The Mist and the Lightning. Part 13
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“Nik, have you called your commanders?” Lis asked quickly.
“Yes. Zaf, Nija and Tazh will come now.”
“Whose commander is Nija?” Kors remarked skeptically. “Of five unclean ones?”
“Kors, I need him,” said Lis, “I also can't stand him, believe me, but now I need him,” he glanced at Karina. She averted her eyes. She didn’t open her face, because her lips had not yet fully healed and Karina didn’t want her father to see that Lis was beating her. Moreover, Lis told her that she could only be with an open face in their rooms. And he forbade her taking off the scarf. Therefore, Karina, obeying his orders, remained with a black silk scarf on her face.
“Send Karina away,” said Kors, “she has nothing to do at the meeting. Let her rest in the room.”
“She fought on a par with everyone else,” Lis objected. He turned to Karina:
“If you want to rest, you can go to the room. If you want to stay by my side, you can stay.”
“Can I stay with you?” Asked Karina, pleadingly looking at Lis with her expressive eyes.
“Yes, you can.”
And Karina, right in front of her father, fell on her knees before Lis, bending over to his boots:
“Thank you…”
And Nikto, smiling under his mask, made Kors feel what Lis felt now, when such a beauty as Karina, with her noble black father, humiliating herself, crawled at his feet. And Kors went up inside with indignation. Lis lifted Karina, again placing him on the chair next to him.
“You yourself, Alis, run into trouble, at first you drag her everywhere you go, where some men are, and then she kisses others,” said Kors.
“She will not do it anymore,” Lis smiled.
“Maybe you will also wrap my daughter in a cape?!”
“If I want, I will close her completely with a cape.”
“She is not a slave, but a noble lady!”
“She is my wife, and if I so want, she will wear what I command,” Lis seemed to enjoy teasing Kors.
“My wiff,” whispered Kors, he, like many black ones, was infuriated by the red accent of Lis, “put a bag on her head!” With annoyance, he reached for his gold cigarette case, decorated along the edge with blue stones.
Lis just grinned, flashing in a half-smile that looked more like a grin, the edges of his even white teeth, and again bent over the drawings.
Karina didn’t look at her father, she silently adjusted the scarf on her face so that it reached her eyes and put a hood on her head, covering her hair tied in a ponytail.
Kors mentally addressed Nikto: “What is he doing?! He plays with her as with a living doll, covers her face and still flaunts her!”
“Lis likes it when she sits next to him, admires and admires him, looks with loving eyes,” Nikto also mentally answered him.
Kors just shook his head, opened his cigarette case in frustration and saw that, on top of that, his favorite cigarettes had run out, and he hadn't even noticed it. Kors feared smoking cigarettes of Nikto, expecting to find there something else besides tobacco.
“Alis, give me a cigarette.”
Without looking, Lis handed him his pack.
Kors inhaled nervously.
“How strong, you motherfucker! Alis, what strong cigarettes you smoke, one after another! Are you crazy?!”
“What I need, I smoke,” answered Lis, not taking his eyes off the plan. “I’ll have to shit, I will shit. You are not a decree to me.”
“Alis!”
The noble blacks of Kors entered the living room.
All the remaining mercenary commanders came. Initially, there were eight of them, including Vitor Kors himself. There were now six left.
Daniel Crassus, despite his advanced age, looked cheerful, fought well and established himself as an experienced and dangerous warrior. And also, he was a great mentor for his young soldiers, whom he brought with him from training. Kamiel Varah, despite all his pretentiousness and arrogance, also showed himself from the best side. Salafael Mirt arrived, and two more remaining commanders: Zagpeace Gezaria and Ariel Riel. The unclean ones came: Zaf, Nija and Tazh, as well as Shrad, the head of Price’s militia, and the red warrior Marmer. When everyone was seated at the table, Lis began:
“First of all, I want to thank you all. You are excellent warriors and commanders. The reds got a kick out of it today if they thought to crush us in a couple of hours! But let's get back to business now, because the situation is critical and we don't have much time to discuss a plan to defend the Fort. They will probably start the assault again at dawn. Does everyone already understand black? Zaf, Tazh, Marmer, do you understand black more or less? I don't have time to repeat the same thing a hundred times.”
“I understand,” Marmer said.
“Well, you understand, you communicate a lot with Shrad and other militias,” said Lis, “Zaf? Tazh?”
“I understand,” Tazh said with such a terrifying accent that at that moment it was necessary to see the faces of the noble blacks of Kors. And Zaf was silent and he looked at Nikto, who at the last meeting translated the words of Lis for them. Lis noticed this:
“Zaf, you know black!”
But Zaf didn’t answer, the flame of the candles was reflected in his precious plugs, and the stones in the deformed nostrils shone brightly, iridescent. Lis took a breath and let it out with a noise, slightly protruding his lower lip, as if barely holding himself back, and thus trying to calm down:
“Okay, let's go! We have a pain point, a broken wall. I want Daniel again to put you with your squad to Nik, now not to hammer, but to protect the back gate and a section of the wall near the menagerie.”
“Yes of course!” Said Daniel Crassus cheerfully.
“You performed well last time, let's return to the proven scheme. Consider the fact that the inner wall is almost destroyed in this area.”
“No problem, Atley Alis, it's even better for us,” replied Daniel Crassus.
“Nik, you and your unclean ones are here.”