generous with their ale, Commander. The men can hardly stand up straight.”
“It isn’t easy to stand straight with tide fever. Mage and I will join the army in the morning to make sure Miestri has left. Was she acting under your orders, my lord?”
“You all act under my orders,” Ballinaire seethed. “Do not take that tone of voice with me, Commander Phollen. Your army is in lamentable disarray. No discipline. No order. They should be in Landmoor by now, not perched at the brink.” He held up his finger to stop Tsyrke’s retort. “I want to know what you have done to move our cause along. Where were you?”
Tsyrke leaned back in his chair. “I was at sea, my lord. Securing supplies for my regiment. I can’t likely buy my grain from Iniva, or raid it like you do. We’ll need to be ready to withstand a siege, and likely a very long one.”
“No,” Ballinaire said, cutting him short. “You need to be ready to march. To march on Dos-Aralon itself.”
Tsyrke shook his head and chuckled. “March on Dos-Aralon?”
“There is nothing at all amusing about my orders, Commander. General Dairron is swinging his army down from the north. We need to start marching to arrive at the borders of Dos-Aralon when they have left to attack him. We must not fail General Dairron.”
“Do you know if his army has left the Vale yet?”
“Miestri informs me that it has,” he answered.