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  “How?” Eirlys, who knew the terrain surrounding Zelos as well as any­one save Pryl.

  “Around the back of Halfhead and the Brother.”

  Brander let out a low whistle. “Arduous isn’t the half of it.”

  “But what about the guard tower south of the Brother?” Eirlys asked. “Wouldn’t that be right under their noses?”

  “They are focused on Zelos, not to the south. And you know how the mist accumulates in those hills, intensified by the water in the basin below.”

  “If we went down the badlands side and then west, we could use the river down to the foothills,” Eirlys said, obviously thinking rapidly. “We would have to disembark well before Zelos to avoid the guard tower, but it would make the trek easier and quicker.”

  “There is the small detail of us not having any boats,” Kye pointed out.

  Eirlys grinned at her brother’s mate. “But the fishers do. And there is not one of them who would not gladly make the loan to the Raider.”

  “As long as they know they may not be floating as well when they get them back,” Brander quipped.

  “This would be a different approach,” Drake said.

  “And might throw even Paledan off,” Iolana said. “He is a land fighter, and while I doubt we could fool him completely, it might delay discovery just enough.”

  “We are agreed, then,” the Raider said.

  “On all but one thing.” Brander’s tone was dry now. “Who constitutes ‘we’?”

  Iolana glanced at them all in turn, realized that every one of them intended to accompany their leader on this risky mission. And she realized both that she had expected no less, and how very proud she was of them all.

  Chapter 10

  IN THE END, Brander, as the Raider’s second and the one who must be kept secret from Paledan, and Kade reluctantly stayed behind. Kye would be flying high cover, as the best pilot save Drake himself, and the best shot with a long gun.

  That left Drake, Pryl, Eirlys, and herself as the boating party. She would have preferred more guards, well armed, but saw the wisdom in Drake’s decision to keep the party as small as possible.

  Paledan had, a bit to their surprise, accepted both the meeting place and the parameters without question. Of course, the Raider had given him little option; he had sent the location and instructions, and left the Coalition major only the option to accept or decline.

  The message had been found, as intended, by a young trooper, who had swiftly carried the page emblazoned with the Sentinels’ symbol, the curved sabre of Ziem, to Paledan.

  The acceptance came in the form of a Coalition battle pennant draped from his office window, to be seen and the information secretly relayed. This, Iolana knew, had a double significance, that Paledan would not be needing the flag for its intended purpose, leading a battle, and a reminder that the Raider’s spies were everywhere, even in half-destroyed Zelos.

  Drake and Pryl had been givens, and Eirlys logical—if worrisome—for her knowledge of the area. This was the result of letting the child run free, Iolana thought. She had knowledge of immense use, but now it also put her in immense danger. But she was of age now, and nothing would stop her from doing her part in this war.

  The biggest resistance had been to her own presence. But she’d been prepared for that. What had surprised her was Eirlys’s support.

  “She will be of use if someone is hurt,” Eirlys had said evenly.

  “Unless it is she herself that is hurt,” Brander pointed out.

  Drake had spoken then. “Yes, but as it stands she is somewhat of a secret weapon, in more than one sense.”

  “Until now,” Iolana said, “I have been content with that. But this man, I believe, will require all the weapons we have.”

  “She is right,” Eirlys agreed. “And now that she has shed her disguise, that might be of use as well.”

  “In what way?” Drake had asked.

  “Again, to throw Paledan off just that bit that might be needed. For how would anyone react if the subject of an image you have had in your possession, a subject you thought long dead, suddenly appeared before you in the flesh?”

  “I see the tactical mind is not linked solely to the male,” Iolana had said with a smile.

  Eirlys looked at her, and smiled back as she answered, “It may well be. That was Brander’s idea.”

  There was such pride and love in her daughter’s voice that Iolana felt a pang. They were so well matched, her daughter and her pledged mate. She prayed to Eos that they never suffer as she had, the loss of the person who made you whole.

  “YOU’RE CERTAIN you wish to do this?” Brakely asked. “Sir?” he added.

  “I think we are beyond formalities at this point, Brakely.” Paledan settled his tanned-hide jacket on his shoulders. He had chosen this rather than his formal uniform with all his insignia and decorations. Not because he expected to have to fight, but because he was going as himself, not a Coalition major. And if that was heresy, so be it. “If there is a chance to end this, I must take it.”

  Brakely nodded in understanding as Paledan settled the small blaster, the only protection he would carry, as agreed. Even the Raider, it seemed, did not want him taken out by a feral slimehog or some other odd creature this planet harbored.

  “Perhaps you will garner some clue as to where they are hiding.”

  “Perhaps. You remember what we discussed?” he asked his long-time aide.

  “Of course.” Paledan could almost see the man bite off another “Sir.”

  “Then you know what to do, if I miss the comm check tomorrow.”

  “Yes.” And in that simple answer was the essence of the Coalition mindset—an order would be followed, a patrol sent out, and eventually, if necessary, someone else sent to replace him. A pause, then, “But it will not come to that, will it?”

  “I believe the Raider will keep his word.”

  “And you will keep yours.”

  “Yes.”

  Brakely nodded. “Good luck, sir.”

  When he reached the outer door, the two troopers on watch snapped to attention. He threw them a salute and continued. There was an air rover, as usual, waiting for him but he waved it off.

  “I will walk,” he told the attendant who had been about to summon the pilot.

  “Sir?”

  The young—very young—man, who was obviously new, sounded so astounded he nearly laughed. “I am not headed up into the mountains, trooper, merely the foothills,” he said with a gesture toward his chosen path.

  “Yes, sir,” the man said embarrassedly.

  Paledan wondered if this was what the Coalition was coming to, stretched so thin they needed to send children out to remote planets such as this. And how long it would take for the young man to learn he must mask such human failings as surprise and embarrassment. More to the point, he wondered if he would learn before he crossed some Coalition officer who decided to teach him the hard way.

  He headed west, thinking as he went that the Raider obviously had no qualms about being so close to the Coalition compound. He also wondered what it meant that this meeting place was on the opposite side of Zelos than both their old quarters and the ridge that separated the city from the badlands, their presumed new hideout. Was he trying to throw them off? Or merely show them that the Raider went where he wished, when he wished, and the Coalition be damned?

  He would not be surprised if it were the latter. What this warrior lacked in equipment and weapons he more than made up for with skill, brains, and brilliant tactics.

  Did you know? Did you know what you had given birth to?

  The words were directed at the woman in the painting, who still occupied far too much of his mind. In the guise of researching all of Ziem he had finally made himself pick through what had been left a
fter the destruction of the annals, but had found little. At least, not enough to sate the curiosity about her that seemed ever to grow. The one image he’d found had been at such a distance he’d only been able to see she was tall, slender, and her hair had truly been that fiery shade. In the text, he had been shocked to learn her age when she’d given birth to the boy who would one day rise to lead this rebellion; had she lived, she would be only two years older than he.

  But she had not. Somewhere in her there had been a fatal flaw, hidden beneath that perfect, stunning exterior. The strength that seemed to radiate from that portrait apparently had never truly existed, was perhaps a contribution of the nameless artist. Perhaps it was that artist’s spirit resonating from the painting, not that of the subject.

  He gave a sharp shake of his head; this was not the time to get lost in ruminations better left to the privacy of his office. He focused on the act of walking, now that the ground had begun to rise. He assessed his own movements, waiting for the ache of muscles still unable to move freely be­cause of the invader in their midst, or the sharp, tearing pain that would announce that invader had advanced yet another micro distance.

  He did not have many of those small shifts left, he knew.

  When he turned to check the trail behind him, seeking the source of that odd tickling at the back of his neck, he stopped in his tracks. Realized the location the Raider had chosen for this meeting looked down on the base for the fusion cannon. The fusion cannon he and his Sentinels had taken out shortly after his own arrival here.

  He should have become angry. Perhaps angry enough to break the rules set for this meeting and blast the man out of existence.

  Instead, he found himself laughing.

  And he continued walking.

  Chapter 11

  “YOU HAVE BROUGHT support, I presume?” Paledan asked.

  “As before and with the same promise. They will not be the first to shoot.” Paledan nodded, and the Raider continued. “And you, as before, have not. Is there no one you trust?”

  An odd expression crossed the man’s face. It was only a flicker, but Iolana could see it clearly from where she was concealed by the low sweeping boughs of a mistbreaker tree.

  “To understand what happens here? No.”

  “It is a hard path you walk.”

  “This from you?”

  “I have the best at my back.”

  Paledan’s mouth—that oddly expressive mouth, Iolana thought—twisted. “Given what you have accomplished with them, I cannot gainsay that. And that is why I asked for this meeting.”

  Drake, standing at ease, dressed in the light armor and the gleaming silver helm of the Raider, simply waited. Yet again Iolana felt pride in her son swell within her. As near impossible as it had been for her to keep her distance while he struggled to keep the family together and safe and at the same time lead the Sentinels in the fight for Ziem, she—and Ziem—were reaping the results of forcing him to grow into the leader he had to be.

  After a long moment of silence, Paledan nodded, as if in tribute. There was little doubt who held the upper hand at this moment, despite the Coalition at Paledan’s back.

  “I have come to ask you to stand down.”

  Iolana drew back; this she had not expected. She doubted Drake had either, for again he did not speak.

  And again Paledan let him have the win. “At any moment,” Paledan said quietly, “I expect the orders to come. The Coalition has little patience, and Ziem has only avoided annihilation thus far because it has value to them.”

  “You think we do not know this?”

  “I know that you do. I only wished to tell you it is . . . imminent.”

  “And you believe if the Sentinels stand down, as you say, those orders will not come?”

  “I believe that if you stand down, I can contest them. Convince High Command all is now well.”

  “Trying to save your reputation, Major?”

  Something flickered in Paledan’s eyes. Those eyes that were so vividly green, even from where Iolana hid in the trees. The knowledge swept over her with the engulfing certainty of her most vivid visions.

  No. Trying to use it to save Ziem.

  But why? Why would this Coalition officer, however different he might seem in so many ways, wish to save what to him must be a strange, remote world? A world he had come to only because it had been his sole alternative to a desk chain?

  He said only, “My posting had many purposes. I am here for the time when that order comes. The Coalition does not doubt my success in that even­tuality. Neither should you.”

  Drake studied him for a long moment, then asked, “And will you take pleasure in executing that order?”

  “I take pleasure in nothing.”

  He means that. He understands the word only by definition, not experience.

  Iolana stared at the man she had learned so much about in a brief, brushing contact. And realized that what she had sensed ran even deeper than she had known. Beyond his admiration for the Raider, that sardonic humor and the curiosity, she had seen nothing of what she would call normal emotions in the man. And this was what he credited for his accomplishments with the Coalition. He was so good at what he did because there was nothing to get in the way, no feelings, no messy sentiment. He approached the job at hand methodically, efficiently, and remorselessly.

  And yet here he stood, asking Drake to not force his hand.

  “Then you live a cold, hard life,” Drake said softly.

  “It is more of a life than you will have if you are ever captured. You would be collared, Davorin, and your people would likely be destroyed anyway.”

  Iolana suppressed a shudder at the mention of that most hideous of Coalition techniques of subjugation, that of implanting controllers in the brain to turn the victim into worse than a slave, a willing slave.

  “You need the miners,” Drake said, seemingly unruffled.

  “Yes. But they can be evacuated, if necessary. And brought back to retrieve the planium when the planet is habitable again. Or,” he said coldly, “before, for we will only need them a short while longer, until our equipment is adapted.”

  Iolana’s breath caught. Had she thought him different? He was speaking, as if it were nothing, of wiping out the entire population of a world with some deadly weapon, then sending the miners back to work until they died in the poisonous aftermath. That was Coalition thinking at its purest.

  And yet . . .

  He spoke of “they,” “them,” “the Coalition.” As if they were other. Other than he himself.

  “Why?” Drake finally asked. “Why do you give us this warning?”

  Again an odd expression flickered, but this one Iolana recognized. Paledan was more than a little bemused at himself, perhaps because he did not have an answer to that question himself. It softened his look for an instant, and he wasn’t merely the powerful, imposing, intimidating Coalition officer; he was a man she could imagine smiling, even laughing.

  A man who could command the attention of any woman breathing, if he cared to try.

  “You are a warrior,” Paledan said after a moment. “I would dislike seeing you die in such a way, wiped out from a distance.”

  “A safe distance,” Drake said dryly.

  Paledan lifted a brow in what looked almost like a salute. “Indeed. It is a very ugly and painful way to die. And you are strong, so you would live long enough to see others in such agony as you cannot imagine.”

  Drake lifted a brow in turn. “I can imagine quite a bit.”

  Paledan’s voice went very quiet. “Yes. Yes, I’d forgotten, you had exper­i­ence with agony.” For a moment the major studied his adversary. And Iolana found herself holding her breath. “Before that happens, I would greatly like to know how you did that. You were as near to death as any man I
’ve ever seen on a battlefield. I nearly blasted you myself, down in that cellar, simply to put you out of your misery.”

  “And that, Major, answers my original question of why.”

  Paledan looked disconcerted.

  Well done, my son, Iolana thought.

  The call of a trill came from the trees to the north, where Pryl was hiding. Iolana froze, knowing it for what it was, for the bird with the simple but distinctive call had been extinct on Ziem for an age.

  It was a signal.

  A warning.

  Had Paledan not come alone? Had he betrayed his word?

  Was he not who she thought he was?

  Everything seemed to freeze, go quiet. And she held her breath, waiting.

  PALEDAN HAD BEEN studying the Raider. He’d immediately noticed the metal sweeps of the helmet that had hidden his face before, along with the mock mass of scar tissue, were gone. No longer needed, now that all of Ziem knew that the Raider was exactly who they had once expected him to be.

  Then he heard the bird’s call, wondered which of the multitude of the creatures this world seemed to have this one was. In the next instant he was aware of the Raider’s sudden tension, and his thoughts shifted to wondering what had disturbed the creature. Did the man have even the beasts and birds of this world trained to assist him, to give warning? It would not surprise him in the least. He had heard from townspeople that Davorin’s sister, the one he had sacrificed himself to save, had a knack with all living things.

  He heard a rustle among the leaves. The thought of Davorin’s sacrifice had brought to mind Jakel, so much so that for a moment he thought he’d seen the beast, or at least something his size, moving in the shadows.

  And then he knew he had seen it; the hulking shape barreled toward a tall tree with branches that swept the ground. Jakel. The mindless brute had violated orders and followed him.

  The Raider reacted as swiftly as he did, drawing his blaster. Paledan gave him no chance, but fired first.

  At Jakel.

  The huge man screamed and tumbled down the grade to sprawl practi­cally at Paledan’s feet. Paledan whirled to face the Raider. He heard the sound of an air rover, closing.