Chương 42: Chapter 40: Debriefing (1)

~ Dasten Dagwel ~ ~ Outskirts of Korsivir ~ Shit, I am going to be late! Dasten kept running, boots striking the hard-packed road with the same steady rhythm they had held for most of the night. His left arm throbbed with every step, and the bandages wrapped around his shoulder had started itching under his torn jacket, but neither problem was bad enough to slow him down. Not yet. He was supposed to have reached Korsivir yesterday.

He was supposed to have reported to the Vazaag, visited the hospital, changed into something that didn't look as if it had survived three border skirmishes, and then reached the academy in time to meet his new team. Instead, he was still outside the city, still bleeding through his bandages, and still wearing a jacket with more cuts than cloth across the left side. Damn those Arkazaanian bastards! The mission in Firza had already been bad enough.

A sabotage job behind hostile lines was never supposed to be comfortable, but this one had gone from difficult to ugly before he even reached the exfiltration route. By the time he got clear of the town, he had already fought twice, burned through half his prepared supplies, and run hard enough that his legs had started to feel hollow beneath him. Then, just before he crossed fully back into Varrenian territory, he had stopped to rest for the first time in nearly three days. That had been the mistake.

Not a large one. Not a stupid one, either. Even an A-ranker needed to sleep eventually, and no trained patrol should have been moving through that stretch of Sartrene at that hour. Unfortunately, Arkazaanian patrols had never been known for respecting what should and should not happen. They had found him in a narrow clearing below a low ridge, four Siurim-ranked manaweavers moving together through the dark. By the time he sensed them and woke up, they had already sensed him too.

Hiding had no longer been an option, and running without a fight would have let them follow his route straight toward Varrenia. So he had fought. Four Siurim against one exhausted former SABLE captain. It could have gone worse... It would have gone a lot worse if a second patrol had been close enough to join them.

He had killed one of them, wounded two badly enough that they would need proper healers to walk again, and convinced the fourth that dragging his surviving squadmates away was smarter than dying beside them. Dasten had paid for that with a torn shoulder, a few broken ribs, and a left arm that currently felt as if someone had poured hot sand into the joints, and enough bruises that had stopped counting them. Still, he was alive.

The Arkazaanians had also found him far enough from Firza that they would never connect the two things. All they could do was to claim they had caught a Korsivir Siurim moving through Sartrene without the proper entry permits. That was bad, but not disastrous. Korsivir could simply deny any involvement in Firza—there certainly wouldn't be any proof of it—he had made sure of that much. Sartrene could still complain. Arkazaan could accuse.

Everyone could glare at one another across the border and pretend none of them had spies in the other countries. But nothing more. That was the point of plausible deniability. Dasten would have preferred to keep his face out of Arkazaanian reports entirely, but a perfect mission was a luxury most people only described when lying through their teeth. The walls of Korsivir finally came into view ahead of him. Even after years of seeing them, they still had weight.

Vast lines of dark stone rose against the morning sky, stretching far enough in both directions that the road seemed to vanish into their shadow. Towers broke the wall at regular intervals, each one carrying enough hidden runes and watch posts to make a direct assault a miserable idea for anyone without an army and a death wish. Dasten didn't slow down until the gate road narrowed.

He wanted to run straight through, over the road, past the outer inspection tables, through the inner gate, and across the rooftops until he reached the administrative district. The mana barrier would know him. The hidden SABLE watchers would know him. Half the damn gate staff would know him. But he wasn't in SABLE anymore. That thought still sat wrong in his chest. A week ago, he could have passed through the gate without stopping.

SABLE operatives were identified by the city barrier itself, and anyone at the gate with enough sense knew better than to delay a SABLE squad returning from the field. Now he was merely Dasten Dagwel, Siurim-ranked manaweaver, and newly assigned instructor. Which meant he had to fill forms. He came to a stop behind a pair of ox-carts. A merchant and three workers stood near the inspection table, filling out entry documents while two Tarim guards watched from behind a plain wooden desk.

The guards wore reinforced armor jackets, short blades, and expressions that suggested they had been on duty since before sunrise. To a nervous merchant, they probably looked like the full security of one of Korsivir's four gates. They weren't. Dasten could feel at least nine more mana signatures hidden inside the gatehouse wall. Siurim, all of them. Their mana pools were compressed and quiet, but not quiet enough to fool him.

A rune-based signal array would be tucked near them as well, probably connected directly to the Vazaag's office and at least one SABLE Company alert room. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. If anything dangerous pushed through this gate, a heavy-assault squad would be here in less than a minute. He knew that because he had waited in one of those hidden rooms more than once, bored out of his skull and still hoping no idiot would make his day interesting.

The merchant finished first and guided his carts forward. The oxen plodded through the gate with offended dignity. Then it was Dasten's turn. The female guard on the left looked up from the table. She had cropped black hair, a narrow scar beside her mouth, and the deeply irritating calm of someone who knew exactly how much trouble she could cause with a single piece of paper.

"Name and reason for being outside Korsivir?" she asked. Dasten stared at her. Ruzina stared back. He sighed.

"You know exactly who I am." Ruzina shrugged.

"Just doing my job, Dasten." Her partner at the gate post, a broad-shouldered man with sandy hair, lowered his head slightly. His mouth twitched. Dasten pointed at him.

"Don't." The man's mouth twitched harder. Dasten looked back at Ruzina.

"I'm in a hurry today."

"You always are."

"I need to report to the Vazaag."

"Then you should fill the form quickly." He glanced past the table, toward the cobblestone street winding deeper into the city. The roofs beyond it were close enough. One jump to the awning above the spice shop. Another to the long roof beside it. From there, he could make the administrative district in a fraction of the time it would take on foot. He could do it.

He could also spend the next two hours explaining to counterintelligence why a non-SABLE Siurim had ignored gate protocol, sprinted into the city, and triggered three separate invasion-alert procedures. Dasten looked back at the form.

"Can't you send it after me? I'll just fill it later."

"No can do." Ruzina held out the sheet of paper. Her partner slid a pen across the desk with far too much enjoyment. Dasten took both.

"You've gotten more cruel since I left the SABLE."" You trained me."

"That does explains your lack of compassion."

"That only explains why I know better than to let you through without paperwork." He bent over the desk and started filling out the form. Name. Rank. Date of departure. Date of return. That part was easy. The rest was less useful. Purpose of travel. He filled it as classified. Mission authorization. Classified. Details of any hostile contact encountered outside Korsivir. Classified. Injuries sustained. He looked down at his blood-stained bandages. Classified. He signed the bottom and pushed the form back.

Ruzina read it once. Then again. Her brows drew together.

"You basically filled in nothing except your name and rank!" Dasten gave her his sweetest smile.

"No can do. It's classified, kiddo." The sandy-haired guard made a strangled sound, trying hard not to break out laughing at his partner. Ruzina turned on him.

"You! Shut up." He coughed into one hand and looked away. Then she glared at Dasten again.

"I'm not a kiddo."

"You're my junior by two years."

"That does not make me a kid."

"It makes you close enough." Her jaw tightened. She lifted the form and waved it once.

"You know that if the form has this little detail, I have to take it to the admin office myself instead of submitting it with the rest after my shift."

"I know." Dasten's smile was far too sweet.

"I'm going there now, in fact. Want me to take it?"

"No."

"I would deliver it with great care."

"No."

"I'd probably even remember to hand it over. Probably." Ruzina exhaled through her nose and pointed through the gate.

"Go before I decide your injuries look suspicious enough to require a full medical inspection at the gate." Dasten straightened.

"That would be an abuse of authority."" You would know." He grinned despite himself. The exchange had improved his mood more than it should have. He had barely slept in days, his shoulder and chest hurt like hell, and he still needed to tell the Vazaag that Arkazaan had almost caught one of Korsivir's operatives in Sartrene. But for a moment, he was standing at a gate with a former junior who still knew how to be annoying in exactly the right way. That counted for something.

He stepped past the table, then broke into a run.

"Try not to bleed on anyone important," Ruzina called after him.

"No promises!" Dasten reached the first house, pushed mana through his legs, and jumped. And kept jumping. The city opened beneath him in uneven flashes. A roof of red tiles. A narrow alley. A laundry line. A startled pigeon. A tea seller who looked up just in time to see him pass overhead and sweared with a raised fist for disturbing his customers. Dasten landed, ran three steps, jumped again, and kept moving across the eastern district. Korsivir was already awake. Carts rolled along the wider streets.

Workers carried baskets, tools, folded cloth, and bundles of long wooden rods. Children in academy uniforms hurried in small groups, though most of them were younger than the ones he was supposed to meet today. Somewhere below, a baker shouted at someone for blocking his doorway. Dasten crossed three roofs, dropped to a balcony rail, sprang across the next street, and climbed higher. The administrative district rose ahead, cleaner and more orderly than the surrounding wards. The roads widened there.

The buildings grew taller, their walls cut from better stone and marked with more visible runes. Guards stood at the entrances in pairs, while more waited in places most visitors would never think to check. He landed in the courtyard before the district's outer checkpoint and forced himself to stop instead of leaping over it. He wasn't in SABLE any more. The guards there were less amused than Ruzina. One checked his identification. Another scanned his mana signature against a rune plate.

A third noticed the blood on his jacket and asked whether he required immediate medical assistance.

"Yes," Dasten said.

"But after I speak with the Vazaag." That earned him a look, but not an argument. The second checkpoint took longer. The third involved a counterintelligence officer he vaguely recognized walking the other way with two guards and a man whose wrists were bound in suppression bands. The prisoner's face was pale, and his eyes kept darting toward every door they passed. Dasten slowed for half a step. The counterintelligence officer noticed him and gave a short nod.

"Dagwel."

"Caught another one?" Dasten asked.

"Unfortunately."

"Arkazaan?" The man snorted.

"I'm not saying anything in a hallway."

"Fair." The prisoner glanced at Dasten's bandages, then quickly looked away. Dasten continued on, but the exchange stayed with him. Spies in Korsivir were nothing new. The city had enemies in every direction and enough mana cores stored within its walls to make half the continent jealous. Still, he didn't remember the arrests being this frequent a few years ago. Maybe he had simply been away too often to notice. Or maybe things were getting worse.

By the time he reached the outer waiting room of the Vazaag's office, the ache in his shoulder had turned sharp enough to make his fingers stiff. He flexed them once, then sat on the bench against the wall because the middle-aged woman behind the reception desk gave him a look that suggested she would make him sit if he didn't choose to do it himself.

She had gray streaks in her dark hair, a neat stack of papers beside one hand, and the straight-backed posture of a retired Siurim who had absolutely no patience for dramatic arrivals. Dasten knew better than to test her. He sat. The reception room was quiet except for the scratch of her pen and the distant murmur of voices behind the heavy wooden doors. The bench was too hard. The wall clock was too slow.

His team was waiting at the academy, probably wondering what kind of instructor arrived late to his first meeting. A bad one, apparently. Dasten leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment. Not sleeping. Just resting them. The receptionist cleared her throat. He opened his eyes. She raised one hand and gestured toward the doors. Dasten stood at once.

"Thank you." She gave him a small nod, then looked back down at her papers.