The real fireworks began when we reached the citadel, where the Protector’s still-sleepy governor deluded himself into thinking he could refuse to surrender and make it stick.

Fireballs flew. The citadel gate exploded. Holes appeared in its walls. People inside began to scream.

Every dark place in the streets had something moving inside it. Hundreds of somethings, many of them vaguely familiar in those instants when anything could be clearly discerned.

Those flooded in through the broken gate of the citadel. They weaseled through the holes in its walls.

Lifetaker and Widowmaker followed moments later.

The terrified inhabitants of the tower put up no fight at all. Our sole injury was a broken arm suffered by a dimwit who tripped over his own big feet and rolled down a stair.

Lady and I stood atop the citadel. The city below still was not fully aware that it had been conquered. I said, “It hurt a lot less getting here tonight than it did last time.”

“That was the night we made Booboo.”

“Which was a real booboo.”

“Not funny.”

“That was the night One-Eye made the enemy that stalked us for twenty years, too.”

“We’ll make new enemies this time. I have to go if I want to have any hope of getting Aridatha into Taglios unnoticed.”

“I don’t think you can, tonight. Not without flying so damned fast the wind rips the skin off your face.”

“I’ll see if Tobo can’t help.”

It was difficult to kiss her good-bye. We still wore all the costume armor.

The Protector’s reconnaissance troops had warned her that something unusual was taking shape. The warning confirmed her suspicions. Her nonhuman spies had been having almost no success keeping track of the enemy. Which meant the enemy was taking pains to be less visible.

Soulcatcher raised the state of alert and stepped up training. She redoubled her own personal preparations.

When word of the disaster at Dejagore reached her—one lone rider managing to get through with the news—she had known for fourteen hours already that the Company main force had left its westward track and had begun hustling up a line that would slice between her Middle Army and the newly orphaned force outside Dejagore.

That would evaporate within days, she presumed. Many of those soldiers came out of the city itself—a disproportionate percentage of them officers—while the rest would now hear the call of the harvest much more loudly.

What the hell had happened down there? The messenger had brought very few details, just word that the city had awakened to find itself occupied. The invaders had been swift and thorough. They seemed to have had outstanding intelligence. Heavy sorcery might have been involved.

“The next fight won’t be so one-sided,” she promised her officers. “Next fight they’ll have to deal with me. Me like they haven’t seen me in a long, long time.” She was angry and awake and no longer handicapped by any shred of boredom. She was feeling more alive and filled with hatred and bitterness than she had for a generation.

Within hours her new mood had electrified those around her.

Officers who failed to become equally electrified quickly suffered permanent replacement.

After losing their base at Dejagore the generals of the fading, confused army nearby ineptly tried to invest the city in a way that would not result in economic disaster. Then, six days after the fall, news came that the enemy main force was rushing straight toward them.

There had been skirmishes with the cavalry occupying Dejagore. Those had not gone well for the locals. And now ten times as many well-disciplined, perfectly-armed, trained killers were about to fall on them.

A third of the army went home under cover of darkness the night after the news arrived. Those who stayed endured almost continuous psychological torments by things they could never see.

The murderous army from the south never materialized. That was never necessary. The Dejagoran soldiers in the Taglian force all deserted. The cavalrymen occupying Dejagore scattered the army’s steadfast core without outside help.

Mogaba’s level of discomfort — he would not think the word “fear” —had risen substantially since Aridatha’s return. The stakes kept rising. The risks kept expanding. Lady had been seen by Palace servants. So far those believed they had seen the Protector, whose comings and goings were secretive and unpredictable. But someday Soulcatcher might overhear some mention and know she could not have been two places at once. Nor would she believe the manifestation to have been one of the haunts now regularly seen in the maze of passageways for which the Palace was famed.

Mogaba told Ghopal and Aridatha, “I’m tempted to drop everything and run.”

Ghopal asked, “Yeah? Where would you go?” It might not be as personal but his doom was every bit as certain as Mogaba’s was if the Black Company reconquered Taglios and restored the ruling family. Life would turn cruel for any Shadar who had belonged to the Greys.

“Exactly.” Mogaba ran his palm over the top of his head. Keeping it shaved required less and less work. “So I remind myself what honor demands.”

Aridatha said little. He had not talked much since his return. Mogaba understood. Singh had seen things he did not want to believe were true. He had learned things about the stakes that left him paralyzed with indecision. There appeared to be no road leading toward the light. Wherever he turned he beheld another face of the darkness.

It was important to Aridatha that he do what he perceived to be the right thing.

Singh’s visit with his brother had fueled him with a determination to offset some of the evil his father had done.

Aridatha was Gunni by faith but his character was much more suited to the Vehdna religion. He thought this was the life where wrongs had to be made right.

Mogaba said, “The news from the south is uniformly disastrous. The Black Company is meeting very little resistance. They have superior sorcery, superior weaponry, superior troops, equipment and leadership. Not to mention intelligence so good we’re wasting our time trying to keep anything secret. So it seems our fates actually depend on how fast those people can get here. The Protector won’t stop them. They’ll pluck the strings of her ego, tickle her pride, and just when she thinks she’s ready to make her kill they’ll hit her in the back of the head with a sledgehammer she’ll never see coming. You have to be more than just powerful to deal with those people. You have to be more than clever and treacherous. You need to be psychic.”

Ghopal asked, “Then why don’t we ride down there and take charge?” He smirked.

“Not funny. Two reasons. First, she doesn’t want me to. She still thinks we can get them into a pocket between us. I don’t know how. And, more importantly, if I got anywhere near her there’d be no way I could hide my thoughts and no opportunity to put them into effect before she could protect herself. You two, you might be a little luckier.”

Ghopal observed, “The city is remarkably calm in spite of the news.”

Tidings of the fall of Dejagore were making the rounds but hardly anyone seemed to feel that the Protector was in any peril herself. There had been no disorders. Graffiti was becoming more common, though. Mostly the same old taunts, though rajadharma was becoming more common. Then there was a new one: You shall lie in the ashes ten thousand years eating only wind. And one not seen for years had reappeared: Thi Kim is coming.