The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Allies in Spies' Clothing

Tanis returned his gaze for a long moment before slowly nodding.

"I suppose an explanation is in order," the Viseith operative admitted. "I was a bit cryptic. Force of habit."

Tanis walked over to the unmoving Anna and, after a slight hesitation, put the fabric hood back over her head. When Lash's questioning look didn't change, the operative shrugged.

"Another old habit," he said. "The hood has sound and light dampeners built in. I'm not keen on having a traitor get the details about the fall of the Cobalt Group."

Lash felt his frown ease. Oddly enough he understood the reasoning behind that.

"You call her a traitor, yet work for the council," he pointed out.

"As did you, Lord Commander," Tanis quickly retorted. "But, like you, the Viseith Cobalt Group has divested itself from council oversight following multiple Hand and rogue human faction hits on our assets all across the globe."

The operative's expression tightened.

"We went from 1500 strong to less than 100 in the space of a few hours." Tanis looked at Lash, a dangerous glint in his dark eyes.

"The Hand used our confidential location reports to set up ambushes in our own safe houses, Lash. Our own ashing safe houses!" A muscle twitched with tension in his jaw. "Half our losses were ashed out in their sleep by car'deith knives scratching them on a hand, or a foot. Killed before they could even defend themselves."

Lash slowly nodded.

"I know the feeling," he rumbled, feeling a strange sort of empathy for the operative despite being unable to trust him. "Your command structure?"

Tanis lifted his hands to the sides, with palms turned up as if presenting himself.

"You are looking at the most senior officer that survived the Night of Knives," he said with a wry smile before he dropped his hands. " Everybody above me was either eliminated in their offices in Budapest. Or in their residences that night.

Tanis paused, his wry smile morphing back into a frown.

"I was in Africa when the emergency recall came over our network. Following a dead end, as it turned out. And I almost caught a human commercial flight back in response. Until I noticed the lack of confirming counter signs on the recall."

"It was a trap," Tanis's assistant spoke up to point out. Tanis nodded in confirmation.

"And Triss knows because she narrowly avoided getting caught in it." He looked down. "Lost another fifty operatives there, too trusting in the council to suspect they were the ones that were betraying us."

"But why kill you?" Naryan wanted to know. "Intel gathering is vital to any military operation. They were essentially blinding themselves by taking you out!"

Tanis nodded in agreement.

"The only thing that makes sense to me was either somebody over at the domestic service, the Obsidian Collective, uncovered the traitor on the council making their deal with the rogue humans to get their help to seize power. Or one of my bosses stumbled across the conspiracy while investigating other matters. Like the circumstances behind Ventru being declared anathema and the council ordering the purge."

"Are there any VOC around we can ask about that?" Lash asked.

Tanis shook his head.

"Like us, they got hit by rogue human kill squads and Hand assassins. Only they've been completely wiped out. I don't know of a single survivor!"