“You wouldn’t be safe,” Nicci said. What were General Utros and his army doing? What were they planning? Why hadn’t he sent a representative to discuss terms?
Mrra growled as if to insist that life wasn’t safe in Ildakar either. Nicci felt the animal’s sharp claws and tightly wound reflexes, and knew full well that she could take care of herself. Though their spell bond was sharpest in dreams, Nicci could communicate with Mrra clearly. They understood each other.
Then Nicci straightened with the realization that having the big cat outside and running free could be useful to Ildakar. Mrra could be her secret eyes where she couldn’t see. What would serve as a better spy than a predator who could glide through the night unseen?
Nicci leaned forward and put her hands on either side of the large feline head. The golden eyes looked up, meeting hers. “The enemy army is out there. We can see their camp, but that’s not enough for me to make plans. Will you show me what you see? If I let you loose, will you be careful? Will you watch out for yourself?”
The sand panther’s tail thrashed. Nicci made up her mind.
“Stay to the hills, take shelter in the trees, but you can also prowl. I want you to see them, so I can see through your eyes.” Nicci gave a thin smile. “Be my spy against General Utros.”
Lashing her tail, Mrra padded to the door of the chamber and out into the halls of the villa. Nicci felt her pulse racing and knew the panther was excited. “Let’s go. I’ll find one of the smaller gates to let you out, away from where the soldiers are hammering the wall.” Her brow furrowed. “You might actually be safer out there than we are in here.”
Even though the ancient soldiers concentrated their attack near the towering main gate, Ildakar had smaller access points near the cliff drop-off to the river, traveler’s entrances and secret gates for merchants farther down the wall. Nicci and Mrra wound their way through the streets, listening to night birds and prowling house cats that stalked along the gutters. Mrra padded ahead as they worked their way to the northern end of the wall, where it curved around and abruptly met the edge of the sheer bluff.
Nicci found a low door cleverly hidden, covered with stone, exactly where she had been told to expect it. She released her gift and worked the magic to undo the latch. No scout from Utros’s army could ever find these concealed entries. When the spell lock released, she swung the person-sized gate inward. A flood of moist air swept in, wafting up from the Killraven River below and the grassy hills stretching around the plain.
Mrra’s tan body tensed with anticipation. Nicci placed a hand on the panther’s broad shoulders, also feeling the cat’s exhilaration. “I wish I could go with you, but my place is here in Ildakar—for now.” She bent down and wrapped her arms around the big panther’s body. Mrra rumbled with a purr, then licked Nicci’s cheek with a raspy tongue.
“Go,” Nicci said. “I’ll be with you. I’m your sister panther.”
Mrra bounded through the gate and loped out into the hills, vanishing into the night shadows. Nicci felt an ache in her heart, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time she saw the sand panther. She knew how dangerous it would be out there, but Mrra was dangerous, too.
Nicci stared across the valley at the countless campfires of the siege army, blazing bonfires that would have required an entire hillside of trees just to supply the wood. The fires looked like red, winking eyes of hungry spirits, a pack of heart hounds unleashed from the underworld.
Each campfire represented enough enemy warriors to overwhelm a village. If all of these ancient fighters were turned loose to pillage the Old World, they might well conquer the entire continent. Nicci had to contain them here, somehow. She stared for a long moment at the fires, hearing the distant noises of the immeasurably large enemy force.
Mrra roamed free out there now, but as Nicci stood at the gate, she was the one who felt trapped.
Long after midnight, back in her own quarters, Nicci tried to catch a few hours of sleep, knowing she needed the energy. She didn’t want to dream, didn’t want to think, but as she drifted off, her consciousness flew free and she found herself inside her sand panther’s mind.
Mrra was overjoyed to run wild. She had felt so crushed inside the city, and now she bounded along for the sheer joy of it, feeling her forepaws on the crisp grasses, her hind legs pushing her forward. The big cat was meant to be loose in the wilderness, even though she’d been raised by handlers in Ildakar, bred and trained to be a vicious fighter, to kill enemies in the combat arena. Mrra’s skin had been branded with countless runes to protect against a magical attack.
What free panther needed to fear magic?
Mrra and the two sister panthers in her first troka had broken loose from the chief handler’s cages. They had escaped Ildakar and fled across the countryside, roaming aimlessly until they encountered Nicci and her companions near Cliffwall. The three big cats had fought the humans, as they had been trained to do, but Nicci and the others killed her two sister panthers and nearly killed Mrra. The sharing of blood during Nicci’s healing had forged the spell bond, making her a new sister panther. Now, Mrra would have it no other way.
Unleashed, she ran into the hills, stalked among the trees, stirred up night birds, smelled animals in the underbrush. She also sensed other arena beasts that had escaped during the revolt in Ildakar, but Mrra didn’t attack them. She didn’t even hunt for fresh meat, not yet. She was hungry, but more hungry for her freedom.
In spite of her joy, Mrra also understood what Nicci needed. Her sister panther had asked her to prowl around the outskirts of the camp, to observe the huge army so that her sister could see through sharp feline eyes.
In the villa, as Nicci tossed and turned on silken sheets, her blue eyes closed but flickering back and forth, she looked in all directions in her dreams. Mrra and Nicci both saw the magnitude of the threat that Ildakar faced.
CHAPTER 11
In his command headquarters late at night, General Utros lay awake with two naked women pressed against him. Ava and Ruva were motionless, but he knew they weren’t asleep. He could feel their skin against his, smooth but cold, harder than the soft feminine curves he was used to touching. His own skin was just as tough, the nerve endings muffled like a voice shouting from a great distance.
Ruva stirred and, through the intangible connection with her twin sister, Ava also shifted. Lying still, with the sorceresses on either side of him, Utros stared up at the crosshatched roof and thought of the one woman he truly wanted, the passions that still stirred in his stony heart. He didn’t love these faithful twins, but they gave him what he needed.
Majel had given him so much more.
In his mind, she was far away in the capital city of Orogang with Emperor Kurgan, the man to whom Utros had sworn his loyalty. And though he still felt bound by that oath, Utros was torn by his passions and his dogged insistence on serving both, even if it ripped him apart and destroyed everything.
If the two yaxen herders could be believed, Majel was now separated from him by much more than distance. He had seen the lovely empress only a few months ago, according to his memories. Was it possible that he and his army had been petrified for centuries? That the beautiful and passionate woman was long dead? He couldn’t bear such news, if it was true. He had to know, but here on this broad plain, far from Orogang and the rest of Iron Fang’s empire, how could he learn the truth?
If Majel was dead and Emperor Kurgan was no more than the dust of history’s bones, what was he fighting for?
Utros locked away those worries in a separate section of his mind, like damming a stream. The trapped thoughts and concerns would flood him unless he found real answers.