Zhia gave a slight bow and left. Outside, the men stretched and smiled with relief, then trotted obediently into Siala's room while Zhia walked to where Legana and Haipar were leaning on the banister of the stair, talking softly together. She beckoned to the pair and they followed her downstairs.
'I need somewhere private,' she told them, and Haipar nodded curtly and led the way to a secluded corner on the first floor.
Once Zhia was certain they were alone, she relaxed and turned to face her new aides. 'Haipar, a pleasure to see you again, and alone, too.'
The Deneli tribeswoman smiled like a cat. 'Erizol is outside the city, but I'm sure she'll gladly return to see you.'
'Don't bother telling her; I really don't need the irritation.' She stopped herself baring her teeth; Erizol the Fireraiser brought out
Zhia's temper in a way that few could these days. Bane and his petty little crusade against vampires bored her, but there was something about Erizol's very personal hatred that annoyed Zhia immeasurably.
'I don't doubt it, but, ah-' Haipar cocked her head towards Legana, who was watching the exchange with a puzzled expression on her face.
Zhia smiled. 'Oh, don't worry about Legana. She doesn't pose any threat; no true member of the White Circle would be here under orders from a man.'
Legana stepped back, instinctively reaching for her dagger, but Zhia, moving faster than any human could, grabbed Legana's wrist in an iron grip and pulled the woman close. Legana froze, trapped in Zhia's gaze, until she blinked and let her expression soften. She released Legana's wrist and pushed her back to beside Haipar.
'Let's not get dramatic here,' Zhia said calmly. 'I think we might yet become allies. What are you, a devotee of the Lady?' Legana looked at Zhia and Haipar and nodded hesitantly, though she showed no fear now, only a flicker of apprehension. Zhia felt a small glow of satisfac¬tion: Legana would indeed prove useful.
'I thought as much. Your employer is Lesarl, the Chief Steward of the Farlan, yes? When you report to your master, please tell him that one day I will instruct him in the finer points of subtlety.' She smiled. 'Until then, you're both my aides while I take charge of the army here and decide what I intend to do with it. Siala has just bitten off more than she can chew.'
'Does this mean I'm the only genuine person here?' beamed Haipar, her accent noticeably more refined than when she was in Siala's office.
'Well, shapeshifter,' Zhia snapped, 'I suggest you don't spend too much time crowing about that – you've picked a poor employer this time, though I doubt you'll have heard yet.'
'About the White Circle? Please Zh- Apologies, Mistress Ostia, the entire city knows of it. They attacked Narkang and almost killed King Emin.' Haipar shrugged, as though the news did not interest her one bit. 'But I'm a mercenary, war is my trade and I go where they can afford to pay me. If that means going up against Narkang, so be it.'
'But you would prefer to be alive at the end? What Scree doesn't yet know is that the White Circle has made it clear their principal goal is to kill or capture the new Lord of the Farlan. Siala needs this army because she will soon be at war with the Farlan. Lord Isak is young and headstrong, and he now commands the largest army in the entire Land. I doubt he will be reluctant to use it.'
That wiped the smile from Haipar's face. She'd been expecting the usual messy squabble, the sort of war that never quite flowers into anything too terrible but offers plenty of scope for profitable activities for her kind. Sitting across a poorly defended border from the largest army in the Land was not part of her plans. 'So what are you doing here?' she asked, a scowl on her face.
'My business is my own,' Zhia replied, 'and I see no reason yet to discard an identity that has been useful. Things will need to be pretty desperate before I flee the White Circle, but I am quite confident that should it come to that, I would get out alive.'
Haipar had seen Zhia forced into a corner before, and if the Farlan did attack the city, there was no question: Haipar would want to be allied with Zhia. Raylin had no truck with loyalty and honour; you got what you paid for, and what you paid for were unstable tempers and barely controlled skills and talents.
'So what now?'
'Now, we have work to do.'
'Work?' Legana repeated, finding her voice at last. 'You're going to follow Siala's orders?'
'Certainly, since that was exactly what I had hoped for. She wants me to liaise with her armies to get them trained and give her a chance against the Farlan – at the moment she has a rabble: raw recruits, mercenaries of varying talent, unblooded noblemen and Raylin of all shades. A rabble will be useless, but a rabble they will stay unless someone takes control. That means I need to find officers, ensure each regiment has some experienced staff, and get whatever Raylin we have onto the command staff. You Raylin can smell trouble coming. Haipar, your first duty will be to persuade the Jesters to sell me a few of their acolytes, half a dozen, if possible, for there's more than just training to do.'
Haipar gave a mock curtsey. 'Smelling trouble is part of our job; we are mercenaries, after all.'
'I know, but it's an innate sense sometimes. You mentioned Erizol the Fireraiser; is Matak Snakefang travelling with you too? Did one of you suggest Scree for any particular reason?'
'I-' Haipar looked confused at the question. She smoothed her
white-grey hair away from her tanned face. 'I don't think so. We decided it was time to hit the road again, and it took us this way. We didn't know there were other Raylin here until we reached Braban, the village where I left the others. We'd been joined by Tachos Ironskin and some woman I didn't know called Flitter, and city guards tend to get over-excited when they see more than a couple of us together, so I came to speak for us all.'
'The fact that so many are congregating in Scree is important, I think – your kind are as bad as white-eyes when it comes to tolerat¬ing the presence of your own. There's something in the air here, a storm brewing. I intend to find out what that is, and be ready when it comes.' Her expression darkened. 'When I see a wandering minstrel wearing an augury chain, it makes me think you Raylin might have got it right when you smelled trouble.'
CHAPTER 7
In the burnished light of evening Lord Salen looked down over the valleys and ravines that served as streets for the great city of Thotel. At this distance the pickets and patrols that kept the conquered in¬habitants under control were silent, the torches and guard-fires little more than pinpricks of light. Salen enjoyed the sense of standing above the rest of humanity. Here, above the darkness of the streets, a trace of sunlight still remained. For a dizzying moment it felt like he stood on the peak of a mountain, his body light enough to float away into the abyss below.
He shook off the feeling and turned his attention back to Thotel, a city quite unlike any Menin city. The hollowed-out rock formations that the Chetse called stoneduns were massive weathered chunks of granite scattered around this deep valley like a giant's discarded toys. Wind and water had eroded the softer stone to expose these gigantic boulders, then the Chetse had chipped and scraped until the rocks were riddled with tunnels and living chambers. The mud-brick houses that surrounded them looked like worm-castings in comparison.
Each stonedun had a clan name carved into the rock, identifying it as a community, a fortress in its own right. Some clans had refused to surrender to the Menin, believing their barred gates would hold them safe through a siege…