The Two of Swords: Part 5 Read Online Free PDF

believe they just happened to be in the middle of the desert, saw us and thought, wonder where they’re headed, let’s follow them. They
knew
.”
    “Senza?”
    “He doesn’t know where I am, or at least I really, really hope he doesn’t know. After all, the joint enterprise has been brought to a successful conclusion, so—” He didn’t say any more. She didn’t like it when he talked about Senza. “The only outfit I can think of that seems to know every damn thing is the lodge, but—”
    “Daxen Maniaces met some lodge people in the desert,” she said. “It was in his statement. Their job was trailing round rescuing survivors.”
    “Specifically craftsmen,” Forza said, “but, yes, that’s right. But Daxen said they had a truce with the nomads and wouldn’t interfere. This lot shot first, they didn’t try and bargain or anything.”
    “You said they told you they only shot at the last minute. They weren’t supposed to fight the nomads unless absolutely necessary.”
    “You’re right, he did say that.” Forza smiled at her. “There you are, then, problem solved. I’m still not sure I’m madly excited at the idea of the lodge knowing all my top-level military secrets, but I guess I owe them. If it hadn’t been for—”
    “Quite,” she said briskly. “Anyway, that’s that. What next?”
    He put his hands behind his head and lay back on the bed. “Seek out and destroy the enemy,” he said.
    “Oh,” she said. “That.”
    That night he dreamed about the war. It had gone on for so long that there were only forty-six men and thirty women left in the world, and they lined up to fight. The men charged; the women kept formation right up until the last moment, when they realised they had no weapons. They were all killed, and so were all but six of the men. It doesn’t matter, the six survivors said; we’ll build a new heaven and a new earth. Then Raico pointed out that there weren’t any women left, so the human race was bound to die out. That made Senza laugh out loud, so Forza shot him with an arrow in the back of the head; he pulled it out and looked at it, then threw it away. Then Forza and Senza and Raico were in bed together, because it was only right that he should share the last surviving woman with his brother. Senza was fast asleep and snoring, so Forza gently dug his fingers into Raico’s back to wake her up. But his fingers went straight through her skin, which was as thin as paper; he took hold of her shoulder and pulled her towards him, and he saw that she was dead; the sun had dried her out, she was thin crisp skin overlaid on bone but no flesh, and her hair was brittle and snapped off when his arm brushed against it, and her fingernails were long and curled inwards, like claws. Then Senza opened his eyes and grinned at him, and said, Well, what did you expect?
    Senza wouldn’t be hard to find. All he had to do was look at a map and ask himself where he’d least want to fight a battle.
    “That’s easy,” she said. “There.”
    He smiled. “That’s what I thought at first,” he said. “He’s got his back to the oasis, rough ground there for his light infantry, and the rock formations; he’d know I’d worry myself sick, has he hidden his reserve cavalry there or hasn’t he? But—” He sipped his tea, which had gone cold. “Then he’ll have asked his local knowledge people, and they’ll have told him there’s a big field of sand dunes, here to here. I could come up through and be right into him and he’d never see me coming. So, not there.”
    She scowled at him. “You said just from the map. That’s cheating.”
    “Yes,” he replied. “It’s what we do. Now here—” He rested a finger on the map. “That’s more like it.”
    For a moment she didn’t see it. Then she gave him a horrified look. “Oh, come on,” she said.
    He sighed. “I know,” he said. “But he’s my brother. I’d hate to disappoint him.”
    As usual, they met before the battle.