“Don’t give up on them,” Liakopulos said. “They’re mostly Wesson, but Credence never had much influence with them.”

“Find out,” Inger ordered. “Find out fast. If they stick, start using them. Use them fast.”

Liakopulos said, “May I remind Your Majesty that I’m due to resign? I believe Colonel Gales was supposed to replace me?”

“You’re both too valuable where you are. You agreed to stay as long as I needed you, General. You conscience won’t let you stay to fight Abaca?”

“We can fight him,” Michael said. “But we won’t like it. He’s our friend.”

“Not anymore, he isn’t. He chose enmity. Look. I want to hit back. Hard, and soon. Before this can become a real war. Can you finagle that into your sense of duty?”

“All right,” Michael replied. “All right. We’ve started. Redouble the Palace Guard first thing. There will be more attacks by assassins.” He’d never confessed that he had brought the Harish into the kingdom himself, then had let Abaca get control. Nor did he admit that he knew quite a bit about what Credence was doing. His goals were not those of either party to the fighting.

Abaca spent Harish assassins liberally. He kept the Crown’s forces at a standstill. Desertions plagued both sides. Norath, repeatedly attacked and twice more wounded by the Harish, not armed with his pride of monsters, and unable to cope with Abaca’s woodland guerrilla warfare, found an excuse to return to Hammad al Nakir. Megelin hadn’t fared well in his absence anyway.

Winter’s arrival saw the sides at a standoff. Inger controlled the cities and castles. Abaca controlled much of the countryside. Their soldiers showed little inclination to mix it up. They could see no reason to fight men with whom they had stood shoulder to shoulder during the Great Eastern Wars.

Michael became a man in the middle, playing a game with purpose and parameters known only to himself. Both sides believed he was their man. For a time. In reality he began fighting his own war, as a third force. It was touchy and dangerous, and he had to be alert every instant. Whatever he might pretend, he knew he had no real friends inside Kavelin. That cannibal bitch had eaten them all.

For the first time Michael knew fear. It was just a feather’s caress, and mainly fear of failure, but it was fear nevertheless. “Damn you, Bragi,” he muttered frequently, like an incantation. “Why did you have to go crazy at the end? Why did you have to run off on us?”