Dark Heart by Russell Kirkpatrick Page A

been done to them. ‘It is why we have survived when all other races fell to the Elamaq,’ Torve’s father had told him in the days before he’d been taken to become the Emperor’s pet. But now he wondered whether the Defiance kept Omerans in thrall.
    Torve had been unsure what to think when he had been commanded by the Emperor to accompany Captain Duon’s great expedition to the northlands. He was to look out for the blood of immortality, the Emperor had told him. For whom could the Emperor trust, apart from his faithful slave, to bring the blood back south without sampling it along the way? Eventually Torve decided to be pleased by the opportunity, especially since it afforded him the chance to be close to the intriguing young cosmographer. Yet the Emperor had clearly not trusted him, for after the events of the Valley of the Damned had played out, and the great Amaqi army had been destroyed, Torve had discovered that the Emperor of Talamaq had hidden himself within his own expedition.
    For a time Torve wondered why he had not recognised his master. Yes, the Emperor had gone everywhere and done everything behind a golden mask, and no one, not even Torve, his closest confidant, knew what his uncovered face looked like. But the voice, the sardonic tone, the burning eyes, ought to have betrayed the man. Nevertheless, Torve had not even suspected the real identity of Dryman the mercenary soldier until the night they spent with the Children of the Desert, when Dryman had revealed himself as the Emperor and forced Torve to accompany him on a hunt. They had taken a young girl that night, snatched her right out of her tent, from between her sleeping parents.
    But what surprised Torve—no, shocked him—was Lenares’ inability to recognise the Emperor. She had the uncanny talent to assess anyone she met using her strange vision of the world— the numbers never lie, she told Torve—and had done so when she had first met the Emperor. She had summarised his master perfectly. ‘You want to live forever,’ she’d told him. ‘You are afraid to die.’
    The Emperor had been angered by that. Shocked that a halfwit girl had seen through him. So when the Children of the Desert had confronted their guests about the death of one of their own, Torve had expected Lenares to unmask Dryman as the murderous Emperor, thus condemning the man to death and setting Torve free. But she had not. Not because she could keep a secret, much less that she thought this a secret worth keeping. No, she had said nothing because she simply hadn’t recognised him.
    Something about the soldier bothered her, Torve knew. She had said so on occasion. It was all there: in his voice, his manner, the hunger in his deep eyes, even the callus on the bridge of his nose where the mask usually rested. But she could not see! No matter how many hints Torve offered; clues that skirted right to the edge of the prohibition laid upon him not to reveal Dryman’s true identity.
    He could only think that Dryman had spread some sort of glamour over them. But the Emperor had rejected magic, along with everything else that came from the gods. So how could this be?
    He would wait, he would watch, he would learn. And somehow he would tell Lenares what she needed to know without breaking his vow of obedience. Then this dreadful grind of torture and death would finally be over, and he and Lenares could be together.
    The first reports that Raceme had been occupied overnight by the Neherians began filtering back to the hill above the city soon after dawn. Knots of Racemen began to gather, coalescing into crowds, and finally forming a great assembly around the largest of the bonfires. Duon followed them, accompanied by the enigmatic Dryman.
    ‘Tell me what they say, Captain,’ Dryman ordered.
    Duon bridled at the casual assumption of command, but said nothing. Time enough later for confrontation.
    ‘A few of the men went into the city just before dawn,’ Duon reported. ‘They