“No kidding? My, howdidI miss that? You see how blind love can be.”
“You love him, too?”
“You know, I think I’m going to kill you tonight, Rourk.”
Challen chuckled and pulled her to his side to wrap an arm around her waist. “I think I will believe now that you are only friends. He would not tease you otherwise.”
“Youtease me all the time,” she pointed out. “And we’re much more than friends.”
“You will not attempt to provoke my jealousy again, woman.”
“You just can’t break that habit of telling me what to do, can you, even though my challenge loss debt has been paid in full.”
“Do you wish to challenge me again?”
“I just might.”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this,” Rourk said, looking on in amazement. “Tell me you didn’t really challenge him, Tedra.”
“Of course I did. He’s not much bigger than that warrior Kowan was, and I tookhimdown, didn’t I?”
“Not much bigger?” Rourk grinned. “Only about a foot, I’d say. How quickly did you lose the fight?”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Who is this warrior Kowan?” Challen wanted to know, the signs of jealousy back in place.
Tedra rolled her eyes, while Rourk put a hand over his mouth to pretend he was coughing. But Challen was still awaiting an answer.
“Didn’t I tell you about Kowan, babe? I could’ve sworn I mentioned the handsome warrior who wanted to make a slave of me. But if you want to get at him, you’ll have to get inside Goverance Building, so why don’t we get down to discussing that, instead of all this nonsense? That is why we came here, remember?”
“Stars, Tedra, it’s just occurred to me that if we had a few more like Challen here, we might be able to get inside Goverance—”
He ran, but Challen held Tedra back. “Very funny, you jerk.” She glowered at her friend.“Nowcan we get serious? What is the current situation? Has Crad Ce Moerr relaxed enough to come out in public yet?”
“No, he’s still playing it very safe. And the situation is about what we anticipated. The bulk of the women were taken in the first three weeks. It’s slowed down, with a ship leaving for Sha-Ka’ar about every other week now, the cargo being kept at Goverance Building until departure.”
“And the rest of the female Secs from the outer areas?”
“We were able to warn only four. I’m sorry, Tedra, but they got the rest.”
She waved that aside. “We’ll get them back, and every other Kystrani.”
“How?”
“I’ve got an idea, but first we have to free Garr. Have you had word on him? Is he being treated okay?”
“They don’t dare harm him. He’s their only leverage for keeping the male Secs in line, those in the city anyway. They’ve still got communications in a blank-out, thanks to the Mock II in Goverance Building. And they’re still only letting traffic in, not out. It’s too bad that computer was never programmed to a single individual. If it had been linked to Garr as Martha was to you, Garr would have been freed a long time ago.”
“And we might have had an all-out war and a hell of a time winning it, or are you forgetting how easily those warriors defeated us with theirTorenosteel weapons?”
“Ah, that’s a good point, and I guess the next major question is, doyourwarriors haveTorenosteel?”
“Where do you think the Sha-Ka’ari armorers’ recipe came from? What I’ve brought back are sword-wielders to defeat sword-wielders, and mine are bigger, stronger, and they don’t particularly like slavers.”
“Even though they are in a sense related?”
“I think three hundred years has pretty much broken the ties,” she replied dryly. “Besides, they follow Challen, and he—”
