At last, the house came into view for the weary Darius, or more specifically, the gate leading to Ed’heer. Given the late hour, it was of course closed, but he noticed some movement in the tower, which meant they would soon open the gate for him. He felt like stretching, but even his armour felt heavy now. He couldn’t understand how Gut’tan, who was accompanying him, managed to move about so easily in full armour all day long. Only now did Bleist realise that he’d never seen the Guard without his armour. Given the circumstances, however, this was understandable.
‘You can go back; I’ll find my way from here,’ the earl said, with a touch of humour.
‘I promised the corporal I’d keep an eye on you, Colonel,’ the man said, settling himself in the saddle of the Tarian. ‘I wasn’t to leave your side for a single step.’
‘I didn’t know Rex was so worried about me.’ It was hard to say whether Darius should be pleased by this, or perhaps not.
‘Bushtabhar has rather shown that you have to expect an unpleasant surprise at every turn,’ Harven muttered. ‘Anyway, I spent the whole journey back wondering if someone would ambush us.’
‘The Guard?’ Bleist glanced over his shoulder. ‘Someone would have to be truly mad, or extremely well-prepared.’
‘Or it might not be their first time,’ Gut’tan shook his head. ‘I saw the body of that man from the underground and heard he was from the Azure Guard. If someone dared to do it once, they might try again.’
‘We'll have to find out what we're up against anyway.’ A sombre tone crept involuntarily into the earl’s voice. ‘We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us tomorrow, so you should get some sleep too.’ He tried to return to the original topic.
‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll manage.’ The heavily armoured man assured him with renewed vigour. ‘I’ll be here first thing in the morning,’ he added, his voice brimming with determination.
‘You don’t need to rush like that.’ Darius began quickly sorting through what he had
