by Phil Tucker
Maur wasn't intimidated. "Have you? Then give me the circlet. I'll hold it for you until you decide what to do with it."
Tharok hesitated. Give her the circlet? Even though he was no longer wearing it, knowing it was in his pack gave him comfort. He still had access to the answers it held, the clarity it gave him. And why was she asking for it? Did she wish to use it herself? He studied her face, met her scathing slate-colored gaze, and then he sighed. If anybody could be trusted with it, it was Maur. She would rather gut herself than lose control of her own mind.
"Fine," he said, dragging the word out. "I'll collect it. Wait here."
He entered the hut, ignoring Nok and Shaya, and moved to his pack, where he dug free the small chest. With his back to them, he took the key from his belt and unlocked the chain, then opened the lid to gaze upon the ugly iron loop. He raised his hand to run a finger about its length, to trace its circular shape, and then hesitated. It had brought him so far...
His sudden impulse to touch it alarmed him, and it seemed to him then like a snake in the grass, a dangerous, poisonous thing. He snapped the lid shut. Best it was gone.
Turning, he saw that Nok and Shaya were watching him. They were seated on a worn goatskin, a board between them on the squares of which little stones had been placed. Shaya looked away, but Nok held his gaze.
"What?" asked Tharok.
"Nothing," said Nok. "Just wondering what you're going to do with that thing."
"What business is it of yours?"
"Only that I follow your commands."
"And?"
"Those commands might change if you wear it."
Tharok exhaled powerfully. "So, you know."
Nok shrugged his massive shoulders. "I've had an idea. I have been watching you closely since you freed me. It's hard not to notice the difference."
"How many others know?"
"That, I can't tell you."
Tharok looked down at the small chest. "I'm giving it to Maur for safekeeping."
Nok nodded. "Good."
"Good?"
Nok shrugged again and looked back down at the board. He frowned for a moment before he reached out and carefully took up a black stone between his talons and moved it forward. "Good," he said again, and looked up with a wry smile. "I like you better when you are yourself."
Tharok couldn't help but smile. "Of the two of me, I am the most charming."
Shaya snorted, and when Tharok raised a brow she looked down at the board quickly, trying to control her smile. Good, Tharok thought. She was regaining her spirit.
"Play with your stones. I have to go run the whole tribe with my charm."
He stepped outside, the wooden chest under his arm, and saw Toad speaking with Maur.
"Look, don't get angry at me," said Toad, still panting as if he had been running. "Nakrok told me to bring a message to you."
"Since when do you serve Nakrok?" asked Tharok.
"I don't. But he wanted to get word to you, and I offered to bring it myself rather than escorting Crokuk kragh all the way here. He says he needs to talk to you. Secret news has reached him about the Tragon. Everything has changed. He urgently invites you to his fire to exchange words."
Tharok hesitated. The urge to put on the circlet became overpowering. What was he missing? What did this mean? The circlet would tell him. Would show him what to do. Instead, Tharok handed the chest to Maur and shuddered as it left his grasp.
"Very well," he said to Toad. "The hour grows late. Best we resolve this now. I'll summon Nok. Lead on, little Toad. Take me to the Crokuk."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Toad led Tharok, Maur and Nok down from the warlord's hut and through the Red River tribe, past small, smoky fires, the dancing flames illuminating the lowered faces and outstretched hands. Past the goatskin huts, the heavy frame packs, then the group of mountain goats tied up at the outskirts of the camp. Tharok saw Golden Crow by the central fire, speaking to a group of children who were listening with fear to whatever tale he was telling, and to the side a group of kragh warriors watching a ceremonial duel between two young warriors. Rabo, Tharok saw, was judging the outcome.
The stars scintillated in the heavens above. Tharok spent a moment looking at them, then paused to gaze back at his tribe. Nok and Maur paused alongside him, with only Toad going on a few feet before he caught on and stopped.
"One day," said Tharok, more to himself than to the others, "the number of campfires gathered together will rival the stars. This truly is but the beginning. And you were all here. You were all a part of the process." It felt as if the circlet were whispering from the corner of his mind – a ghost of its ambition, an echo of its visions of conquest. "When the Grand Convocation is summoned and the highland tribes unite, then will the storm break and the traditional patterns of history will be broken as well."
Tharok shook his head, dispelling the thoughts and feelings that were washing over him, and turned to the others. "Come. To the Crokuk. I have other matters to take care of tonight. I hope Nakrok will be quick."
Toad led them into the Crokuk camp. The fires there were smaller and much more numerous, small sparks of dull orange and yellow that were contained in little pits of wood. Crokuk soldiers looked up at them as they passed, slight and wiry as large children, and Tharok was struck by the memory of the Tragon he had killed – their small bodies falling to his arcing arrows, their faces as he struck them down in the depths of his fiery rage. He gazed upon the faces that turned up from the evening business of dinner and conversation to regard him, and it seemed as if he were seeing the Tragon assassins once more, repeated over and over again, staring up at him from the depths of the Valley of the Dead.
Unnerved, Tharok shook himself and strode faster, overtaking Toad and forcing the smaller kragh to quicken his pace to keep abreast. The darkness seemed a palpable thing, giving way before Tharok as he marched forward, thrusting his way through its body as he approached the central fire. He wasn't overly superstitious, but he felt a chill pass through him regardless due to his macabre turn of thought.
The central Crokuk fire was composed of five small fires that burned in a ring, so that the assembled Crokuk kragh could sit in a large circle around it as they spoke, some fifteen of them in all. Each was wearing expensive armor, tailored to their limbs and bodies, painted black with the Crokuk tribal crest in garish yellow over the breast and back plate. Nakrok was sitting on a boulder that had been dragged to the fire's edge to serve as his seat, and a thick and sumptuous cloak was wrapped around his wiry frame, as black and lustrous as the depths of the night itself between the stars.
Conversation ceased as Tharok entered their firelight. Eyes snapped to him, and mouths curved in pleased smiles. Nakrok sat upright, and those kragh seated immediately before Tharok rose to their feet and moved aside, making room so that he could face the fires and the seated Crokuk directly.
"You have asked for my presence," Tharok said gravely. "And I have come. Let it not be said that the Red River fear invitations from our allies."
"No," said Nakrok. "That won't be said. Though I am surprised you came with so few. A woman and your pet beast. Is that all you bring when entering possible danger?"
Tharok pursed his lips. Something was amiss. Maur clearly understood better than he, because she had uncrossed her arms and was slowly opening and closing her fists. Nok, always on guard, had moved to position himself behind Tharok.
"What danger could there be from stunted lowland kragh?" asked Tharok. "What is there to fear from you tuskless dog whelps?"
Nakrok laughed. "How original. Harping on about our lack of tusks. Really, I've never heard that said before. It cuts me to the quick." The other Crokuk began to laugh, the sound ugly and sinister. "Tusks are nothing, you idiot," continued Nakrok. "Or, if they are anything, they are a sign of your barbarity, how close to animals you highland kragh are. I had thought to parley with you here, but your attitude has offended me, as it has since we met. You are a dull and bru
tish idiot."
"Mind your tongue, Crokuk," said Maur. "You are in the highlands. You are ordered by Porloc to aid us. Mind your tongue lest we tear it out."
"If you want my tongue, come get it, Red River bitch," said Nakrok, rising to his feet. His words drew a sour and curling snarl from Tharok. "What?" asked Nakrok, pretending innocence and surprise. "Are those words not fitting? Let me rephrase them, then: if you don't like my manners, dear sweet Maur, then you shouldn't have wandered into my camp."
"We were invited to speak," said Tharok, cursing himself now. "If you have words to say, say them, and we shall be gone."
"No," said Nakrok. "You weren't invited to speak. You were invited to die. Word has reached me of your human slave. I would have her. She is worth more than any Tragon. Porloc will pay me handsomely for her, and overlook your death as a result."
Tharok turned to Toad, but the little kragh was gone. Spy. Traitor. He unshouldered his axe. Let there be death, then. Death here in the midst of five hundred Crokuk. Idiot! he chided himself. Nakrok was correct. To have walked in here blindly, to not have thought matters through – he was an idiot without the circlet.
Nok was growling now, each breath a rasp that sawed at his throat. Maur had fallen into a crouch and had let the wolf skin drop, revealing her bare shoulders, her lips writhing back silently from fangs bared in feral menace.
Tharok whirled the axe lazily once, building up speed, and then whipped his whole arm around, bring his ax up high before clasping it with both hands at its apex and using his whole body and all his strength to bring it down on the head of the closest Crokuk. He split the small kragh's skull in twain, and such was the force of the blow that he cut him right down the thrapple, shattering through his lower jaw and spilling blood, brains and teeth across the rock.
Silence followed, all of the Crokuk frozen in shock by the force of the blow.
"There," said Tharok, grinning as he lifted his axe once more. "I may be dumb, but I know how to swing an ax. Enough talk. It's time to die!"
And with a roar he summoned his battle rage, his old friend long abandoned in favor of reason and logic and cool calculation. He summoned his fire-red fury, brought it up and over himself like a cloak of coals, and allowed all thought to be submerged in the one single burning need: to deal death.
He roared, his jaws opening so wide that his tusks were almost horizontal, their points aimed at where Nakrok was shrinking back in sudden fear. The sound bayed out across the night, the ancient war cry, the summoning to death, the beginning of his dirge song, and Tharok threw himself forward, exploding into a sprint from where he had been standing, charging right at the fire.
Blades were drawn all around him, Crokuk chieftains coming to their feet, pulling their swords from scabbards. Tharok leapt over the tongues of flame, belly first, axe trailing behind his head, gripped with both hands, the entire tableau freezing as he focused only on the yellows of Nakrok's eyes.
Tharok brought his axe crashing down toward Nakrok, but the Crokuk was swift and threw himself aside so that the ax blade bounced off a rock and shattered, and Tharok landed on the boulder where Nakrok had been sitting but moments ago. Without thought he whipped around and threw the ruined axe haft at the closest warrior and followed it himself, leaping down on the lowland kragh and bearing him to the ground with his weight, grasping his head with both hands, thumbs finding purchase beneath his jawbone and snapping the spine. He rolled free as a blade whistled through where he had crouched and snatched up the kragh's serrated blade, then turned and launched himself into three of them, sweeping them before him into the fire, dumping them into the coals as he raced through the flames once more, boots crunching into the cinders and out the other side...
Only to freeze, his blood madness seizing up at the sight of Kharsh moving forward from the shadows, curved sword in hand. Tharok roared in pleasure, thinking that the Red River had come to aid him, Kharsh leading their warriors into the heart of the enemy camp. He turned to face the Crokuk, a derisive grin on his face, expecting Kharsh and the others to move up alongside – and then pain like white fire erupted in his back. With a cry he spun away and saw Kharsh draw free his blade, now covered in black blood.
Not thinking, Tharok threw his sword. It whipped around and around in the air, blurring in the firelight, and plunged deep into Kharsh's throat. The massive old kragh cried out and fell back.
Crokuk were surging forward. Tharok stepped to one side to avoid a blow, caught a wrist and drove his other fist deep into the bone structure of a Crokuk's head. He then swung the dead kragh around by the arm, whipping him into several of his friends, then released the corpse and staggered away.
He saw Nok going down, surrounded by some ten lowland kragh, his roars of rage shaking the stars. Maur was up on Nakrok's boulder, surrounded by blades, blood running from numerous shallow cuts to her legs, arms and chest.
The Crokuk were around him like hounds around a bear. Tharok reached out and grabbed a sword by the blade, hauled it out of the surprised Crokuk's hand and gripped it by the hilt. His mind raced. Kharsh, here in the Crokuk camp. A plot, then. Not just Toad. That meant other Red River had conspired against him – not enough for open confrontation, but enough that Kharsh must have expected to become the next warlord without much difficulty. Toad's hearing Shaya's tale had been the last straw.
Tharok felt a blow cut through the muscle of his shoulder, parried a stab, and slammed the hilt of the sword into a snarling face. He drew the blade across the throat of a second, and lost it in the guts of a third. Something hit him in the small of his back and he went down, crashing to all fours. Instead of rising, he threw himself into a forward roll, pain spasming through his wounded back, knocking aside kragh as he came up wobbling to his feet and saw the small chest on the ground before him.
Without thinking, rage fueling his movements, he dove forward into a second dive, snatched up the chest as he passed over it and tore it open. Sprawled out on his side, he pulled out the circlet and jammed it down over his brow.
The world spun, and the rage turned from a sheet of flame to icy glacial madness. Time slowed, and it seemed as if the very stars fell from the sky in a rain of white fire.
A kragh was moving to stab him in the gut, blade drawn back, wicked point aimed at his belly, the Crokuk's eyes betraying the weak lowland version of blood lust. He seemed frozen. Tharok focused his gaze on the kragh, met his eyes, and reached for his mind.
Fury burst all barriers. He controlled his own berserker madness so that he could understand the thoughts of the Crokuk: that need for steaming blood and quivering flesh, weapon dug deep into enemy hide, the need for the kill, the slaughter. Mouth flooded with saliva at the thought of feasting. Heat on the hide from the fire, heat in the muscles from the fury. Feeling as light as the wings of a hawk, no longer bound by the constraints of flesh and bone. A war god born again, invincible while the rage lasted.
Tharok reached, became the kragh, was the kragh, and turned him against his brother to the right.
Time snapped back into normal speed, and Tharok was up and on his feet and racing forward even as the blade was turned from his gut to stab deep into the side of the next Crokuk. Everywhere he looked, Tharok reached and dug and wrested and pulled, so that everywhere around him, the kragh began to turn their blades against each other. In a moment every lowland kragh present was surrounded by mortal enemies, and Tharok stumbled to a standstill, holding in his mind thirty different thoughts of beings who sought nothing but each other's destruction.
There were only sheets of ice within him. He was the blue-green ice in the heart of the glacier. He was controlled and indifferent; he was their master and lord.
The Crokuk began to fall even as more rushed in, the thirty becoming ten in a matter of moments only to swell again as new Crokuk warriors arrived. Tharok spun slowly, taking in their minds, but there were too many to control, too many to keep under his power. He could do it, he told himself. With just a little more effort
. By stretching out his mind just a little more. He was a fire that would burn up the Crokuk tribe, would set all five hundred of them against each other until an ocean of blood and butchered bodies was all that would remain of the traitors.
Maur stopped where she stood and dropped to one knee, her enemies suddenly ignoring her. Nok fought his way back to his feet, bleeding from deep and terrible gashes, swaying and staring about in incomprehension. Everywhere, Crokuk were killing Crokuk, hacking with terrible ferocity, no thought given to defense.
Then Maur screamed, "Tharok, stop!"
Tharok turned to take in her face, her disbelief and shock and horror, and something within him quivered and shook at how she was staring at him. Around him, each Crokuk was a filament of gold that he was drawing with invisible might, and for a second he sensed Maur's mind, sensed how easy it would be to take control of her, turn her into yet another puppet, bring her to his will.
He sensed it, and then he desired it.
To have her crawl toward him, her hide gleaming with blood, tearing her clothes off as she came so that he could mount her here in the midst of battle and make her his in every way, own her mind and body and soul even as the Crokuk did the dance of death about them.
He recoiled from the thought, turned with a roar and fled, punching his way through the Crokuk ranks, forcing the lowland kragh to throw themselves aside and open a path for him out into the darkness. Through the camp he raced, letting fall from his grasp the minds he had controlled so that the slaughter ceased, focusing instead on simply stunning or throwing aside the kragh in front of him. Out and through, and then he was free of the Crokuk camp. He ran to the closest cliff face and began to climb, hauling himself up from ridge to ledge, fleeing the fires, the kragh, the savage butchery. He went out into the night beyond, the wilderness, away from the madness of that starry night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX