Still he sat, lowering his eyes to meet their gaze. More words, almost singing as the gray folk discussed his presence.

Suddenly, a single gray soldier darted toward him, scurrying across the sand.

The movement made Cade’s heart leap, but still he sat, forcing his smile steady as the soldier approached him.

As swiftly as it had advanced, the soldier retreated, its black eyes swiveling to gaze up at the silent battlements above. A feint.

Cade leaned back, hiding a grimace as the ancient chair groaned beneath his weight. He near closed his eyes, feigning sleep.

He watched. And waited.

CHAPTER

11

They had moved back into the long grass, where they huddled in conversation. A pair of them kept watch, crouched at the edge of the grasslands. Though he could not see the direction of their gaze, only the strange swiveling of the black orbs in their sockets.

To them, he was behaving insane. And therein lay the rub.

What man would stand alone against an army? Moreover, why would a single soldier guard a fortress?

Yet, the very same had happened before. Not once but a half-dozen times, in ancient China. It was called the empty fort strategy, and though part history, part legend, the stories had fascinated him as a child.

Perhaps most famously, General Zhao Yung had defended his own fort, outnumbered a thousand to one. It had been a hopeless cause, yet he had opened the gates, hidden his men, and sat on its battlements plucking a tune on his musical instrument.

When the enemy had approached, they had feared a trap, and retreated before the general’s allies came to his aid.

An hour had passed. The longest hour of Cade’s life, spent in a strange oscillation between absolute panic and nonchalance. It was a strange thing, to relax his body while ready to leap into action at any moment. He had to keep moving and flexing his limbs within his armor, in case they fell asleep. What an end that would be, if he had sat himself into being unable to run.

Even so, it was as if his body dictated his feelings. By acting relaxed, he was becoming so. At times, he almost tricked himself into sleep, so he distracted himself by examining his new enemy through half-lidded eyes.

These “Grays”—as he had dubbed them—were only formidable in their armaments and numbers. They were scrawny things; no taller than five feet, and so skinny he could see their ribs beneath the armor. Whether this was a consequence of starvation or their natural state, he could not tell.

Their fingers, as far as he could make out, were like those of a pianist—long and delicate, though numbering only three fingers and a long, triple-jointed thumb.

Perhaps strangest of all though, were the tiny creatures that climbed upon them—scarab-like beetles that crawled in and out of the enemy armor.

At first, Cade had thought they were parasites, but the Grays made no move to remove them, even as the little insects scurried across the surface of their eyes. It must be some sort of symbiotic relationship, Cade figured.