Infinity Blade 02 - Redemption

them.”
    And, startled, he realized that he did know too much about her. Not this woman specifically, but her type of person. He had lived for a long, long time. Buried deeply within him was an instinctive understanding of someone like Lux. She’d always fought for Saydhi loyally, counting herself lucky at least to not be one of the poor sods who had to work the fields.
    That had built in Lux a certain guilt, perhaps even a resentment. She was happy to not have a worse life, but felt that she profited from the sacrifice of so many others. When Saydhi had fallen, it had come to Lux like a moment of revelation and light. The Deathless could actually die. They weren’t gods.
    Siris would bet she had resigned her post that very day.
    “What kind of training do your soldiers have?” Siris asked.
    “As much as I could give them in six months,” Lux said. “We have done a few raids on the God King’s thugs, killing everyone involved and leaving signs to make it look like wild daerils were behind the attacks. He sent troops and wiped out the nearest batch of those, though, so if we try it again we’ll need a different cover.”
    She hesitated.
    “That was just training,” she continued. “A skirmish, not a full fight. I worried that anything more would reveal us.” She looked at him. “This is not a rebellion, Deathless.”
    “It’s not?”
    “No. It’s a desperate group of fools who need something to believe in. If you want a real rebellion, you’re going to need a real army.”
    “No,” Siris said. “You’re wrong.”
    She cocked an eyebrow at him.
    “To have a real rebellion, General,” he said, meeting her gaze, “we don’t need an army. We just need to convince everyone that we have one.”
    “A lie.”
    “Isa tells me that there is a rising air of malcontent,” Siris said. “We need the people out there—the townsfolk telling stories about oppression, the cobblers who are tired of taxation, the farmers who are starving—to believe that fighting back has even the smallest chance of working. Then you’ll see a rebellion. Do you have any intelligence on the enemy?”
    “Some,” she said. “I brought what I could with me when I abandoned my post—some stronghold layouts, troop numbers, things like that. A few of the people who joined us also worked for the Deathless, and they brought information too. That, mixed with what we’ve stolen in our raids, gave us something to work from. It’s random and spotty, though.”
    “Bring it to me,” Siris said. “I want everything you have.”

CHAPTER
EIGHT
    RAIDRIAR DISPATCHED the golem—last in a series of combatants—with reluctance. He had been hoping to recover some of these to serve him. Who knew what resources he would be able to find once free of this place?
    But it was no use. The golem had only the most basic of deadminds, and Raidriar could not reason with it. It collapsed, shaking the ground with an awful crunch .
    I need to be faster, Raidriar thought, moving deeper into the catacombs beneath the temple that housed his rebirthing chamber. The Worker could be sending more resources. Each moment spent fighting was a costly delay.
    He had finally reached the dungeons. Raidriar pushed through the doors, sliding his swords into sheaths at his sides as he did so. He’d stolen these off a particularly well-equipped daeril—one he’d been fond of, unfortunately. Despite his initial pleasure at the contest, this business of fighting through the place had left him depressed. He was like a master huntsman being forced to put down his own loyal hounds.
    He counted out three cells in the dungeon, each of which was fitted with a thick, windowless door. Breaking down such a door was beyond him, even with his fit body; instead, he took off his ring. It was a simple loop—the type that fascinated his daerils. They carried his old castoffs and failed experiments with great pride. He looked at the small display on the inside of this one. Seven years and three months. Had he really needed that much healing? That would push this brand-new body to its mid-twenties already.
    Normally, he wouldn’t care. He had bodies to spare, and this one—like his others—had been modified to restrict hair and nail growth so that healing would not leave him with an unsightly mangle of a beard.
    Yet he didn’t know how many bodies he would have access to in the near future. He might need to keep this one fit, rather than running it ragged, healing it to