Chapter 52
Bastard Tactics
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Dakshi was clearly unconvinced, but he still covered Erik’s six. It was Robert he worried about, but the Father simply nodded and followed, probably because Liv had put the problem to him in characteristic form.
Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way, sir. Pick one in the next two seconds, and I’m telling you, you’re not leading, because Erik’s in charge.
Maybe it was her psychology degree.
The only problem came when he handed her over to Dakshi, who accepted a lirai’s slight weight with alacrity but a bit of confusion. “We just… wait?”
“Until I come to get you. No one else.”
“Who precisely in this temple do you suspect, Erik?” Robert wanted to know. “You think that a control liaison—”
“Wait a second.” Liv began to wriggle in the Younger’s hold. “I didn’t sign up for—”
“Nobody,” Erik said. “It’s someone outside, and he’ll know where a lirai’s likely to be.” We’re going to have to be sneaky, he’d told Jake.
Just because Erik was a stolid, stodgy Elder didn’t mean he’d given up on misdirection, or what the Father who trained them in third-year advanced close combat called bastard tactics.
As in, the trick to being effective is being a right bloody bastard about it.
Sometimes Erik wondered what happened to old Nigel. He’d been harsh, true—but his students usually survived their marks.
“And waiting in the tower he shall find only death.” Robert’s smile, like Ignatius’s, was dry, precise, and though infrequent, quite warm. “Go. We shall do very well here.”
“Wait. Wait just a minute. Erik!” Liv was still struggling when Dakshi carried her through the massive ironbound doors.
Past those hanging slabs were stone spiral stairs and bright variegated golden light playing gently over every edge, shading into rainbows as it moved.
This Flame-mouth was active and open, providing strength to any full lirai within range, and with Dak and Robert nearby she was as safe as it was possible to be.
Erik heard the inner bar settle into its brackets, blocking the door. He whirled and took off, streaking through hallways now full of running feet and crisp, half-heard orders, information passed along in short bursts.
And the snarling, as creatures from the dreaming lands’ more toxic corners poured through a hole somewhere in the defenses and attempted to run riot. The temple shivered again, its towers glowing with the vibrating attention of alerted lirai and their Flights.
Incursions weren’t daily occurrences—it took a lot of energy and trouble to break a temple’s defenses—but they certainly happened, and this one would serve several of a traitor’s purposes.
It wasn’t until he reached the third tower, climbed all the way to the top, and found it echoing-empty that Erik realized perhaps, as sneaky as he was, someone else had the edge in age. And treachery.
Not to mention a deep understanding of just how a certain Elder Son’s brain worked.