The Last Warrior by Susan Grant Page B

your help, Elsabeth.”
    â€œWhat are you going to do?”
    â€œWhat I always do. Talk sense into young Xim and steer him clear of Beck’s influence.” Markam nodded pleasantly to a passing guard, then his expression turned serious again. “And hope I’m not too late.”
    Â 
    M ARKAM OWED HIM SOME answers.
    At the guard barracks, Tao found a party in progress. The majority of his officers filled a balcony, whooping it up. The women hanging on their arms were just as inebriated. Uniforms were half undone, if they were on at all, and the pungent odor of alcoholic spirits was eye watering in the muggy air. Some sort of drinking game was under way that involved belting out awful songs.
    Good on them. After all they’d suffered and lost, his men deserved a bit of fun.
    â€œGeneral! Why are you standing out there?” Mandalay cried. “Join us.”
    Sandoval, his armory captain, waved his arm so vigorously he almost lost his balance. “Surely you’re not thinking of abandoning us for—” he belched “—royalty, are you, sir? Or better yet a willing wench. Not yet at any rate.”
    â€œWe’ve whiskey aplenty here,” Pirelli, his master-at-arms, called to him. “And I dare say a much better party than those stuffy upper-crusters.”
    They were right in that regard. This gathering beat the one he’d just suffered through. Tao joined the crowd on the balcony. A good number of the palace guards were there. “Field-Colonel Markam… Have you seen the man?”
    â€œHe’s out on some business for the king,” someone answered. “That’s all he’d say.” The man wore the trousers of a palace guard and a plain white jersey on top.
    â€œFind him for me. Tell him I wish his counsel.”
    With an unsteady gait, the off-duty guard left to fetch his boss.
    â€œSir! Have a glass of ale, at least while you wait,” Sandoval offered, thrusting a glass into his hands.
    Tao took a long draught of the ale. It was ice cold and slightly sweet, refreshing and welcome in the stuffy heat of a summer that had overstayed its visit to the capital and seemed to have lodged inside the palace walls as a permanent resident. For a moment Tao forgot his worries, too glad to see his men acting without a care. They had won the chance to pursue a civilian life and, perhaps, even grow old.
    â€œGeneral Uhr-Tao!”
    Tao tensed instinctively. He’d know that raspy voice anywhere. “Colonel Uhr-Beck,” he greeted the one-eyed warrior.
    The sleeves of Beck’s uniform shirt were rolled up, revealing arms that, like the rest of him, were thick and solid without an ounce of fat. Tao knew Beck drilled his basic recruits without mercy, accepting no excuses for less-than-stellar performance. That quality hardened boys into men who could match the fierceness of the Gorr, a quality that Tao had welcomed at the front. It was a less desirable trait when training men to deal with their fellow humans, Kurel included.
    Beck wasted no time with pleasantries. “They can’t be gathered here, General Tao. Your men. It’s the law.”
    â€œI know of no such law.”
    â€œAs of tonight, sir, there is one.” Shiny pale skin covered the socket of Beck’s blind eye like a leather tarp stretched over a trapdoor. His good eye dared Tao to challenge him.
    Tao was in no mood to bicker with the man. “Ah, let them be. They’re enjoying themselves and causing no harm.”
    â€œCongregating of army soldiers in groups greater than three inside the capital is prohibited—by order of the king.”
    â€œThree?” Tao almost laughed. “How does the king expect to raise and maintain an army if no more than a trio of soldiers can be together at any one time?”
    Tao’s men snickered at that, winning a deadly lookfrom Beck. “Not other soldiers, General. It’s your men he’s got a