flashes before your eyes (eithne)
A long time ago, when he'd still felt the sense of power in his knees, something like this would not have frightened him. Smoke and fire were the land of the soldier, where the living and the dead could meet and even share their experiences. A battlefield had been his home once upon that time, long ago, but now a battlefield felt as alien to him as it must have to a civilian. All the zeal with which you were filled as a younger man did not translate well to an older man's caution. Of course, he'd joined the army for a chance at a better life. Growing up as the son of a farmer - outside the reach even of Oisea, which was the lesser of all the Free Cities - did not appeal to a man who grew up reading historical accounts of High Lord Gavrie's great victories. To some the idea of war was repulsive. To him it was merely the means to an end; that end being his permanent removal from agricultural servitude.
Even now, he hated thinking of farms.
Of course, in the Free Army, you rose based on merit. A soldier could become an officer if he showed initiative and was given the chance to prove the right thought behind that initiative. On the mountain slopes that bordered Kenyon Tirad had proved this initiative. When his hands could properly wield a sword he'd taken four orcs personally, and led his company against the orcs on a plateau they all - man and orc alike - called the Killing Field. Two to one odds, and he'd lost half his command, but the end result was a stopper in the gap and a great deal of respect from the officer who commanded. The dinner which followed, with High Lord Gavrie and his eldest son Gavrie II, was something from a dream. Discussing military matters as though he were an equal - learning, and teaching Gavrie II, all in the company of wealth and extravagance. One could wonder if that was the place and the time which he'd made up his mind.
High Lord Gavrie had his moments when temper would flash through, but at his heart he was a military man. Trone did not understand what it meant to bleed. Oisea did not understand what it meant to sacrifice. Agethlea did not understand what it meant to fight. And Simanel - where the others might have been errant children, for this city above all others Gavrie reserved that murderous calm and seething hatred in equal measure. Simanel thought that you could coax the world into whatever shape you wanted through ideals. Ideals, Gavrie pointed out, which had failed time and again. They were infected by the sickness which had come over the High Lord of Beit-Hnon. They thought power could be checked by weakness, that ideals could withstand steel. It was abundantly clear to Tirad before his dinner with High Lord Gavrie that ideals could not stand against violence. This dinner had merely given voice to his thoughts.
Of course, one could not last forever in the military. Age crept up on even the ablest man, except apparently the vicious foreigner who'd claimed rights and titles that no man from the outlands should have. Thankfully, there were other ways to serve.
At first he'd rejected the idea of joining the White Riders as an agent of the House of Beit-Orane. At first he'd found such actions cowardly, and further, he wanted nothing to do with the organization he saw as a dangerous weakness in the armor of the Free Cities. It was only when High Lord Gavrie spoke to him of passion, and of service despite the nature of the task, that he remembered the lessons of his youth. A soldier did not ask his commander why they must do one thing over another. He obeyed. He followed orders. And in following orders he allowed the leader - who had demonstrated time and again his forethought, his tactical and strategic brilliance - to deliver a society worthy of both their blood and their sweat. So when he darkened the doorstep of the Castel, enlisted in their company, he found this was the easiest task he'd ever performed. Merely because of what he was. Of what High Lord Gavrie had made him.
There was little contact, after this, with the Red House. Only an order, now and again, passed through faces he did not know or letters left upon his bed. This White RIder must not uncover that piece of information. This White Rider must not investigate that crime. This mission must end in failure. This White Rider, having uncovered that piece of information and investigated that crime, must now die. Those were the worst sort of torture. To plan and execute a killing in such a way that you couldn't be caught was a devil of a task. To do it over and over in the course of twenty years - this was not a thing that anyone could have called easy. The more often an agent was used, the less often they would be effective. Tirad was certain that he'd been discovered more than once. Of course, using up the agent in service to the whole was a fair enough trade. Certainly Gavrie would not have hestitated to do such a thing.
That was why the last note had troubled him, arriving just before Eragos Feareborne did. The note came to him in the same way that a letter for Eragos himself had - a nameless, faceless courier who left them on Tirad's bed. Tirad did not even notice them any longer. They ignored questions, and were deadly enough if you tried to seize them.
Or so he told himself.
Eragos' letter waas no shock - Talon was desperate to kill his brother, at least as desperate as Tirad could ever remember seeing a man - but the letter which arrived for him was by far the more interesting. In simple terms, it said what he'd never thought to read.
Vera and Eragos must die. Arrange this however you can.
Always there had been something of a double-standard in attempts to kill Vera, only one of which he'd been involved in directly. As though the attempts on her life might dissuade her without actually killing her. Tirad would never have suggested to the High Lord Gavrie's face that Tirad perceived this. Yet it made him wonder all the same. Did Gavrie truly want her to die? Could any parent truly want their child to die? This note made it abundantly clear that there were no more games or half measures. Vera was going to die, and if he could find her alone in all of this confusion, he would put a knife in her throat and let that be the end of it. She was too trusting of persons who wore the white, too noble in her soul to see treachery before it was upon her. And that meant Vera was going to die.
Eragos, on the other hand... trusting, perhaps, but murder was an instinct for him. At some level he was too much like his brother. Though he might despair at the thought of more violence, a corner of his soul rejoiced, and in the middle of a situation such as this one it was that corner which ruled his throughts. Draw a knife on him, and he would immediately divine its purpose. There was no thought, as Vera might have, which would stay his hand to gain information. If you pulled a weapon on the fellow you had better be prepared to use it, or to die. Poison was a difficult thing to arrange when the man drank only out of public fountains and ate sparingly. Death in his sleep was perhaps easier physically, but from a tactical standpoint it was no easier to arrange than the other. Always there were blue-strapped fellows roaming the halls, guarding his sleep.
As though the bastard needed it.
As suddenly as he emerged from the cloud of glowing orange smoke a lance was thrust into his face, pressing in fact against his cheek directly, and one of the robes of Grey appeared before him. They all knew that like minds served among the White Riders, and even that Tirad specifically had given information, but they were warriors according to their viewpoint. He was nothing but a snake. Even if he'd been recruited to that end. Two more Grey Riders flowed out of the shadow and smoke, none coughing or so much as taking notice of it. Tirad's hands were in the air, though his expression was grim as death.
"What do you mean, pointing that thing at me?" he demanded roughly. "Did Vera come this way?"
The Grey Rider only shook his head, still grinning. They were considering killing him, Tirad could tell, and thought it was the sort of thing that they ought to do as a service. The first Grey Rider turned to look over his shoulder - and that was when Tirad struck. The lance passed over his shoulder as he moved, and a knife went into the Grey Rider's side. Where arm and torso met, the pit of the arm, and Tirad gave the buried blade two solid jerks before he flung himself into the shroud of the rolling black fire. They were not only idiots - they were savages! More like their former cohorts Eragos and Talon than they might realize. Gola's people were always mad, but this - this!
"Find him!" was the leader's last gurgled request, before he collapsed.