Princeps’ Fury

The Slave Market was lit by furylamps and a glowing mound of croach, bulging up like a cyst from the paving stones and covered with spiderlike keepers. A few more Vord were in evidence than had been there during the day. Were the creatures predominantly nocturnal? Or was there some other explanation for their increased presence.

The “recruiting” operation maintained the same pace she had seen before. Half a dozen dazed Alerans, newly collared, lay on the auction platform. A number of sleepy-eyed slaves were draped over them, whispering and… and other things, in the light of the dancing furylamps. Amara shivered and looked away.

Brencis sat at a small table beside the platform, drinking from a dark bottle. He set it carelessly aside and began wolfing down food. Rook sat on the bench beside him, her hair mussed, her clothes in attractive disarray. A fresh bruise decorated one cheek-a testament to Brencis’s attentions, Amara wondered, or evidence of Rook’s discovery and coerced treachery?

Amara saw the glittering eyes of a vordknight, crouched upon the roof she had used earlier that day to spy upon the courtyard. A coincidence? Or had the collared Rook been forced to inform them of what she knew of Amara’s presence and movements.

Amara grimaced. There was no help for it. She’d simply have to press on and hope for the best.

Veiled behind layers of windcrafting, blending with the weirdly lit night in her furycrafted cloak, Amara stalked silently forward.

Murdering a powerful furycrafter like Kalarus Brencis-and surviving the experience-was a dubious proposition at best. His innate gifts at watercrafting meant that only a sudden and massively traumatic injury had a real chance of killing him; a slash that opened anything less than a major artery would be rapidly repaired. She had to be swift. His skills at windcrafting would grant him deadly swift reaction speed to any attack, and the raw strength granted by his earthcrafting meant that if there was any sort of struggle, he would literally tear Amara limb from limb. Worse, if she struck, missed, and, sensibly, tried to flee, he would probably kill her before she had covered more than a few yards. His firecrafting would make that simple.

Most dangerous of all, his metalcrafting would warn him of any steel weapon as it approached him. It would not give him anything but an instant’s warning, true, but that would be more than sufficient. In order to kill Kalarus Brencis Minoris and survive the exchange herself, Amara would have to open up his throat wide with the stone-bladed dagger she held in her hand. Or else sink it to the hilt in one of his eyes or ears. There was absolutely no room for error.

Brencis, on the other hand, could snap her neck with a thrust of his arm, burn her to bones with a flick of his fingers, or sweep her head clean of her neck with a single motion of his excellent-quality sword.

It seemed a trifle unfair.

But then, she’d never really expected a series of equitable situations when she’d joined the Cursors.

Crows take you, Gaius. Even when I walked away from your service, you managed to draw me back into it.

Moving silent and unseen had become second nature to her over the past days. She drifted past the guards standing about the courtyard, walking slowly, calmly, and carefully. She paused several times, to let one of the collared Alerans pass nearby, before she continued. Stealth had a great deal more to do with patience and the ability to remain calm when there was very little reason to do so than with any amount of personal agility.

It took her perhaps ten minutes to move from the shelter of the alley to the side of the platform opposite Brencis’s table. It took another five to slide around the platform and stop beside the stairs leading from the floor of the courtyard up to the auction stage. When Brencis finished eating, he would go back up the stairs to collar the next victim, and Amara would drive her dagger into his brain. He would fall. She would take to the skies immediately, and be gone from the meager light of the furylamps before anyone could react. It couldn’t be simpler.

In matters such as that, simplicity was a deadly weapon in its own right.

It took Brencis several more moments to finish dinner, before he pushed his plate away and rose.

Amara settled her grip on the handle of the stone knife and relaxed her muscles, preparing for the single, blindingly swift strike that was her only chance at success.

Brencis glanced at Rook, then down and said, “I hate this.”

“Just remember,” Rook told him. “You have what they want. You can’t be replaced. They don’t have the power. You do.”

Amara felt herself freezing into place.

Brencis touched the collar at his own throat. “Maybe,” he said.

“Don’t show weakness,” Rook cautioned. “You know what will happen.”