*
Laith landed the bird in a flurry of wings and wind, and Valyn rolled up from his dismount to find himself facing a stern Aedolian in nearly full armor. It took him a moment to place the man. He knew the face, but it had aged, of course, hardened.… Micijah Ut, he realized, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Better and better. As a small child, he had always admired the commander of the Dark Guard, and Ut, for his part, had been kind to Valyn in return. Valyn stood up a little straighter, aware that the Aedolian was seeing him as a man now for the first time.
“Commander Ut,” he said, stepping forward and extending a hand.
Instead of accepting his greeting, the huge Aedolian took a step backward, preserving the distance between them while he drew a massive broadblade from the sheath across his back. If he was shocked to find Valyn here, a continent and a half away from either Annur or the Qirins, he didn’t show it. Nor did he seem pleased.
“No closer, Malkeenian. Keep your hands in front of you, and tell your people to stand down.”
Valyn frowned. He’d known that Yurl would see them coming in the final seconds—there wasn’t much avoiding that. He’d even expected the other Wing commander to have sown a few desperate lies. He had not, however, expected those lies to bear fruit so quickly. Laith, who had started to dismount from the bird, squinted warily, then swung back into his harness. The Aedolians who had been setting up the tents and watching the perimeter drifted toward their commander, hands on their weapons. Annick and Talal drifted out to either side to avoid being flanked.
“Stand down?” Valyn asked, conscious of the chill in his own voice but making no effort to hide it. “No one on my Wing has so much as bared a blade. It’s you holding the naked steel. Hardly a way for an Aedolian to greet the Emperor’s brother.”
“I serve the Emperor.”
“Last I checked, you were sworn to serve the entire imperial family.”
“Only those who remain loyal.”
Valyn snorted. “So Sami Yurl has been at you already. The Micijah Ut I remember wouldn’t have been duped so easily by a traitor’s lies.”
“Throw down your blades,” the man growled, “and we will determine who is lying.”
Before the conversation could continue, Gwenna shouldered forward, pushing past Valyn, her face twisted with anger.
“I’ve got no idea who you are, Aedolian,” she said, jabbing a finger at him, “but wearing that heavy helmet all day must have stewed your brains. Where’s Sami Yurl and that pet leach of his? We know they’re here—saw them just before we landed. We know they’ve been filling that stone head of yours with perfect idiocy while you let them run around unguarded. Wait a little bit longer, and they’ll have time to jump on their bird and fly off.”
She looked ready to draw her blades and hack her way straight through the Aedolian, but Ut lowered the point of his broadblade directly at her neck. “Take another step,” he said angrily, “and I will cut you down.”
Gwenna scowled, but she didn’t back off. One problem with Kettral training, Valyn realized suddenly, was that his soldiers didn’t have the healthy respect for bared steel and superior numbers that one would expect from a green Wing with an average age of seventeen. To the Kettral, everyone else, everyone including Aedolians, were just amateurs. It was an attitude Valyn understood, but it was also an attitude that could get them all killed. In addition to Ut and the two soldiers flanking him, there were a half dozen archers scattered through the rocks, arrows already nocked to their bowstrings. They were all on the same side—given time, he’d be able to make Ut see that—but everyone was exhausted and tense. There was no telling what lies Yurl had spread just before their arrival. It would be all too easy for someone to make a mistake, and any mistake here would turn fatal quickly.
“Back off, Gwenna,” Valyn growled.
“But—”
“Back. Off.”
She bared her teeth, but obeyed.
“Your weapons,” Ut said. “All of them, on the ground.”
Valyn hesitated. A soldier never willingly sacrificed his weapon, but this was an unusual situation. As long as the two sides remained in a standoff, they weren’t finding Kaden or hunting down Yurl. Someone needed to make a gesture of trust, and Valyn didn’t see any compromise in Ut’s hard, dark eyes.
“Let’s get this charade over with quickly and cleanly,” he said finally, glancing over his shoulder at the rest of his Wing. “Do as the man says.”
“I don’t like it,” Annick said. She might have been talking about too much salt in the soup.
“Neither do I,” Valyn said, “but this is Ut’s command. The sooner we do what he says, the sooner we can start doing what we came for—finding and securing Kaden. Besides,” he continued, trying to force some levity into his voice, “we don’t have much choice, do we?”
“I could kill him,” Annick replied. She hadn’t so much as raised her bow, but the soldiers in the rocks shifted warily. Several went so far as to half draw their bowstrings—a mistake, given she could draw and fire while they were still finding the range. Annick didn’t seem to notice. “One arrow through the eye. Your call.”
“Your sniper seems to have a little trouble with obedience,” Ut said.
“Yeah,” Valyn replied, glancing over his shoulder at her. “But she grows on you.”
“Tell her to drop the bow or she’ll be the one sprouting arrows.”
Annick looked unimpressed. “Still your call, Commander.”
“Just put down the ’Kent-kissing bow,” Valyn snapped. “All of you, get rid of your weapons. All we’re doing here is wasting time.”
The sniper shrugged, then set her bow on the ground. The others followed suit, but Valyn noticed that they kept their belt knives.
“The flier, too,” Ut ground out. “Get him off the bird, then we’ll talk.”
“I don’t know,” Laith replied. “You all don’t seem to be getting off to such a great start down there on the ground.”
“Off the bird, Laith,” Valyn snapped. “Now.”
He wasn’t angry at his Wing. They were playing by the book, playing it safe, but there was no benefit to a pointless standoff with a dozen Aedolians. At best, they’d end up wasting valuable time. At worst, someone was going to get killed. If Annick killed Ut, there was no telling how the men under him might respond. The last thing they needed was a pitched battle here at the ass-end of the world while Yurl and Balendin and the rest of their ilk looked on grinning from the rocks.
“There,” he said, after a few of Ut’s men had scuttled in to remove the discarded weapons. “Now that you don’t have to worry about Annick putting a chisel point through your armor, maybe you can listen to me.” It wasn’t the most diplomatic opening, but Ut hadn’t been exactly welcoming.
“Speak,” the Aedolian said.
Valyn searched for the words. “Sami Yurl and his Wing have colluded against my life, and Kaden’s as well. Whatever they told you, they’re here to kill him.”
“That’s what they told me,” Ut replied. “I wasn’t sure whether to believe them, but now you’ve confirmed it.”
Valyn stared. “They told you?”
A rich, sardonic laughter filled the evening air as Yurl himself stepped from behind a low boulder.
“I guess I gave you too much credit, Malkeenian,” the Wing commander chuckled. “I never thought you were all that intelligent, of course, but I didn’t expect you to actually help me.”
Gwenna growled something deep in her throat. Without taking his eyes from Yurl, Valyn clamped down on her wrist. He had no idea what was going on, but he wasn’t about to let her get herself killed over it. He turned his attention to Ut.
“If he told you he’s here to kill Kaden,” he ground out, “then what is he walking free for?”
He had to ask the question, although the sick feeling in his gut told him he already knew the answer.
“Because he’s going to help us,” Ut replied. “We came to kill your brother. I oversaw the destruction of the monastery. Most of my men are there now, cleaning up, hunting down the remaining monks. And tomorrow, at first light, we’re going to find the ‘Emperor’ and remove his head from his shoulders.”