Story number two. Follows some time after the first.

A Million Faces and No Soul

A quiet, dusky breeze whispered through cool grass. It broke on a crop of tall, jutting boulders and spun away towards the horizon. Flida kept one weary eye on the dark city in the distance, silhouetted on the plains, and frowned to see the stars begin to twinkle in the darkening sky; the camp would break soon, as the escort approached under the cover of night. The twelve Denyll soldiers had been encamped for three days. Tonight was the night, and the timing would have to be exact. For now they waited.

Only determination kept Flida awake, sine she had taken Gigsbi’s shift when he had gone into the city to spy. He was asleep now, inside the protection of the rock crop, and she stood guard, watching quietly. Any moment now, the black shapes would break away from the city’s outline and wing closer…

A sound broke her single-minded concentration, and she shifted her keen gaze sharply right, noticing for the first time a small boulder and the cover it could offer. Sensation tingled over her hide, and a claw tightened on the axe at her hip. The sound slithered across her earholes again, faint and musical, like scales sliding against stone. Hesitating for only a second, eyes never straying from the suspicious hiding spot, Flida unhooked her axe and stood silently, talons making no noise in the soft earth. The air seemed to still as she approached the dark rock, stalking steadily.

Holding her breath and her blade at the ready, she lunged around the boulder, ready to fight anything. What she faced, however, was herself, right down to the astonished expression on her face and the two broken head spikes above her left earhole from the campaign in Bao five years before. In the second that she stared into her own eyes, all was lost. Flida swung, a flurry of sudden movement that crashed noiselessly through the night air, but too slow and too late. No one in her camp heard her axe fall with a muted thump to the earth, and as it tipped it became lost in the grass. The body was dragged behind the boulder, quietly, and the stillness returned.

In the camp, sheltered by the boulder field, Gigsbi woke suddenly to see Flida crouching beside him, hand raised in warning. “Go softly and come quickly,” she whispered, and he pushed himself up, heart thundering urgently.

“What is it?” he demanded, murmuring.

“Something I must show you. Come.” He followed her, quickly, out of the cropping to a small boulder, facing the distant city. “Look there,” she ordered, pointing, and Gigsbi noticed something strange.

“Where is your blade?”

“Look,” she insisted. He turned and looked, then saw no more.

The guard on the other side of the camp smiled to see Gigsby, and waved to him in the dark. “Finally you’re awake. Have you relieved Flida yet? She’s on the far wall, and deserving of a little time for sleep herself.” Gigsbi shook his head ruefully.

“Her more than anyone. I was going that way soon, actually, but wanted to ask you; do you have a whetstone?”

“I wondered when you’d ask to have that back,” the guard admitted, and dug into his belt pouch. The blow fell on his head, sharply, and he slumped. His sword clattered loudly on the rock he had been resting against.

“What was that?” someone hissed, nearby, and Gigsbi jumped.

“Nothing,” the guard said, as the tall Denyll commander stepped around a boulder. “Just stumbled, that’s all.”

The commandeered glared angrily. “Be more careful. We’re not alone out here.”

“No,” the guard agreed.

“Be quiet.”

The body was only a dark shape among a dozen others, and the commander never noticed it as he turned to stalk back into the cover of the dark rocks. The rest of the camp, however, did notice the smash of his massive body toppling into a boulder and then to earth.

One of the soldiers yelled a warning, and eight Aiko were on the alert, axes and swords in hand, facing up and out, ready. The commander strode out of the dark, and weapons lowered. “Captain, what—”

He cut down two unsuspecting soldiers with one sweeping swing of his huge axe, and the others fell back screaming, splattered with the blood of their comrades. It was a signal, and even as the shocked Aiko gathered themselves to attack the form of their old commander, black shapes dove from the sky. Six bodies topple to the ground almost simultaneously, while five figures remained standing. They coolly observed the carnage as true darkness finally descended. A thin figure stepped into the circle of stones.

“Six kills on your second mission. Not bad; we’ll make a name for you yet.”

The steel gray Aiko nodded, emotionlessly, and the prince laughed, genuinely proud. “As you say, Captain.”

“Clean this up,” Kluar commanded, and the other shadows moved to obey. “Send a message to the King: the Bao convoy is safe. We’re leaving, Abdal.”

The slight, dark figure followed the prince out of the bloody stones. “Cheer up, brother; we won.”