“Gwenna!” he said, leaning close. She realized that, while their two swords remained locked together, he had brought a small knife to her throat. “If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead. I’m here to help.” He lowered the knife. “Now where’s Valyn?”

“Gone,” she said, waving her hand. “South. It’s just us.”

The Flea nodded, focused on something over her shoulder, threw the knife, then gestured to the bird with the empty hand. “Load up.”

Somewhere to Gwenna’s right another starshatter ripped into the Urghul. The camp was a madness of flame, screaming horses, brandished steel, and blood, all of it held at bay, impossibly, by the Flea and his Wing.

“Delay,” Newt called over his shoulder, “is the mother of defeat.”

“Meaning get on the bird,” the Flea said again. “Now.”

He tilted his head to the side, as though stretching his neck, and a spear shaft sailed past, embedding itself in the dirt. Gwenna stared at it for a moment, watching it quiver. Then she ran for the bird.

32

Tan’is was among the youngest of us, one of the last Csestriim born without the rot,” Kiel said.

Two of the three lanterns in Morjeta’s bedchamber had spluttered out during their conversation, and the remaining lamp was burning low, tossing the corners of the room into fitful darkness. No one made a move to refill them. Morjeta herself had subsided against the pillows of the divan, a stunned look on her face. Kaden could sympathize. His own introduction to the Csestriim had been a shock, and the notion that they still stalked the earth had been introduced to him in gradual stages. To learn all at once that the immortal foes of humanity still lived, that one had all but seized control of Annur, that another sat several feet from her, dark stare as wide and deep and inscrutable as the sea, was clearly more than the woman could absorb all at once. There was no time, however, to ease her gently into the truth.

“Why was he appointed your general in the wars against humanity?” Kaden asked. “Why not someone older? Someone with more experience?”

“Because he was the best,” Kiel replied simply. “Not the best fighter. There were twenty-two Csestriim more skilled than Tan’is with both naczal and sword, at least at the start of the wars. In fact, he wasn’t even the greatest pure strategist. Asherah and a handful of others could defeat him at the stones board. In battle, however—” Kiel’s eyes went suddenly far, as though he were studying some furious fight thousands and thousands of years past. “—none of my people shared his gift for command.

“A part of it was simply native genius. His mind moves more quickly, more unexpectedly than most. More than that, however, Tan’is understood your race in a way that most of us, especially the older Csestriim, did not. He studied you. . . .”