Ras took one of them. Carth studied what he had done and countered, choosing a gentle attack as she did, nothing more than a feint. He seemed to expect her move and played one of the pieces from his back line, one of the pieces Carth was willing to lose.
Now he mirrored the way she played.
Ras had seen what she intended and began to move to oppose it. In some ways, it was the same as how he had fought her, managing to anticipate so that he could attack.
Then she only had a few pieces remaining. Ras pushed on the Stone. For a moment, Carth thought she might be able to use the temporary exposure that piece had when moving the Stone, but he was too well defended and her position wasn’t nearly as strong as it had been. Had she used a different technique… but a different technique would likely have been discovered just as well as what she had done.
The Stone reached her side of the board, and Ras gently tipped the piece over as a sign that the game had concluded.
Carth leaned back, staring at the board, wondering if there might have been a different way she could have played the remaining characters so that she could have won, but didn’t see anything. There might be something, she decided, but doing so would have risked everything she had on her side of the board. Was that risk really worth it when she could have tried a dozen different techniques?
Ras began picking the pieces up and placed them into his carefully wrapped bag. “You show promise. You were too eager to attack, which does nothing but place your hand in danger.”
She didn’t say anything. The only reason she’d been willing to play the game was because she had thought she might be able to lull him into a position for her to attack, but after playing with him, she wondered if that would even have been possible. More likely, Ras would have expected her attempt, she thought, especially after she’d seen the way he played against her.
Would she ever get free of him or would she be confined here, waiting for him to torment her more?
Ras started away from her.
“Can you leave it?” she asked.
He placed the bag and the board on the ground without turning back to her. Carth waited for him to leave before hurrying over and picking them up off the ground. Any distraction would help, and at least with this one, she could play a game. It was something her father would have appreciated.
7
Days passed.
In that time, she managed to keep her mind clear by playing Tsatsun with herself. The game had a certain flow to it, one she began to pick up on as she played. In some ways, it was not so different than any of the battles she’d been in while working with the A’ras, only this one she managed to coordinate with herself. She played much the same way as Ras had played when he’d first sat down with the board, turning it around between turns. Carth played both sides, trying to think through how to win for each side, not caring which of the sides ended up victorious.
The first few games she played this way went quickly. She didn’t have much skill with the game, so her moves didn’t carry much forethought. The more she played, the easier it became for her to think through the consequences of each move. Some that seemed like the right attack at the time led to quick defeat, and others that seems like weaker moves ultimately led to a stronger position.
“You have learned much on your own.”
She hadn’t noticed Ras appear. The bright white light made it difficult for her to see anything, and the cold—the steady, throbbing cold that she still hadn’t completely adjusted to—prevented her from feeling anything.
“There’s nothing else for me to do here,” she said.
“I see you’ve discovered that you must sometimes sacrifice apparent strength for a more effective play later on.”
Carth glanced to the board. One side appeared to be weakened, with most of the pieces having been taken from the board—a series of moves that she’d allowed on that side, playing stronger on the other side—but she had only to shift the focus of the play and the weakened side would turn the tide of the game fairly quickly.
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Ras’s mouth curled in a slight smile. “I doubt that.”
He sat across from her and started setting up the board, replacing pieces she’d moved out of position as she’d played. Lastly, he replaced the Stone in the center of the board. He crossed his hands on his lap and tipped his head to her, as if waiting for her to make the first move.
Carth surveyed the board, thinking through what she had discovered while playing with Ras the only time they had actually played. He anticipated moves well, and he had shifted his style of play to suit the way she had played, which meant that he could see moves far in advance of what she had planned. To beat him, she would have to find a way to do something similar.
But she couldn’t be predictable, either. Not when playing a game like this with Ras. In some ways, it reminded her of her father. With him, she could never be predictable either, and always had to try to outthink him. He had been more skilled than she was at concealing himself, and at following—skills that she now suspected were tied to his abilities with the shadows—but she could try to think through what he might do and anticipate how to stop him. How was this so different?
Carth slid one of the pyramids forward. There was likely some proper name for it, but in her mind it was only the pyramid. It could move over the other pieces, but could only land on one of the black squares. There was a risk in moving her defenses like this, and she’d played the game before where she had done something similar and been quickly defeated by the other side as a result, but she thought she had learned how that had happened. Making this move almost forced Ras to change to a different attack, if he responded in the way she expected.
“Interesting choice,” Ras said. “Perhaps you have not grown as skilled as I suspected. A shame, really.”
He moved his piece, taking one of his horses and sliding it next to her piece.
Carth considered the board. The obvious move would be to send one of the soldier pieces—an attacker—into the space where he’d moved his horse, but doing that would sacrifice that piece, and it wouldn’t make her any stronger against his side. What she needed to do was to fortify her defenses.
She pulled another of the pyramid pieces out and set it on the other side of the board, opposite her first move. The positions would not only defend her side of the board, but also the Stone, keeping Ras from moving it against her. The problem with the move was that it also exposed her side to a strong attack, one where he would simply destroy her side of the board and then take the Stone.
Ras frowned a moment, then a hint of a smile crossed his face. “Interesting technique. Most take months to discover the Rogue Feint, but you’ve come up with it in days.”
He moved a rectangular piece behind hers and toppled one of her soldiers. She could attack, destroying the rectangular piece, but doing so would again create a gap in her defenses, and she suspected that was the move he wanted her to make. To have a chance against Ras, she would have to not only outthink him, but also surprise him.
She moved a back row piece, this one a tall decorative tower. As she did, Ras watched, waiting to see where she’d play it. Carth debated placing it near the edge of the board, where it would trap his piece, but decided against it. Something her father had once said to her came to mind, a reminder about how you to hide in plain sight. Since learning of her ability with shadows, Carth hadn’t attempted to hide the same way. She’d come to rely upon her shadow gifts, using them—and the A’ras magic—in everything she did.
Would there be a way to move the piece that would essentially hide it?
She studied the board, trying to determine the best place to play the piece. The tower could move forward and backward in a straight line to jump over other pieces. With a clear board, she could move it to either side as well.
Ras watched, waiting to see what she would do.
Carth placed the piece next to the Stone.
It
was a simple move, one that didn’t really matter much, especially as the tower didn’t have the necessary strength to move the piece around the board, but with the pyramids on either side, the tower was protected as well. Ras could attack it, but she doubted he would, not with the piece positioned as it was.
His next move brought his piece to the middle of her side of the board, moving in where the tower had gone. Ras used the Ranger, a strangely shaped wolf like piece that had unusual rules to how it could move.
“Interesting,” Ras went on. “You occasionally play as if you know what you’re doing, and then you make a move like that. The Poled provides a certain advantage. Moving it as you did removes that advantage, and then when I place the Ranger here…” he sat back, waiting for Carth’s next move.
The next few moves were simple, designed to do nothing more than shift the pieces around the board. Carth didn’t want to move the pieces she’d played at the center of the board, but she didn’t mind losing some of the others she considered extraneous. Many of the horses—the pieces Ras referred to as cavalry—she willingly sacrificed. With each one she abandoned, Ras stared at the playing board as if there was something she did that he missed. All the time, she left the tower at the center of the board.
When his side had shifted, leaving most of his players on her side of the board, she began her movements.
The pyramids went first, as she slid them slightly forward. When that move was complete, she moved the tower, but in such a way that it shifted the Stone.
The first time she did this, Ras watched her and continued to settle his pieces on her side of the board, clearing out her players so that he would have a clear path when it came time for him to move the Stone. The next time she pushed on the Stone, he changed his approach and began to circle her pieces.
When he placed his pyramids on either side of hers, he smiled. “You had an interesting tactic,” he started, “but you have sacrificed too much. There is nothing you can do to defend against the Talings now. You’ve left them too exposed.”
Carth moved her tower forward and took out one of his pyramids. Doing so weakened his defenses, so that she could now move freely. She began to shift her approach, starting to move her remaining pieces toward the back of his board.
Ras changed the way he played, a half smile on his face as he did. “Fascinating,” he said, shifting his remaining pyramid. “It has been a while since I’ve played anyone with such an unconventional approach.”
They each made a few more moves, but as they did, Carth realized he had still anticipated what she’d planned. Somehow, even as she had been sacrificing all of her pieces, hiding the others and thinking that she could outmaneuver him, he had managed to outthink her.
With a final push, he took the Stone.
Ras stood, leaving the board as it was. “You have talent, shadow born, I will give you that. Keep practicing.”
With that, he disappeared into the light, leaving her sitting alone, staring at the board, wondering if she would ever escape. How could she, when he so easily demonstrated the way he would plan for anything she could do?
That had to be his reason for showing this game to her. He wanted her to know there was nothing she could do, nowhere she could go, that would get her freedom. She was at his mercy, such as it was.
Sighing, Carth began setting the pieces back onto the board. Ras had suggested that she practice, and all she had was time in which to do that. She began another game, determined to find a way to beat him at Tsatsun, hoping that doing so would show her a way to free herself from this prison.
8
Carth sat with her back toward where she suspected the door to be when Ras came the next time. He was dressed differently than before, now with thick leather pants and a jacket that seemed to absorb the light. He crouched across from her, eyeing the game board before finally looking at her.
“You do not play.”
Carth glanced at the board. She’d stopped playing… what was it—days ago? A week? Long enough that she didn’t care. What did it matter if she played the game? It was a distraction, something Ras had given her in order to keep her mind off what she really needed—and that was a plan to escape. When she’d come to that realization, she had turned her attention once more to finding a way to get free.
Only, there didn’t appear to be any way to get free.
The light wrapped around her in a continuous sheet, too thick for her to get through it. The cold might be less severe near the center, but toward the edges, the cold intensified. Each time she attempted to move closer to the edges and find some way of getting free, the barriers Ras had placed pushed her back again.
“I don’t want to play,” she answered.
Carth didn’t care if it sounded sullen. She wasn’t here to make him happy. She was his prisoner and he’d made it clear that he might kill her. If she could find a way to escape, she needed to take it.
“A shame. Tsatsun might have kept you alive longer.”
He took the board and started away.
As he did, Carth lunged.
She’d been waiting for an opportunity to attack, needing some distraction to draw his attention. This seemed as good an opportunity as she would likely get.
Carth struck Ras in the back. The Tsatsun board dropped to the ground with a clatter, the pieces in the bag flying out.
He spun, moving more quickly than she’d remembered.
Without meaning to, she reached for shadows, but the brightness of the light around her still limited her access.
Ras clenched his jaw. “A shame that you decided to attack me, shadow born. I was beginning to think you might have some use.”
“You just said Tsatsun was the only thing keeping me alive.”
She tried moving to the side, but the cold pressed on her. Her abilities wouldn’t be of much help now, not against him, but would there be another way she could get past him?
All she needed was a way to get beyond the light, and beyond the cold. If she could do that, she would be able to reach for her magic.
The temperature in the room dropped. Light flared.
Carth abandoned any thought of trying to reach for her magics and decided instead that she would have to do this without any power, somehow managing to get past a man strong enough to use light and cold to counter her shadow and fire magic.
He stood, practically daring her to attack, all while the cold and the bright light pressed on her.
She almost kicked at him, thinking that if she could just knock him down, she could get past him, but she refrained.
Playing Tsatsun with him, even though she’d only done it a few times, had taught her something of how he thought. He could shift tactics quickly and seemed prepared for anything she could throw at him—which was why she suspected he had prepared for the possibility she might attack. Ras would have some way of countering her.
Attacking him like this wouldn’t work.
Like playing the game, she would have to outthink him. He might know Tsatsun, but she would find a way to get free.
It started by surprising him.
She sat.
Ras watched her, making no effort to attack.
Carth reached for the fallen Tsatsun board and set it in front of her. With her foot, she pulled the pieces back toward her and began setting up the game board.
“What are you doing?” Ras asked.
She couldn’t read anything in his tone, but that wasn’t the point of what she had done.
She had been predictable, and Ras had taken advantage of that fact. To escape him, she would have to become less predictable and find a way that would let her get beyond what he expected.
“I’m playing Tsatsun. Would you like to play?”
“I thought you said you don’t want to play.”
Carth shrugged, making her first move. She slid one of the Helduns forward. Using the piece like that was a soft move, one that she knew from playing against herself would not lead anywhere, but there was o
ne way that she’d discovered the Heldun pieces were useful: as a distraction. Playing against herself, she knew what she intended, but it was possible that Ras would not.
She waited for Ras to join her, but he only stood, peering at her with his arms crossed.
Carth turned the board and began making another move. This time, she played a stronger approach, one she thought would appeal to Ras.
Spinning the board back, she moved again, this time deliberately choosing one of the warrior pieces so that Ras would think she intended a different strategy. As she turned the board another time, she hesitated.
Had he been playing her?
Watching how she played Tsatsun might give him insight into the way she thought, just as she had decided it would give her insight into the way he thought. Worse, the fact that she played against herself gave him plenty of opportunity to see how she would react.
She noted him still watching her.
Carth moved another piece, this time sliding one of the pyramids toward the other side of the game board. She did it with no strategy in mind, only wanting to move the piece.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Ras frowned slightly.
She spun the board. What she needed to do was somehow get him to think she played the way he would play, while really she did nothing more than move the pieces around. She needed to prevent him from discovering anything more about the way she played, or the way she would think when confronted with strategy. If she didn’t, he would always know how she would react.
Carth made another move, this one clearly careless.
Ras turned and left her alone.
As he did, the cold didn’t shift, and the brightness to the light remained.
The Shadow Accords Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 44
