Tower & Knife 03 - The Tower Broken by Mazarkis Williams

bound him long ago, when he was a child. Why had he never realised it?
    Adam spoke with conspiratorial pleasure. ‘I felt your hand in the marketplace. I would not have recommended that, my Duke. Now the Blue Shields are inspired to seek us everywhere – why do you look so surprised? Did you think I would not know your careful pattern-work?’
    Didryk knew nothing of any marketplace, but he looked stonily at the man, willing him to stop, to leave, but Adam continued, still behaving as if they stood over his mother’s rose bushes outside his long-lost home. ‘But now we shall have some assistance. I have a new student now. Of all the desperate anddowntrodden Cerani I have brought into the light only one shows any promise. That is how weak I have found the stock of Nooria to be, and yet they enslave our people. Yes’ – he nodded with emphasis as if Didryk did not believe him – ‘I saw Fryth slaves in the palace.’
    His mention of the palace brought only one thing to Didryk’s mind. ‘Did you kill my cousin Kavic,’ he asked, ‘or was it the Cerani who killed him?’
    Adam pressed a hand to his heart. ‘Of course I did not kill him. Why would you come to Cerana looking for me if you believed I had done such a thing?’
    ‘Perhaps I was not looking for you.’ As ever, Didryk could not gauge whether the austere spoke true, but it did not matter. He had not wanted the peace and he had let Kavic die, and Didryk would have his revenge either way.
    ‘Don’t be embarrassed, child. Why else would you come so close to the lion’s mouth, except to join with your old teacher? I heard what you did to the White Hats. The Cerani will turn the desert inside out looking for you, but I can offer protection. It was wise of you to find me.’
    ‘I play my own game.’ And a mad one at that: one that depended on gaining the trust of the emperor before turning all of his people against him, one that pitted him alone against the Tower, the priests and all of Cerana’s soldiers. But it was one he would rather try than join with the second austere.
    Down in the camp, Didryk’s men began to shout and point upwards towards Adam. Some of them began the torturous climb up the dune, not well-aided by the heavy swords they carried.
    Adam ignored the soldiers. ‘You are still stubborn. Like the Cerani.’ He crouched over the sand and ran his fingers along the surface.‘How stubborn a man must be, to make an empire of this. Yes, they have great pride, but their leader is weak, and he shrinks from fighting. The Tower has been drained of its talent. Yrkmir will soon come, and the first austere will bring us all into the light, as was foretold.’
    The first austere
. Once those words had invoked awe, the image of a man close to a god on his high, cold throne, but now Didryk felt nothing but hatred. Adam remained faithful to Yrkmir, but if he were not such a prideful fool, he might have asked what had driven Didryk so far from home. Despite himself, anger coloured his next words. ‘As Mondrath was brought into the light?’
    Adam looked up at him, his brows forming a question.
    ‘You did not hear? Yrkmir set a pattern around our great city. We lost two-thirds of our people and the rest have scattered into the mountains. Mondrath is no more. Whatever their design, it does not include us, Adam.’
    Adam stilled, his gaze on the shifting sands of the dune. ‘What of your grandfather, the Iron Duke? Kavic’s wife and their children?’
    ‘Dead.’ He pushed the word from his mouth. It had not become easier to say.
    ‘I see.’ The austere came as close to expressing regret as Didryk had ever seen, and did not speak for a long while. He did not meet Didryk’s eyes as he asked, ‘What is your plan, then? Will you turn against your church?’
    ‘It is your church. It was never mine.’
    ‘Mogyrk gifted you with His skill. Whatever Yrkmir has done, He has not abandoned us.’
    ‘Mogyrk is dead.’ He knew it was not true; the power he