The figure up ahead didn't move, but Styrax knew he had been heard.
After a longer pause, Salen asked, 'Well, Mikiss, what do you want now?'
Styrax remained still, drawing more power into the Skull at his chest as he watched Salen's back. He wanted the man to have time to appreciate the foolishness of his treachery, to understand how he had been anticipated every step of the way, and that he had been permitted his childish delusion of supremacy – before it was all stripped away.
Salen's long robe of reds and yellows and blues, the seams stitched in silver and gold, moved a little in what little breeze reached the tower. 'Mikiss?' As he turned around, his expression of anger fell away.
Styrax smiled. His white hand burned savagely, every crease in his skin alive with sensation as the stored magic howled to be loose. He was glad of the pain; it reminded him of his mortality as much as his vast strength. He believed in the need for balance in all things – his son Kohrad was not the only person he tried to drum this into – so perhaps a demonstration would succeed where wise words had not.
'Well, Salen? You've been preparing for this moment for weeks now. Time to make your move.'
The Chosen of Larat jerked into action, his hand darting into his pocket as he reached for the energy around him – and astonishment flashed across his face as he grasped nothing, the expected flow of power inexplicably absent to his touch. Instead, it was surging to the Skull fused to Styrax's armour.
'What?' Salen whispered in confusion.
Styrax saw the white-eye was still open to the absent energies in the air, but he was no longer searching for the tang of magic. The path was laid, the energies inside him screaming to be released – with a gasping shudder, he let the torrent course through his body and surge
towards Salen, who rocked back on his heels, flailing wildly, as if he were being physically overcome by the raging deluge. With the Skull, Styrax had barely been able to contain the power he'd stolen; now, as he reversed the flow, his enemy screamed hideously and writhed in agony as the rampant flood of energy burned through every nerve and blood vessel in his body.
The Lord of the Hidden Tower collapsed, still convulsing, and the patchwork robe burst into pyrotechnic flames, the colours searing through Styrax's closed eyelids. He shielded his face with his hands, but still flinched as the amulets on Salen's robe exploded into bright white light.
Wind whipped across his body and Styrax jerked away as a piece of stone hit the thumbnail of his exposed hand. The night air grew suddenly close around him, pressing tight against his throat. Styrax forced his arms down by his sides and rested one hand on his sword hilt as he recognised the presence of the Gods. He would not let them see him reeling, not even if he were dying.
A profound silence fell on the chamber. Styrax opened his eyes to see just a charred pile of bones where Salen had been lying, and darkness all around. As he watched, the harsh shadows softened; Styrax imagined Death stalking back into the night, dragging Salen's scorched and pitted soul along behind him.
A sound came distantly, faint against the wind running through the city streets. Styrax listened closely, trying to identify it. For a moment he was puzzled, then he recognised Larat's hollow chuckle drifting through the night. Lord Salen's patron God was obviously amused at the irony of his Chosen's death. The white-eye grimaced. Salen's deranged indifference to life reflected his God's, and Styrax did not understand men like that, men who lived their own lives as little more than pale reflections of their God.
Styrax turned at last and moved briskly to join his guards below. He trotted down the winding steps until he reached the gate where General Gaur waited with the horses and a wretched-looking mes¬senger. There were more deaths to come this night, more blood to spill into Thotel's ever-thirsty earth.
He drew his sword and stepped out into the pale moonlight.
CHAPTER 8
'My name is Mikiss, my Lord, Army Messenger Koden Mikiss.' He met Styrax's gaze for a brief moment, then lowered his eyes again. His horse, surrounded by muscular cavalry horses made even more bulky by their armour, looked fragile, and added to the picture of misery that was the exhausted, frightened messenger.
Styrax smiled inwardly. He would surprise a man with unexpected mercy more than once tonight.
'Come. We must ride,' he said, and his party set off at a brisk canter through the empty streets of Thotel. The looming stoneduns dotted around the plain cast huge black shadows over the smaller buildings set in long, wide avenues. The single cliff of the river-valley reached away to their left, the quartz adorning ancient shrines set into the cliff-face sparkling where it caught lamplight or moonlight.
'You have been carrying all of Salen's messages,' Styrax said, turn¬ing his attention back to Mikiss. It was not a question.
'Not all, my Lord, but many.' Mikiss sounded resigned to his inevi¬table fate; he had been expecting a sharp blade across the throat from the moment he recognised the general.
'Then it is fortunate for you that I noticed an enchantment compel¬ling you,' Styrax said calmly, 'or I would have been forced to conclude you were a traitor.'
Mikiss looked up, clearly startled by the word 'traitor'. He cut a strange figure, with the red-dyed skullcap that marked him out as a member of the messenger corps and an over-large grey cloak. The brass vambrace was ceremonial; he wore no other armour.
No doubt he is a competent messenger, thought Styrax, or Salen would not have used him. The harried trepidation on Mikiss' pallid face looked to be a permanent feature. Perhaps his family had bought the young man a commission as a messenger because he'd hardly survive
a week in command of a squad, let alone a company of men. It ap¬peared that he had not yet realised he was not for the immediate chop.
'I'm showing clemency, man.' He brushed away stammered thanks and went on. 'Where is Quistal? Can I assume he's waiting for me to return to the Gate of Three Suns before making his move?'
Mikiss nodded. 'His troops are camped on the Plain of Pillars and Salen's personal troops are in the sunken orchards. Where the coterie is, I don't know.'
General Gaur turned towards Styrax with a questioning look; the white-eye shook his head. The two often had little need of words, for they had been something like friends for many years now.
'They are of no consequence,' Styrax said out loud. 'Larim should have killed them all by now. The coterie will have felt their master's death.' He fell silent, thinking of the ground where they would have to fight. The Gate of Three Suns was a particularly remarkable con¬struction. The massive stone wall was strung across a thousand yards of flat ground between a stonedun and a long rocky plateau. The three circular gates set into it served as the main passages in and out of the city. His brief inspection earlier had suggested that the wall was straightforward engineering, not magic.
The sophisticated irrigation of the sunken orchards had been his second surprise that day – this was the desert, for pity's sake. Styrax hadn't expected the Chetse to show such ingenuity, but there was no denying the enormous skill involved. He decided he was right to seek the trust of the tribe; clearly there were remarkable men within the wild, unwashed masses.
'Before we discuss matters with Quistal, we have an errand to run,' Styrax announced to the unit in general.
'An errand?' echoed Kohrad. The young white-eye's voice sounded overly loud in the silent streets.
His words prompted a growled response from General Gaur. 'Keep your voice down; we don't want to run into a patrol if we can help it. Salen made sure all the night patrols were his own men. We don't need word to get back to the Plain of Pillars before we're ready.'
'An errand,' confirmed Styrax. 'Mikiss, where is General Dev being held?'
The messenger blinked in surprise. 'The commander of the Lion Guard? He's at his family's stonedun, under guard. He'd been injured