The Last Warrior (5 page)

Don't let down his guard? Why?

He suspected that no one had given him the full story since he'd returned home. How serious was the Kurel unrest in the ghetto? What drove his sister's unhappiness in her marriage? How likely was Xim to grant Tao's men land and wives when he seemed to view them as a threat? Or was only Tao the threat?

It was time he found out the truth.

“D
AMN THAT ONE-EYED
bastard,” Markam hissed.

As he escorted her to the palace exit, they spoke in low tones, their manner casual to anyone who would have observed, the routine of chatting at day's end no different from what they'd done for years, no matter that her heart was kicking so hard it felt as if it would leap out of her rib cage and draw attention to her treasonous deeds.

“Beck was very nearly mortally wounded at the front, left blinded in both eyes. But the hotheaded fool survived—and regained sight in one eye. Tao should have let the man fall on his sword when he became useless on the battlefield, the way it was always done.”

Never had such open anger roughened Markam's voice. His temper was always under tight control.

“Always done?” Appalled, Elsabeth glanced sideways at him. “Where is mercy in all this?”

“To an Uhr, the circumstances of his death are as important as his deeds in life. A warrior must die
honorably, even if that end is hastened at the hand of his fellow soldiers to speed the boarding of the angels' arks. But, Tao had Beck sent home to the Barracks for Maimed Veterans.”

“Tao being Tao?” she prompted.

“His personal sense of honor is so great, he sometimes neglects to believe the lack of it in others.”

“As in Beck…”

“Yes. Beck blames Tao for stealing his warrior's death.”

“But Uhr-Tao saved him.”

“Of course. But to Beck, Tao dishonored him in the worst possible way. Beck recovered enough sight to train recruits here in the capital, yes, but he doesn't see himself as serving a useful purpose—he sees himself as an object of shame, and Tao as the one responsible for his plight. Tao allowed a fellow Uhr the chance to resume being an essential part of the Tassagon army, but all he did was create a bitter enemy.”

Tao being Tao.
“Because his personal sense of honor is so great, he sometimes neglects to believe the lack of it in others,” she said under her breath. Now she could see why Markam had described his friend that way. Her confrontation with the general had led to this conversation, and to something she hadn't expected: a revelation.

At the exit, Markam stopped, his heels clicking
crisply together as he wished her good-night. “Thank you for your help, Elsabeth.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What I always do. Talk sense into young Xim and steer him clear of Beck's influence.” Markam nodded pleasantly to a passing guard, then his expression turned serious again. “And hope I'm not too late.”

 

M
ARKAM OWED HIM SOME
answers.

At the guard barracks, Tao found a party in progress. The majority of his officers filled a balcony, whooping it up. The women hanging on their arms were just as inebriated. Uniforms were half undone, if they were on at all, and the pungent odor of alcoholic spirits was eye watering in the muggy air. Some sort of drinking game was under way that involved belting out awful songs.

Good on them.
After all they'd suffered and lost, his men deserved a bit of fun.

“General! Why are you standing out there?” Mandalay cried. “Join us.”

Sandoval, his armory captain, waved his arm so vigorously he almost lost his balance. “Surely you're not thinking of abandoning us for—” he belched “—royalty, are you, sir? Or better yet a willing wench. Not yet at any rate.”

“We've whiskey aplenty here,” Pirelli, his master-
at-arms, called to him. “And I dare say a much better party than those stuffy upper-crusters.”

They were right in that regard. This gathering beat the one he'd just suffered through. Tao joined the crowd on the balcony. A good number of the palace guards were there. “Field-Colonel Markam… Have you seen the man?”

“He's out on some business for the king,” someone answered. “That's all he'd say.” The man wore the trousers of a palace guard and a plain white jersey on top.

“Find him for me. Tell him I wish his counsel.”

With an unsteady gait, the off-duty guard left to fetch his boss.

“Sir! Have a glass of ale, at least while you wait,” Sandoval offered, thrusting a glass into his hands.

Tao took a long draught of the ale. It was ice cold and slightly sweet, refreshing and welcome in the stuffy heat of a summer that had overstayed its visit to the capital and seemed to have lodged inside the palace walls as a permanent resident. For a moment Tao forgot his worries, too glad to see his men acting without a care. They had won the chance to pursue a civilian life and, perhaps, even grow old.

“General Uhr-Tao!”

Tao tensed instinctively. He'd know that raspy voice anywhere. “Colonel Uhr-Beck,” he greeted the one-eyed warrior.

The sleeves of Beck's uniform shirt were rolled up, revealing arms that, like the rest of him, were thick and solid without an ounce of fat. Tao knew Beck drilled his basic recruits without mercy, accepting no excuses for less-than-stellar performance. That quality hardened boys into men who could match the fierceness of the Gorr, a quality that Tao had welcomed at the front. It was a less desirable trait when training men to deal with their fellow humans, Kurel included.

Beck wasted no time with pleasantries. “They can't be gathered here, General Tao. Your men. It's the law.”

“I know of no such law.”

“As of tonight, sir, there is one.” Shiny pale skin covered the socket of Beck's blind eye like a leather tarp stretched over a trapdoor. His good eye dared Tao to challenge him.

Tao was in no mood to bicker with the man. “Ah, let them be. They're enjoying themselves and causing no harm.”

“Congregating of army soldiers in groups greater than three inside the capital is prohibited—by order of the king.”

“Three?” Tao almost laughed. “How does the king expect to raise and maintain an army if no more than a trio of soldiers can be together at any one time?”

Tao's men snickered at that, winning a deadly look
from Beck. “Not other soldiers, General. It's your men he's got a problem with. Your army.”

So. There it was again, the insinuation that the army was somehow his to use for nefarious reasons. He was no longer in the Hinterlands where his decision was all that mattered. At home, the commander of the army couldn't give the appearance of ignoring the king's orders, however nonsensical they were.

He turned to the officers. “As reluctant as I am to end the party, we'll have to break it up.”

Sandoval and Mandalay nodded. “It's all right, sir. We don't want to cause you any trouble. We'll tell the men.” Yet, neither looked eager to do so at the height of the party.

Tao couldn't blame them. “Gentlemen, if there were another other option, I'd take it, but there isn't. I'll see to this utterly insane law being struck out first thing in the morning.”

“Utterly insane, is it? Is that what you think of my lawmaking, brother-in-law?”

Xim.
Hell and damnation. The king stood at the entrance to the balcony, surrounded by his cronies and, at long last, Markam.

You've done it now,
his friend's unhappy face said.

“Your Highness,” Tao greeted, dipping his head, cursing his timing. If this were the battlefield, he'd be dead.

“It's not comforting to know my top military
commander holds such a low opinion of my judgment. Not only that, you've just encouraged your entire army to have the same attitude.”

“Your Highness, my choice of words was poor. My aim was only to advocate a more lenient policy concerning my men—”

“I already know what your aim is, Tao. You've revealed your true colors. You declared your intent to overturn my law. Field-Colonel!” Xim scowled over his shoulder at Markam. “Arrest this man for treason.”

M
ARKAM MARCHED
T
AO DOWN
a curving staircase, through one fortified doorway and then another, leaving a pair of hulking guards by each, until it was just the two of them climbing down the stairs. The lower they went, the denser, colder, damper the air became.

I am descending into hell.

“Put me on house arrest and we'll revisit this in the morning when everyone's sober.” Tao thought of the dancer waiting for him in the luxurious bedchamber he'd hardly visited since arriving. “Confinement to quarters works for me.”

“You're to be held in the dungeon three days, after which the king plans on killing you.”

Tao coughed out a derisive laugh. “Why three days? Why not just do it now?”

“He needs time for a trial with false witnesses and testimony.” Markam's voice dropped. “Xim's not stupid. He knows the reason for your arrest is weak.
He'll simply find a stronger one, with the help of torture and truth serums.”

True. Drugged, a man could be made to say most anything. “This is madness. Yes, I should have watched my tongue in front of my officers. I knew better. But treason? I gave Xim peace on a silver platter.” Asking nothing for himself but the chance to fade away into the fabric of the precious lands he'd defended. “In thanks I get a death sentence.” The aftertaste of betrayal was bitter indeed. “You can't let him go through with this.”

“What can I do?”

Come on, Markam, think outside the box.
Maybe there was a reason his friend had stayed behind with the Palace Guard and Tao had gone off to fight in the Hinterlands battlefields, where thinking unconventionally was a requirement for survival. “Help me escape.”

“You'll end up living like an animal on the run, Tao.”

“So be it. I have the survival skills. I'll go back to the Hinterlands. I'll disappear.”

“And I'll be hanged for my role in it, leaving the madman in charge of the asylum. I can't, Tao.”

Bleakly, Tao walked down the stairs, trying to think his way out of a dead end. He'd rather take his chances in the wild lands than wait for a mock trial,
but he couldn't leave his best friend to be tortured and killed.

“Don't worry,” Markam said. “By tomorrow, it will be as if you never existed.”

Tao jerked his head up. “I thought I had three days.”

The dungeon stank of rat feces and decay, the smell of hopelessness. Markam steered him into a cell and locked him in. Although it was arguably the best of the lot, inside the tang of urine was downright eye-watering. “Be patient, and you will see.”

Tao gripped the bars. “You try being patient from inside a dungeon cell.”

“Too many lives hang in the balance to tell you more. People I care about greatly. If things were to go wrong now, and you were hauled in for an interrogation, and you revealed…” Markam stopped himself. His angular face took on the appearance of stone, his eyes full of secrets.

“You want protection for your men.” By Uhrth, Markam must have been thinking outside the box for years while Tao was away, if he had a network to protect. “In that case, I want protection for my men, also. Their service to the kingdom has been beyond the call. Beyond any crime blamed on me in a charade of a trial.”

“Xim will need to placate them after getting rid of their general. There's enough land to go around, and
a fair share of women, lonely from too many years of losing men to war. Knowing the alternative, they'll let Xim buy them out, I suspect.”

Tao knew this was the unfortunate truth of a large fighting force. The average soldier didn't know him, the general, personally; they received their orders through the chain of command. His officers were the ones most at risk in this. Their loyalty and honor to him ran blood deep. Yet, if they moved to defend him, they'd be hanged for mutiny.

Weary, Tao gripped the bars. “I trust you'll look after Aza.”

“Always,” he said, his tone somber, his gaze flickering with something that gave Tao pause. It was more than just childhood friendship talking; Markam had feelings for Aza that transcended a palace guard protecting his queen.

I have indeed been gone from home too long.
If Aza shared Markam's feelings, Tao prayed the pair knew enough not to take any chances and reveal it to Xim, and that a pointless dream of star-crossed love wasn't the motivation behind Markam's desire to undermine the king. But he bit back the urge to demand the truth. Any such knowledge could be wrested out of him and be used to hurt Aza.

Tao let his hands slide off the bars. “You'd better go.” There was nothing more to be said, nothing more to do. Everything he cared about existed outside these
prison walls. He was locked in a dungeon, and by tomorrow, according to Markam, it would be as if he'd never existed.
We shall see.

“Good luck, my friend,” Markam said. “To both of us, actually.”

Then his oldest friend walked out, slamming the thick door closed behind him. The thunder echoed off the dungeon walls, the sound of boots hitting stone quickly faded and Tao was left alone with a chest thick with disbelief and a mind racing through a dwindling arsenal of options.

 

T
HE SUNS HADN'T YET
peeked above the horizon when Elsabeth gave up trying to sleep and climbed up to the eaves to feed the pigeons. Her mother had always been the one to care for the messenger birds whose journeys could take them as far as the Barrier Peaks. Elsabeth had, by necessity, handed the running of the clinic over to others, but the aviary was hers to keep, in memory of her mother.

The interior of the roost was a simmering, cooing mass of gray and rainbow-hued feathers, bobbing heads, clawed feet and pecking beaks. “Hello, my friends.”

Cuh-choo-coo, cuh-choo-coo
—their melody greeted. She shook a tin can of dried beans, calling them to breakfast. As they ate their feed, she filled the water dishes and trough and added grit to the floor of the pen.

A loud fluttering of wings erupted at the landing outside. The flock scattered, noisily reacting, as a large blue male strutted inside, immediately committing himself to breakfast. “Prometheus! If you stay out all night carousing, you do it at the risk of being dinner for an alley kitt.”

The bird strutted by, wearing a slender tube tied to its leg.
A message.

A jolt went though her, sweeping her grogginess away. Her eyes opened wide. For most of the night she'd tossed and turned, suffering bursts of disjointed dreams, or had lain awake, worrying about Beck's treachery, Markam's plans, Aza's fears and Tao's return. Now, this message promised action.

“What do you have for me, little one?” She carefully unfastened the rolled paper and unfurled it. It was blank, and green.

“The green flag,” she whispered. She'd been the one to think up the way Markam should alert her to an emergency so she would not be caught unawares. Red meant stay at home, and green—she crushed the paper in her hand—come to the palace as soon as feasible.

In her gut, she knew why: if Markam had summoned her, General Tao was in danger, if not already dead. She didn't want to analyze why she desperately hoped it wasn't the latter.