“We waited too long,” she murmured.
“The actions of savages are notoriously difficult to predict,” Tylocost answered. His pedantic tone was at odds with his disheveled appearance. Free of its confining band, his hair hung loose about his shoulders, and soot stained his face and clothing.
“I heard that some townsmen thought they could save their own lives and property by arranging for Juramona to fall without a fight. They opened the south gate for the nomads.” Zala shook her head. “I hope they were among the first to die!”
“Humans. They’re never so foolish as when they think they’re being clever.”
The last of the mounted nomads passed. In the lull, Zala and the elf sprang to their feet and ran for the open gate. Away from the dying town. Away from the flames and screaming.
Tylocost might be ill-favored in some ways, but he was by no means awkward physically. He easily outpaced his companion during the dash across the open ground beyond the city gate. He reached a line of cedars and pushed through, promptly colliding with a fiercely painted nomad.
Elf and man both were shocked at the unexpected encounter. While they gaped at each other-for no more than a few heartbeats-Zala sprinted by, ran the man through, and kept going. Tylocost stepped over the falling body and raced after her.
Near a dry creekbed, they found horses tethered to a stand of saplings. Zala dropped to the ground. With commendable silence, her companion fell into place beside her. She glanced his way and almost cried out. Tylocost’s face and chest were covered in blood. She quickly realized the gore had come from the nomad she’d slain, but the elf resembled a ghastly specter, come back from the dead.
Composing herself, Zala turned her attention back to the tethered horses. Their owners were arguing over the division of the booty they’d taken from the town. Zala could see the men’s bare, suntanned legs on the other side of their horses.
“Mocto killed the Ergoth warrior. Let him have the first choosing!” said one loud voice.
“Warrior? Ha! An old man with a soup pot on his head!”
“But I did kill him,” said a third voice, presumably Mocto.
“Well, I killed the woman and boy who carried the goods in a rolled-up rug,” said a fourth voice. “I should get first choosing!”
Disparaging remarks were made about parentage. Punches were thrown, and one nomad fell to the ground. More curses filled the night air.
Zala gathered herself, holding her knife so its blade lay flat against her forearm. Soundlessly, she slipped between two of the tethered horses. The biggest nomad, the one who claimed to have slain a woman and boy to steal their goods, received the point of her long knife in his kidney. He dropped to his knees, his face a mask of astonishment. He died thinking one of his comrades had murdered him.
The other three spotted the intruder in their midst and lunged for the weapons they’d left sheathed on their saddles. Zala got one fellow in the ribs. He backhanded her, sending her reeling away, then fell to his knees, lung punctured, unable to breathe.
A third nomad drew his own knife. He and the half-elf traded cuts, but her fighting style confused him. Zala feinted an overhand stab, which the nomad tried to block with both hands. Pivoting backward on one heel, she drove her blade into his chest.
The last nomad had taken to his heels, running back toward Juramona and his comrades. Tylocost retrieved a bow lying next to the nomads’ swag, nocked an arrow, and let it fly. The fellow tumbled head over feet and did not get up.
It was a skillful shot, and Zala congratulated Tylocost on his prowess.
“I was a warrior of House Protector. I am proficient with all arms, no matter how coarsely rendered,” he said, dropping the bow.
Nettled by his arrogant tone-after all, she had dispatched three of the savages-she swung herself gracefully into the saddle of a painted horse without touching the stirrup and asked sarcastically, “Can you ride?”
In answer, Tylocost vaulted over the rump of the nearest animal, using his hands to boost himself over the leather pillion and into the saddle. He leaned down and loosened the reins. With a quick glance at the stars, he pulled his mount’s head around and cantered off, south by east.
Zala thumped heels into her mount’s flanks and followed, wrapped in a thoughtful silence. Her peculiar companion was proving to be rather useful.
Being mounted proved a camouflage for the two travelers, Several times they passed sizable bands of nomads in the dark, yet none challenged them. They were taken for fellow plainsmen, or perhaps it was the blood-spattered visage of the elf that forestalled questions. Tylocost certainly looked as though he’d come from a frightful battle.
They rode long into the night with Tylocost in the lead, following a trail only he could see. Other than studying the stars periodically, he did not take his eyes off the tall grass before him.
A few marks before dawn they halted by a small creek that wound around the foot of a bramble-covered knoll. While their mounts drank, Tylocost splashed water on his gory face.
Zala watched his ablutions in silence for a moment then said, “You’re not the overbred, high-toned fellow you pretend to be.”
“Well, I certainly am overbred. How else did I acquire this misshapen face? I’m high-toned, too, if I understand your meaning.” He looped wet hair behind ears that stood out like jug handles. “What I am not is a weakling, or a fool.”
“No? Then why did you stay in Juramona all these years, even after Lord Tolandruth was exiled? You could have left any time.”
“And gone where? I’m an outcast in my homeland. Besides, I gave my word of honor to Lord Tolandruth when he paroled me. After my defeat at Three Rose Creek, I could have been executed or imprisoned. Tolandruth preserved me from that. In return, I swore to remain where he sent me and not take up arms again. It was a matter of honor.” Clean but dripping, he sat back on his heels and looked up at her. “Though you’re a half-breed and a female, I think you know what honor is.”
Ignoring the gibes, Zala gave a slight nod. Completing her mission for the empress was not only a matter of earning her pay, or protecting her father from the empress’s anger should she fail, it also was a matter of honor for Zala. She had given her word to the empress. She would not break that vow.
A search through their saddlebags produced provisions enough that they wouldn’t starve any time soon. Zala offered Tylocost venison sausage and a roll of pounded vegetables and seeds called “viga,” nomad trail food. He accepted the latter. Sitting in the sand by the small creek they ate their rough meal. Zala asked where they were headed.
“The Great Green. That’s where Tolandruth is.”
She chewed a mouthful of spicy, smoky deer meat. “How do you know?”
“Reason, dear.” He drank water from his cupped hand. “That pair of giants he called wives are members of the Dom-shu tribe. Exiled from imperial territory, where else would he go but to his wives’ people?”
His reasoning was impeccable, but now that they were away from Juramona and the rampaging nomad hordes, Zala wondered how much she could trust him. Was this slippery Silvanesti taking her to Tolandruth, or merely leading her on a wild goose chase?
“You must trust me, dear,” he said, deducing her thoughts with irritating accuracy. “You’ve kept your part of our bargain, now I shall keep mine.”
“The Great Green is vast. What makes you so sure we can find him?”
False dawn was brightening the eastern sky. Tylocost had finished the viga. He dipped his hands in the creek and shook them dry. “Think of Lord Tolandruth as a mountain peak,” the elf said. “He stands above most men, and such a landmark can be seen from far off.”
He smiled, and for the first time Zala did not shudder at his looks.
From its usual temple-like calm, the house of Voyarunta’s daughters had taken on all the frenetic activity of market day in Daltigoth. Every possession had been turned out, piled in twin heaps outside the door. Miya and Eli dragged items to the door wh
ile Tol and Kiya sorted them into “take” and “leave” piles.
The morning had begun on a contentious note. Kiya said she would accompany Tol to Juramona, but Miya declined, using Eli as her excuse. The boy protested; he wanted to see “Jury Moona” for himself.
“Are you going to abandon Husband now?” Kiya demanded. “And me? After all we’ve been through together?”
Miya returned her sister’s glare. “I’m not abandoning anybody. You’re the ones leaving!”
“Where Tol goes, I go. And so should you.”
They argued through breakfast, through Eli’s bath, and through the first stages of sorting their belongings for the trip. Finally, Tol intervened.
“Eli stays. War is no place for children-and he needs his mother.”
Eli complained and Kiya argued, raising Miya’s ire and pulling her into the fray. Tol’s shout finally put an end to the discussion. He rarely asserted himself directly over his boisterous family, but when he did they obeyed resentfully.
The sisters and Eli returned to packing. Baskets and blankets were flung, clothes trampled, and gear deliberately mislaid. If the rift between Miya and Kiya hadn’t been so serious, Egrin would have laughed.
He was heartily glad his friend had chosen to return to Ergoth. Once there, Egrin was certain Tol would realize the Tightness of joining the fight against the bakali and the nomads.
“Blanket!” shouted Miya, flinging a brown horsehair cloth at Tol. It hit him on the back of the head, enveloping him in its dusty folds.
“We have blankets!” Kiya retorted. She was shouting, too, of course.
“It’s for the horse!”
“What horse?”
Miya, flushed from her exertions, paused in the open doorway. “You don’t intend to walk all the way to Daltigoth, do you?”
“I’ve done it before!”
Tol dragged the blanket off his back. “We’re not going to Daltigoth,” he said, waving away the clouds of dust. “And if we buy horses, we’ll buy blankets for them, too.”
“Then give it back!”
Kiya snatched the heavy cloth and flung it at Miya. The latter stood aside and let it go winging into the hut’s interior. From within came Eli’s howl of protest. The boy stomped out and threw the blanket at Miya’s feet.
“How do you stand it?” Egrin asked, his mouth close to Tol’s ear.
Tol smiled. “You get used to it. If they didn’t shout at each other every day, I’d think I’d gone deaf.”
By midday Tol had worked the “take” pile down to three bundles of manageable size, one for each of them to carry. The chosen equipment was spare indeed-a water bottle each, a bedroll, dried and smoked rations for the road.
Egrin asked about weapons, and Tol went inside. He stood on a block of firewood and reached up into the rafters, halfway between the chimney vent and eaves. Visibly alarmed, Miya asked what he was doing.
“Fetching Number Six.” This was the remarkable steel saber he’d been given by a dwarf merchant, after Tol’s party saved the dwarves from bandits in the Harrow Sky hill country.
Miya hurried over. “I’ll get it for you!”
Before she reached him, the tip of Tol’s buckskin-wrapped bundle snagged on something further down the rafter. A small leather box fell to the dirt floor.
Miya tried to pick up the box, but Tol’s hand closed over it first. He opened the box. For the first time in six years he beheld the millstone, the ancient Irda artifact that possessed the ability to absorb any magic directed at the one who possessed it. After gazing at it for a silent moment, he tugged a small leather bag from under his sash belt. After dumping out its contents-four silver coins-Tol put the millstone in and tucked the bag inside his pack.
Miya’s eyes were screwed shut, her body braced to receive his fury, but it never came. Instead, he patted her cheek. Her eyes flew open in shock. At that moment Egrin and Kiya entered.
“What’s this?” Kiya sputtered.
“Just thanking Miya for keeping my weapons safe and sound,” he said, winking. Miya’s face was bright red. “You know me, I don’t always take proper care of these things.”
He handed the leather-wrapped sword to Egrin. The old marshal had seen the box overturned on the floor and recognized it as the one Eli had been playing with. He said nothing, only freed the saber from the oily buckskin. The iron hilt was frosted with tiny flecks of rust, which oil and sand would soon remove. Number Six’s blade still had the slight bend it had acquired in a battle with Mandes’s mercenaries, six and a half years ago.
Egrin presented the hilt to his friend. “Your sword, Lord Tolandruth.”
Tol took Number Six. “Thank you, Lord Egrin,” he said wryly.
By midafternoon the trio was nearly ready to depart. Egrin was alone in the sod hut with the Dom-shu sisters, as Tol said his farewells to Eli outside. Once more, Egrin found himself the unwitting cause of an argument between members of Tol’s family.
The old warrior was nearly ready to join Tol outside, when he noticed Kiya holding a piece of jewelry. Crouched by her pack, she was wrapping a beaded headband in soft leather before packing it. The headband was very fine: multicolored beads worked in an intricate pattern, with a fringe of tiny, carved ivory animals on its lower edge. Its ties were as long as Egrin’s forearm, and were decorated with more carved beads and ivory animals. When he commented on its beauty, Kiya’s reaction-and Miya’s-took him by surprise.
“Jewelry?” Miya exclaimed, hurrying over to investigate: “Sister owns no jewelry, except-”
“Shut up!” Kiya snapped.
Miya demanded, “Why are you taking your burial beads?”
Although Egrin didn’t know the particulars, the term “burial beads” certainly had a gloomy ring to it. However, Kiya brushed aside Miya’s question, reminding her that they were going off to fight, after all.
“Besides,” the elder Dom-shu added, directing a glare first at Miya and then Egrin, “it is my concern and no one else’s.”
Egrin nodded quickly, embarrassed to have intruded on such a private matter. Miya gave her sister glare for glare, but said nothing more.
Outside, they found Tol kneeling by Eli. The boy was trying not to cry but he was failing. When his mother appeared, he hurried to her and held her hand tightly.
Chief Voyarunta and his senior warriors had come to see the travelers off. The crow’s feet had vanished from the chief’s eyes. His hair was now yellow streaked with white. Yellow stubble sprouting from his chin.
“Son of My Life, it pains me to see you go,” Voyarunta declared. He embraced Tol Dom-shu fashion, clapping a hand on the Ergothian’s broad back.
Tol nodded. “I thank you, Father of My Life. Your kindness has been boundless.” He waited, prepared to receive whatever wisdom the forester chief felt appropriate, but Voyarunta’s next words caught him by surprise.
Dark blue eyes agleam with ancient ferocity, the chief said, “Take back what is yours, Son of My Life. You are a warrior of warriors, a bear among dogs. Do not let a few curs steal your glory. Your land was made by the sword-by the sword it can be saved, and you with it.”
Egrin wanted to shout agreement, but solemn silence seemed more suitable to the moment. Tol’s thoughts were unreadable. He stood back from the chief and saluted him, open handed.
Voyarunta embraced Kiya, too, adding an affectionate chuck on the chin.
“No wise words for me, Father?”
“What can I tell one wiser and braver than me?”
The praise was so unexpected that Kiya stared open-mouthed at him. Grinning, he added, “The gods walk at this man’s heels. Stay by him, and some of their favor may fall upon you, too.”
Without further ado, Voyarunta departed.
Eli fled into the hut, unable to watch his aunt and uncle leave, and only Miya remained to watch the three shoulder their packs and walk away. Tol waved good-bye to her, as he had many times since coming to the forest. Always before he’d been going hunting or fishin
g, or just roaming the woodland. Now he was traveling much farther, heading deliberately into harm’s way.
Miya waved back. In her other hand, she held the empty leather box.
Chapter 5
Much Sought After
Like a stone falling into a quiet pool, the conquest of Juramona sent ripples of fear and excitement across the empire and beyond. Fear filled the hearts of ordinary Ergothians.
The nomad army was an army in only the loosest sense of the word. The disparate tribes were held together by a common desire for victory against the empire that had taken lands across which nomads once had roamed freely-that, and a desire for plunder. Their heady success induced many nomads to dream of taking the greater cities of the south and west, such as Caergoth and Thorngoth. The imperial army, hammered by the bakali at the bend of the Solvin River, was nowhere to be found in the Eastern Hundred.
Spring gave way to summer’s heat. The vast open country of the Eastern and Mountain hundreds baked under the remorseless sun. Towering fortresses of cloud, sculpted white against the steamy blue sky, sailed overhead but yielded no rain. The dry season was upon the land, the time of dust and fire.
Tol and his two friends emerged from the Great Green into the midday glare of the sun. They stepped out of the trees and into the great open field known to the Dom-shu as the Lake of Flowers, and to the Ergothians as-
“Zivilyn’s Carpet,” Egrin exclaimed, surprised to find himself back where he’d first entered the forest. “Did you bring us here on purpose?”
“I just followed my nose,” said Tol, shrugging.
Kiya, swabbing her face with a piece of homespun, had a different view. “The gods led you here,” she said firmly. “It’s a good omen!”
The sunlit meadow was dense with a fog of pollen and the perfume of a thousand wildflowers. The air was thick as well with flying things-honey bees, bumblebees, butterflies of every hue, and tiny, ruby-throated needlebirds.
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