“I forgot,” Vlora said, “because you weren’t worth my time.”
Nohan exhaled sharply. “Not worth your time? You’re the most famous powder mage alive, and I almost killed you the other day. How is that for not worth your time?”
“Killed me?” Vlora scoffed. “It was a damned fistfight. Besides, it’s not all about skill. I turned you down because the head of the Starlish Cabal kicked you out for being a sadist.” She leaned forward, seriously reconsidering beating him to death in front of witnesses. The Starlish Cabal had included a list of his crimes in their reply, and among them was the murder of children. “I know what goes on in a royal cabal. If they think you’re a sadist, then Adom help your blasted soul.”
Nohan stared daggers at her, and she silently willed him to flip the table and come at her. At least then she could kill him in self-defense. She might end up in a cell next to Taniel, but at least she wouldn’t be chased out of town by the city deputies.
Nohan gripped the lip of the table, his fingers turning white.
Vlora looked away from him, as if he was beneath her very notice, hoping he’d use the chance to attack her. She swept her eyes out the window, barely noticing the passing traffic as she waited for him to make his move.
And her gaze landed squarely on Prime Lektor.
The Privileged sorcerer stood in the street, frowning, staring through the window directly at her. He was exactly how she remembered him, from the thoughtlessly rumpled clothes to the purple birthmark on his face. It was definitely him, and she could see in his eyes that he had just decided it was definitely her, too.
Vlora wrenched her attention away from Prime Lektor, preparing to throw herself onto the floor if he decided to unleash sorcery at her. Not that it would help. With so much warning, a Privileged of his caliber could destroy the entire block without breaking a sweat.
“Go on,” Vlora grunted at Nohan. “If you’re so bitter, see if you can take me.” Her only consolation if Prime Lektor attacked was that Nohan would die in the same sorcerous conflagration.
Nohan remained frozen in place, and she could see in his eyes how much he wanted to leap at her. Sweat began to pour down Vlora’s face, and she resisted looking back out the window. She couldn’t take Prime in a fair fight on a good day, and she wasn’t going to be able to take both him and Nohan. Might as well focus on one asshole at a time. She wondered if Nohan took her sudden nerves for fear of him. Laughable.
It felt like minutes before Nohan finally broke his stare. He got up, looking down at her with a sneer. “I don’t know why you’re here,” he said quietly, “but I’m going to kill you and claim that bounty. Pissing on your corpse before I take it to Redstone will be the best revenge. Watch yourself, Lady Flint.”
He strode out before Vlora could react, and she turned desperately toward the window once he’d left the building. Prime Lektor, however, was gone.
CHAPTER 37
The engagement with the Dynize dragoons had left the Mad Lancers badly mauled. Unwilling to chance another fight, Styke and Ibana agreed to retrace their steps along the coast for two days until, late in the evening, they spotted Fatrastan flags on the horizon.
Styke sat slumped in the saddle, tired as pit and feeling like he’d been kicked in the head by a warhorse. He turned his eyes to the eastern horizon, where he could see the edge of a Fatrastan camp. Their flags waved in the breeze, torches flickering to life as the sun went down. Styke watched the distant approach of one of his scouts.
“I think I’m a hypocrite,” he said, giving voice to something he’d been considering for several days.
Ibana looked sidelong at him. “What kind of nonsense is this?”
He shrugged. “I came to the realization that I’m a hypocrite,” he said with more confidence. He’d been thinking about what Valyaine had said, sorting through his own memories of the War for Independence all that time ago and realizing that maybe that treacherous bastard was right—maybe Styke was looking at his own participation in the war through the rosy lenses of the past. “I’ve always known I was a killer, a monster. But I never thought of myself as a hypocrite.”
“And this is bothering you more than murder?” Ibana asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think it is.”
“You’re a strange man, Ben Styke.” Ibana spurred her horse, riding out to meet the scout.
Styke exchanged a look with Jackal. The Palo bannerman shrugged. Styke sighed and rode out after Ibana, meeting the scout on a nearby hill. It was Ferlisia, one of the longest-standing members of the lancers. She snapped a salute.
“Did you talk to them?” Styke asked.
“Just briefly,” Ferlisia reported. “It’s the Third Army.”
Styke nodded to himself. When he’d decided to pull back after that fight with the Dynize, he’d figured they would have to head all the way back to Bellport to find some relief. He hadn’t expected to find the Third Army already out on the Hammer. They must have marched straight past Bellport without stopping.
Styke had a glimmer of suspicion that they’d been sent after the lancers but dismissed the notion. Lindet wouldn’t send a field army of infantry to chase a highly mobile cavalry force.
She would, however, send them to secure the godstone.
Regardless, the Mad Lancers needed somewhere to lie low. “I’ll go see if they’ll let us lick our wounds inside their pickets,” he said, lifting his reins.
Both Ibana and Ferlisia looked alarmed. “Sir, the commanding officer is—”
Styke waved Ferlisia off. “I know who it is. Dvory. That’s why I’m going to ask myself.”
“That’s not a great idea,” Ibana said in a low voice.
Styke looked over his shoulder at his column of lancers. They’d lost nearly half their number to death or wounds in the Dynize ambush. They didn’t have healing Privileged or proper surgeons to deal with the wounded. They’d done so well and come so far, only to be blindsided by a superior cavalry force. Styke did not want to meet that force again without taking some time to recover.
“If Dvory betrayed you once, he’ll do it again,” Ibana said.
“Perhaps. He might not know I’ve been killing his old conspirators, though.”
“He’ll have passed through Bellport. There’s no way he won’t have gotten word from Valyaine. You damn well should have killed Valyaine when you had the chance.”
“Yeah, I know.” Styke wasn’t thrilled about the idea of marching in there to ask for help from someone who’d betrayed him. But his meditations over hypocrisy the last few days had given him a more optimistic outlook than he’d expected. “Look, if those dragoons snuck up on us once, they can do it again. We need to recover, and this saves us having to go all the way back to Bellport. We get inside their pickets and we’ll be safe until we can regroup.”
Ibana pursed her lips, clearly wanting to argue.
Styke forestalled it with a raised hand. “I’ll deal with Dvory. If I’m not back in two hours, head south and try to throw them off your trail.”
He began to ride toward the camp without explaining himself further and tried to gather his thoughts. He wondered if maybe he’d known all along that he was a hypocrite, and that’s what had truly kept him from killing Tenny Wiles. He wondered if maybe being broken by the labor camps had been a blessing to everyone around him, rather than the blow against the brave Mad Lancers that he’d always considered it.
He frowned into the setting sun at one point, only to see a small group of figures sitting on the horizon less than two miles away. They were all on horseback—four of them, if his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him.
Those goddamn dragonmen, still plaguing his trail. Another good reason to spend a few days hugging a field army.
He was pulled from his contemplations by the sound of a horse whinny behind him. He turned in his saddle, a rebuke on his lips to send Celine back to the lancers.
But it wasn’t Celine. It was Ka-poel.