Just as the sun began to sink, Rosa, Gene, and Tahyang stood before the manor of the retired General Nikephoros. Unlike the houses of Delphinad, which usually had only low fences, the manor was surrounded by a sturdy wall. Its gate was massive, and six sentries stood guard. Since the main entrance faced a busy street, the sentries paid the three no particular attention.
“A war hero?” Rosa asked.
Tahyang nodded.
“At the Battle of Edeka Marsh, he used four thousand elite soldiers to wipe out twelve thousand enemies and capture two large castles and nine small ones. Fewer than two thousand survived to return. Everyone called him a true genius of warfare.”
“You know rather a lot.”
Tahyang grinned.
“Even a wandering cat pricks up its ears at news of home.”
“Is that your home? Edeka?”
Gene spoke.
“Edeka is part of the Great Plains. And the Great Plains are home to the Firran.”
“The Great Plains must be very large. Does all of it belong to the Firran?”
Gene and Tahyang exchanged glances. Gene said, “The Firran move around. Now, let’s move too.”
A few hours earlier, the three had worked their way through several actors at the Verse Theater before meeting its owner. They learned that although Hoan was an actor, that was not his main occupation. Ordinarily, he worked for some organization “whose name even the theater owner must never know.” The owner repeatedly insisted that he only employed Hoan because the organization threatened him, and that he himself had nothing to do with it. Tahyang took a hard biscuit from his pocket and handed it to him.
While the owner sighed with relief and crunched his biscuit, the three left.
Gene briefly questioned the first man he encountered outside the theater and learned that the organization was called the Fifteenth Regiment. From the next person, an old man, he heard that it was organized like a military unit. From the third, a boy, he learned that “Edeka” was the password used to identify its members. Of course, the explanations were not entirely accurate, but they came close. Gene had merely asked as casually as he might have asked where the tobacco shop was, and the answers had been as immediate as if he had asked people their own parents’ names. After sending the boy on his way, Gene turned to Tahyang.
“Nikephoros.”
“On the outskirts.”
“Shall we take Helos Avenue?”
“Yes. Let’s stop somewhere on the way.”
They stopped at a candle shop but bought no candles. Instead, they exchanged a few words about the late-night banquet General Nikephoros was about to hold. Tahyang gave the owner one of his biscuits. Gene shook hands with the owner’s son, a boy of about ten, and tapped his knuckles against the boy’s. Excited, the boy ran out, saying he was going to play cards. The owner said, “I wish he’d brought home something better than cards.”
“Some boy must have folded his father’s house deed into a card.”
“If only he had. I’d certainly build a whole stationery shop for you.”
When they reached the manor, the party quickly circled it, looking for a suitable place to climb over. They found a spot with a large tree inside the wall. Tahyang took off the necklace holding his whistle and handed it to Gene, who accepted it, put it around his neck, and tucked it under his clothes. Gene and Rosa headed for the main gate while Tahyang remained behind. They left the horse with him too. Approaching the sentries, Gene spoke casually.
“The general sent for us. Is this what you call a late-night banquet?”
The sentries looked Gene and Rosa over. Neither looked like nobility. A sentry narrowed his eyes and demanded, “State your name and status.”
“My status is difficult to explain.”
As the sentries’ eyebrows rose, Gene continued.
“My name is Gene Evernight.”
The name had an immediate effect. The sentries’ eyes widened, and two rushed inside. The rest fidgeted, watching him anxiously. The sentry Gene had addressed slowly edged backward as though wanting to put some distance between them. Gene waited with his arms folded. Soon one of the men returned and whispered to the superior confronting him.
“The general, here…”
The rest was inaudible. After hearing him, the sentry turned toward Gene. His eyes twitched violently as he looked at him.
“Today’s gathering has been canceled. Come back tomorrow afternoon.”
“Oh, has it?”
When Gene unfolded his arms, the sentries all reached for their weapons and readied themselves to attack. Gene held out his empty hands.
“I haven’t done anything.”
Then someone else came running from inside, pushed past the sentries, and stood before him. The guards who had been aiming at him all stepped aside at the sight of her. The woman, about her mid-thirties, wore a cuirass with epaulets despite its not being wartime, and her hair was pinned up tightly. Sweating, she nevertheless forced a smile.
“Are you the ShadowHawk?”
“The right-hand sword.”
People often called Gene the ShadowHawk, though they knew he and Tahyang were the ShadowHawk’s “right-hand sword” and “left-hand sword.” A Firran riding a snowlion was intimidating enough in himself. There was also the fact that Gene effectively commanded the men who followed the pair, the so-called “Brothers of the Hawk.”
“Come in. The general will return shortly. I am Antonia, his adjutant.”
Following Antonia through the garden, Rosa noticed men roaming about with sticks. One prodded a clump of grass, parted it, and peered beneath. Another hacked indiscriminately at overgrown shrubs. A third had a dog, which was sniffing the earth and whining.
While Rosa followed their movements with her eyes, Antonia turned to her.
“Come to think of it, I haven’t asked. Who are you?”
Gene answered before she could.
“One of the Brothers of the Hawk.”
“Your name?”
“Rosa.”
“A northerner, then. Are you so short of members these days? She looks like a greenhorn who arrived in Delphinad barely a day or two ago.”
She must have been looking at Rosa’s clothes. Gene replied calmly.
“The Brothers of the Hawk aren’t an army. They can wear whatever they like.”
“Then your subordinate is very stubborn. Doesn’t she care what others think?”
After a short pause, Gene said, “That’s none of your concern.”
Just as they reached the mansion’s entrance, Antonia turned back to Gene with a smile.
“Oh, so that’s the voice of the ShadowHawk. The voice that makes even the god of luck tremble, lay down everything he has, and leave the field. Perhaps I should shake a dice cup tonight myself. I haven’t touched one since I was ten.”
Gene tilted his head and looked at her. The next moment, his hand seemed to move, and Antonia was already unconscious, supported against his bent leg. Gene laid her on the ground and stood to look around. By then, Rosa had gathered an armful of twigs and piled them over Antonia. They were the branches the men with sticks had cut earlier. Gene raised an eyebrow.
“Where did you learn that?”
“Back home.”
“Strange place, that.”
“Compared with it, this is paradise.”
Gene almost smiled, then shook his head.
“I don’t think you know Delphinad that well.”
“Anywhere is more livable than a place where winter lasts half the year, isn’t it?”
As a southerner, Gene had no experience of a real winter. He merely raised one corner of his mouth. When they went to the stretch of wall where Tahyang was supposed to enter, they found that he had already inspected the manor’s surroundings while Gene and Rosa held the sentries’ attention.
“Half the guards are searching around the mansion for someone. It started beneath a section of wall in the back garden. Someone escaped from a room. I looked up and saw that the shutter had come away from a small window. Too small for an adult to pass through. But it was fairly high. The idea of a child jumping down from there…”
Rosa interrupted.
“She could. Have you seen where the kitchen is?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go there.”
As soon as Tahyang pointed, Rosa ran ahead. Gene had no choice but to hurry in front of her, lightly touching the neck of a guard who appeared before her, then knocking another gently down. Meanwhile, Rosa had already disappeared around the corner. By the time they met again outside the kitchen, the party numbered seven. Gene glanced over the uninvited men accompanying them and spoke to Rosa.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do anything unexpected.”
“We have to hurry. If we delay, Nana might…”
“Be in danger?”
“No. There’s no telling what she might do.”
“What does that mean?”
The kitchen’s back door was just ahead. Red light spilled through the open doorway. Food crates and vegetable scraps littered the floor. Perhaps a kitchen assistant had failed to tidy up properly, but it was rather too much of a mess for that to be the whole explanation.
Gene beckoned the guards closer. They remained motionless, surrounding Gene and Rosa. One spoke.
“Whoever you may be… you cannot escape punishment for forcing your way into the general’s residence and causing a disturbance.”
Gene replied, “That’s assuming you haven’t laid a hand on a child.”
“A child?”
While the man wondered what he meant, Gene seized the shaft of the nearest short spear. Pulling the man forward, he pressed his left hand against his throat and swung him halfway around into the men coming after him. With the butt of the spear in his right hand, he struck the first man to rise in the solar plexus, then jabbed the second beneath the throat. Three went down. Two retreated. They looked as though they could not understand why the ShadowHawk had merely knocked his opponents down rather than killed them. But contrary to rumor, Gene had never killed people lightly.
Standing behind him, Rosa said, “I think I can go in first.”
Without waiting for a reply, she ran into the kitchen. For a moment Gene was so dumbfounded that he almost forgot the two men still there and turned after her. Scolding her now would apparently do no good. With no alternative, Gene sighed and drew his sword. The remaining guards, who were already keeping their distance, stumbled back another two paces. One nearly tripped over his own feet.
Instead of swinging his sword, Gene drew a line across the ground with its back.
“I trust you know what that means.”
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