Neph felt a chill at the quiet menace in the Godking’s query. When the Khalidorans had first gone into the throne room, they thought some elite unit must have wiped out all the Khalidorans in the room, but Neph had been able to revive a man who’d had his feet cut off. He swore he’d seen most of the fight before he passed out. It was one man. A shadow. The Night Angel, he called him. The story was already getting out among the men.

A man who walked unseen, who could kill thirty highlanders and five meisters and one of the Godking’s own aethelings. A man impervious to steel and to magic. It was nonsense, of course. With all the blood they’d found, the man must be dead. But without a body. . . .

“Someone dragged his body away, sir. We followed the blood trail through the hidden passages. It was a lot of blood, sire. If it really was just one man, he’s dead.”

“It seems we have a lot of dead people without bodies, Commander. Find them. In the meantime, put up another head. Preferably one that looks like Logan Gyre’s.”

It wasn’t fair. Ferl Khalius had been among the first highlanders on Cenarian soil. He’d been one of the few to get off the burning, sinking barge, and that only because he’d had the wits to throw off his armor before jumping in, so he didn’t drown like so many others had. He’d joined another unit and fought barehanded until he could arm himself from the highlanders who died in the first assault on the courtyard. He’d personally killed six Cenarian soldiers and two nobles, six nobles if you counted children, which he didn’t.

And what had he been given to recognize his heroism, his cunning? The shit duty. Certain units were being given looting privileges—the good units on the west side, what the barbarians called the Warrens, and the best units looting the remains of the east side with the officers. Ferl’s unit was all dead, so he got assigned with clearing the rubble on the east bridge.

It wasn’t only dirty—it was dangerous. The wytches had extinguished the fire, but many of the planks were weak, some of them cracking or breaking if you stood on them. The pilings were fine: sheathed in iron, they were impervious to the fire, but you couldn’t stand on the pilings, so a fat lot of good that did.