It took several more hops to finally get within sight of Rizon. Arlen might have kept at it, inching closer, but each time the Core dangled its lure, and like a cat confronted with a string, he could not resist it forever. He began to run instead, his bare feet eating up the miles. Once, a reap of field demons spotted him and gave chase, but even they could not match him now. The demons fell farther and farther behind, eventually breaking off in search of easier prey.

He bypassed most of the villages and guard stations until he came to an isolated sentry booth, warded to protect the Sharum runner within. He slowed, letting the man hear him coming.

The warrior stepped out of his booth, spear and shield at the ready. His aura and stance said he was ready to face a demon, but both relaxed when he spotted Arlen’s human silhouette. At least until he saw that Arlen carried neither spear nor shield.

‘Who goes—’ he began, but then Arlen was on him, slipping around his guard with ease and getting behind him with his forearm across the man’s throat in a sharusahk hold. He squeezed gently, careful not to crush, until the man fell limp in his hands.

Inside the booth, Arlen saw a mat for sleeping, food stores and cooking utensils, and other necessaries. Likely this warrior slept most of the days and kept watch at night, ready to carry word if one of the outlying villages needed reinforcements.

When the dal’Sharum woke a few minutes later, he was stripped to his bido with his arms and legs tied tightly behind him. The rope was looped around his neck so that too much struggling would cut off his air. He groaned through the gag in his teeth, and Arlen, dressed in the man’s blacks with his night veil in place, looked down at him.

‘Apologies, honoured warrior,’ he said in flawless Krasian, bowing. ‘It is not my intent to shame you, but I have need of your robes and equipment. I will return tomorrow night to free you and give them back. Inevera, no one will know of your defeat.’

The warrior growled and struggled, but there was nothing he could do. Arlen bowed once more and raced back into the night. There were still miles to go before he reached the capital.

The low wall of the outer city had been strengthened and fortified since Arlen’s last visit to Rizon, and mounted Sharum patrolled its length, but it was too vast to guard completely. He found a clear section and bounded over the wall easily.

Dawn was not far off by the time he reached the wall of the inner city, but enough darkness remained for him to see the warding field that now protected the area as surely as one of the Hollow’s greatwards. He studied the energy with fascination. What was the source?

‘There’s Warders, and then there’s Krasian Warders,’ his old master Cob had said. ‘None better in all the Free Cities.’

Arlen shook his head, leaving the puzzle for another day. As the sky continued to lighten, he headed for the bazaar, slumping slightly like a Sharum worn from a night’s patrols. His nose keener than a hunting hound’s, it was simple to find an apothecary. He stole into the empty tent, stealing ladies’ face paint and powder to hide his warded skin and pale complexion. He took the coin purse from his stolen robes and left a few draki on the counter before slipping back into the street. Other Sharum were filtering in from their patrols, and he kept his night veil loose around his chin, low enough not to draw attention or cause offence to the other warriors in the light, while still hiding his painted skin as much as possible. He needn’t have bothered. The warriors saw only his blacks, nodded, and moved on their way.

For all that he was prepared, it shook him to hear the familiar sound of dama singing the end to curfew ringing out over the streets of Fort Rizon. Arlen looked up, seeing the newly built minarets rising above the wall of the inner city, surrounding what had been the great Holy House of Rizon. He wondered if the Krasians had already begun to decorate it with the bones of the fallen.

He watched as the city around him woke and came to greet the day. The Krasians came first, women and khaffit opening their kiosks and pavilions for a day’s business. Soon after, when most of the returning Sharum had found their beds, the chin began to appear, opening their businesses as customers, Rizonan and Krasian alike, began to clog the narrow streets.

Soon, it began to feel achingly familiar, even as his sense of discomfort grew. The shouts of vendors, filled with exaggerations and outright lies, the noise and stink of livestock mixing with the smells of cooking food, meat and spices that made his mouth water as vendors displayed everything a buyer could want, and many they did not even know existed.

He had loved the Great Bazaar of Krasia, and it seemed a lifetime since he had wandered its maze of streets.

But you’re not in Krasia, he reminded himself, seeing the differences, now that he had absorbed the familiar. Here, a group of dal’ting were followed by Rizonan men who carried their purchases like slaves. There, a pair of Rizonan women walked in the hot sun with their heads and faces wrapped in coloured veils. Everywhere, vendors called their wares in their native languages, but also in broken Thesan or Krasian, and buyers did the same. Already, a pidgin was forming, melding words from both languages with gestures, much like the trade language Northern Messengers used when visiting the Desert Spear. Arlen understood it instinctively.

A dama walked slowly by, watching the activity. An alagai tail hung from his belt in easy reach. Vendors and shoppers alike gave him nervous looks and a wide berth, but Arlen was in black, and simply gave a nod the dama returned casually before returning to his inspection. Arlen had no doubt that the whip would soon be put to use, if for nothing other than a warning to others.

This ent how it’s supposed to be.

Abban did not need to look up when the dal’Sharum entered his office. Only one of his men wore black, and Abban did not need to raise his eyes past ankle level to know when his drillmaster darkened his door – something that had never happened in the bazaar. Qeran despised the place.

‘You were not invited, warrior,’ he said, dipping his electrum pen into the inkwell and continuing to write in his ledger.

The Sharum said nothing, pulling the door closed behind him. Abban saw the feet of his two kha’Sharum Watchers appear at his back. They moved with utter silence on the soft carpet, one holding a short metal club, and the other the handles of a garrotte. As they moved to strike, Abban finally allowed his eyes to rise. He did so love to see his investments pay off.

The Watchers were from different tribes, one Nanji and the other Krevakh. Anywhere else in the world, the two men could not have been in the same room as each other without shedding blood.

But tribe meant nothing to Abban’s hundred. He was their tribe. He wondered sometimes if, three thousand years after Ahmann’s reign, the Haman tribe might endure. Had not Nanji and Krevakh been men once, serving at the side of Kaji?

He snorted. Haman? If Ahmann was truly the Deliverer, it should be the Abban tribe. That had a nice sound to it.

The men struck as one body, the first swinging his club at the meat of the newcomer’s thigh, a blow meant for maximum pain and surprise, but minimum damage. While the Sharum recoiled, the other would move in, catching him from behind with the garrotte and allowing his partner open access to attack. Abban had seen them do the dance several times now, and never tired of it.

But the dal’Sharum surprised him, moving as if he had known the men were there all along. He was baiting them, Abban realized as the stranger slipped his leg away from the club and threw his head back just in time to avoid the garrotte. He came back up fast with a punch the Krevakh barely parried in time and a kick that the Nanji managed to turn aside with his wire, though he failed to catch the ankle as it retracted.