Yadovír was aware that to others he now cut a rather pathetic figure, always shuddering, muttering to himself, and holding his scented kerchief to his nose, but his mind was as keen as ever, and he took special pleasure in storing hatred for every slight—perceived or otherwise, it didn’t matter—for the right moment.
“Ha! It seems they have done it,” he said aloud after the clerk left him. “Now what will you do?”
The appearance of solitude belied the obvious presence—unseen, but sensed by creeping skin, foul stench, and slithering voice that was and was not in Yadovír’s head.
“It is unbecoming of such a noble heart to stoop to foolishness, my rat.”
The Raven’s tone oozed malice and calm. Yadovír’s momentary excitement shattered, and the voice laughed, almost in spite of itself.
“My very own fool,” he hissed. There was even a kind of unctuous tenderness in the voice. “Your people truly are fools if they think to have won any victory.”
“Fools that somehow managed to beat off your creatures.”
Yadovír felt a chill of displeasure from the presence.
“Yesss. There was perhaps a moment or two of unexpected bravery there. But no matter. It just makes your part in all this a bit more urgent, nothing more.”
“You have c-c-come to d-demand payment, h-have you?” Yadovír’s assumed bravado was completely betrayed by the unfamiliar stammer, which had begun to decorate his speech at the most inopportune moments.
“Y-y-yes, I h-h-have,” the voice mimicked with half-suppressed laughter.
“Will you leave me alone then, after I have done your dirty work?”
“What? No demands that I install you in a position of power over those you hate? No pathetic attempts to wrest terms from the jaws of the pitiless Raven?”
“I don’t n-n-need you for that,” Yadovír said.
“Oh, I see. You rely on my munificence to keep you alive as a boon for your treachery, and then you plan to take advantage of the ensuing commotion to murder your enemies in their beds, is that it?”
Yadovír stamped his foot again in frustration. The Raven laughed inside his head.
“Do not worry, you will get all you wish for in that quarter. But you can give up any puerile hope of my ever leaving you alone. You are my favorite plaything.”
Yadovír almost gagged at the feathery touch on his arm.
“What do you want of me?” Yadovír nearly screamed.
“What do I want? I want you to be happy. I want you to feel the pleasure of vengeance, my rat. Not to wait and wait and wait. When all this is done, you can punish Sabíana in whatever twisted way your strange mind desires. Now go. The Gumiren are waiting for you. They have already cleared the blocked passage. Open the hidden way into the city.”
“But how will I protect myself? I don’t want to be known as the man who betrayed his people.”
“Of course, how noble of you! I have a very special idea on that score. Come, my stupid little one. I will explain everything on the way.”
Sabíana rushed into the palace proper, surrounded by her generals. Contrary to her own common sense, she had summoned the Dumar, reinstating their privileges, hoping the victory would rally the representatives to her. Her sense told her that there was little chance of that. She battled a heavy dread, fearing that everything she had just witnessed—all the monsters, the carnage—was all a play, a farce to distract her from something else, something she could sense with every cell of her body, but could not see. She tried to maintain the appearance of confidence.
Her heavy wolf fur chafed at her neck, and she wished she could cast away the heavy curved sword she wore at her side. She had chosen her clothing for a purpose. She needed to be an avatar of victory, as far as the warriors were concerned. She strove to maintain that illusion for as long as possible.
“We must not become drunk over this victory, my lords. True, our men have outdone themselves today. We must reform and defend the city against any further attack. It seems we have the upper hand now, and perhaps we can even send out sorties into the forest to harry the Gumiren.” Wherever they are, she thought, but did not say.
“Darina, is it wise to entrust so much of this to the Dumar?” rumbled Elder Pahomy by her side. “They have hardly deserved much trust of late.”
“They dare not rebel now, not with this success in the…”
She was cut off by a wheezing intake of her own breath. They had entered the Chamber of Counsel. The room was a lurid mess of bloodied bodies. Every member of the former Dumar lay dead or dying, stabbed many times. The floor glistened with blood. Some still moaned. Only one among them was still lucid—Yadovír, who was also wounded, though not fatally. He wept uncontrollably, his voice like a serrated knife.
“Darina Sabíana, we are undone! Do not believe anything of what you have seen or heard. We have not triumphed. It was all a ruse of the Raven. One of the clerics did this, possessed by our ancient enemy. I barely escaped with my own life before I stopped him.”
Yadovír pointed at the body of a young priest holding a long knife, red to the handle. He lay open-eyed in the shocked surprise of death.
“One of our prized clerics,” screamed Yadovír.
Sabíana shook like a leaf in a gale and found no voice to answer Yadovír. Her knees no longer supported her; she fell and the shuddering grabbed her violently. Her mind was a protracted scream of pain; her eyes lost their focus, and she felt foam rise to her mouth. Against her will, a moan slithered out of her, and even to her own ears, the sound of her teeth chattering was pitiful and horrifying.
Two of her guards knelt by her, trying to do something to relieve her, but they had no idea what to do. Finally, the convulsion stopped. Her eyes remained cloudy and unfocused, and she couldn’t speak except to moan without words.
Yadovír stopped weeping as if he had become another person in the blink of an eye. Cold terror gripped Sabíana; Yadovír seemed to grow in her eyes, as if a shadow spread out behind him like a raven’s wings. His eyes were black fire, and he commanded with the power of a legion.
“Come,” he said with a voice not his own. “We must see to the order of Vasyllia.”
To her shock, everyone did as he commanded, crumbling to a will that seemed to be outside him, yet inside him as well. Her two guards picked her up and dragged her. All she could do was moan.
Rogdai limped back to the city, leaning on Tolnían. By now, most of the warriors had returned, leaving the wounded on the field of battle. An eerie uncertainty hung about the air like smoke, and most of the warriors were intent on the palace, hoping for some word from the Black Sun. Tolnían still clutched the banner as if his life depended on it.
“That was quite a thing, my boy,” said Rogdai, shaking his head in disbelief. “I did not know they still made warriors like you.”
