The Warlord's Legacy Read Online Free PDF

not raise an alarm.
    He lifted the bar himself and pulled the door open a scant few inches, just to take a look and reassure himself that all was well.
    The iron weight of the manacle—the cuff itself, not the fasteningrod—made for a poor weapon, but better than none. Gripping the inner curve of the U, Cerris punched. The prong that broke teeth and tore up the back of the soldier’s throat might have left him capable of screaming, if inarticulately. So might the other, even as it crushed an eye to jelly against the back of its socket. But the both together proved too much, and the guard fell with a sodden thump, unconscious if not dead from shock alone.
    Glancing around furtively, Cerris stepped through the doorway and slid the bar back into place behind him. Moving as swiftly as he could manage with the awkward load, he dragged the soldier away from the prisoners’ bunkhouse, easily avoiding the few wandering patrols that remained awake so late at night. He dropped the body behind a mess tent only after taking the man’s own sword and driving it several times through the corpse’s face, hiding the true nature of the fatal wound. He couldn’t avoid rousing suspicion, not with a dead soldier in the camp, but at least he left nothing behind to point directly at an escaped prisoner.
    That bloody business aside, Cerris rose and chanted yet another illusion beneath his breath. The chain hauberk and gryphon-stitched tabard that shimmered into view over his prisoner’s tunic wouldn’t stand up to close observation, but they would do until he could find another guard—one who, unlike this useless fellow, was near Cerris’s own build.

    O NCE SAID GUARD HAD BEEN LOCATED , and throttled from behind, the sheer size of the Cephiran occupying force actually proved an advantage. Unable to memorize the face of
every
soldier, secure in the knowledge that the prisoners were under control and that the highway patrols would prevent infiltrators from beyond, the men-at-arms at Rahariem’s gates waved Cerris through with scarcely a glance at his uniform.
    Within the walls, Rahariem didn’t actually look all that different. Crimson pennants flew from flagpoles, yes. Many of the people wandering the streets wore tabards of a similar hue, and atop the walls andmakeshift platforms rose an array of engines—mangonels, ballistae, even trebuchets—which had served to aid in the Cephirans’ conquest of Rahariem, and served now in its defense. But those streets seemed no less busy, the laughter in the taverns no less raucous. While the bulk of Rahariem’s working-aged commoners had been hustled into work camps throughout the city, the young, the old, and the infirm were permitted to continue their daily lives. Shops still fed the local economy, taverns and restaurants provided services to citizens and invaders alike, and of course the officers
definitely
knew better than to deprive their own soldiers by shutting down the brothels or taking the prostitutes off the streets.
    Cerris strode casually along those streets, offering distracted nods to his “fellow” soldiers, salutes to the occasional officer, glowers to those citizens who had legitimate business being out after curfew. He made good time, as he knew he would. Intended to facilitate merchant caravans, the city’s broad streets were smoothly paved, running in straight lines and recognizable patterns. It was a layout that had served the city well—right up until it facilitated the invading troops just as handily.
    ‘
It’s astounding these people even have the brains to know which end of themselves to feed. Ants and termites build more defensive communities than this. Serves them right, what happened.
’
    “They didn’t deserve this,” Cerris argued with that voice—
his
voice?—under his breath.
    ‘
Oh, I see. They only deserved it back when it was you who was—
?’
    “Shut up!” He barely retained the presence of mind to whisper the admonition rather than shout it