Cook, Glen - Darkwar [Triology] by Cook Glen

Author:Cook, Glen [Cook, Glen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy Fiction; American, Science Fiction, General, Fantasy, Fiction
ISBN: 9781597802017
Google: 5TM2bwAACAAJ
Amazon: 1597802018
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Published: 2009-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I

Marika moved quickly, drafting every silth and huntress she respected. Two nights after receiving the most senior’s blessing, she began moving small teams into every site she believed to be a potential rogue target. She followed the dictum of the ancient saw, “The night belongs to the silth.” She moved in the dark of the moons, by low-flying darkship, unseen even by those who managed the places she chose to protect.

She was certain there would be an attack soon. Some show of strength. She had written Bagnel bragging about her appointment, transparently implying that she suspected his bond of being behind the rogues.

If he was what she believed, and reported the contents of her letter to his factors, there should be a move made in an effort to show nothing so simple would frighten them off. Or to make it appear the Brown Paw Bond really had no control over the rogue group.

She hoped.

Her planted teams kept themselves concealed from those who worked and dwelt in and around the potential targets. Marika herself shifted to a nighttime schedule, remaining aloft on the trainer darkship she had made her own.

The rogues waited four days. Then they walked into it. It could not have gone better for Marika had she been giving the villains their orders.

Three were slain and two captured in an action so swift no shots were fired. Marika lifted the captives out quietly and carried them to the cloister aboard her darkship.

One of those two managed to poison himself. The other faced a truthsaying.

He yielded names and addresses.

Marika threw teams out aboard every darkship the cloister possessed, ignoring all protests, invoking the most senior where she had to. By dawn seven more prisoners had been brought into the cloister. Five lived long enough to be questioned.

A second wave of raids found several rogues forewarned or vanished completely. This time there was some fighting. Few rogues were taken alive.

Even Marika was surprised at how many rogues Maksche boasted.

The third wave of raids took no prisoners at all. Few rogues were found. But weapons and explosives enough for an arsenal were captured, along with documentary evidence of rogue connections in TelleRai and most cities where the Reugge maintained cloisters.

Marika had the captured arms laid out upon the cloister square. The dead rogues joined them.

“Very good, Marika,” Gradwohl said as she and the Maksche councillors inspected the take. “Very impressive. You were right. We were too passive, and even I underestimated the scale and scope of what was happening. No one could see this and remain convinced that we are dealing with the usual scatter of malcontents. I will order all the Reugge cloisters to—”

“Excuse me for interrupting, mistress. It would be too late for that. The rogues will have vanished everywhere. Posting rewards might help a few places, if they are large enough. A point that I have to make, over and over till everyone understands, is that for all their broad antisilth sentiments, and all that the evidence shows them established almost everywhere, these rogues are attacking nobody but the Reugge.

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