Veil of Shadows (4 page)

She studied him, her gaze lingering on the hilt of the long knife she could see over his shoulder. Xan held silent as she finished her survey and then looked at him. “Interesting blade you have there—it’s a bit larger than the standard-issue ones we have on hand. Pulsars and blasters are more widely used here than knives.”

“I can use either,” he said, absently touching a hand to the pulsar strapped to his left thigh.

She lifted a brow and nodded toward his knife. “And how good are you at the blade?”

He just smiled. The knife fit in his hand like it had been made for him. And it had—he’d made it himself. He’d been crafting his own blades for years.

Syn’s smile widened and then she looked away from both Vena and Xan, dismissing them. “Commander, we’re scheduled to meet with Elina and Lee in the next few minutes.”

The commander nodded. Neither of them spared Vena or Xan a second look.

Xan only lingered long enough to admire the view as she walked away. Then he let the crowd swallow him, leaving Vena standing there, still blushing furiously.

“It’s not going to happen,” Kalen said shortly.

He didn’t even bother glancing at the report disc Elina had put together for him.

Lee, Elina and Syn stood in front of his desk. Elina didn’t look surprised, but Syn could tell the woman was pissed.

Lee glared at her husband. “You didn’t even read the damn report.”

“I don’t need to,” he said flatly. “I’m considering the safety of all in making this decision, and the answer is no. No amount of reports will change that.”

“Well, of course not,” Lee replied. “Not if you don’t bother to read them.”

Kalen flicked a glance up at her. The silver of his eyes flashed, but Syn couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He was too good at hiding his emotions. “Is there any solid, concrete information in there about whether or not the Warlords will feel Lee’s magic? Or whether or not you know for a fact the energy is safe and isn’t going to suck a weaker witch inside, drain her dry?”

“No.” Elina spoke for them all.

“Then there is nothing in those reports that will change my mind.” He shoved the disc off to the side and focused once more on the reports the weapons master had provided. “Now, since that is settled, we need to start preparing for our next supply run. Unless somebody from back east finally decides to respond to my last dozen requests, we’ll have to make a run within the month.”

He focused on Syn’s face.

From the corner of her eye, Syn could see Lee and Elina’s expressions. Elina’s face was impassive.

But Lee looked mad enough to spit nails.

Syn suspected she was going to make Kalen’s life hell for the next few nights.

Why couldn’t they convince him?

Why wouldn’t he give them a chance?

That cold, empty ache inside her spread, took up a little more ground.

He had to give in. Had to listen . . .

Shifting her gaze to Elina, she just barely managed to keep her thoughts shielded.
He’s killing us and he doesn’t even seem to understand it
.

Elina’s face was impassive. But she knew.

Kalen didn’t understand. He didn’t have the magic inside him. He wasn’t a witch. He
couldn’t
know. When he didn’t let them use their magic, he was cutting off a part of them, and sooner or later, it was going to have consequences—for the three witches left in camp, they could be devastating.

“Your report, Syn,” Kalen said, jerking her to attention.

Syn had a hard time maintaining her composure as she delivered the supply report to the commander. She was so furious, she could hardly see. So cold, she felt sick with it. “We can hold out a few more weeks, then?” Kalen asked after she’d given him a quick rundown.

“Safely, yes. Possibly longer,” Syn replied. “Will that be all, Commander?”

He gave her a narrow look. For the most part, when they were discussing things among themselves, Syn rarely called him Commander. She called him by his name—they were friends, friends who’d bled together, sweated together, come close to dying together on more than one occasion.
Commander
was saved for times when they were out among the troops, rarely for discussions such as these.

Unless she was pissed. And she was. Kalen leaned back in the seat and studied her face, then glanced at Lee and Elina. “I’m sorry. I know this is hard.”

Syn said nothing. Lee glared at him.

Elina tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. In a polite, amicable voice, she said, “You don’t fucking know what
hard
is . . . Commander. You think you know. But you don’t.” She reached up and tapped her brow as she continued. “Imagine if that psychic gift of yours just suddenly went away. Poof—gone, just like that. It’s part of you. You rely on it. Magic is even more intrinsic to the soul than psychic skill—but you know how hard this is. You know what it’s like to have part of your soul taken away.”

She shifted in her chair, drumming her fingers idly on the arm of it. “No, Commander. You don’t know. So let’s just drop it.”

“Fine.” A muscle jerked in Kalen’s jaw. “Lee, Elina, you’re dismissed. Captain, update me on how the search for Dais is going.”

Dais Bogler rammed his knife into the belly of the buck and cut upward. It had been a while since he’d been forced to hunt, kill and clean his own dinner, but he hadn’t forgotten how. That kind of skill wasn’t easily lost.

Blood, hot and slick, coated his hands.

For a moment, he imagined it wasn’t the blood of a corcer, one of the herd beasts that lived in the Roinan Mountains.

In his mind, it was Kalen’s blood.

In his mind, it was Lee’s blood.

In his mind, it was Morne’s blood.

Morne—damn the man. Why hadn’t he seen it?

Morne—a fucking Warlord. Sirvani. Whatever in the hell he called himself. The bastard had hailed from Anqar and not a one of them had realized it.

It was a vile twist of fate that the people from Anqar didn’t truly look any different from those in Ishtan. Humanoid. As a whole, Warlords and the Sirvani were tall and lean, strong—they were a conquering race, so naturally they were strong. But they looked human. Nothing save their language, their dress, their customs, set them apart from the peoples of Ishtan.

Morne had hidden himself with the rebels, and he’d done it all too well, too easily. He spoke their tongue, and he did it without an accent. He did not wear the garb of a Warlord, and he most certainly hadn’t adhered to Warlord customs. He’d made himself seem as one of the rebels.

A wolf among sheep.

And because of this particular wolf, more than any other, Dais was well and truly screwed.

There were nights when he lay awake and wondered if he shouldn’t just end it, put a blade to his wrists and be done with it. Sooner or later, the rebels would track him down. As long as he was in Ishtan, he was a man marked for death, and unless he was very lucky, it wouldn’t be a pleasant death.

But Dais wasn’t about to give up quite so easily. Not when he’d worked so long, so hard. There had to be a way. There still had to be a way.

He even had a glimmer of a plan. But until he found the right people, he couldn’t very well put it into motion.

Tomorrow, damn it.

He’d find them tomorrow—

But that was something he’d been telling himself for weeks. The Roinan mountain range was huge, heavily forested, and the Warlords knew they couldn’t risk being found by Kalen’s men, so they stayed on the move. Far too quietly.

A noise, far off, muted, caught his attention. Instincts kicking into high gear, he gathered his gear and abandoned what would have been his first decent
hot
meal in weeks. The game was slowly starting to drift back in the mountains, but it was still scarce. He’d been existing off scrawny rabbits and cokrels and what precious little vegetation he could harvest without being noticed.

Except he
had
been noticed. He kept his growl behind his teeth and took off into the undergrowth of the woods, moving in an uneven line that would eventually take him to the river. The water level was lower than normal and the current was moving slowly. If he had to, he could take to the water and let the river carry him farther away.

“The river,” he muttered, tugging at his lower lip, forgetting the buck’s blood that still stained his hands. “Just take to the river for a while, maybe.”

Might be best, actually.

Safer.

Away from the people who’d kill him without blinking an eye. For now. Perhaps if he lay low for a time, they might stop continually combing the forest for him.

Damn them all.

Damn them straight to hell.

With a feral smile curling his lips, Morne emerged from the brush and eyed the dead buck at his feet.

Faintly, very faintly, he could smell something other than the forest, something other than the dead corcer’s blood.

Man.

A man had been here, and not long ago.

He could think of only one man it could be.

Morne already knew that Kalen had the camp under heavy lockdown. One single soul wouldn’t come out this far on a hunting excursion, and even if one was that stupid, one buck wouldn’t do much to feed the camp.

But it wasn’t one from the army. The commander wouldn’t allow anybody to leave the camp alone, and Morne could only sense the presence of one.

So either it was one of the foolish few who hadn’t yet abandoned this forsaken land or it was a traitor.

Dais.

Morne had heard the whisper of sound, the soft sigh of man’s presence, as he searched for Dais. He’d been searching fruitlessly for weeks, but this time, he’d been close and when the earth sensed the presence of a man, it had whispered to Morne. Through his healing gift, he had a connection to the earth. It spoke to him, called to him almost the same way it would call to a witch.

Closer. He was getting closer.

He followed the track to the river, and there, he found more to guide him. Again, his gift roused and whispered to him. It was a different aspect of his power this time, though—his empathy. He’d missed Dais only by moments. Mere moments, not enough time for the residual emotion to clear.

Anger. Fear. Desperation. It was strong enough that he could even pick up on some of the remnant thoughts connected to those emotions.
The river—take to the river for a while. Damn them. Damn them straight to hell . . .

“If I go to hell, I take you with me,” Morne said quietly.

A breeze kicked up, blowing his hair back from his face as he stared at the river. If he reached, if he focused, he could almost pick up on Dais’s emotional trail. The man could only ride the river for so long.

“You’re a dead man.”