Kingslayer (33 page)

“I pray you are right.”

With the plan approved, he had a great deal to get into motion. He had to verify just how much oil it would take to cover the harbor’s surface, first. From there, he had to figure out how to somehow get his hands on enough oil to cover most of the harbor. And then he had to come up with a defensive plan for the city just in case the bluff failed or in case he really did have to light the oil and the fire spread to the city.

Getting back to his office, he sat down and wrote up orders for each of his commanders for Payam to deliver. With his runner dispatched, he thought he might as well take a closer look at the city’s layout before taking his nap. His subconscious mind had come up with some rather ingenious strategies before while he slept. If he were lucky, Shaa would guide his dreams so that he would wake up with a brilliant plan.

Alright, that might be pushing it, but he’d be grateful for just a nudge in the right direction.

From the doorway, someone cleared their voice. Darius looked up with bleary eyes to find Sego standing there, giving him an exasperated look. For some reason, faced with that expression, he felt like defending himself. “I’m just taking one last look so that my mind can be mulling it over while I’m sleeping.”

Sego heaved a patient sigh. “General, you sent Payam off close to a half hour ago.”

Had he really? It seemed like five minutes to Darius.

“You’ve been sitting there in a daze ever since,” Sego added unmercifully.

Darius held up his hands in surrender. “I’m going, I’m going.”

“Before you go,” Sego’s mouth twisted as if he had something sour in his mouth, “you should know that your enemies in court have somehow already heard about your plans for the sea battle. They’re advocating to have you removed.”

They’d heard
already
? How in the world…? No, he shouldn’t be surprised by this. In the palace, any palace, news could travel faster than a galloping horse could carry it. He also knew full well that things that were sworn to secrecy were normally told first. He raised both hands to his grainy eyes and rubbed at them tiredly.

“Granted, the idea seems ludicrous on the surface. They probably have a lot to complain about. But there’s no other way to fight this. What do they want to do, go meet the enemy on the shore in some glorious clash of swords?”

Sego snorted. “That’s probably exactly what they think should be done.”

Yes, and that was why Darius had almost conquered this country once. That idiotic thinking. He hadn’t minded when on the other side as it made his job easier, but now that he had to work with the fools… “Sego,” he asked in mock seriousness, “is there a court assassin that I can borrow for a few days?”

“There is,” Sego confirmed with the same level of mocking sincerity, “but he’ll only take orders from the queen.”

 “Curse the luck.” All banter aside, he’d have to find a way to deal with them before they stirred up too much trouble and prevented him from doing what was necessary. But later. Sego had a point about him trying to think while sleep deprived. “Alright, later today we’ll sit down and think about how to deal with them.”

“
After
you sleep.”

“After I sleep,” Darius agreed around a yawn. Getting up, he trudged to his bedroom, stifling several yawns as he moved. Really, why was he this tired? Just because he’d been up for two days straight without getting any sleep…he truly was getting old.

As he fell face first into the bed, his last thought was
I really have to investigate whether Amalah is engaged or not.

~~~

He woke up bleary eyed and groggy, as he always did from mid-day naps. After eating a late lunch (breakfast?) he dressed and headed out the door. There were too many things yet for him to do so he couldn’t just stay in bed the rest of the day, as tempting as the idea sounded.

At this hour of the day, he had Tolk with him as Bohme still slept. As they headed for the library, he turned to ask of the man behind him, “Did anything happen while I slept?”

“Largely quiet,” Tolk assured him. “Master Sego not happy about a few things, though.”

Darius grimaced. “Yes, he told me what was happening before I laid down. Really, don’t these people have anything better to do than hassle me? We
are
fighting a war, after all.”

Tolk seemed to find this amusing as his eyes crinkled up in a smile. “Yes, but problem is—” he stopped abruptly, eyes cutting to the hallway beyond Darius. “Raj, stop.”

Instinct had Darius spinning around in his tracks, looking for the trouble Tolk saw. It didn’t take more than a second to see it. From a rarely used side hallway, three men had appeared. They looked a little rough—clothing frayed along the edges, stubble on their chins, heads nearly shaven. Street thugs or brawlers, by the look of them.

How had they even managed to get into the palace? Darius shoved that question to the side as unimportant at the moment and went to the second, more urgent question: why were they targeting him? They obviously were, as they were approaching in a steady manner, pulling daggers free of their sheaths.

Tolk
moved
, putting himself in front of Darius so quickly that it made his nerves jump a little. Darius reached for the sword hilt above his shoulder and then paused, reconsidering. The hallway they stood in didn’t have much width to it. If he drew, he wouldn’t have any real room to wield it in
. I really should start carrying a dagger with me for situations like this.
Not that he
planned
to have thugs attack him in the palace, exactly….

The thugs had clearly done this before as one of them stepped back automatically to let the other two surge forward. Tolk stood his ground, back leg sliding into position so that he had a wider stance. A part of Darius’s mind evaluated the motion and admired the precision in which Tolk moved. The perfect economy of movement was almost beautiful to watch.

Thug One darted forward, knife held at the ready, other arm up as a guard. He didn’t get a chance to move before Tolk efficiently hit him in the sternum and then again on his temple as he buckled over his stomach. The man was still grunting with pain and half-way toward the floor when Tolk spun on his toes and hit the other thug. Thug Two got the knife into motion before Tolk hit his arm near the shoulder, knocking the knife away from both of them, and then hitting him directly in the neck.

Gasping, choking for breath, Thug Two wheeled backwards and hit the wall with a loud
thud
before sliding down it.

Thug Three, after seeing what had been done to his compatriots, clearly had second thoughts about the venture. With wide eyes, he took a hesitant step back.

Tolk met his eyes with a cold smile. He swept his back leg into position again, settling into that wide stance, arms up in guard. His leading arm gave a little wave, beckoning the man forward in a taunting manner. “Come play,” Tolk murmured, the promise of death in his tone.

With a minute shake of the head, Thug Three gulped, glanced at his fallen comrades, and then turned tail and disappeared at a run.

With a disappointed sigh, Tolk relaxed from his stance. “They never accept invitation to play,” he said in disappointment.

Darius smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s alright, my friend. I’ll play with you later.”

Tolk put a hand over his heart and gave his raj a heartfelt smile. “You are kind, Raj.”

Chuckling, he looked at the two lying unconscious on the floor. “But this is rather unexpected. Maybe my enemies at court are more upset than Sego realized.”

“Maybe,” Tolk agreed, brows drawn together. He didn’t seem entirely convinced. “But it seems strange to see them now. Why not earlier?”

“Revenge for me defeating what’s-his-name at dinner the other night?” Darius suggested, not entirely convinced himself. He didn’t think those men had the spine to hire assassins to attack him in broad daylight. And in the palace, no less. When Tresea heard about this, she’d descend like the Goddess of War.

“Maybe,” Tolk repeated, still a little doubtful.

Sighing, Darius rubbed at his forehead. “We can ask them when they wake up. For now, let’s call the Guard and let them deal with this.”

~~~

“You were attacked in the palace?!”
Sego demanded incredulously.

“You know, that’s almost verbatim what the queen said,” Darius remarked off-handly.

“General,” he sighed in exasperation.

Darius collapsed onto the bench in the main room of his suite, taking a second to breathe. It felt good to be horizontal, too, after two hours of running around reporting to people what had happened and repeating the story dozens of times over. “I’m fine,” he offered as he let his eyes close. “Tolk very efficiently dealt with them. I didn’t even have to intervene.”

“Just thugs,” Tolk offered from his position against the wall. “Not skilled at all.”

“Yes, that makes everything entirely better,” Sego snapped, out of sorts and irritable. Really, the way the man carried on, one would think
he
had been the one attacked. “Who did this?”

“They haven’t woken up yet.” Darius tried not to smile, as Sego wouldn’t appreciate the humor, but he found it funny in a darkly humorous way. “Apparently, when Tolk knocks someone down, they stay down.”

Sego let out a growl, sounding like a wounded tiger. “So we don’t know who’s behind this yet. Did you report it?”

“Did report to guard and queen,” Tolk assured him.

“Queen Tresea is on a warpath.” Darius didn’t mean to smile when he said that but the memory of Tresea’s expression had been priceless as she tore into the Captain of the Guard. She had
not
been happy that three street thugs had gotten into the palace interior without raising any alarms. She especially didn’t like it that they’d gone after her lead general. Heads would roll before she’d be satisfied.

“I’ll join her shortly,” Sego promised ominously. “From now on, you don’t go
anywhere
alone, not even to see Raja Amalah.”

At that, Darius cracked open an eye to look at him. “Might I remind you that I’ve been fighting for fifteen years and technically I don’t need a bodyguard?” Although he would start carrying a dagger so that he’d be better prepared for the next close-quarters fight.

Sego gave him a look that he hadn’t seen in years. In fact, the last time he’d seen
that
particular expression, he’d said something stupid to his mother. She hadn’t said anything back, just looked at him. He had, wisely, quickly found something else to do out of her sight.

Darius rolled his eyes and asked Shaa silently what he did to deserve having such a nagging worry-wart for a steward. “Alright, alright, I’ll keep a bodyguard with me.”

“
Thank
you.” Turning to the bodyguard still leaning against the wall, Sego ordered, “Remind him if he forgets that promise and make sure that Bohme knows to stick with him as well. Until I have this figured out, I don’t want anyone going around alone, for that matter. They might try to use one of us against our raj.”

“Good thought, sir,” Tolk agreed with a frown. “We’ll keep an eye out for everyone.”

Sego let out a breath. “Good.”

“Now, with that settled, I still need to get to the library and gather up a few resources.” Largely the annual reports of the queen’s personal storage. He had to know how much oil they had on hand and how much he could afford to order before it looked suspicious. “Tolk, let’s go.”

The attack on Darius was, of course, the main topic at the formal dinner that night. Dozens of people that he barely knew approached him to get a more accurate account of what had happened. Darius repeated himself over and over until he could tell the story by rote and without any thought on his part.

Dinner brought a small reprieve as he could only talk to the people on either side of him but as soon as it ended, they swarmed him again.

Being in such tight quarters with so many people put Bohme on edge. He had
not
been happy to hear that his master had been attacked while he slept. He stuck closer to Darius than his own shadow could have and glared at anyone that got too close. Darius would have said something to him, but really, Bohme’s glares gave him breathing room.