"Dragons of the Highlord Skies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weis Margaret)

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Kitiara’s strategy. Ariakas’s scheme. The witch. ou know, I’ve half a mind to promote that Grag to Dragon Highlord,” said Ariakas, gazing speculatively after the departing draconian.

“A draco?” Kitiara was amused. “The lizard-boys are excellent fighters, to be sure, my lord. They were bred for battle after all, but they lack the brains and discipline needed for command.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Ariakas. “Commander Grag has a good head on his scaly shoulders.”

“He’s smarter than Verminaard, at least,” Kitiara muttered.

“I remind you that I highly valued Verminaard,” stated Ariakas heatedly. “His campaign in the west was brilliantly conducted. Any man-no matter how powerful-can fall victim to fate.”

Kitiara shrugged and stifled another yawn. She hadn’t slept much the night before, her sleep broken by disturbing dreams of a fire-ravaged keep and an undead knight clad in blackened armor adorned with a rose. Kitiara had no idea what the dream meant or why she had dreamt it, but she had woken suddenly, filled with an unnamed fear, unable to return to sleep.

Ariakas didn’t look as if he’d slept well himself. His eyes had dark circles beneath them and he blinked them constantly. Kit wondered uneasily if her dream had been a dream or if Takhisis was trying to tell her something. Kit was about to ask Ariakas when he startled her by saying, “Or was it fate, Kitiara?”

“Was what fate, my lord?” Kitiara asked, confused. She’d completely forgotten the subject of their conversation.

Ariakas exploded. “By Takhisis, I begin to think you were the one to have Verminaard killed! Quite a coincidence, these assassins coming from your hometown, and one of them a wizard. You had a brother who was a wizard, as I recall.”

“I am flattered that your lordship remembers so much about me,” said Kitiara coolly. “As for my brother the mage, Raistlin is only my half-brother and he was always weak and sickly. I doubt if he is even still alive, much less given to going about assassinating Dragon Highlords.”

Ariakas glowered at her.

“Are you accusing me of Verminaard’s murder, my lord?” Kit flared.

“What if I am?” demanded Ariakas.

He crowded close to her, using his massive body to physically intimidate her. Kitiara was shaken and for a moment she almost gave way to panic. She had been telling him the truth, but she wasn’t telling him all the truth. She should never have made that crack about Verminaard. At that moment she was reminded of her father’s teachings. Gregor uth Matar had once been a Solamnic knight. Dismissed from the knighthood for disgraceful behavior, he’d made a living by selling his sword to the highest bidder. Gregor had been a handsome, bold womanizer, always in debt, frequently in trouble, and Kitiara had adored him. One of his dictums-always attack, never defend.

Instead of falling back, as Ariakas anticipated, Kitiara moved in closer, so that they were practically toe-to-toe.

“You should know me well enough, my lord, to know that if I wanted to assassinate Verminaard, I would have done it myself. I would not have paid to have it done for me.”

Ariakas seized hold of her jaw. His fingers clenched. A single move and he could have broken her neck. He stared down at her, waiting for her to whimper and weaken.

Kit did not so much as blink and suddenly Ariakas felt a tickling sensation, as of sharp steel, in the area of his groin. He looked down and was startled to see Kitiara’s hand holding a knife, prepared to thrust it through the leather skirt into a very sensitive part of his anatomy.

Ariakas gave a great guffaw of laughter and shoved Kitiara away from him.

“Damn those guards of mine for slackers,” he said, half-amused, half-infuriated. “I’ll have their heads for this! They have orders to search everyone-even my most trusted commanders! Or perhaps I should say especially my most trusted commanders.”

“Do not blame the ogres, my lord,” said Kitiara. “They were not meant to find this.”

She took the thin-bladed knife and slipped it into a hidden sheath that had been cleverly worked into the ornate design of her dragon armor breastplate.

Ariakas chuckled. “Would you really have stabbed me?”

“Would you have broken my neck?” Kitiara returned in arch tones.

Both knew the answer was “yes”. They expected nothing less of each other.

“Now perhaps we can turn our attention to matters in Solamnia.” Ariakas walked over to the desk where he had spread out a map. He bent over it.

Kitiara breathed an inward sigh. She’d survived yet another confrontation with her powerful master. Her boldness and daring had pleased him. The day would come, though, when they wouldn’t.

“Did you have a strange dream last night, my lord?” Kitiara asked.

“Don’t try to change the subject,” Ariakas said curtly.

“I did,” Kitiara continued. “I dreamt Queen Takhisis was trying to persuade me to travel to Dargaard Keep to confront the death knight who is supposed to reside there.”

“Soth,” Ariakas said. “Lord Soth. What did you tell Her Dark Majesty?”

He tried to sound casual, but Kitiara knew then that he’d had the same dream.

“I told her I didn’t believe in ghosts,” Kitiara returned dryly.

Ariakas grunted. “Soth is no ghost. He lives-if you can say such a thing about a man who has been dead for over three hundred years. Our Queen wants to recruit him to our cause.”

“Would you do that, my lord?” Kitiara asked.

Ariakas shook his head. “Soth would be a valuable ally, but I could not trust him. He is far too powerful. Why should a death knight call any mortal ‘master’? No, let Soth brood over his wrongs in his ruined castle. I want no part of him.”

Kitiara had to admit his reasoning was sound. Queen Takhisis was often impatient with human frailties and weakness, and she could be impractical on occasion. Kit put the dream aside

“I read your latest proposal for Solamnia,” Ariakas was saying. He picked up a thick sheaf of parchment. “You propose that the Blue Wing seize the High Clerist’s Tower, occupy it, and from there march on Palanthas. A daring plan, Kitiara.”

He took his seat behind the desk. “I am against it. It stretches our forces too thin, but I will listen to what you have to say.”

Kitiara perched her hip on the edge of the table and leaned over to explain her idea.

“My spies tell me the High Clerist’s Tower is manned by only a few troops, my lord.” She put her finger on the map. “The Red Wing is here. You could order the Red Wing north. We could strike the High Clerist’s Tower with troops and dragons from the Red Wing and the Blue Wing. We could easily wipe out the small force holding it, seize the High Clerist’s Tower, and occupy it before the Solamnic knights knew what hit them. From there, we march on Palanthas, conquer the city and take over her seaports.”

“Taking Palanthas will not be easy,” said Ariakas. “We cannot lay siege to the city, not without blockading her seaports.”

“Bah! The Palanthians are soft and pampered dandies. They don’t want to fight. They might break a nail. Once the Palanthians see dragons flying in the skies, they will be so terrified they will piss their pants and surrender.”

“What if they don’t?” Ariakas pointed to the map. “We do not yet control the Plains of Solamnia, nor Elkholm, nor Heartland. You leave your flanks exposed, surrounded by the enemy. What about supply lines? You may take the fortress, but once you are inside, your troops would starve!”

“When Palanthas is ours, we resupply from there. In the meantime, we have red dragons ferry in what we need.”

Ariakas snorted. “The reds will not be used as pack mules! They will have nothing to do with such an arrangement.”

“If her Dark Majesty were to order them-”

Ariakas shook his head.

Kitiara sat back. Her lips pursed, her brown eyes glinted. “Then, my lord, we will carry our supplies with us and make do with that.” Her fist clenched in her enthusiasm and passion. “I guarantee you that once people see your banner raised over the High Clerist’s Tower, Palanthas will fall into our hands like rotten fruit!”

“It is too risky,” Ariakas muttered.

“Yes, it is risky,” Kitiara agreed eagerly, “but there is a greater risk in allowing the knights time to organize and send in reinforcements. Right now, the Knighthood is in turmoil. They have no Grand Master, for no man is strong enough to claim it, and they have two High Justices because two men claim the position and neither will acknowledge the rights of the other. They are running around like sailors on a burning deck quarreling over whose job it is to put out the fire and all the while, their ship is sinking.”

“That may be true,” said Ariakas, “but the Knighthood is still a powerful force in Solamnia and so long as the knights are around, the Solamnic people will never give up. The knights must be utterly destroyed, the knighthood vanquished. I want them crushed, shattered, and so demoralized they can never recover.”

“That will happen if we rout the knights at the High Clerist’s Tower,” Kitiara argued. “If Palanthas falls due to the feeble folly of the knights, the people will turn from them in fury and disgust. The people already distrust them. The loss of the High Clerist’s Tower and the invasion of Palanthas would be the final blow. The knighthood would crumble to dust.”

Seeing Ariakas thinking this over, Kitiara pressed home her point.

“My lord,” she said, “we use the blue dragons to strike like a thunder bolt falling from the heavens. We hit the knights quickly and we hit them hard before they ever see us coming. Give the command and my dragons can be ready to attack within the week!”

She paused to let this sink in, then said quietly, “It is said that the High Clerist’s Tower has never fallen while men of faith defend it. The men guarding the Tower have lost their faith and we must not give them the opportunity to find it. We must strike before the knights raise up a champion who will bring the feuding factions together.”

Ariakas mulled this over. Her arguments were persuasive. He liked the idea of a swift, brutal attack on the under-manned tower. The knights would be demoralized. Palanthas would undoubtedly surrender, and he needed her wealth and her fleet of white-winged ships. The trade in slaves alone would send steel coins flooding into his coffers.

Ariakas was about to agree and then he looked into Kitiara’s eyes. He saw what he wanted to see in the eyes of one of his commanders: the lust for battle. But he saw something else there, too-something that gave him pause. He saw smug certainty. He saw ambition.

She would be lauded and celebrated: Kitiara, the Blue Lady, the conqueror of Solamnia.

He could see her hand reaching for the Crown of Power. She had already, perhaps, removed one of her rivals…

Ariakas did not fear Kit. He feared nothing and no one. If he had thought her daring plan was his only chance for victory, he would have ordered her to proceed and he would have dealt with her when she challenged him. But the more he considered her plan, the more he saw the potential for disaster.

Ariakas mistrusted Kit’s reliance on dragons. Before the Dark Queen’s return, Ariakas had never brought dragons into battle, and while he admitted they had their uses for destruction and intimidation, he did not think it wise to rely on them to take the lead in a fight, as Kitiara was proposing. Dragons were arrogant beasts. Powerful and intelligent, they considered themselves as far above humans as humans considered themselves above fleas. Ariakas could not, for example, give a dragon a direct order. The dragons were obedient only to Queen Takhisis, and even the goddess had to be diplomatic in her approach.

Kitiara’s reckless and unorthodox plan went against all Ariakas’s notions of the proper way to conduct a war, and it wouldn’t hurt her to get smacked down for once-remind her who was in charge.

“No,” he said decisively. “We will strengthen our hold on the south and the east and then we will march on the High Clerist’s Tower.” He emphasized the word. “As to the Solamnic knights, I have my own plan for their destruction.”

Kitiara was disappointed. “My lord, if I could just explain the details, I’m sure you would come to see-”

Ariakas slammed the flat of his hand down on the desk. “Do not push your luck, Blue Lady,” he said grimly.

Kitiara knew when to quit. She knew him and understood him. She knew he distrusted dragons. She knew he distrusted her and that his distrust was part of his decision, though he would never admit it. It would be dangerous to continue to press him.

Kitiara also knew, with a certainty bordering on the uncanny, that he had just made a serious mistake. Men would pay for that mistake with their lives.

Kitiara thought all this and then she let it go with a shake of her black curls and a shrug. Hers was a practical nature that looked always ahead, never behind. She did not waste time in regret.

“As you will, my lord. What is your lordship’s plan?”

“This is the reason I summoned you.” Ariakas rose from the desk and walked to the door. Leaning out, he shouted, “Send for Iolanthe!”

“Who is Iolanthe?” Kit asked.

“The idea is hers,” said Ariakas. “She is my new witch.”

From the glistening of lust in his eye, Kitiara guessed immediately that this new witch was also his new lover.

She leaned her hip on the desk again, resigned to hearing whatever lame-brained scheme Ariakas’s latest paramour had whispered to him during the throes of their love-making. And she was a witch, a user of magic. That made this even worse.

Kitiara was more comfortable around magic-users than most warriors. Her mother, Rosamun, had been born with magic in her blood, given to strange visions and trances that had eventually driven her insane. The same magic flowed strongly in the veins of her younger half-brother, Raistlin. It had been Kitiara who, seeing this talent in him, understood that he could someday earn his bread with his art-provided it didn’t kill him first.

Like most warriors, Kitiara did not like nor trust magic-users. They did not fight fair. Give her a foe who came lunging at her with a sword, not one who pranced about chanting sing-song words and tossing bat dung.

The witch arrived, ushered in by one of the ogre guards who couldn’t quit ogling her. Iolanthe had responded to the summons with such alacrity that Kitiara suspected the witch had been ensconced in a nearby chamber. From the glance she and Ariakas exchanged, Kitiara guessed the woman had been invited to eavesdrop on the conversation.

Iolanthe was what Kitiara would have expected in one of Ariakas’s lovers. She was human, young (late twenties, perhaps), and Kitiara supposed men might consider her beautiful, if you happened to like a nubile, sensuous, voluptuous sort of beauty.

There had been a time when Ariakas had liked Kitiara’s lean and muscular sort of beauty, but that time was long gone. Kit was quite content to let it remain in the past. She’d slept with Ariakas for one reason and that was to gain an advantage over the hundreds of other aspiring and ambitious commanders clamoring for Ariakas’s favor.

Kit greeted Iolanthe with a cool nod and a quirk of her lips, which let the witch understand immediately that Kit knew why and how Iolanthe came to be here.

Iolanthe returned the woman’s crooked smile with a charming smile of her own. Iolanthe had heard a great deal about Kitiara uth Matar from Ariakas and the witch had been intensely curious to meet her. Iolanthe was not jealous of Kitiara. Jealousy of an individual means that one suffers from feelings of inferiority and inadequacy, and Iolanthe was supremely confident of her powers-both physical and magical. She did not see the need to be jealous of anyone.

Kitiara did have one thing Iolanthe wanted. Kit was a Dragon Highlord. She commanded men and dragons; she had wealth and status. She was an equal in the eyes of Ariakas, while Iolanthe was only his witch and his mistress-one in a long line of mistresses. The ogres standing guard outside treated Kitiara with marked respect. They leered at Iolanthe.

The witch wanted what Kitiara had-power-and she meant to get it, though Iolanthe had not yet decided how. She was from Khur, a land of fierce nomadic warriors who fought blood feuds dating back centuries. Iolanthe might make a friend of Kitiara. She might become her most deadly foe. Much depended on Kitiara.

“Explain your idea to the Blue Lady,” said Ariakas, as Iolanthe entered.

Iolanthe made a graceful bow of acquiescence. Her eyes were violet, and she lined them with black kohl to enhance their unusual color. Those eyes met Kitiara’s, their gaze one of cool appraisal.

Kitiara had little use for most men she met and no use at all for women, who, in her mind, tended to be soft creatures given to babies and hysterics. Kit could see why Ariakas had brought this woman to his bed. Iolanthe was one of the most striking, exotic females Kitiara had ever seen.

“You are of Solamnic descent, I believe, Kitiara-” Iolanthe began.

“I am properly addressed as Highlord,” Kitiara stated.

Iolanthe’s black lashes flickered. “I beg your pardon, Highlord. Forgive me.”

Kitiara gave an abrupt nod. “Proceed. My time is short.”

Iolanthe cast a covert glance at Ariakas. As she expected, he was enjoying this. He generally found it expedient to keep his subordinates at each other’s throats, encouraging the survival of the fittest. Iolanthe had the idea that perhaps she could use them both, play one off the other in her own rise to power. A dangerous game, but Iolanthe was born with the blood of warrior-kings in her veins, and she had not come to Neraka merely to feel Ariakas’s calloused hands groping her.

“Your father was a knight,” Iolanthe added, refraining from adding that Kitiara’s father had been a disgraced knight, “and therefore you are familiar with the politics of the Solamnic knighthood-”

“I know that I get a blinding headache whenever politics are discussed,” said Kitiara disdainfully.

“I heard you were a woman of action.” Iolanthe favored Kit with a pretty smile. “Do you know a knight named Derek Crownguard?”

“I know of him. I’ve never met him. He is a Lord of the Rose from a wealthy family, who is vying with Gunthar uth Wistan for the leadership of the knighthood.”

Politics might give Kitiara a headache, but she took care to keep herself informed as to what was happening in the nation she was about to conquer. “Crownguard is ambitious. A glory-seeker. He is a strict follower of the Oath and the Measure. He will not take a crap but that he first consults the Measure to make sure he’s doing it right.”

“Crudely put, but accurate,” said Iolanthe.

“This Crownguard is the key to the destruction of the knighthood,” said Ariakas.

“You want me to have him killed?” Kitiara asked.

She was speaking to Ariakas, but it was Iolanthe who responded with a shake of her head. She wore her long black hair shoulder-length with straight-cut bangs adorned by a slender gold band. Her thick hair swung when she moved her head, giving forth a hint of fragrant perfume. Her robes were made of black silk trimmed in gold, sewn together in layers so that the diaphanous, filmy fabric clung to her here and floated away from her there, providing a fleeting and tantalizing glimpse of brown flesh beneath. She wore golden bracelets on her arms and golden rings on her hands and around her ankles. Her feet were bare.

Kitiara, by contrast, was clad in dragon armor with tall boots, and she smelled of sweat and of leather.

“Assassination would make Derek Crownguard a hero,” said Iolanthe. “The knights need a hero right now and only a fool would provide them with one.”

“Just tell her the plan, Iolanthe,” said Ariakas, who was growing impatient, “or rather I will do it myself. You have heard of dragon orbs?” he asked Kitiara.

“The magical artifact that holds the elf king Lorac in thrall?”

“Another orb like it has been discovered in Icereach. The Dragon Highlord of the White Wing, Feal-Thas, apparently just came across it while cleaning out his closet,” Ariakas said dryly.

“You want me to go take it from him,” said Kit.

Ariakas tapped his fingertips together. “No. Derek Crownguard should be the one to recover this orb.”

Kitiara raised her eyebrows. Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t this. “Why is that, my lord?”

“Because the orb will seize Crownguard, as it has seized the elf king, and bring him under our control. He will go back to Solamnia-the poison in the Solamnic well. Under our direction, he will lead the knights straight to ruin. This plan has the additional advantage of removing Derek from Solamnia during a critical time. You are familiar with Solamnics. What do you think?”

What Kitiara thought was that a bold attack now on the High Clerist’s Tower could win the war, but Ariakas didn’t want to hear that, and Kitiara suddenly understood why. He hated his foes, the Solamnic knights, but as much as he hated them, so too did he believe in them. He believed their mythology. He believed the legend of the knight Huma and how he had driven the Dark Queen and her dragons back into the Abyss. He believed in the myth of the knights’ prowess and strength and he believed in their former glory. He had concocted this elaborate plan because, deep inside, he believed he could not defeat them militarily.

Kitiara was under no such illusions. She was not a believer. She’d seen the knights in the person of her profligate father and she knew their shining silver armor was rusty and dented and that it creaked when they walked.

This was all so clear to her, yet there was nothing she could do. What was equally clear was that if this scheme of Ariakas’s failed, if the dragonarmies lost the battle for Solamnia, she-as commander of the Blue Wing-would be blamed. Never mind that she had given Ariakas the winning strategy and he had turned it down. He would conveniently forget that when the time came.

He and his witch were both waiting for her to tell them how brilliant they were.

She would do her duty. She was a soldier, after all, and he was her commander.

“It’s an interesting notion,” Kitiara said. “All Solamnics are deeply suspicious and distrustful of anything magic, but”-she smiled at Iolanthe-“I have no doubt some lovely woman could help Sir Derek overcome his misgivings. Now, if that will be all, my lord, I should be returning to my command.”

Kitiara was thinking there might be some way around Ariakas’s refusal to attack the High Clerist’s Tower. He would be angry that she had disobeyed him, at first, but his rage would be mitigated by her victory. Better that than endure his fury after a defeat…

“Excellent,” said Ariakas smoothly. “I’m glad you like the plan, Kitiara, because I’ve decided to send you to ensnare Crownguard.”

His words came as a shock to both women. Iolanthe stared at him in amazement nearly as great as Kit’s.

“My lord,” Iolanthe protested, bristling, “you and I agreed that I should be the one-”

“My lord,” Kitiara spoke at the same time, her dark brows coming together in irritation, “I am commander of the Blue Wing. My place is with my troops-”

Ariakas was gratified. These two powerful women had been growing a bit too sure of themselves.

“I have changed my mind,” he said, his sharp tone cutting them both off. “Iolanthe, the Highlord is right. The knights are distrustful of magic and those who wield it-a fact I had not taken into consideration when I agreed you could go. Kitiara is a warrior and far better suited to this task. As for you, Highlord, your forces are dug in for the winter. You can afford to spend some time away from them.”

Kit turned away, determined to hide her disappointment. She walked over to stare out the window at the compound, where a group of prisoners, chained together at the ankle, was being lined up at the foot of a scaffold. Today was the day for hanging traitors. She watched dispassionately as the executioner placed the noose around the neck of a young man, who was groveling on his knees, protesting his innocence, begging for his life. The guards yanked him to his feet, put a bag over his head.

“Leave us, Iolanthe,” said Ariakas, after a pause. “I need to speak to the Highlord.”

Iolanthe cast Kitiara a baleful look, then took her leave, her silken garments flowing around her. She slammed shut the door behind her.

Kitiara had her feelings once more under control. “The lady was not pleased. I fear you will sleep in a cold bed this night, my lord.”

“No woman ever says ‘no’ to me, Kitiara,” Ariakas replied imperturbably. “You know that, and stop fingering that hidden blade of yours. I am convinced you are the one to handle this business with Crownguard. Once you have completed that assignment, which should not take you long, provided you handle it right-”

“I already have some ideas on that score, my lord,” said Kitiara.

“Good. After that, I want you to fly to Haven and report back to me on this chaotic situation in the Red Wing.”

Kitiara was about to argue against this, for she truly had no care about the Red Wing, when a sudden thought flashed through her mind. Haven was near Solace. A trip back to her old stomping grounds might prove most interesting.

“I am yours to command, my lord,” she said.

“After that, you will travel to Icereach. I do not trust this elf wizard. I find the fact that he has suddenly ‘remembered’ he has a dragon orb in his possession disturbing.”

Ariakas walked over to stand beside her. They both watched as the scaffold’s trap door opened and the young man dropped to his death. Unfortunately for him, the fall did not break his neck, and he writhed and twisted at the end of the noose for some time.

“Ah, a kicker,” remarked Ariakas, amused.

Kitiara watched until the body went still and hung twisting in the wind. Ariakas had more to say. She waited for him to say it.

“This is the main reason I am going along with Iolanthe’s plan for this knight to steal the dragon orb. I do not want it in the possession of Feal-Thas.”

“I could take it from him,” said Kitiara.

Ariakas cast her a cool glance. “I don’t want it in your possession either.”

Kitiara half-smiled. She watched in silence as the soldiers cut down the body and prepared the noose for the next man in line.

“That being said, I don’t want Feal-Thas to think I don’t trust him,” Ariakas continued. “He has his uses; I know of no one else I could convince to live in that frozen wasteland. You must be subtle in your dealings with him.”

“Of course, my lord.”

“As for the dragon orb, once I have no further use for this Crownguard, he will be disposed of and I will take the orb for myself. Don’t you see the genius of this plan?”

Kitiara saw the genius of her own plan to attack the High Clerist’s Tower. She sighed inwardly.

“Yes, my lord,” she replied dutifully. Outside in the compound, the guards were dragging the next man up the stairs. She turned away from the window. “Your lordship must give me written orders for Feal-Thas. He won’t believe me.”

“Of course. You will have them by morning. Stop by before you leave.”

“Do you know where I am to find Crownguard, my lord? I seem to recall destroying his castle some time ago…”

“According to my agents, he is on Sancrist Isle, residing at Castle Wistan. He leaves there to go back to Palanthas, however.”

Kitiara stared at Ariakas, incredulous. “That is enemy territory, my lord!”

“A dangerous mission, Kit,” Ariakas said imperturbably. “The reason I chose you.”

Kitiara had the feeling there were other reasons as well. Up until a few moments ago, he had planned on sending Iolanthe to Solamnia. Ariakas was not one to act on impulse. He had a good reason for making the switch. Kitiara wondered uneasily what it was. Had she given herself away? Did he guess she had been planning to disobey him and attack the Tower? She thought back to her words, her actions, and decided she had not. No, he must simply be annoyed at her for pressing him on the issue of the High Clerist’s Tower.

Their business concluded, Kitiara took her leave. The two parted, apparently on the best of terms.

“One thing I like about you, Kitiara,” Ariakas said to her as she was walking to the door. “You take defeat like a man. No sulking or pouting just because you don’t get your way. Keep me apprised of your progress.”

Kitiara was so absorbed in her thoughts when she left that she did not see the door to another room open a crack, nor did she see the bright violet eyes, touched with kohl and shadowed by long dark lashes, watching her.

Kit retrieved her sword and her boot knife from the ogres. Unlike Grag, her hands did not shake as she buckled on her sword belt, but she felt a similar sense of relief. Few left Ariakas’s presence alive without feeling relieved.

“Need the location of the nearest bar?” asked the ogre handing over her sword.

“Thanks, I already know it,” said Kitiara.