“I…I can’t,” the mage stuttered out.

“I don’t make idle threats,” Gūla replied calmly. “If you won’t tell me who your leaders are, I will send you to S̆addānu.”

“I don’t know them,” the Moon-kissed cried out. With her arms bound to her side, the only way she could point to the others was by jerking her head violently in their direction. “They saw the mask and hat I wore; our identities were mostly hidden, even from each other.”

“Mostly?” Jasper latched on to the word.

“Everyone was kept segregated - we only knew the names of a few others. I’ll tell you those I know, but I swear I don’t know the names of our leaders.”

“They’re like a goddamn sleeper cell. Didn’t think they had those here. She’s telling the truth, though,” he added to Gūla. “Unless she’s found a way to trick my spell, she doesn’t know the identities of the leaders - or, at least, she doesn’t think she does.”

The Djinn scowled. “I’m not sure that’s good enough for our deal. If you can’t give us something better, I’m afraid I’ll have to send you to the capital.”

Fear flickered in the mage’s eyes, but she steeled her gaze. “I only know 5, but one of them you will want to know,” she said calmly.

“Are they one of our leaders?” Gūla countered.

“I don’t know,” Selbārah admitted candidly, “but they’re one of yours.”

The Djinn tapped her nails against the table pensively, before giving the mage the go-ahead nod. “Tell me, and as long as it’s someone important, I’ll honor the deal.”

The mage’s lips twisted, not entirely happy with the failure to achieve a waterproof promise, but she knew her options were limited. “The members I knew were S̆ams̆ar of House Alamittu; Sēleṭer, a mage; Lady Meḫra of the Marṣēru clan, and Seḫrûl of House Kubabbar.”

“That’s four,” Gūla pointed out. “Two merchants, a mage, and a minor noble. That does support the elf’s hypothesis, but I’m afraid none of these are important enough to merit letting you walk free.”

“I know,” the Moon-kissed replied, “but I have one more.”

As she paused dramatically, Jasper wondered if he already knew the answer. From the start, he’d been suspicious of General Turzu. He knew his feelings about the Djinn were biased by his wounded pride. The man had tried to hit him, after all, simply for daring to speak up and correct a mistake; he was a rude, condescending, pompous dick but… Jasper let out his frustrations with a sigh. There’s a difference between being a jerk and being a traitor, he reminded himself.

“Stop stalling,” Gūla commanded.

“Commander Dannûl.”

The name meant nothing to Jasper, but he could tell by the sudden deep crease in Gūla’s brow she knew exactly who it was. Placing her hands on the table, she leaned forward anxiously. “Are you sure? Commander Dannûl?”

“He was one of our contacts in your command,” the Moon-kissed insisted. “I met with him several times.”

Gūla glanced over her shoulder to Jasper. “Is she telling the truth?”

“Seems to be,” he affirmed. “Why? Who’s Dannûl?”

“Later,” she replied. For the next hour, Gūla quizzed the Moon-kissed on every possible detail. Who’d she met with. The missions she’d been assigned. The goals of the group. Though the mage was not able to answer nearly as much as they’d hoped, the details she provided seemed to confirm Ihra’s hypothesis.

When Gūla had finished all of her questions, she kept her promise to the mage. Bidding Erin to loose the wooden bonds around her, she let the Moon-kissed flee into the dying night.

“I’m surprised you let her go,” Jasper commented, once the mage was out of earshot.

“Eh,” the Djinn shrugged. “She’s a noble from a Moon-kissed clan. Unless she plans to go into permanent exile, we know where to find her. And if any of what she said is true, I don’t want to take the risk of turning her into our command.”

“I guess that makes sense,” he agreed, although he wasn’t entirely convinced Gūla was right. It was hard to judge how powerful these Lords of Wēdīnīnu really were, but the idea that they might be able to offer the mage shelter somewhere out of sight didn’t seem far-fetched. Then again, she seemed fairly unimportant, so I suppose it doesn’t really matter. “And what about this Lord Dannûl?” he asked.

“Commander Dannûl,” she corrected him. “He’s a lord of nothing.”

“He’s not a noble?”

“The son of a merchant,” she replied. “But far more than that. Commander Dannûl is one of the most respected officers in the army. He’s the right-hand of General Turzu and…” Her mouth twisted in a bitter smile, “my former commander, the commander of the firebirds.” She fixed her eyes seriously upon him. “Are you sure, Yas̆peh, that she wasn’t lying?”

“If I accuse him of misconduct wrongly, my career will be over. And,” she chewed on her lip pensively, “I find it difficult to believe he could be guilty of this. I’ve known the man for many years and never had anything but respect for him. But if he is part of their group, it means he participated in kidnapping and torturing one of our own, not to mention framing us for the attack. Why would he do that?”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“The love of money twists even the purest hearts,” Jasper said. “I can’t promise you that he’s guilty - maybe Selbārah had a way to deceive me - but Scales of Justice said she spoke the truth.”

Gūla nodded unhappily. “I don’t have that spell, but that was the impression I got too. I knew she’d spill her guts if I threatened her with an audience with S̆ars̆adû.”

Jasper eyed the Djinn curiously. “That’s what you threatened with her? What’s so terrible about that? He’s perhaps the strongest person I’ve met here, but he didn’t strike me as cruel.”

An amused smile curled the corner of her lips. “You met him as family and, dare I say, as an unwitting pawn that had furthered his efforts to force the nobles to agree to send troops to the Empire. S̆ars̆adû is a good king to those who are loyal, but he shows his enemies no mercy. He would have pulled every last secret of her mind before destroying her, body and soul.”

“Which means…I think she spoke the truth about Dannûl, as hard as it is for me to believe. But I cannot act on her word alone; I need more proof.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I’ll have the king’s guard round up the four others she named, and we’ll see what information we can wring out of them. Until then, we wait.”

----------------------------------------

The sun was already high overhead by the time they reached their tents. Ihra and Erin split off immediately, leaving Jasper to his own devices. Despite not getting any sleep that night, he was in no rush to take a nap. He stopped by Dapplegrim’s stable first to give the horse a good rub and, perhaps, a handful of sugar cubes, and then he swung by the scouts in the hopes of grubbing a meal.

He was in luck; a pot of stew left over from breakfast still simmered above the coals, and he helped himself to a few bowls before returning to the tent. With his belly full and his chores down, he was finally ready for sleep.

Unfortunately, it was not meant to be.

As he stepped into his tent, he saw a blur of motion in the corner of his eye. He had no time to process the movement, but his instincts jerked him to the side.

They weren’t quite fast enough. With a cry of pain, he was twisted to the side as a solid block of rock slammed into his right arm. Despite the unnatural toughness of his skin, the bones cracked beneath the force of the blow, and he nearly lost his footing.

The next blow caught him dead in the chest. Staggering backward, he landed against the table which collapsed as another rock hit him.

Scourge of Despair. His battered lungs screamed for air as he lunged to the side and cast the spell. He flicked the whip in a wild arc around him as he tried to hit the unknown assailant.

Sunlight poured in as the whip sliced through the thick canvas of his tent and through the equally thick black cloak of his attacker. With a silver mask and a ridiculously tall hat, it was obvious why they were there. Unfortunately, the black cloak, though shredded by the whip, was not the only protection the mage wore. A flash of silver armor gleamed through the torn holes and the whip failed to draw blood.

Another block of stone hurtled toward him, and he flung himself to the side. Broken ribs screamed in pain as he rolled head over heels and landed on his feet, but he ignored it. Purge.

The spell was a bit of a risk. Before fighting the Moon-kissed mage, he’d never had Purge reflected back against him, but for all he knew, the ability was common knowledge amongst the Lords of Wēdīnīnu. But it was also one of the deadliest spells in his arsenal, and he decided to take the risk.

His gamble paid off as the stone slab the mage had been forming dropped inertly to the ground and the black-robed assailant began clutching his throat. The man’s cheeks turned red, his eyes bulged, and he sank to his knees with a guttural gurgle, but Jasper didn’t wait to see if the spell would finish him off. Pulling his glaive out of his bag of holding, he hacked at the Djinn with all the strength a single arm and a half-dozen broken ribs would allow him to leverage.

He continued hacking as the man fell face forward on the ground, not stopping until the body had ceased to twitch.

Propping himself up with the glaive, he fought to catch his breath before remembering to cast Circle of Forgiveness. With the first cast, the bloody wounds and broken arm fixed themselves, but it took another two before the ribs were finally back in place, allowing him to breathe freely. And as the oxygen returned to his brain, he realized he might not have been the only one attacked.

Breaking free of the tent, he raced toward Ihra’s. Before he could tear the flaps open, she met him at the entrance, dragging behind her a black-cloaked form with a severed throat. She took in his battered appearance with a weary glance. “I see they got you too.”

“What about Tsia?”

A few steps carried them to her tent, but a quick peek inside showed no sign of Tsia or a waiting assailant, and Jasper dropped onto her cot with a sigh of relief. “They didn’t get her. You think Gūla is fine?”

“I think Gūla can take care of herself,” Ihra replied. “Did you check on the scout already?”

“Erin!” As Jasper bolted to his feet, the realization that he’d forgotten about the man filled him with guilt. He dashed out of the tent, and his feet tore the grass up as he skidded to a halt, realizing he had no idea where the scout’s tent was. “Wait, do you know where he lives?”

Ihra shrugged. “With the scouts?”

That much had been obvious, but with no further ideas, the two took over toward the section of tents aside for Jasper’s scouts. At full speed, it took less than two minutes before they reached the area and started dashing between the tents, shouting for Erin.

“His tent’s over there, my lord!” One of the scouts sitting around the fire leapt to his feet and pointed toward a tent pitched by the edge of the woods. They reached it in a whirlwind.

Tearing the flaps aside, Jasper collided with a cloaked figure inside. The two went to the ground together, rolling across the floor in a tangle of flips. The mage’s spell went awry as they wrestled, firing off a blazing lance that shredded through the tent walls like a knife through butter before soaring harmlessly into the ether. Jasper ended up on the bottom of the heap, struggling to bind the man’s arms close to his chest, but Ihra was close behind him. Her foot lashed out, knocking the man off of him, and she followed it up with an uppercut to the chin. As the man collapsed on the ground, his body twitching helplessly, she pulled rope out of her bag and began to tie him up, leaving Jasper to help Erin.

It was clear the scout had been caught unaware. There was no rise and fall to his chest, no sign of movement at all, nothing save for an alarmingly large pool of blood that surrounded him, fed by a deep wound in his chest.

Dropping to his knees beside him, Jasper quickly cast Circle of Forgiveness. The wounds closed slightly, but not enough, and he cast it again. The flow of blood slowed, but his chest still wasn’t rising. As he cast the spell a third time, he began to perform CPR. Ihra joined him, the two alternating between healing and breathing until the scout finally began to breathe his own. What he didn’t do, though, was wake up.