Loku left unsaid what he knew of the other gods, beings more savage and immense than the queen would ever know. Melik of the Fathoms, The Buried One, and the dreaded Night Star, also called Sulith. There were others, and each held their pieces of the land in thrall. But a man with knowledge dark and ancient could feed them what they desired most and bring about epochal change.
The queen placed strong hands on the arms of her throne. “Congratulations, savage. But we have nothing in common.”
“Only that we both need the Red God to die,” Loku replied. “Your hold over the beasts you ride weakens as you near the sea, where other gods reign. That is why you cannot go there. But once the great mammoth has fallen, you will have his power. Your beasts will follow and obey to the ends of the earth.”
The queen’s eyes widened at that, and Loku smiled. Now he was reaching her. Deep down where the greed and the ambition lay in the hearts of all men and women. She looked over at the guardian standing at Loku’s shoulder, and then down at the platform her feet rested upon.
“Slay the Redtusk, queen. Then you can have the revenge you have sought so long.”
She looked up at him again. “And you, why do you come to tell me this? What will you gain from the death of the mammoth? You wish to profit from my destruction of the Ostoran settlements on the coast? So your people can encroach once again on the lands by the sea?”
Her voice rose dangerously with each question. Loku only smiled, unconcerned. “Of course.”
He did not tell her how the death of the mountain god would further his aims. She did not need to know of such things. She, like all rulers, thought she was in command of the situation, that he was at her mercy.
His smile grew until he could no longer hide the filed teeth that set him apart as a shaman of the forgotten Wolfsbane clan.
The queen rose to her feet, eyes narrowing at him. “You come here to find help in spreading slaughter among your enemies, but you bring nothing of use but your own words. You wish me to command men to march against the Valley of the Red God, but you have brought no force capable of accomplishing that task!”
Loku scowled back. “Had I such a force, queen, I would be at the valley myself shedding the mammoth’s blood. You are the one with warriors at your disposal!”
“Those warriors do me little good against the mammoth,” breathed the queen, madness rising in her blazing eyes. “But they will serve well enough to plant your head on a spear for me, foolish shaman!”
She threw out a hand to the guardians surrounding Loku. “Kill this barbarian wretch and hang his body from a tree to warn others away from our valley!”
Loku realized that he had done as much as he could in the hall of the mad queen. Now she was truly becoming dangerous.
He tilted back his own head and swallowed the line of infused resin wrapped under his tongue. The queen would now learn who she was dealing with, madness or no—Loku was no naïve fool to walk into the house of his enemies with hands bound and no plan for escape.
He coughed once and his face bulged, growing red. Then he looked up at the spearmen holding him and vomited a giant cloud of burning sulphurous gas that surrounded all of them in noisome vapors that made their eyes burn.
The watching courtiers backed away in terror, and soldiers ran to protect their queen from any threat the shaman might have directed her way.
When the roiling clouds faded and the guardians could see again, they found only a pile of braided cord lying limp on the floor. The shaman was gone.
CHAPTER 5: AUSPICES OF THE GODS
By sundown the company’s preparations were nearing completion. Packs were loaded with rations for two weeks’ march; any more than that and foraging would become necessary. The skirmishers had been outfitted and assigned evenly between the two arms of the company. They would also be useful in hunting for game if such could be found along the trail.
A few soldiers remained in Dura, mostly the wounded that would soon be back in fighting condition but who couldn’t yet withstand the rigors of the campaigns. They would guard what holdings the company had there and relay communications as needed.
Damicos had also assigned them the secondary task of improving the camp amid the ruins outside of town. There was brush to clear, and the stonework that was still solid could be used to build lean-tos and awnings. At some point in the future, he hoped it would become a place where the Tooth and Blade could find more permanent refuge.
“That place was ancient before my wife’s people ever came here,” the old innkeeper had told him. “None now remember who built it, but they say there’s a protective ward laid over the place. No beasts lurk in the ruins, and the barbaric tribes have left no markings there.”
Dura had facilities only for officers and wounded; the ruins would provide a headquarters where the fighting men could count on a bed and a meal tent when they weren’t campaigning. The place also made a perfect training ground, and it was close enough to Dura that supplies were readily available, yet it was just far enough a walk that the townsfolk wouldn’t be troubled by the presence of soldiers.
There was another reason the Durans weren’t averse to having troops nearby. Though it had gone unspoken so far, everyone knew that loyal protection counted for much in the post-Kerathi landscape of Ostora. As long as the Tooth and Blade company kept to the governor’s mandate regarding the treatment of civilians, Dura would have nothing more to fear from men like Black Tur, the bandit king, or from the beasts and barbarian tribes that occasionally sallied from the forest to prey on smaller towns.
Pelekarr’s men finally all had mounts and gear accounted for. It had been a costly endeavor—most local horses were unsuitable draft animals or untrained wildlings culled from the coastal brush country to the south. In the end enough good horses had been purchased and brought to Dura to get the Cold Spears back in fighting form, although many of the animals would require ongoing cavalry training.
A few pack animals had also been added to the herd, and the infantry would use most of these to transport the larger loads of equipment needed for their expedition. Brannon’s advice was that the frontier towns around Garrim would have some food and tools, but little in the way of spare weaponry and armor. The other mules would serve Tibion, the company cook, in hauling his supplies along with the cavalry detachment.
The captains huddled in a private upper room in the Tooth and Blade as twilight deepened outside, sharing a pewter flagon of wine. They pored over every available map as they drank together, noting the play of mountains and rivers and looking for places to avoid. Marshes, deep ravines, dense tangles of vegetation that would stop horse and man in their tracks.
“That’s all there is where you’re going,” Pelekarr pointed out. “At least on my route there are regions of sparser land, and rivers and lakes we can follow. You’ll need axes to fight your way through.”
The north-south Ostoran coastline with its three great ports was familiar to the two men. They had seen most of its garrison towns and the merchant cities that moved ore and lumber east across the sea. Far to the south lay the Ash Coast, a region of steaming jungles and black volcanic sand that remained largely unexplored due to the powerful tribes that ruled from vine-covered stone ziggurats.
Up in the north, the coast fragmented into islands and rocky promontories, icebound in the winter. Few settlements survived long there, and the raff were rumored to be cannibals in that region, roaming the endless boreal forests where the great glaciers slowly receded, leaving the woods and tundra raw and riven.
Central Ostora, however, offered richer promise. The winters were manageable, if daunting to men accustomed to the oppressive heat of Kerath. The forest had been beaten back over the last hundred years to provide a stretch of some leagues between the shore and the point where the trees began. From there, woodland continued unabated for uncounted leagues to the west. For the most part they were temperate, deciduous forests, mingled with conifers. More lumber than a thousand kingdoms needed.
And among the wooded hills were seams of ore: gold, silver, and most important, tin. Precious tin, without which bronze could not be made. Tin was scarce in Kerath these days, though copper was plentiful. Here in the colonies was tin enough to plate a province, if it could be wrested from the land and shipped safely. For a hundred years, no matter how many perished at the hands of monster or barbarian, always the Kerathi reached again into the mines and forests.
But travel too far west and the mountains reared. The Atacanthian range, as it was known by Ostorans, was a rugged range with many offshoots and breakaway hills. Most of the Ostoran rivers flowed from these mountains down to the coastal plain.
It was rumored that beyond them even greater expanses awaited discovery. No Ostoran had been that far, however, and the Atacanthians were the edge of the world as far as any on the coast could imagine. Leisha’s hidden land, if it existed, was nestled somewhere this side of the range, tucked away in a lost valley to the southwest, perhaps by the great southern spar that jutted seaward, the Welderons.
“I think the rivers will be our best course in both campaigns,” Damicos replied. “Along their banks we’ll find traversable ground, water, and an aid to navigation. The sooner we reach the Southwhite, and the sooner you turn west along the White River, the quicker we’ll each be able to drive into the deep wilderness.”
They finished their study with a final cup of wine, pledging success to each other’s ventures. The men of the company had kept the Tooth and Blade Inn busy since their return to Dura, and on this the night before marching, the common room below was filled with roistering troops. There would have been more, but a few days of revelry had lightened many a purse.
“Nearly moonrise,” observed Pelekarr. “Shall we expel the men from this place and gather for the sacrifice?”
“Most of them are probably awaiting us already. Let’s go.”
The men left the inn together, trailed by the last groups of soldiers from the common room, and joined their full company in the square. Stars lit the sky faintly overhead, and torches glowed all around the cobbled plaza where men stood and waited. Many of the townsfolk had also turned out for the ceremony, looking on with interest from behind the ranks. The elders were all there, including Meldus, Argaf, and the graceful woman the company had rescued from outlaws on a previous campaign, Rafe Lantia. She smiled serenely at the captains and they each gave her a nod.
A priest of Mishtan had been persuaded to come from the coast for the occasion, and at a signal from Pelekarr he raised his arms and began a prayer. The sacrifice would be to Telion, god of war, but Mishtan’s augurs could officiate for any of the lesser gods. A huge bullock lowed loudly next to the pyre, utterly ignorant of its fate.
The preliminary prayer finished, the priest slit the bull’s throat with a bronze knife in one smooth action. The great beast stumbled and sank to the ground. The priest caught its blood in a bronze pot until it was nearly full, then stepped back. Several of the sergeants slid wooden beams under the bull and levered it up and onto the pyre, whereupon the priest sprinkled the carcass with the collected blood. He turned to the crowd and lifted his arms again. In one hand he held a horn filled with oil, and in the other a naked sword.
“Hail, Telion, mighty in war! Hail, Telion, master of strength and cunning! Guide our arms, dismay our enemies, protect these thy sons!”
He poured the oil over the slain bullock and held the sword aloft. “We salute thee, mighty Telion! In thy name may we conquer!”
“In thy name may we conquer!” answered the assembled troops.
The priest took a burning taper from a small brazier and ignited the pyre. Orange oil-fueled flames blazed up, spreading a fragrant aroma of incense through the crowd to mingle with the scent of charring flesh. Firelight played across the watching faces and the night breeze wafted smoke westward, a good omen.
The assembled men each ate a little meat as it was stripped and offered by the priest; flesh consecrated to Telion would give them strength and courage. When the ceremony was over, the priest departed, paid with the traditional silver coin and as much of the roasted bullock as he wanted.
The men went to their beds secure in the knowledge that all that could be done was now done. On the morrow, it would come down to their physical strength and their courage to see the campaigns through to their foreordained ends.
In the pre-dawn gloom, Damicos approached Pelekarr to bid him farewell. The horse captain was already in the saddle, issuing orders to his sergeants. Damicos held the bridle to calm Pelekarr’s restive mount.
“Don’t get lost out there,” he said, smirking.
Pelekarr assumed an exaggerated air of haughty offense. “What the devil do you mean by that remark, Captain?”
“Just that it seems you occasionally find yourself wandering this way and that. Don’t mistake me; those trees are thick, I know. Easy to get turned around. I just thought that sitting so high and mighty in the saddle as you horse-boys do, you’d keep a better grasp of where you are.”
“I do have a guide this time,” said Pelekarr, with the ghost of a smile. “A very good one, in fact.”
“Well, tell her to guide you into some gold. If I come up dry on my end, we’ll need it.”
“As usual, my lancers will win the day and bring the gold back for all of us,” Pelekarr replied, tossing his head with infuriating arrogance. Then he leaned down and shook Damicos’ hand with undisguised sincerity. “Don’t be gone more than two months, or we’ll come looking for you. You may end up much farther out in the unknown than I.”
Damicos nodded wordlessly, and Pelekarr raised a gloved hand high. The sergeants bawled the order down the line and the column began to move.
Pelekarr wheeled his horse and trotted forward to the head of the column; behind him, thirty horsemen followed, and behind them a smaller number of skirmishers, and then as many more infantrymen under Sergeant Copper marched out. At the captain’s stirrup paced the barbarian woman, a javelin held in one hand, a satchel slung across her back, long braid wrapped around her neck. There was a small mare for her, but she was not yet comfortable enough on the back of a horse to use it.
Damicos studied the slender form, wondering. Pelekarr kept her very close. The girl was undeniably useful as a guide, but she was also strikingly pretty. Kerathi military code discouraged the taking of mistresses among senior officers, and to Damicos’ knowledge Ios Pelekarr had never betrayed a rule or regulation yet.
But neither of them were really Kerathi officers anymore, were they? They were the beginning of something new, a blending of Ostoran individuality with the storied might of Kerath.
He shook his head and turned away from the departing column. No doubt the raff girl would take her leave of the company soon. One of the female Ostoran recruits, now, that was a likelier match for the captain. The two archers were common-born, but they knew the ways of fighting men and might make a good wife for a mercenary commander if it came to that. He wondered at the prospect for himself.
First, though, the captains each had a journey to pursue.
CHAPTER 6: WELL OILED DEALINGS
After leaving the bulk of the cavalry outside Bax Town, Pelekarr and his sergeant were shown directly to the center of the citadel. It was a room richly furnished, and the walls were built of stone, speaking to this baron’s longevity and prosperity. In Ostora, wood was for the newcomers. It meant a lot to be able to afford the upgrade to solid stone.
A fire roared in the huge fireplace, uncomfortably warm after the morning’s travel. Rich red draperies hung along the windows. The lords Bax had a long history of shrewd dealing, and their export volume—grain, lumber, wool—allowed lavish displays that most other barons could rarely afford. The captain had brought Bivar with him, and the sergeant stared around at the cushioned chairs and silver vessels in appreciative awe.
They waited there for several minutes, speaking in low tones of the tactical possibilities their new skirmish troops provided. Then two y
oung women came in bearing trays with wine and honeyed fruit. Pelekarr, in the midst of a point he was making on the use of archers in forested terrain, took little notice of the servants girls. But Bivar’s appraising stare made him look again.
Both girls were slender and pretty, and both were nearly naked. They had pale green sashes draped loosely across portions of their bodies, but most of their skin was exposed to view.
It was more flesh than Pelekarr had seen even among the harlots that stood outside the brothels in Belsoria. No such services were on offer in Dura, and the captain realized he had become used to the more modest common dress of the Ostoran women there.
The girls put down their trays and approached the two soldiers.
“M’lord Dectros bid us make you comfortable, sirs,” one of them said, coming within reach of the sergeant as if expecting him to grab her and sit her on his lap. The other stood before Pelekarr, looking down at her feet but making no effort to hide her body from his eyes.
The captain urgently gestured at his sergeant to hold off. “This is not the business we came here to conduct. Where is your lord?”
The girl who had spoken looked uncertain. “He sent us to see to your needs. We will go and get him once you have taken your refreshment.”
Pelekarr was nearly certain the girl in front of him, who hadn’t said a word, was from one of the barbarian tribes. Seeing her used this way made him uncomfortable, and he averted his eyes. Perhaps it was the influence of Perian in his company. Whatever the case, he was not at all interested in taking advantage of the girl.
“Our needs are entirely related to the business we intend to transact with the baron. Go and tell him we request his presence as soon as is convenient.”
Both girls silently left the room, leaving the wine trays behind. If the drink was anything like the rest of the baron’s hospitality, Pelekarr suspected, it would be a fine Kerathi vintage the like of which he hadn’t tasted in over a year. But he had lost all appetite for luxuries at the moment; there was something behind all this coddling, and he meant to stay on his guard.
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