Passing through the citadel courtyard, walking so rapidly his small entourage had to jog to keep up, Morillon noted two humans talking together. Lord Hengriff and Prince Shobbat were deep in conversation by a shadowed wall. That is to say, Shobbat was talking animatedly. Hengriff was listening, arms folded across his chest.
The Knight’s eyes moved, crossing Morillon’s gaze in passing, and his impassive countenance altered. The look on his face was so fleeting, Morillon found it difficult to categorize. Was it acknowledgment? A grudging respect? The Dark Order, for all its machinations, was a far more honorable opponent than the grasping, conniving Sahim. Perhaps in that brief moment Knight and elf shared the realization that both were heartily sick of Khur and its ruler. Change was coming. Whether it would be for Neraka or the elves was uncertain, but the current course could not continue.
A very eloquent glance. In a snap of sky-blue silk, Morillon was out the gate and gone. Hengriff continued to stare thoughtfully after him.
“—was delivered!” Shobbat was saying, voice rising. “Did your courier get through as I ordered?”
Hengriff nodded, and the prince demanded, “Well, has he returned? I would speak to him about the nomads’ reaction ”
The Knight didn’t respond. He was still thinking about the Silvanesti noble. Lord Morillon was a chink in the Speaker’s armor. Gilthas trusted him too much, relied too heavily on his counsel, but Hengriff recognized Morillon’s type. He was of the class of elves who let their nation slide into ruin while they observed all the niceties of protocol and manners. Kerianseray and the Qualinesti were much more dangerous. They would have deduced long before now that they had a spy in their midst. Morillon was still in the dark.
“You’re not listening!”
Hengriff fixed the impatient prince with a baleful eye. “No, I’m not. When you calm down and speak rationally, I’ll listen, Your Highness.”
Shobbat quivered. He wasn’t used to such insolence, any more than he was used to standing in the beat. Sweat stood out on his forehead. Tiny red veins webbed the whites of his eyes. He had dyed his hair its usual dark shade, but in strong sunlight, the black carried a faint greenish tinge.
“I need to know what’s happening,” he said, striving for a calmer tone. “Are the nomads coming?”
“Who can say, Highness? Your desert folk are like wolves, fierce and wild. I’ve lived here two years and I don’t begin to understand them.”
Shobbat, Khur born and bred, didn’t understand the nomads either, but he wasn’t about to admit that to Hengriff.
Changing the subject, the Knight told him of his father’s agreement to clear all the city gates of troublemakers.
“Really? All the gates, you say?” The prince pressed a fist to his lower lip. If soldiers of the Household Guard had been sent to all nine gates of Khuri-Khan, there couldn’t be many left in the palace.
“Careful, Highness. Your thoughts leap from your face.”
Shobbat forced a careless laugh and palmed sweat from his forehead. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m simply suffering from the heat. I should retire indoors and escape the warmth.”
Hengriff bowed to the heir of Khur. “To Your Highness’s continued good health.”
The prince withdrew. Once he had seemed a ridiculous figure but Hengriff was beginning to wonder if he had underestimated him. The situation was coming to a head, and quickly. Hengriff’s dispatches to Jelek stressed this urgency. He felt the Order must be ready to move on a moment’s notice. When the crisis came, the fate of the elves would fall not to him who struck first, but him who struck the most decisively.
Six lengthy dispatches, carefully enciphered, he had sent to Jelek via the border town of Kortal. Six dispatches in as many weeks, yet no answer had come back. If Hengriff had been the suspicious type, he might think his messages weren’t getting through. Worse still, could Rennold be ignoring him?
Odd sounds reached the citadel courtyard. Distorted by the brick canyons of Khuri-Khan, the tumult sounded like the crash of waves on a rocky shore. Hengriff knew better. They were the sounds of conflict.
His four bodyguards arrived, already mounted, leading his horse. “My lord!” cried his man Goldorf. “There is fighting at the city gates!”
Hengriff swung into the saddle. “Sahim-Khan ordered his troops to clear the gates. Who are his guards fighting?”
“Torghanists.”
Hengriff betrayed surprise. The priests of Torghan were taking Nerakan pay, and he hadn’t asked them to blockade the city. So who had? His dark eyes narrowed. He suspected the meddling hand of Prince Shobbat in this development.
“Well, let’s see how Sahim’s men fight,” he said, grasping his reins in one large fist.
He and his bodyguards galloped straight to the west gate, which faced the elves’ camp. They scattered Khurs left and right. The Lesser Souk was emptying rapidly as the sound of swordplay rang over the market. The sight of the Nerakans on horseback only hastened the process.
