They topped the ridge on which their escort had first appeared, and she gasped at the sight before her. “So many! I didn’t think his army was this large.”
At the bottom of the gentle slope, a dark shadow made of tents, soldiers, and horses, numbering in the thousands, covered the plain. Siege engines in various states of construction perched on wagons, waiting to be rolled to their destination, and there were as many oxen as there were horses to toil in their traces as they pulled the great machines across fields and rutted roads.
This wasn’t the camp they’d left. It had swelled in size many times over, a true measure of the might Zaredis commanded and why he felt confident that he’d still win Domora from its current emperor even without the aid of the Windcry.
She couldn’t see Gharek’s expression behind her, and his flatvoice revealed nothing of his thoughts as they rode toward the encampment. “We only saw the first contingent of troops,” he said. “The rest have since crossed the channel. What you’re seeing here is what the people of Domora will face from behind its walls, and they have no idea what comes toward them.”
“He doesn’t need the Windcry,” she said. “Not with a force such as this.” It was vast, as far as the eye could see.
Behind her, Gharek snorted. “He needs it. Word has surely reached the capital that Zaredis is amassing here and plans to march soon. Kraelag may be an uninhabitable ruin, but its harbor still functions. By the time Zaredis makes it to Domora, General Tovan will have the forces of both army and navy behind him, a match for Zaredis’s troops. If Zaredis wants a victory instead of a bloodbath, he’ll need the artifact.”
They spoke to each other in low voices. The soldiers surrounding them didn’t ride close enough to hear them clearly.
Siora’s gut twisted into a knot of dread. Gharek was returning to Zaredis willingly, to his own death with open arms because his daughter depended on his arrival, though she probably had no idea the kind of risks her father was taking.What a grim reward for a task completed, she thought, and blinked hard to suppress the tears welling in her eyes. Reunited with his child only to die for the sake of empty vengeance. Zaredis could kill Gharek a hundred times over, each time more brutal than the last, and it would still never bring his brother back. If only she could have done more, executed some grand feat of rescue that would unite father and daughter without the chains of extortion and threat of death.
“I wasn’t much help to you on this trip,” she said. “I’d hoped to offer you more.”
His body shifted against her as he shrugged. “You warned me of that assassin and helped us escape from the creatures in the Maesor.”
“My father did that.”
“But only because you were there. And your bargaining with Zaredis to help Kalun bought me both time and leverage.” His voice softened even more as he leaned in to nuzzle her ear. “Are you sure you don’t want to try the Holdfast spell? There’s a summoning one as well right before it.”
She shuddered at the idea. “How many times must I say I’m not a necromancer? And even if I were, I certainly wouldn’t enslave my own father.”
A note of exasperation entered Gharek’s voice. “You can always set him free. Holdfast is a spell with both a lock and a key.”
This was a man who saw ethics more as a nuisance than a code. “That isn’t the point.”
“Your honor blinds you,” he said, straightening away from her.
“And your lack of it twists you,” she replied in an equally sharp tone.
They didn’t say anything more after that until they reached the edge of the camp. Gharek’s loose clasp around her waist tightened as they rode toward its center, every eye upon them as they passed. Siora did her best not to meet any one person’s gaze, certain if she did, it would set off the pack aggression of wolves, and they were already in a dangerous situation as it was.
The captain who’d first captured her and Gharek as they fled the fighting at Wellspring Holt met them in the center of camp. Mild surprise animated his lined face, though his comment was no more polite than those he’d previously tossed their way. “I seeyou and your whore came back alive and well, cat’s-paw.” His gaze raked Siora, pausing on the sight of Gharek’s arm wrapped snug around her middle. One eyebrow rose, and a gleam entered his eyes when he turned his attention to Gharek. “Obviously you found comfort on the trip. Or at least your prick did.”
Coarse laughter from the soldiers surrounding them made Siora’s face heat. She didn’t reply to the man’s vulgar remark, refusing to be baited. Gharek didn’t either, though his arm tightened enough around her waist to squeeze a tiny squeak from her.
Disappointed by the lack of response from his target, the captain lost his derisive smile. His features once more settled into a dour expression. He gestured with one hand for them to follow. “Come. The general has been gnawing at the bit, wondering when or even if you’d return. Probably tired of playing nanny to your armless brat.”
“I’ll play nanny to that sweet young piece any day, even if she doesn’t have arms,” one soldier in the crowd called out.
One moment Gharek was holding Siora against him, the next he was pushing her away from him. She couldn’t see what he was doing, only the result of his actions. A flash of steel shot through the air. A dull thunk followed, and the man whose vile comment made Siora’s stomach curdle in revulsion fell to the ground on his back, Gharek’s blade half embedded in his forehead.
The shock and silence that followed lasted no more than a heartbeat before the crowd rushed the gelding to drag Gharek from the saddle and Siora along with him. She cried out, holding the pommel in an iron grip as she hung off the side and the gelding whinnied its panic. The animal began to buck, back legs lashing out, and a few voices cursed in pain as powerful hooves connectedwith bodies standing too close. It was mayhem around them, and Siora lost sight of Gharek amid a flailing of bodies around her and under her thrashing horse.
“Cease before I have every one of you drawn and quartered,” a voice bellowed above the din, and suddenly General Zaredis was there, hurtling into the fray.
It was the command of a man but might as well have been the edict of a god the way every soldier halted what they were doing and snapped to attention, leaving a bloodied, bedraggled, but thankfully still alive Gharek sprawled on the ground.
Siora dismounted, giving the gelding a reassuring pat. Its dark eyes still showed the white of fear as it watched her and the crowd surrounding them. Gharek had already sprung to his feet and shook himself off by the time she reached him. Blood streamed from his nose, and a mottled red stain with the promise of a bruise to come marred the entire length of his jaw and part of one cheek. They stood in the center of a makeshift arena created by Zaredis’s men, many glaring at Gharek with murder in their eyes. The general himself wore a different expression, one of disapproval but also relief. She didn’t imagine the second, having never been one for fanciful thoughts. Zaredis might hate the cat’s-paw as much as his men, but he was glad for his return.
“What is the meaning of this?” he barked, leveling that sword-sharp gaze on his captain, who’d lost his snide demeanor and now looked a little pale under his leader’s unwavering regard.
Ready to interrupt and contradict the lies she expected to hear regarding the reason for the soldier’s death and Gharek’s part in it, she was stunned when the captain gave the truth of what happened without embellishment. When he finished, the crowd parted soZaredis could have a better look at the man the cat’s-paw had killed. The general shoved the body with the tip of his boot, his face a cool mask that gave nothing away. He was quiet for the longest time before turning to Gharek.
“You shouldn’t have killed him,” he said. “At least not so quickly. I would have given him to you to torture first if you wished.”