To Ride Hell’s Chasm. Janny Wurts

beyond doubt you’re not one of them.’

      ‘And are you quite done?’ Taskin grated, irritably slapping out the live cinders that seared holes through the hem of his surcoat.

      ‘You still have your archers,’ said the desert-bred, reasonable. ‘Call out the order to shoot, as you wish. But I had to be certain the commander who can order me killed is one I can trust, and not tainted.’

      Taskin rubbed at his neck, found the muscles strained rock-hard with tension. ‘You realize you’re treading on dangerous ground, soldier.’ Irate enough to attack out of hand, he planted his stance on the platform and regarded the deadly creature above him. ‘Nor have I posted my bowmen at whim. Jussoud warned straight out you could drop me.’

      Mykkael faced him, not arguing. His defenceless back stayed presented towards the open arch of the belfry. An archer’s prime target, in his sunlit white shirt: the only assurance in his power to offer, to back the credential of Taskin’s security. One that, even still, fell woefully short. Keen hearing would warn if a shaft launched to take him. The steep arc as it flew would grant time for evasion, long before its flanged point could strike home.

      His dark face turned downwards, unreadable, Mykkael stated, ‘We all tread upon dangerous ground.’

      ‘Then are you the snake set into our midst?’ Taskin ripped back in blunt challenge. ‘Have you failed to notice that’s what the court factions are claiming? No one holds any scrap of hard evidence against you. But you realize, at this point, that’s not a clear-cut reason for me to stand down the outcry for your arrest.’

      Mykkael snapped an oath in some guttural dialect that ground on the ear like scraped gravel. ‘Let me say what I know. Your princess is in dire peril this moment. For her sake, hear me through. As we go, you can ask me whatever you wish. I will answer as your subordinate.’

      ‘You can spare me my reasonable doubts on that score!’ Yet Taskin stepped back. He braced his squared shoulders against the brick wall, still flushed with fury. Only his gesture suggested the chance he might balance his options by listening.

      ‘All right.’ Mykkael expelled a stiff breath. ‘Protections, first.’ He shut his eyes, turned his face away to disarm any inference of threat. With placating, slow movement, he untied a wash-leather bag from his belt, then removed something strung on a stained rawhide tie. He dropped the object with a metallic clink on the platform at Taskin’s feet.

      The commander dragged the thong close with his boot toe. Still without touching, he examined the queer pattern of geometry etched into the green copper disc. ‘What’s this?’

      ‘A talisman,’ Mykkael answered. ‘You’ll wear it next to your skin night and day, do you hear? Ignore what I’ve said at your peril.’

      Taskin looked up, his eyes like forged steel. ‘Where did you get such a thing? Whose hand made it?’

      ‘That’s the vizier Perincar’s working.’ Mykkael swallowed. As though the words burned him to undying bitterness, he answered as he had promised. ‘The artefact came from the wars with Rathtet.’

      Taskin raised startled eyebrows. ‘But I thought no survivors—’ His breathing hitched through a disastrous pause, as the most likely bent of plausibility ran a grue of dread straight through him.

      ‘No!’ Mykkael shook his head, looking anguished. ‘I never fought for Rathtet! No mercenaries did.’ Again, he closed his eyes; not to blunt hair-trigger reflexes, this time, but visibly wrestling an unutterable weariness. As though the forced explanation seared him to inward pain, he met Taskin’s bidding and qualified. ‘Eighteen of us lived. I fought at the side of Prince Al-Syn-Efandi. He died with his head in my lap.’