then, as if his body were simply accustomed to doing it, his regenerative
abilities remained-much slowed, very painful, but there.
For these reasons, and many more, he had a mystique, but no charisma. Only among
mercenaries could he look into eyes free from the glint of fear. He stayed much
among his own, these days in Sanctuary. Abarsis’ death had struck home harder
than he cared to admit. It seemed, sometimes, that one more soul laying down its
life for him and one more burden laid upon him would surpass his capacity and he
would crack apart into the desiccated dust he doubtless was.
Crossing the whitewashed court, passing the stables, his Tros horses stuck
steel-gray muzzles over their half-doors and whickered. He stopped and stroked
them, speaking soft words of comradeship and endearment, before he left to let
himself out the back gate to the training ground, a natural amphitheatre between
hillocks where the Stepsons drilled the few furtive Ilsigs wishing to qualify
for the militia-reserves Kadakithis was funding.
He was thinking, as he closed the gate behind him and squinted out over the
arena (counting heads and fitting names to them where men sat perched atop the
fence or lounged against it or raked sand or counted off paces for sunset’s
funerary games), that it was a good thing no one had been able to determine the
cause of the ranking Hazard’s death. He would have to do something about his
sister Cime, and soon- something substantive. He had given her the latitude
befitting a probable sibling and childhood passion, and she had exceeded his