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  The coast of Klaar, however, was a different story. A majority of the coastline consisted of jagged rocks that would chew a ship to kindling. Chen ran a finger down the coast until he hit a dot on the map that marked a fishing village called Harran’s Bay, which Chen suspected must be some kind of local joke as there was nothing resembling a proper bay there. But there was a break in the rocks and deep water and the only pier in the entire duchy that could accommodate large ships.

  The people of Harran’s Bay had, of course, fled the village and burned the pier. No matter. Such a thing had been foreseen. It’s what Chen would have done if he’d been defending. Actions were already being taken to rebuild the pier. In the meantime, landing thousands of troops by longboat was tedious at best.

  Chen heard the rattle of armor a split second before one of his officers entered the tent and snapped to attention. “General Chen.”

  “What is it, First Commander Skrii’ Faa?” Chen said without looking up from the map.

  “Ambassador Ra’Karro is … uh … displeased with the military escort he’s been assigned.”

  Another man would have sighed and rolled his eyes, but Chen found such displays petty and indulgent. “Send the ambassador here.”

  The officer saluted and left.

  So why Klaar? All of the advantages to the southern landing sites were also the drawbacks. Bigger populations, larger armies. Word would chase through the land like a tsunami wave, and troops would pour in to repel the invaders.

  Klaar, by contrast, did not seem to be a region anyone gave a damn about. Chen’s men had already intercepted two riders attempting to leave the duchy, and it was likely nobody else in Helva even knew the Perranese had arrived. And when they did eventually find out, it could be weeks from now, by which time Chen would already have a strong foothold. Furthermore, it was reported that the people of Klaar were fiercely independent and seemed to have little use for the king and the rest of the nobility of Helva. When the king heard Klaar was in peril he might not even care. Although Chen thought that too much to hope for.

  Chen heard someone clear his throat and looked up to see Ambassador Ra’Karro standing there, nose in the air, aloof, fat jowls spilling over his high collar. He wore a sash of deep scarlet to indicate he represented the emperor.

  “There is a concern about the military escort?” Chen asked.

  “It would seem inadequate,” the ambassador said. “I am going into a den of barbarians, after all. I’d like to come back out again. Four soldiers and a standard bearer offer little security.”

  The ambassador’s security was of little concern to Chen. Still, the man was a representative of the emperor and deserved some measure of respect for that. He’d have to tell him something.

  “They are dressed as ordinary soldiers, but they are men from the Elite Guard,” Chen assured him. “Even the standard bearer.”

  The ambassador raised an eyebrow, a gesture that might indicate he was impressed or maybe simply didn’t believe the general. Chen didn’t care.

  “You’re escort is ready, ambassador, and you don’t want to be late.” A dismissal.

  Ambassador Ra’Karro hesitated only a moment, then bowed slowly before leaving.

  Chen turned his attention to the most recently updated map, the one of the City of Klaar and its environs and the long, narrow road leading up to the back gate.

  * * *

  Ungrateful sons of bitches.

  It wasn’t like Tosh had expected to be promoted to general, but he had ridden—very bravely—through a snowstorm to bring warning to Klaar. He figured some kind of reward had been in order. Instead, he’d gotten a slap on the back and a bowl of weak soup.

  Then a burly sergeant had handed him a spear and told him to get onto the wall, saying something about needing every man at a time like this. Yeah, like Tosh and his spear would turn the tide of battle. When was the last time he’d even held a spear? Training, maybe.

  A goblet of wine and a feather bed would have been better thanks.

  He’d picked up some scuttlebutt from one of the other soldiers manning the wall. Apparently, this wasn’t some typical Perranese raid but a full-scale invasion. Yes, I know, idiot. I delivered that news myself. Also, riders had been sent to alert the king. Great, and if the riders get through, royal troops will arrive how many months from now? And with all the soldiers and townsfolk and everyone from the lower valley pulled in behind the city walls, the wait for a whore at the Wounded Bird, the brothel near the city’s back gates, could be at least three hours long.

  Now that was devastating news indeed, Tosh thought. He had a lot of back pay coming and many dull hours to kill if the Perranese insisted on a prolonged siege.

  “The Perranese are sending a delegation,” the other solider said.

  Tosh reached back and rubbed his ass. He wasn’t used to riding hard, and his time in the saddle had taken its toll. “I hadn’t heard that rumor.”

  “No rumor.”

  The other soldier pointed to the Long Bridge. A haughty man in a scarlet sash marched toward them, flanked by soldiers on either side. Behind came the standard bearer, a banner with a dragon perched on a crescent moon, the sign of the Perranese Emperor.

  Tosh squinted at the man in the sash. An asshole if I ever saw one.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Rina ran. It wasn’t ladylike to run.

  But being late was worse.

  The dress made running difficult. There was just so much of it, flowing and billowing and generally taking up a lot of space. That was from the waist down. From the waist up it was an entirely different story. The bodice was so tight. It pushed her breasts up in a way that made them seem impossibly … full. Not that they were anything to sneeze at. They just weren’t usually so prominent.

  That’s what all the best young ladies in Tul-Agnon and Merridan are wearing, she could hear her mother say.

  This is Klaar, mother. I wore a wolf-skin cloak to the Trapper’s Festival last year.

  She skidded around the corner and entered the formal audience chamber, panting, a light sheen of sweat on her forehead and chest. She’d spent way too much time picking out a dress, and while she did think the forest green was ultimately the right choice, her father would not consider her detailed attention to fashion a good enough excuse to keep the Perranese delegation waiting.

  Her father saw her, frowned. Her eyes scanned the large audience chamber. No Perranese. She blew out a sigh of relief.

  “Cutting it a tad close, aren’t we?” the Duke said.

  Rina curtsied slowly, dipping low, making an elegant flourish with one hand.

  “I’m not sure how you do it,” her father said, “but you have the unique ability to curtsy sarcastically.”

  Her eyes flicked up to his, a smile playing across her face. She rose and said, “Exactly why am I needed here?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. The Perranese army at the gates and a prolonged winter siege are rather boring, aren’t they?”

  Gee, I wonder where I learned sarcasm.

  “The fact is you will be duchess some day and need to learn these things,” the Duke said. “Now come here.”

  She went, stood quietly, listening as her father conferred with his two chief advisors. Zarrik was general of Klaar’s paltry army. Rina couldn’t recall the man ever taking the field in a major battle, but he seemed competent enough in directing his men to run off the occasional bandit gang that sniffed occasionally around the border. He was running to fat, wore a spotless breastplate and a gleaming helm with a horsehair plume sprouting from the top and flowing down his back.

  “The status of our forces, please, Zarrik,” said the Duke.

  “We were fortunate to have some minimal warning,” Zarrik said. “It allowed us to pull in men from the outlying forts and outposts. In the confusion, it has been difficult to get an exact count.” He looked sheepish at this admission. “But we have some thirteen hundred regular soldiers. And the militia has been called up from the peasantry,
giving us another eight hundred.”

  “And the enemy?”

  Zarrik frowned. “Six thousand, but that’s not a final count either, my lord.”

  “Why not?”

  “Troops are still coming up from the coast, I’m afraid.” The general shrugged. “There’s no way to guess how many.”

  The Duke sighed. “Then I apologize, Zarrik, but I’m forced to ask your assessment of our current situation based on imperfect information.”

  Zarrik puffed up his chest, stuck his chin out. “My lord, nobody is coming across the Long Bridge. That I can guarantee. The Perranese can send their army down the valley and around the mountains and take the Small Road up to the back gates if they like, but even at top speed that’s a three-week trip. More like a month for an army that size. And the road is so narrow; we can drop rocks on them all day long as they try to come up at us. There’s two ways into the city of Klaar, and both are death for any army.”

  “Thank you, Zarrik; that’s what I wanted to hear.”

  Rina hid a smile behind her hand. Father had already known this information, of course, but letting Zarrik report it would puff up the man’s confidence a bit. The Duke knew people, knew how to handle them. Maybe that’s what her father wanted her to observe more than anything else. Yeah, it was important to know the numbers of troops and all that. But how to handle people, how to get them to do what you wanted and even get them to think that it was their idea—these were the important lessons for a future duchess.

  The Duke’s other advisor cleared his throat pointedly.

  The Duke turned to him, offering a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “I haven’t forgotten about you, Giffen. Please make your report.”

  Oh, yeah. Giffen. Rina hated Giffen. As the Duke’s steward, it was Giffen’s job to run the castle, manage the finances and basically keep tabs on all the facts and figures that made a duchy run. This was a tedious job, and in Rina’s opinion, it took a tedious man to do it. He had an unpleasant, pushed-in face and thin strands of greasy hair spread flat across his head. No moustache, but a short, pointy beard. As a little girl, Rina would run around the castle, chasing after the servants’ children, and Giffen would always sneer and accuse her of being “under foot.”

  Now Rina was older. Giffen was forced to treat her differently, but Rina could still detect the sneer behind his forced smile.

  “In some ways we have been fortunate,” Giffen said. “The winter grain shipment from the lowlands arrived just three days ago, so we are well stocked for a siege. Dried fish and potatoes are also in strong supply, and the city wells continue to produce enough fresh water for all even with the sudden population increase.”

  The Duke nodded, digested the information. “Then it seems unlikely they can take the city by force, and we’ve enough food and water to wait them out. I wish we had spies to tell us what their supply situation looked like, but no sense wishing for what we can’t have.”

  The Duke looked at his advisors. “Anything else?”

  “No, my lord.” Giffen bowed slightly.

  “We’re as ready as we can be, my lord,” General Zarrik said.

  The Duke cleared his throat. “Then let’s take our places and see what these damn Perranese have to say for themselves.”

  The Duke took the central throne on the slightly raised dais at the far end of the audience chamber, and Rina took the lower chair to his left. She glanced briefly at her mother in the chair to her father’s right. Mother still looked sickly and gray. She dabbed at a light sheen of sweat across her forehead with a silk handkerchief. She’d had the same illness that had put many of the servants out of commission. She’d been a delicate and frail woman for as long as Rina could remember.

  Rina’s relationship with her mother had been strained the last few years as Rina grew older and more stubborn. Rina admitted it to herself. She’d been a handful. But when Mother tried to tell her with every breath how a lady should walk and talk and dress … well, Rina grew impatient with such things. It was like her mother wanted to make her into some lady of nobility to show off at fancy dress parties without ever considering what Rina might want.

  Rina snapped her attention back to the business at hand as the gilded double doors swung inward, admitting the Perranese delegation. She craned her neck to look past the foreigners and into the wide hallway beyond. Ten soldiers stood at attention on each side. Ostensibly an honor guard to welcome the Perranese ambassador, but Rina guessed they were hand-picked men. Daddy wasn’t taking any chances with strangers in his castle.

  The great doors thudded closed again, echoing through the audience chamber. The Perranese standard bearer and military escort stopped just inside the door. The ambassador proceeded to the edge of the dais and bowed low.

  He rose and said, “I am Ambassador Pilet Ra’Karro, emissary of the Most Holy and Divine Emperor of Perran. I bring you greetings … and a message of peace.”

  Rina’s eyes shot to her father.

  The Duke stood slowly. His bow to the ambassador was barely more than a nod.

  “Peace?” The Duke’s eyebrow rose, questioning. “Am I mistaken, or did I not spy an army on my front doorstep?”

  The ambassador smiled, spread his hands. He teetered on the edge of simpering without tumbling over, a miracle of diplomacy. “But, naturally, the Most Divine Emperor realizes how this must appear. Events progress as they must. The change of power is inevitable, but the Most Holy and Divine Emperor has blessed Klaar with the great distinction of being at the forefront of this shift in power. We wish only to gift the people of Helva with our divine rule.”

  Rina frowned. Well, that’s nerve.

  “The duchy of Klaar has neither the authority nor the inclination to acknowledge any such shift,” her father said. “I cannot accept your … gift.”

  The ambassador shook his head slowly, dramatically. “That is a pity. We invite Klaar to willingly accept its place in the new order. However …” Here the ambassador smiled thinly. “… We understand that some force might be necessary to bring rebellious territories into line.”

  Rina’s father returned the smile. “And so we come to it. Unless your generals are fools, they must know they can’t come across the Long Bridge. Nobody wants a siege that could certainly drag on longer than a year if both sides are stubborn enough, and, my dear ambassador, I assure you the people of Klaar are as stubborn as they come. So what do you really want? Begin your negotiations.”

  The ambassador’s thin smile didn’t waver. “No negotiations. Simply an offer. Open the gates and let us take control peacefully. Many lives will be spared.”

  A long, tense moment as the Duke held the ambassador’s stare. Rina studied her father’s face. Could almost read his mind. Was he missing something? The Duke considered all of the potential subtleties before answering.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” the Duke said. “We refuse your offer, obviously. To be blunt, I’m not sure what you hoped to accomplish by coming here today.”

  The ambassador nodded slightly, reaching into a billowy sleeve and coming out with a fan that he spread open with a flick of a wrist, the bright red material a sudden signal to the men behind him.

  The soldiers and the standard bearer ran forward, drawing swords.

  Rina stood, eyes shooting wide. She heard her mother gasp.

  General Zarrik was first to react. “Guards!” He drew the short, broad sword at his waist.

  The audience chamber doors flew open, and the twenty men on the other side rushed in amid the clamor of thudding boots and clanking armor and swords flashing from sheaths. They crashed into the handful of Perranese soldiers. Screams and death and the harsh ring of metal on metal.

  “Treachery!” Rina’s father flew down the dais, drawing his rapier and aiming a long sweeping stroke at the Perranese ambassador.

  The ambassador flinched back, but not quickly enough, the tip of Duke’s blade slicing neatly across his throat. Hot red blood spurted for from the ambas
sador’s jugular. His hands went to stanch the flow as he stumbled back, the blood seeping between his fingers, his red fan fluttering to the ground like a wounded sparrow.

  Rina’s gaze shifted from the dying ambassador to the clash of men in the audience chamber.

  The Perranese soldiers whirled and danced among her father’s men, swords striking, pulling back to block an attack, striking again. The movements were so fast, Rina almost couldn’t follow them. The Klaarian soldiers fell. Others moved in to take their places, and they fell too, clutching at fatal, bloody wounds. The Perranese warriors were too good. Judging from the little combat Rina had seen, only Kork handled a sword better.

  Where the hell is the big savage? The one time I actually need a fucking bodyguard—

  Rina suddenly felt Zarrik’s hand on her wrist, pulling her down the steps of the dais. “Lady Rina, hurry! We need to get you to safety before—”

  Something metal flashed past her, and Zarrik grunted, twitched and let go of her.

  The general fell dead at her feet. A ring of metal spikes had killed him, some sort of throwing weapon. One of the spikes had buried itself deep in the middle of his forehead. His eyes were open but lifeless, mouth twitching.

  Oh, Dumo, help us. Her hand went automatically to the sword strapped to her waist, but it wasn’t there. A young lady did not wear a sword with a dress on formal occasions.

  Damn it!

  The Perranese soldiers continued to slaughter the men of Klaar. In seconds, the battle would be over.

  The Duke backed up the dais to stand next to his steward. “Giffen, take my wife and daughter and flee out the back hallway. I won’t be able to hold them, but maybe I can buy you a few seconds to—”

  The Duke’s breath caught. He looked down, saw Giffen’s hand holding the dagger he’d just jabbed into his side. The Duke’s eyes came back up to Giffen’s smiling face; he worked his mouth, trying to speak, but couldn’t find breath.