LITMIR.BIZ

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as if she would happily murder her handmaidens, but after a moment’s obvious struggle with such violent emotions, she lifted her chin again, and graced Israel with one of the cool, impersonal looks that were all too familiar. “My journey here was fraught with many trials, but I am at last free of my father, and able to help you take control of the city again.”

      “Indeed.” Israel eyed her, his nose twitching with the scent of what must have been her time spent in the pig’s wallow. “I will naturally welcome any assistance you can give me. Has your father called up more of his tribesmen? Is that where the ships have gone?”

      “Just the opposite,” Idril said, ignoring the soft, wet noise that followed when a bit of fern tangled with hay fell off her shoulder and hit the ground. Her chin rose, her eyes daring him to comment. “My father feels that you no longer pose a threat to him now that he’s taken away your army and sent them north, to serve the tribes. There was evidently a skirmish that he felt boded ill—I admit to perhaps playing upon his paranoia—and thus, he sent the tribe north via the sea, so as to quell the insurrection that I hinted would be raging all over Poronne.”

      “That was astute thinking,” Israel said, pretending not to notice when another clod of mud, straw, and leaf mould fell from a particularly spiky bit of her hair.

      One of the handmaids giggled.

      “Astute and prescient, perhaps,” Lady Sandor murmured, her gaze on Israel.

      Israel raised his eyebrows in an approximation of innocence. “If you are implying that I left behind a set of instructions for the people of Aryia to follow when I went to Eris, I have little to say except it would be most unlikely.”

      “Most,” Sandor agreed, her mouth twitching.

      Israel met her gaze with equanimity, knowing full well that although the priestess might adopt a staid and circumspect persona, she had a wicked sense of humor that she had once told him had led her into no end of trouble. That she’d been naked at the time and riding him like a rented mule had nothing to do with the assessment. If Dasa hadn’t fought her way into his heart, making herself welcome in that inhospitable organ, he might have taken up the offer in Sandor’s soft eyes.

      He gave himself a little mental head shake. “So the city is empty? Then we shall retake it. Immediately. Marston!”

      “It’s not empty, no, but the five tribe leaders who were there sailed north yesterday,” Idril answered. “Noellia, whatever that is on the back of my neck, remove it. No, don’t show it to me. I would prefer not to know what it was that slid across my flesh. My lord, wait!”

      Israel, who had started to move off to his tent to gather up his sword, and the roots and bones used to cast spells, paused at the imperious tone in Idril’s voice. “If you are going to tell me it’s folly to attack Abet again—”

      “I am not. There is nothing I would like more than to see my father your prisoner, especially after he wed me to Parker, the most brutish of all the Northmen, in exchange for their support. I wished to ask you if there is news of Deo.”

      Israel couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows at the woman who once, for a few weeks, had been his wife…in name only, he couldn’t help but remember, fighting the urge to smile. Deo had yet to forgive him for the political marriage meant to calm Jalas and bring him into the Council of Four Armies, although he had resolved his differences with Idril during the voyage from Eris. “Your father wed you off for political reasons? Again?”

      Idril’s nostrils flared at the emphasis on the last word, but she waved away the question with an impatient gesture. “It is of no matter. I am betrothed to Deo, as my father well knows.”

      “You’re going to have a hard time marrying him if your husband objects,” Israel pointed out, feeling the corners of his mouth twitch. He steeled his lips into composure.

      A martyred expression was visible on her face for a few seconds before it melted into her usual one of polite disinterest. “It is, as I said, of no account. Have you heard from Deo? Did he reach Genora? Has he found his missing Banesmen?”

      “I have not heard from him directly, no, but Deo and the others should be in Genora by now. The Queen sent word that she was going straight to her kinfolk to seek the aid of the water talkers, and I expect she will communicate once she comes to an accord with them. Now, I must leave you. Since you just escaped from the city, perhaps you might prefer to stay here while I take advantage of your father’s folly in leaving Abet so under-guarded. You could…er…avail yourself of my tub.”

      Idril’s eyes narrowed into the meanest look he’d ever seen, aimed directly at him, and he had a suspicion that if she’d been given the ability to smite him where he stood, she would have done so. Instead, she inclined her head, causing a small snail to cascade off her hair, bounce off her left breast, and fly forward to land on the back of Israel’s hand.

      He removed it without a word.

      Idril sent a scathing look at her three handmaidens, all of whom schooled their expressions into ones of humility when she marched into his tent to bathe.

      It wasn’t until dawn that Israel and his company, now armed with as many weapons as they could gather, approached the gate and demanded an audience with Jalas.

      “Lord Jalas is not to be disturbed,” the tribesman who guarded the gate called down from where he stood on the rampart. “Go back to the rotten log whence you slunk, Fireborn.”

      “My lord,” Sandor said softly, touching Israel’s arm. “There is something here…a sense of futility that disturbs me greatly. Perhaps this attack would be better left for another time, one when Kiriah is present to bless us.”

      Israel considered her for a moment. There were lines of strain around her mouth that he hadn’t recalled being there before. “Futility regarding what, exactly?” he asked, loath to abandon the chance to take back the city that was by rights his. He respected Sandor and her ability to commune with the goddess, but he doubted if another opportunity so perfect as this would present itself again. He had to take advantage of it before more troops reinforced Jalas’s contingent.

      She hesitated a moment, one hand going to her throat. “I cannot see clearly the threat. I only know it is present. It leeches up from the ground like a poisonous vine, tainting everything around it.”

      Worry was evident in her eyes, and for a moment, Israel considered withdrawing. But just then, the guard on the rampart, evidently feeling himself in a position of power, shot an arrow that missed Israel’s horse by a foot. “Stay to the rear,” he ordered Sandor, pulling the splintered rocks, bones, and roots from a small leather pouch that was embossed with silver stars and moons at the same time he gestured to Marston.

      The latter let loose with a war cry while Israel, focusing his attention on the Grace of Alba with which Kiriah had blessed all Fireborn, drew upon the living things around them. With his eyes on the guardsman, who had turned to call for reinforcements, he unleashed the power of the Fireborn, causing a flurry of feathers to swell up around the man, lifting him from the rampart and dropping him to the cobblestones below. Grappling hooks were thrown at the stone wall, and in a matter of two minutes, Israel and half his company had scaled the walls and swarmed the three guards who raced toward them.

      A sense of rightness filled him as the company swept through the town, heading for the keep that towered over Abet proper. He was surprised for a moment at just how still the town was, for the residents of Abet were not known for their quiet lives. It occurred to him as he reached the central square, passing the well and a small fountain that had been put up to mark the birth of Deo, that Jalas had sent all the citizens north with their country relations.

      It was just as he started up the steps to the keep that he realized why Lady Sandor had been so hesitant. He stopped midway up the steps when three men moved out of the shadows of the great double doors and stopped, their figures as black as the crows that wheeled overhead.

      “Banes,” Marston said in a gasp at the same time that Lady Sandor drew in a deep breath, the whisper of a prayer to Kiriah following

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