“Precisely.” The Hunter’s silver eyes glittered coldly. “A whole army doomed to failure, instead of us.”
Damien breathed in sharply. “A decoy.”
“I prefer to call it a distraction.”
“So that the Prince and his demons are watching them and not us,” Hesseth mused.
Damien’s voice was very cold and tightly controlled. “You’re talking about killing these people. Sending them off to a war they can’t win with the promise of your support—and then leaving them to die, while you attack another front.”
“If they want to free their land of its current ruler,” Tarrant responded coolly, “then this would accomplish it. Many of these men are no doubt prepared to die in order to achieve that. Why should it matter how and when it happens, if in the end their goal is achieved?” When Damien said nothing, he added, “Sometimes war requires a sacrifice.”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “I know. I still don’t like it.”
“If we were to do that,” Hesseth asked him, “how would we start? How would we go about finding a group like that?”
“Ah,” he said softly. “That is the sticking point.”
“Come on,” Damien snapped. “With one Knowing—”
“I could interpret the tides of revolution in this land—and also announce our presence to the Prince like a thousand trumpets heralding an army. No, Reverend Vryce. We need to be circumspect in using the fae here. Any fae,” he added, and he looked pointedly at Jenseny.
The girl didn’t quail as his cold gaze met hers, not in body nor in spirit. For all that the outside world still frightened her, she had come to terms with Tarrant’s particular emanations. In that, Damien thought, she’d done better than most adults could dream of. Better than himself, sometimes.
“Jen.” Hesseth stroked her hand gently. “Can you tell us anything? Something your father said, maybe, or something he showed you?”
She hesitated. “Like what?”
“About people who weren’t happy with the Prince. About places where the Prince might be in trouble.”
“Do you really expect her to know that?” Tarrant asked sharply.
“Her father came here because he was the Prince’s enemy,” Damien reminded him. “Whatever other reasons he might have given for the journey, basically he came here to scout out the Prince’s situation—including possible weaknesses.” He reached out and squeezed Jenseny’s shoulder in reassurance. “Since he seems to have told his daughter everything else, why not that?”
“I think . . .” she said slowly. The words faded into silence as she struggled to remember. “I think he said there were rakh who weren’t happy.”
Hesseth exhaled noisily, “I can believe that.”
“He said it was hard for them, because the Prince was like one of their kind. But also he wasn’t.”
“Species bonding instinct at war with intellect,” Tarrant observed. Hesseth hissed softly.
“Do you know any names?” Damien asked softly. “Did he ever talk about anyone in particular?”
“He saw a rakh city,” Jenseny said. Her eyes were unfocused, as if struggling to see something far, far away. “The Prince took him on a tour. He said that he wanted to impress him with how good everything was. But my dad said that some of it wasn’t good. He said he thought some of the rakh were angry, and they really wanted their own country. But they would never dare say anything.”
“Names,” Damien urged. “Do you know any names?”
She bit her lower lip, concentrating. “Tak,” she said at last. “The city was Tak. And there was a guide, a rakh-woman . . . Suka, I think her name was. Suka . . . there was another part.”
“We need-” Damien began
“Shh.” It was Tarrant. “Let her talk.”
“Suka . . . I can’t remember.” Her hand, still covered by Hesseth’s, had balled into a fist with the strain of remembering. “And then there was another. Somebody important.” Damien could feel himself tense as she said that; it took effort not to press her for details, but to wait until she chose to offer them. “He was strong, and really important. The way rakh-men are important, and women aren’t.”
“Alpha male,” Tarrant provided.
Hesseth shot him a look that could kill. “Prime male,” she corrected him. Insisting on the title that her own people used, instead of the one that humans had created for studying animal behavior. And she was right, Damien mused. A people capable of overriding their inherited instincts deserved something better than a term used to describe dogs and horses.
“I think . . . his name was Kata something. Katas . . . Katassah.” Her hands unclenched as the memory came to her at last. “That was it. Katassah.”
“A prime male,” Damien said softly.
“Which means that the others will obey him.”
“Which means that the others might,” Hesseth corrected.
“Tell us about this Katassah,” Damien urged.
The girl hesitated. “My dad said that he was tall and strong and he liked to fight. All the rakh-men like to fight.”
“Assst!” Hesseth hissed. “Tell me about it.”
“He acted like he liked the Prince, and maybe he really did, but my dad didn’t think so. He didn’t think any of the rakh really liked the Prince. He said that if there was a chance for the Prince to be overthrown, some rakh might go for it.”
“Including this Katassah?”
“I think so,” she said. “But he wasn’t really sure. It was something he said he just sensed, but he couldn’t talk about it with anyone. Just a guess.”
There was silence about the small table. A sharp silence, heavy-laden with thought. At last it was Hesseth who spoke what they all were thinking.
“Dealing with the rakh,” she said quietly, “means crossing the Wasting.”
“Yeah,” Damien muttered. It was not a concept he relished.
“Are we so sure they’d be willing to ally with us?” Tarrant challenged. “A rakhene warrior who’s dedicated himself to the overthrow of a human master is hardly going to welcome allies from that species.”
Damien looked at Hesseth, who reminded him, “I’m not human.”
“What I meant—”
“You forget why I’m here,” she said evenly. Her voice was calm, but her eyes glittered darkly with remembered hatred. “This man—this Prince—is transforming my people into demons. Worse: he’s transforming them into monsters who think they’re demons, who hunt and feed like the lowest of the faeborn, even to the extent of surrendering their lives to the sun.” She looked at Jenseny. “Did these rakh go out in the sun? Did your father say?”
For a minute the girl was silent. “He said they don’t like the sun,” she said at last. “But I don’t think it hurts them. Not a lot.”
Hesseth hissed. “So. What was finished in the west is only half-begun here. Maybe it’s harder to alter a nation of a hundred thousand than it is a tribe of several dozen. Or maybe the woman who ruled there was more determined to make the transformation complete. Either way . . . what we saw there was a sign of things to come for these people. Why else would they be turning into . . . what Jenseny saw?” She turned to Tarrant, amber eyes flashing in the firelight. “Do you think there is a rakh who wouldn’t join us, once he understood that? Do you think any rakh would continue to serve the Prince once they saw where his power was leading?”
“I think there are always men who will serve a tyrant,” Tarrant said dryly, “and your species is no exception. But the point is well taken.”
Silence fell once more, amid the golden flickering of flames. Amid thoughts of the Wasting, and its ruthless monarch.
“I don’t see an alternative,” Damien said at last. “Does anyone else?”
Hesseth looked pointedly at Tarrant. The tall man nodded slowly, his expression grim. “No,” he said. “There’s no other way that presents itself here.” His tone was strange, but Damien chalked that up to the subject matter. Starting a war was no small thing.
“All right,” Damien said. “But I want this understood. We’ll go to the rakh cities, we’ll find this Katassah, and we’ll see if he wants to work with us. Agreed? And then we’ll discuss what our options are. But I’m not agreeing to use him as a sacrificial cover. Ever. If we ally with him, then we ally. Period. All cards on the table.” He glared at Tarrant. “Understood?”
The adept’s voice was quiet, but his eyes were burning frost. “You would doom us all for the sake of some abstract morality.”
“Maybe. We’ll see. In the meantime, those are the conditions.” When Tarrant did not respond, again he pressed, “Well? Agreed?”
“Your quest,” the Neocount said quietly. Very quietly. It was hard to say just where in his words the disdain was so evident, but it was. In his tone, perhaps. Or maybe in his expression. “You call the shots.”
“Fine. That’s it, then. On those terms.” He glanced out the window, at the darkness beyond. “We’ll wait another day to let the ground dry out a bit; if the weather stays this cold, that could make a big difference. I imagine in the Wasting it’ll be even harder, with no real shelter—”
“And we don’t know what traps that place will contain,”
Tarrant reminded him. “I don’t imagine black land and ghostly trees will be the whole of it.”
“No.” A chill ran up Damien’s spine, just thinking of the place. “But we have my experience and Hesseth’s senses, not to mention your own considerable power.”
“Yes,” the adept mused distantly. “There is, of course, that.”
“And Jenseny’s special vision,” he said, and he squeezed the girl’s hand. To his surprise—and relief—he found that she wasn’t trembling. Did she trust in them that much? Did she think they could protect her?
We don’t know even what we’re facing, he thought grimly. We can hardly begin to prepare.
But what the hell. He’d faced faeborn dangers before. Once with no more than a naked sword and a pair of socks.
From somewhere he managed to dredge up a smile.
“We’ll make it,” he promised them.