"It can be hard to take you seriously sometimes," Taniel said. "No. I misspoke. All of the time."
Mihali chuckled, but Taniel hadn't been making a joke.
"The Kez camp," Taniel urged.
"I can conceal you so that you walk right through the Kez sentries," Mihali said, moving to a wide iron grill in the middle of the cooking yard. He began flipping turkey legs with practiced speed.
Taniel ducked as he heard the sound of a shout behind him. A glance over his shoulder told him it wasn't directed at him. Walking through the Adran camp was dangerous, even in civilian clothes with a tricorn hat pulled down to conceal his face. He was supposed to be under guard by the provosts right now.
"They won't notice you here, either. Have a turkey leg." Mihali picked up a leg with his tongs and handed it to Taniel.
"That looks hot."
"Nonsense. A chef would never give a guest something that would burn them."
Taniel took the turkey leg with some trepidation. The bone was only warm, despite having just come off the flames, and when he bit into it, juice ran down his unshaved chin. He didn't speak until he was done eating. "How can you make me unseen?" Taniel asked. "Before, you had to ask Ka-poel's permission to touch my mind."
"I just did," Mihali said.
Taniel froze in the midst of picking the last bits of flavor off the turkey leg. He looked around. "I don't feel unseen." He glanced down at the turkey bone. "Did you … "
"Yes," Mihali said. "Doing any kind of constructive sorcery directly to the human body is one of the most difficult things a Privileged can accomplish. That's why healers are so rare. I figured out about a thousand years ago that the easiest way to get a spell into a person was through their stomach." Mihali picked up a turkey leg and took a bite. A sudden look of worry crossed his face. "Let's have that be our secret, hmm?"
Taniel snorted. "I won't tell on you."
"Oh, thank you." Mihali finished his turkey leg noisily and then lifted another off the grill. "Care to take one to Ka-poel?"
"Will it make her unseen? And if I'm unseen now, how will she see me? Or how are you seeing me?"
"I can see you because I'm a god. Ka-poel will be able to sense where you are, and the spell doesn't muffle your voice."
"If I sneeze?"
"Uh" – Mihali tapped the tongs against his apron, leaving a greasy stain – "Don't. The spell does have its drawbacks. For instance, it is designed to drop as soon as you get close to Kresimir's sphere of influence. It would backfire to have Kresimir sense my intrusion."
Taniel looked at his hand. He certainly didn't feel unseen. "How long did it take you to come up with this?"
"A few moments."
"Really?"
Mihali raised an eyebrow. "We're not called gods necessarily because we're the most powerful Privileged – though that is an interpretation. We're called gods because the things that regular mortals struggle for days, weeks, or months to accomplish take us only the effort of a thought."
"Ah. Well, I'm going now."
"Wait." Mihali produced a deep pewter mug seemingly out of nowhere and crossed to his pot of soup. He ladled the mug full and set a lid on it. "Take this to Ka-poel. It'll help her sleep while you're gone."
Taniel turned to go, when he thought better of it. "Adom – Mihali?"
"Hmm?"
"Will you protect her?"
"I feel after giving her my blood, that it is I who need protection," Mihali said. He winked. "That girl is like a glass teapot filled with gunpowder. So fragile, but with such a power for destruction." He straightened up and swung the ladle into a salute. Soup spattered on his apron. "No harm will come to her."
"Thank you," Taniel said. "Now I'm going to get some of your brother's blood."
CHAPTER
33
Tamas watched Olem rub down his horse as the camp settled in for the night. A low fire of brush and prairie twigs crackled in a stone ring in front of him. The sun still shone in the western sky, lighting the plateau with a brilliant hue of reds, oranges, and pinks.
Their second day on the plateau, and their supplies were already running low. They'd slaughtered thousands of Kez horses after the battle fourteen days before, but only been able to carry a limited amount. What little food they had needed to be rationed. A pound of meat per man per day was not much.
Tamas lifted his head at a sound carried on the wind. He waited a few seconds, then returned to gazing at the flames. Beside him, Olem was snapping twigs and feeding them into the fire.
His rangers still hadn't found this mysterious Adran army, but there were plenty of signs of their passing. Stripped bean fields, burned farms. The dead and the dying, the old and the infirm of what was left of the farmers of the Northern Expanse. The plateau was already a dry, exhausted land. Whatever army had come through two weeks ago had killed everything living.
Per his orders, the army had dug a six-foot trench around the entire camp. It was backbreaking work, but he'd be damned if he'd be caught at night by an army he didn't see coming. Some of his soldiers were still digging. The sound of shovels scraping rocks and dirt, the curses of infantry working after a long day's march.
Tamas lifted his head again. That sound. What was it? He cocked his head to one side, trying to find a location.
Nothing.
Had the Deliv turned on him? The king of Deliv had been firm in his response earlier this summer when Tamas had asked for allies against the Kez. They'd promised to stay out of the war entirely.
"May I join you, Field Marshal?"
Tamas looked up. The lengthening shadows tricked his eyes for a moment before he made out Beon je Ipille. Tamas gestured to the bare ground on the other side of the fire. Beon lowered himself gingerly to the ground, crossing his legs beneath him. The Kez general's eyes were sunken, his face pale. He was one of the few Kez officers that Tamas had kept with him as prisoners – the rest were paroled to the Kez army.
"How is your arm?" Tamas asked.
Beon looked down at his left arm where it hung in a sling. "It is well, thank you. My physician says that the arm is not broken, but I lost quite a lot of blood in the melee. I should recover in time. Your injuries?"
"Fine." Tamas ran a couple of fingers over his ribs, wincing at the tenderness. He didn't think they'd cracked from his fight with Gavril, but his body felt like one big bruise. "I'm wishing I'd brought Dr. Petrik along when I left Budwiel. But then again, my plans at the time were greatly different from how things ended up."
Beon nodded, staring into the fire. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth, only to close it again. It was several minutes before he finally spoke.
"I remember riding through the Northern Expanse once," Beon said. "It must have been six or seven years ago. I went along with some of my father's Privileged on a delegation to Deliv. This land was greener, more full." Beon smiled sadly. "Towns threw festivals in our honor. There were thousands of people – proud, happy farmers.
"Now I can't help but wonder: what has happened to my country?" Beon looked around. "The last two days, I've seen countless abandoned farms. The bean fields are all gone. The land is brown and dry. I've heard reports of the droughts, both here and in the rest of the Nine, but I didn't imagine it to be so bad.
"What's more, where are all my people? We passed a farm this morning. The crop – and there had been a crop, I'm not so removed that I can't see that – was trampled, and the farm buildings burned remnants. I must ask you, Field Marshal. Have you sent men on ahead? Are you destroying these lands?"
"The desolation you see," Tamas said, his pride pricked at the accusation, "was not caused by my men. I swear it."
"It must have been bandits, then."
Tamas wondered how much he should tell Beon of his suspicions. "I don't think so."
Beon didn't seem to hear him. "Two days ago," Beon said, "I rode past an old man on a pack mule. He begged me to right the wrongs and expel the Adran foreigners that were ravishing our lands." Beon spoke carefully, as if testing the waters before a swim.
"My scouts tell me another army has come through this way," Tamas said. "And reports from what serfs remain in the area say that they wear Adran blues. This makes me wonder, as I know for a fact that I have no men in northern Kez."
Beon gazed at Tamas, brow furrowed, as if trying to decide whether Tamas was speaking the truth.
Tamas asked, "Do you know whether your father sent legions north, disguised as Adrans, in order to sneak through Deliv and over the mountains?"
"I don't. Besides, our soldiers wouldn't do this to their own land."
Tamas wondered where Beon got such a high regard for the morals of infantry.
Olem suddenly grabbed his rifle and surged to his feet. "Sir," he said, "did you hear that?"
Tamas paused and listened. Nothing.
Wait. There. It sounded like a shout. Very distant. He climbed to his feet. Nearby, a slight rise in the terrain gave him a better vantage point. He scanned the horizon, listening for the shout again.
"There," Olem said, pointing north.