A Hero's justice d-3

by Paul B. Thompson

  The messenger saluted and handed over the leather cylinder. “Compliments of Lord Egrin,” he said.

  Inside the cylinder was a spool of parchment. The message was brief. Tol passed it to Tylocost, then summarized its contents for the others.

  “The hordes with Egrin and Pagas have been skirmishing with a large formation of nomads, riding east. Egrin asks if I will move up and join the attack.”

  “The nomads are fleeing; let them go,” said Zala.

  Tylocost handed the scroll to Kiya. “Hammer them, my lord,” he said. “The harder the better, for the sake of future peace.”

  Kiya agreed. “I know plainsmen, Husband. If you let them ride out unmolested, they’ll convince themselves they were never defeated. Eventually, they’ll be raiding the empire’s borders again.”

  “My lord, I’d be happy to safeguard the treasure,” Queen Casberry piped.

  “The fox guarding the henhouse,” cracked Tylocost.

  They began to trade insults, but Tol didn’t hear them. He’d taken the dispatch back from Kiya. Its last line bothered him.

  According to prisoners from the Firepath tribe, Egrin had written, it is likely their chief, Tokasin, rides with the host ahead of us. So Tokasin, the red-haired nomad who’d led the attack on Juramona, was still alive.

  “Tyiocost,” Tol said, interrupting the bickering. “See the caravan safely to Caergoth. I will ride ahead to the rendezvous point at the confluence, gather the hordes there, and go after the nomads.”

  Casberry’s kender were all on foot and couldn’t keep up with Riders anyway, so Tol agreed she should remain behind and “guard the treasure” as well. There was no question Kiya would accompany Tol, but when Zala offered to do likewise, he demurred, telling her to stay with Tylocost, the kinder, and the wizard.

  “Besides, you have business in Caergoth, don’t you?”

  He had written a pardon for Zala’s human father, held captive in the city. It held no legal standing, but should be sufficient to get the old man released if used in conjunction with the empress’s ring and seal, which Zala still carried.

  The huntress was plainly torn. Although eager to free her father, she didn’t like letting Tol out of her sight. If he got himself killed, she would lose the huge bounty owed her by Empress Valaran, and she and her father would likely be targets of the empress’s wrath. However, her father was aged and alone. Lord Tolandruth was neither. She agreed to continue south with Helbin and the elf to Caergoth.

  “Don’t worry, girl,” Kiya said. “I’ll watch out for Husband.”

  The Dom-shu woman understood the half-elf’s quandary. She disliked being parted from Tol, too. Miya had never felt the same way about him, and teased the tough, stoical Kiya for her “motherly concern.” Kiya thumped her sister soundly, but couldn’t explain her feelings. Perhaps they sprang from Tol’s lack of concern about his own safety. Although he’d lived four decades, he still seemed like a younger brother, one a bit too naive for the dangerous company he kept.

  Knowing it was risky, Tol left only a demi-horde of Riders to protect Tylocost’s foot soldiers and the treasure caravan. Of greater concern to Tol than brigands was imperial intervention. Caergoth housed a large garrison, reinforced by remnants of the armies defeated by the nomads. If Governor Wornoth took it on himself to seize the treasure on behalf of the emperor, there would be little Tylocost could do. The war chest of Tol’s burgeoning campaign would be lost.

  Still, Tokasin’s band had committed many outrages in the eastern provinces, of which the burning of Juramona was only one. Tylocost was right. To preserve future peace, the tribesmen must be punished as severely as possible.

  With just over two hordes, Tol and Kiya rode away from the slow-moving caravan. They arrived at the rendezvous point before midday and found eight landed hordes mustered near the confluence of the east and west branches of the Caer River. Tol proclaimed this the new Army of the East. He and ten thousand Riders headed off to join Egrin’s pursuit of the fleeing nomads.

  Ten hordes take up a great deal of territory. The landed hordes, former imperial warriors, knew how to sort themselves into formation. From wing to wing, Tol’s force covered almost three leagues.

  By noon the next day, the Ergothians began to see signs of what lay ahead. Dust rose over rolling hills and woodlands, marking the movements of large bodies of horsemen ahead of them. Scouts were sent out to locate friends and foes. Word came back from the southern wing of Tol’s army: armed men, several hundred strong, were riding toward them.

  “Nomads?” asked Tol. The sun was high, the air humid; a breeze stirring through the pines around them offered little relief.

  “No, my lord. They’re in armor,” said the scout. “They wear yellow capes and golden breastplates, and bear white plumes on their helmets.”

  Tol frowned. Why did that sound familiar?

  “Probably pirates,” Kiya said absently.

  Tol pivoted his horse in a tight circle. “What?”

  “Is your hearing failing, Husband? Men your age often start to lose their prowess in one way or another-”

  He shouted for his horde commanders. Yellow capes were the mark of Tarsan soldiers. Tarsan marines, not pirates, wore brass breastplates and plumed helmets.

  The news caused the warlords to swear roundly. If Tarsis had broken the peace treaty so hard won by Tolandruth and Lord Regobart, the empire was in worse danger than ever.

  Tol halted his army and swung it south, to face the unknown band of Tarsans. Scouts estimated their strength at a few hundred, but they could be the advance guard of a much larger force.

  All ten hordes formed the famous scythe formation long favored by Ergothian commanders. The warriors sorted themselves into a great crescent, with the horns of the scythe facing the enemy. If their foes rode straight in, they faced encirclement. If they tried to attack either end, the rest of the hordes could strike them. The silent mass of horsemen rode forward at a fast walk. No sense tiring their animals on so hot a day before a possible battle.

  Scouts ranged wider and deeper, to get behind the unknown cavalry. They sent back confirmation. No larger force was in sight. The Tarsans, if Tarsans they were, had only this small band.

  When the oncoming force was reported to be only half a league distant, Tol brought his army to a halt. The dust they’d churned up rolled forward over their sweating bodies. They faced an open field. On its far side rose a low hill, its base sprinkled by tall poplars.

  They were on familiar ground: the Eastern Hundred. Tol had been born not ten leagues from this spot. The civil war between the Ackals and Pakins had raged back and forth through this province for six years. Later flare-ups, like the raids that had first brought Tol into contact with Marshal Odovar, had not died out completely until Tol was in his teens. Thinly populated and devoid of large cities, the Eastern Hundred was a crossroads for armies moving east and west, traveling to and from the heartland of the empire.

  Over their own enforced silence, the Ergothians heard the clatter of metal-clad men and horses on the move. The high, tinny notes of a fife lilted above the noise. Tol drew his sword. Ten thousand warriors followed suit.

  “No one is to move until I say,” Tol commanded. “Not one blade!”

  At the far side of the field, a wedge of horsemen, mounted on light-colored animals, emerged slowly from the poplar trees. Their brass cuirasses and plumed helmets threw off painfully bright reflections from the high sun; their yellow mantles were stained with grime. The lead riders bore standards of white and gold, but instead of leaping dolphins, symbol of the Tarsan marines, the banners were decorated with golden balance scales.

  Tol inhaled sharply, hardly crediting his eyes. It had been many years since he’d seen that symbol on the livery worn by guards of the House of Lux-the guild of goldsmith and gem merchants in Tarsis.

  “Everyone, stand fast,” he said, easing his horse forward out of line. Kiya followed him. He opened his mouth to tell her to remain, and she said flatl
y, “I’m not everyone. I’m your wife.”

  The two of them advanced slowly. The Tarsans stopped, and the fifer ceased his tune. The foremost horseman held up a hand in greeting.

  “Hail, Ergoth!”

  Tol reined up, resting his hands across the pommel of his saddle. Empty hands were a gesture of peace, but Number Six’s grip was close, just in case.

  “Hail to you, Tarsis,” he replied. “Who are you, and what brings you to imperial land?”

  The rider removed the heavy polished helmet. She was a young woman, with yellow hair cut boyishly short. In each earlobe she wore several tiny gold rings. Her face was familiar; in memory, Tol heard a girl’s high voice saying, “Most call me Val.”

  “Valderra.”

  She smiled briefly. “My lord flatters me by remembering.”

  Valderra was the personal herald of Hanira, Syndic of Tarsis. Years ago, she had led Tol to the Golden House for his meeting with Hanira after the fall of the city.

  She added, “You see before you the Free Company of the Golden House. We are here at the bidding of my mistress.”

  At Valderra’s nod, the fifer played a lively trill. In response, a trio of riders emerged from the poplar woods at the rear of the Tarsan troop. Although Tol could hardly believe it, Syndic Hanira was one of the three. Flanking her were two bodyguards. She headed directly to Tol and bestowed a radiant smile on her conqueror.

  “My Lord Tolandruth,” she said. “It has been a long time.”

  She was dressed in gray leather. Her night-black hair was pulled forward over one shoulder, in a single, loose braid. A gray leather hat with narrow brim shaded her face. Some seven years had passed since Tol had last seen her, but Hanira looked exactly as he remembered-elegant, sophisticated, and beautiful-even here in the sunbaked hills of the Eastern Hundred.

  Kiya cleared her throat, and Tol straightened in the saddle, recollecting his somewhat scattered thoughts.

  “Why are you here, Syndic?” he asked tersely. “And with armed troops? This violates the treaty between Tarsis and Ergoth.”

  Hanira lost her pleasant smile, and her tone grew cool. “Syndic I am, but you could spare a kind word to greet a friend.”

  “Are you a friend?” asked Kiya bluntly.

  “I am. No treaty has been broken, my lord. This is not Tarsis before you now, only the House of Lux.”

  Hanira’s guild had hired three hundred twenty veteran mercenaries and equipped them with surplus Tarsan arms. Hanira herself assumed command, although the day-to-day running of the Free Company was left to a professional warrior, Captain Tindyll Anovenax, son of Tol’s former foe Admiral Anovenax. Captain Anovenax rode one of the other horses, but stayed silent behind Hanira.

  “We come to offer our help in your time of need,” the syndic said. “My men are at your disposal, my lord.”

  Three hundred well-trained mercenaries were a modest but welcome addition to his army. Yet Tol was astonished that Hanira should have paid the cost herself, through the wealthy guild she controlled. Even more amazing, she had accompanied her troops into the field.

  Kiya, ever distrustful, asked, “What’s it going to cost us?”

  “Nothing. Everything. In politics, as in trade, personal relationships matter most. I am here-we are here-to preserve our longstanding friendship with Lord Tolandruth.”

  The Free Company had left Tarsis before the fall of Juramona, sailing west to the Gulf of Ergoth and disembarking at the mouth of the Caer River. They had traveled east to avoid the imperial hordes and bakali hovering around Daltigoth. Hanira had intended to reach Juramona, Tol’s hometown, before the new phase of Solin, but captured nomads had told of the town’s destruction and the plainsmen’s subsequent defeat at the hands of a new Ergothian army.

  “I knew it must be you,” she said simply. “We followed the trail of panicked tribesmen, and here you are.”

  Tol maneuvered his horse closer to hers, and extended a hand. “Then accept my apology-and my welcome to Ergoth, Syndic.”

  Bypassing the hand, she grasped his forearm warrior fashion. Clever Hanira had turned the simple gesture of friendship into a declaration of equality.

  She called her captain forward. With his dark hair and olive skin, young Tindyll Anovenax seemed at first glance little like his choleric father, but his face, like the admiral’s, bore the lines carved by wind and sun. He also proved to have the voice of one accustomed to bellowing orders at sea.

  Captain Anovenax agreed to follow Tol’s command-it was his syndic’s will, after all. He agreed, too, with Tol’s reasons for ordering him and his men to the rear of the Ergothian formation. More than a few warlords would attack on sight should they spot Tarsans leading a charge.

  The Tarsan troopers and their small caravan of supply wagons took their place in the rearguard. Hanira, Valderra, and one of the syndic’s bodyguards remained with Tol. The guard’s high cheekbones, long jaw, and somber expression gave him the look of an ascetic priest. Hanira introduced him as Fenj, the finest swordsman in Tarsis. Fenj’s complete disinterest in conversation wasn’t mere stoicism. His tongue had been cut out when he was captured by pirates as a boy.

  The Army of the East and their new allies continued the eastward journey to join up with Egrin’s hordes. Before nightfall, the dark edge of the Great Green was visible on the eastern horizon. Small groups of plains folk, mounted and on foot, could be seen hurrying northward, parallel to the forest edge.

  Tol dispatched Lord Trudo to bring back prisoners for questioning. In the gathering dusk, three companies of Trudo’s horde galloped out to seize a band of nomads fleeing on foot. Mounted plainsmen turned back to defend their comrades, and a sharp conflict ensued. Numbers prevailed, however, and soon the Ergothians were herding a line of ragged, frightened captives back to Tol.

  Looking down at them from horseback, he asked about their tribe, wanting to know if any were from Tokasin’s Fire-path tribe. No one answered. Trudo offered to behead a few, to encourage the rest to talk. Tol ignored him.

  “We’ve not much time!” he told them. “Where is Tokasin? Speak, and you all will be spared!”

  A woman clutching a small child spat, “Liar! We know you’ll kill us once you find out what you want to know!”

  He couldn’t blame her for thinking so. Any other warlord would do just that.

  “My word as Lord Tolandruth, you will not be harmed.”

  The woman turned away in stubborn silence, but an older nomad, his gray beard spattered with blood, shouted, “Many here are Firepathers! They’re trying to reach their chief at the Isle of Elms!”

  This was a large grove of elm trees, a half-league from the Great Green. The closely growing trees, sited atop a slight rise, would make an excellent defense against imperial horsemen.

  Shoving broke out among the prisoners as Firepathers vented their anger against the old fellow for speaking, but other tribesmen, young and old, defended him. The alliance between tribes obviously was wearing thin. Ergothians moved in to quell the disturbance.

  “Why didn’t the savages just run for the forest?” Hanira said, gesturing at the Great Green in the distance.

  Kiya said tartly, “These ‘savages’ are no more at home in the greenwood than you are, Syndic. They’re plainsmen, riders. The people of the forest would treat them as invaders!”

  As he had vowed, Tol released the captives once they’d been disarmed. Some of his horde commanders protested, but he had no intention of burdening his army with prisoners. The freed nomads scattered rapidly as the ten thousand Ergothians veered north toward the Isle of Elms. Sunset was nearly upon them, but Tol would not delay. He was certain Chief Tokasin was the true leader of the nomad invasion. Mattohoc and the other chiefs, however great their hatred of the empire, were not charismatic enough to forge their disparate tribes into a single army. Tokasin had done that.

  They rode through the night. Darkness made it impossible to hold formation. By daybreak Tol’s ten hordes were strung out over four leag
ues.

  When the sun rose, its light revealed the Isle of Elms ahead. Towering trees, on a low hill, were isolated from the primeval growth of the Great Green by a half-league of rolling field. Morning light also picked out the iron blades and helmets of the hordes under Egrin’s command. Their numbers had not been sufficient to surround the Isle. The arrival of Tol’s hordes would remedy that situation.

  The trumpeters sounded assembly. Tol needed to bring his straggling hordes together, and quickly. Egrin’s men were engaged. If Tokasin was smart as well as fierce, this would be no more than a rear guard, a small force left to hold off Egrin’s hordes while Tokasin and the main body slipped away.

  At Hanira’s suggestion, Tol sent her Free Company on a wide sweep around the Isle of Elms, to prevent such an escape. The Tarsans, on fresher mounts than the hard-riding Ergothians, could move fast. Captain Anovenax vowed that not a single nomad would get through, then his disciplined company galloped away.

  Valderra begged the syndic for permission to go with them. This request obviously surprised Hanira. Her herald was no soldier.

  “I can fight,” the young woman insisted. She drew the slim saber from her gilded scabbard. “Let me go, mistress. I will do you honor!”

  The syndic hesitated, then gave her leave to go. Valderra twisted her horse’s head around, and Hanira added, “But mind you come back, Val! It’s very hard to get good heralds these days!”

  Smiling under her heavy helmet, Valderra galloped after her comrades.

  “Your herald shows a warrior’s pride,” Kiya commented.

  Hanira sighed. “She and Tindyll hope to wed. She doesn’t want to be parted from him, even in battle.”

  Half the morning had gone before Tol’s scattered force had regrouped into fighting formation. Nerves and the day’s heat conspired to drench them all in sweat by the time he gave the order to advance.

  Ranks of horsemen trotted through the trampled, brown grass. Any sounds of the fighting ahead were lost in the thunder of their own horses’ hooves. Veteran of many battles, Tol felt the old tightness in his throat, the hot tension forming in the pit of his stomach. Battle was never routine. It remained a hard, bloody business to which no sane person ever grew accustomed.