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ensemble was topped with a heavy black cloak, slit vertically to create a shifting effect, implying movement even where there was none. It boasted a deep hood, one that only partly hid an utterly featureless mask of stone. Even in the dim light of the rapidly fading dusk, Valescienn looked into the face of his new lord and saw only his own darkened and twisted reflection staring back at him.
    â€œI have been watching the city for some time, my lord,” Valescienn began.
    A hand waved impatiently, the rings creating a scintillating silver arc as they moved through the dying light. “Tell me of the men. Are they in place?”
    â€œThey are. I’ve been sending them into Denathere in small groups for the past week, just more celebrants come to the party.” He smiled grimly. “I imagine more than a few have forgotten themselves and become quite as drunk as the citizenry, but most should be ready for your signal.”
    â€œThey had better be. Any of our men who are found drunk within those walls are to be treated like any other citizen. Is that clear?”
    Valescienn frowned. “Yes, my lord. But I wonder if …” He trailed off when it became clear his master was no longer listening. He took the time, instead, to observe the man he’d chosen to serve.
    The dark-garbed figure began to pace. The silver runes upon his armor, seen through the shifting streamers of his cloak, danced and wiggled their way across his body. Valescienn averted his eyes. Rebaine had been frightening, but Lord Audriss was
disturbing
. Power radiated from the man like a fever, infecting all who came near with a sense of their own inherent inferiority. Valescienn had feared Rebaine in the same way he feared any man—and there weren’t many—who could best him on the field of battle. Audriss, however, scared him to the depths of his soul, made him afraid in places he hadn’t known he possessed. And that, more than any other reason, was why he served the man now.
    Audriss pivoted, and Valescienn noticed, for the first time, the dagger he wore on his left. A black hilt sprouted from an equally black sheath—little wonder that the weapon was nigh invisible against the outfit and the cloak. But now that he had spotted it, Valescienn wished he hadn’t, for as he became aware of the crescent blade, it, in turn, became aware of
him
. A sense of impending violence, of gleeful anticipation, crept into his mind through the cracks and crevices of his soul.
    With a ragged gasp, Valescienn tore his eyes from the dagger. He knew what it was that Audriss carried at his side, recognized it as cousin to the axe Rebaine had wielded. But Rebaine, even in the crush of battle or the most depraved depths of slaughter, never unleashed the fullpower of the Kholben Shiar. Audriss, he was certain, would have no such compunction.
    Then, even more uncomfortable with Audriss’s silence, he asked, “My lord?”
    The pacing behind him stopped; he swore he could hear even the rustle of the robes as the hood twisted about to face him. “Yes?”
    â€œIf I may be so bold, what are we waiting for?”
    â€œThat, actually.”
    A low fog appeared at the base of the hill, emerging, so it seemed, from the earth itself. Climbing slowly, it rose until it covered the grass at the top of the hill, and Valescienn’s boots to the ankle. And then it erupted, forming a pillar the height of a large man. The currents flowed inward, a spinning maelstrom of white. As the mist disappeared from beneath his feet, Valescienn couldn’t help but glance downward. The grass glistened wetly, but the reddish tint, and the metallic aroma flaying at his nostrils, suggested strongly that it was not dew coating the ground around him.
    A face appeared in the column of mist, made up entirely of hollows in the fog. The sockets filled with thick, bubbling blood, which coalesced into a pair of red, but otherwise human, eyes. The