Stalking Darkness

nail his hands to it.”
    Beka stood silent for a moment, feeling a black void opening in her heart. They’d been lucky so far, facing no more than a decuria or two of fighters and panicked wagoneers. And so far, they’d left no one behind but the dead. This was different.
    She gripped her sword hilt and growled, “Let’s go have a look.”
    Taking Braknil and Kallas, Beka followed Steb.
What must this be like for him?
she wondered, stealing a look at Steb’s drawn face; the bond between him and Mirn was strong. The two were always together, whether it was around the fire at night, or fighting side by side like twin avenging furies. They usually took scout duty together, too. What had happened today?
    The young rider remained grim and silent as he led them to the little hillside gully where Arbelus was keeping watch. Less than a mile below, the scattered campfires of the Plenimaran column winked in the darkness. Beyond the camp, the black expanse of the Inner Sea glimmered with the light of the first stars. The wind was coming off the water tonight and Beka caught a faint, unsettling sound on the air. After a moment she realized it was only the distant crash of surf growling like a hound in its sleep against the rocky cliffs.
    “There’s an old road that runs along above the shore,” Arbelus told her. “They set up camp on the landward side of it.”
    “You’re certain our men are still alive?” Beka asked, squinting down at the pattern of campfires.
    “They were at sundown. I saw the guards prodding them in with the other prisoners for the night.”
    Beka chewed at her lip, still glowering at the enemy encampment. At last she turned to Braknil. “It’s the first real force we’ve encountered so far. What do you think? Any chance of grabbing them out tonight?”
    Braknil scratched under his bearded chin a moment, looking down at the fires. “I’d say not much, Lieutenant. They’ll have the perimeter sewed tighter than a virgin’s bodice. Even if we did manage to slip in, we’d never fight our way out if they tumbled to us.”
    Beka let out an exasperated sigh. “Sakor’s Fist, first they aren’ttaking prisoners, then they’ve got a couple hundred. And where in hell did they get that many this far inside their own borders?”
    Braknil shrugged. “That’s a good question.”
    Arbelus looked up in surprise. “I never thought of that. But I’ll tell you something even stranger.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Before they settled down for the night, they were marching north.”
    “North!” Beka exclaimed softly. “The Mycenian border can’t be more than fifty miles from here, and not a single Plenimaran city in between. If they’re going to all the trouble to take that many prisoners, why on earth aren’t they taking them south where they could use them?”
    She rested a hand on Steb’s rigid shoulder. “Still, it makes our task easier. We planned to turn north along the coast anyway. We’ll trail them,
haunt
them, by the gods, and watch for a chance to grab Mirn and Gilly!”

41
P ECULIAR H OSPITALITY
    T he guards handled Alec with superstitious care after Gossol’s sacrifice, but they clearly blamed him for the death of their “soldier brother.”
    Ashnazai came less often, too, although he still paid occasional visits in the middle of the night. Starting up out of some nightmare, Alec would smell the man’s unclean odor in the darkness, feel the touch of cold fingers on his skin as Ashnazai plunged him into another punishing miasma of torment.
    Locked alone in his tiny dark cabin, Alec grew increasingly despondent. He’d searched in vain for some means of escape, even if it meant throwing himself overboard, but there was none. Left with nothing to do, he slept a great deal, but his dreams were full of violence and omens. The dream of the headless arrow came far more often now, sometimes twice in one day.
    Under such desperate conditions, he grew to look forward to his daily walk on deck with Mardus. Despite his chilling revelation at the ceremony, Mardus continued to treat him with a strange sort of solicitude, as if he enjoyed Alec’s company.
    At midmorning each day Alec was given a cloak and escorted above under guard. Fairweather or foul, Mardus would be waiting for him, ready to hold forth on whatever subject had taken his fancy that day. To Alec’s considerable surprise, Mardus was a remarkably intelligent, well-spoken man, with interests as broad and varied as