-- Begin Part 2 --

Kaden leaned out over the wall of the Upper Ring's fortification and overlooked the darkness night had settled across the Lower Ring.

"I can tell by the way you're standing," Sahkar Bul said. "Or more appropriately by the way your aren't standing, that you and Princess Lyla had a bit of a spat."

The guard captain also peered out over those who lived beneath them. While the torches tightly lining the wall and bellowed their smoke while exuding their protective light.

"What do you mean?" Kaden asked. His body was still sore, but he thought he'd been able to hide his discomfort well enough that no one would notice.

"Come now, Karo Shar. You think you're the only one who has ever felt the wrath of that woman's wooden cock?"

The statement made Kaden stand up straight. He looked at Sahkar Bul, surprised. Sahkar Bul, his head wrapped as it always was except for his eyes, did not look back. "What goes on between my wife and me is our business," Kaden scolded the captain, attempting to remind him of his place.

"If you say so, Karo Shar."

Kaden's ass did hurt, however. He went back to perusing the night as he and Sahkar Bul returned to their silence. Relaxing on the wall helped him to relieve the discomfort of the aftermath of his wife's anger. But the silence didn't last long.

"Have you?" the Karo Shar asked of Sahkar Bul.

Proudly, he answered, "Yes." Then the captain added. "More that once. It gets easier each time, trust me."

"Well, this is the second time for me. And it wasn't easier than the first."

"Only the second?" The was the slightest of hmms that accompanied Sahkar Bul's reply. "Over two years of marriage? I applaud you, Karo Shar. I had my second round within a week of fucking her."

Kaden took those words to his still exposed heart beneath his steel warrior's breastplate. It had been two years. Not since their wedding night had Princess Lyla chose to discipline him for displeasing her again and before his patrol tonight.

Two whole years and so many sunrises more than Kaden ever thought he would survive as Karo Shar. During that span, he'd fought in the Abyss over a hundred times and upon the Barrens at Prince Relastin's side a dozen more.

He'd proven himself a warrior, if not one that had taken an unconventional and unlikely path to the prince's side.

"If it's not out of line," Sahkar Bul spoke. "Do you mind sharing what you did that displeased the princess?"

Some men might not have been eager to share such details, but Kaden was not most men. And Sahkar Bul, he considered a friend. "I uh, might have flirted with one of the slave girls at the prince's latest banquet."

"Might have?" The raised eyebrow was implied behind Sahkar Bul's wrap and unseen.

"I didn't," Kaden defended himself. "But my wife thought I did."

That made Sahkar Bul laugh. "With a woman, especially one like Princess Lyla, her perception is your reality."

"I've come to learn that."

"Then you have learned the most important thing about all women."

"I also know she is not happy when I pull the night shift," Kaden added. "She prefers me to be in her bed when the suns go down."

"Happy or not, she knows even the Karo Shar is not exempt from the standards of the duty roster. Like the rest of us, he must serve the prince."

"She'll demand two fucks tomorrow," Kaden groaned.

"I could think of less pleasurable things to be doing, Karo Shar."

"You know the prince has ordered me to keep an eye on you." It was a statement masquerading as a question from Kaden to Sahkar Bul. One that he'd never had the courage to speak before now.

"I know. I also know he has commanded you to kill me if I were to try anything that would amount to treason."

"Are you?" Kaden asked. Then added, "Going to try anything that is."

"On that, I will never say. For you, the less you know, the better. You know as a Savan Devottee I am loyal to the princess, the Sava Warrioresses, and Ieron. And you know what the princess's design for the future are."

Kaden backed away from the wall, and he began resuming his patrol with Sahkar Bul. In the brightness of the torches, the night was like day under the suns.

The monotonous circle around the Upper Ring was a mind numbing nightly task for anyone. The Upper Ring was quiet. And the Lower Ring was mostly equally calm. Save for the occasional scream, noting someone lurking in the shadows had found a victim to exploit.

More people went out at night in the slums that sprawled out from where the prince's palace and the wealthier citizen of Ison lived.

"Why don't we patrol the wall of the Lower Ring?" Kaden asked. He'd long wanted to pose that question, but the situation never really presented itself. So he made a situation for it. "I mean—it would be more logical."

"We leave the Lower Ring to the residents of the Lower Ring," Sahkar Bul replied.

"I know that. What I'm asking is why? If we had troops on the wall of the Lower Ring, we could protect the city more easily."

"Our soldiers are spread too thin. We have a lot of soldiers, but between constantly battling in the Abyss against the Koronai, and the frequent campaigns out into the Barrens, our numbers are always precarious. Most of the men have injuries to nurse after either. It's like this in all the cities. Look out there." Sahkar Bul waved at the vastness of the slums below them. "It is simply too much ground to cover. Besides, there's the Citizen's Watch."

"The Citizen's Watch is not an army," Kaden said of the militia tasked with keeping order in the Lower Ring as well as the torches of the outer wall burning. "They are not trained to fight. And most of them are corrupt." Somewhere in the distance below them was another scream in the still, desert night. "I wouldn't be surprised to learn if that's one of them abusing their authority now."

"Let it be, Karo Shar. Let it be."

Kaden wasn't about to. But something, in the distance, was off. He rushed to the wall up ahead, trying to get a better look at the darkness beyond the ring of light. He had to squint, but, when he did, he could see clearly a torch along the Lower Ring was sputtering. And then, an instant later, it had gone out.

Instead of giving off protective light, it just belched black smoke and left a pit of darkness.

"There," he pointed with a frantic finger. "Breach in the eastern wall!"

"I see it." Sahkar Bul was calm. There was no hint of concern for the problem. "It's being handled." The captain pointed toward a group of four human forms rushing along the Lower Ring's wall towards the burned out torch.

"No," Kaden said as darkness consumed the area. And in that darkness, he could he see the glowing eyes of the Black Rohs, and their nimble legs cresting the wall. "It's too late! We've got to help—"

"Stand down, Karo Shar." Sahkar Bul might have thought to put a restraining hand on Kaden's shoulder. But knowing such would be insulting to the prince's right hand, he did not. "None of our concern."

"None of our concern? Are you mad?" Kaden pointed furiously as more and more of the desert spiders began coming over the wall through the dark gap. "They'll slaughter hundreds of innocent people."

Sahkar Bull continued to seem unconcerned behind the solid barrier of light behind which they stood. He looked to the still dark sky. His only response was a callous, "The suns will begin to come up in about three hours. Give or take."

"Are you seriously suggesting that we do nothing?"

"Yes. It's standard procedure. Is this really your first time on patrol when the Black Rohs have breached the wall?"

Kaden couldn't believe the heartless indifference he was hearing from the captain. His fists clenched as screams from victims began to rain in the night air. "Yes." The men on the wall trying to replace the torch with a new were having difficulty getting theirs to light and stayed well back where the light remained bright and the Black Rohs would not tread.

"It'll be over soon. Come, let us finish our patrol."

Kaden looked, and looked some more at the sight that made his blood run cold. "No." Kaden leaped up on the wall. He punched at his chest plate and broke a vial of Rage and Courage underneath with what was now practiced skill. The essences flowed into him. "Sound the alarm. Round up all the other soldiers on watch. We're going to assist."

"It's against regulation," Sahkar Bul protested.

"To the Abyss with regulation! I am your superior. And I'm ordering you to comply." Kaden pulled rank. "Disobey me? And it'll be your head! Now do as I ordered, and meet me in the Lower Ring."

As Kaden's body surged from the essences striking his heart, his body surged and he lept off the wall towards battle with the Black Rohs.