by Dragon Lance
Tol was thunderstruck. He respected the Silvanesti’s skills as a general and knew him to be brave in the casual way of most well-born warriors. But to fling himself, alone, into the midst of a host of enemies was unbelievably courageous – and reckless.
Yanking himself out of his daze, Tol shouted, “To the gate! To the gate! Never mind the guards!”
The Juramonans tried to comply, but only Zala was nimble enough to evade combat and rush to Tylocost’s aid. Tol saw an unusual expression on the half-elf’s face as she dodged and wove through the fracas.
Zala was worried about Tylocost.
The gates had stopped. When Zala arrived, the space between them was less than the width of her shoulders, but she pushed through.
For a few terrifying moments, she was blind as she left bright sunlight and entered the gatehouse’s gloomy interior. When her eyes adjusted, she beheld four guards dead or dying by the windlass that operated the gate. Tylocost was battling three more, all equipped with polearms that badly outranged his saber. The thunder of footsteps on the wooden stairs behind them told Zala reinforcements were on their way down.
One of the three soldiers aimed a thrust at Tylocost’s blind side. Lightning-fast, Zala drew a long knife from her boot and flew at the man. She turned aside the overhand chop from his halberd, saving Tylocost, The elf glanced at her, pale eyes widening, then resumed dueling with the remaining two guards.
Zala was panting from exertion. This was not her usual style of fighting. She could use a bow, or slay a charging boar with her sword at short range, but protracted battle, first outside the gate and now in the tight confines of the gatehouse, was foreign to her. Her opponent was an older man, his black hair flecked with gray, and he knew his business. He pushed her back with short jabs of the halberd’s spearhead, then followed with broad sweeps of its blade. She couldn’t reach him with her shorter blade.
Clang! The side of the axe caught her hand and sent her sword flying. Before she could recover and bring up her knife, the veteran soldier lunged. His spearhead took Zala below the ribs. She gasped in shock, and fell.
Just then, Tol, Miya, and two hundred Juramonans burst through the gate, knocking the double doors wide. A tragic scene met their horrified gazes: Zala lay on her back, clutching a belly wound from which blood welled. Tylocost stood over her fending off two determined halberdiers. A third lay dead at his feet.
Miya screamed. As she intended, the sound distracted one of the halberdiers. He glanced her way, and instantly died at Tylocost’s hand. The other went down beneath a swarm of Juramonans. Reinforcements coming down the stairs from the gatehouse above likewise met Juramonan iron, and after a brief combat, cried for quarter.
“Spare any who lay down their arms!” Tol shouted. “Search the citadel! Find the governor!”
More of the militia poured in to carry out Tol’s orders, and Tylocost’s saber clattered to the stones as he dropped beside Zala. He took her hand in both of his.
“Stupid girl,” he said. “I didn’t need your help!”
“They’d’ve chopped you to bits,” she gasped. Her face was translucent as wax.
Miya’s arms were crimson to the elbows from her efforts to stanch the flow of blood. She looked up at Tol and shook her head. Pain creased Tol’s forehead, and he, too, knelt by the fallen huntress.
Tylocost saw none of this; his attention was focused on Zala, on the blood that continued to well from her terrible wound.
“You shouldn’t be here. You’re not a warrior!” he said, voice harsh with emotion.
“I’ll soon be out of your way.”
He squeezed her hand, and her fingers twitched weakly in response. Helplessly, he whispered her name, heedless of the tears that were falling. Her dark eyes stayed on his face. She blinked once, then her hand went limp in his. Tylocost gently closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Husband,” Miya said quietly.
Tol touched her shoulder, but there was no time for more. Armed men were streaming past them.
“We must go. We must find Governor Wornoth,” Tol said. “Tylocost?”
“I will be here.”
Tol and Miya left the grieving general where he was. As they ascended the steps into the palace proper, Tylocost removed his absurd gardener’s hat and placed it gently over Zala’s face. He began to speak softly, in the melodic language of his people, offering an ancient prayer to Astarin.
*
Tol strode through the halls, boots thumping loudly on the carpeted floors. He’d been here before and knew the way to the audience hall. Close at his heels was Miya. Behind her, the crowd of soldiers gawked at the opulence. Wornoth had expensive taste, and had decorated the public halls of the palace with thick carpets, elaborate tapestries, and the finest works of the sculptor’s art.
All resistance had collapsed. The only people they encountered were servants or courtiers, often burdened with loot liberated from the city coffers. If they dropped their booty and fled, Tol ignored them. If they tried to flee with their ill-gotten goods, Tol sent soldiers after them.
The doors of the audience hall were bolted. Tol stood aside, and militiamen hacked the polished darkwood panels with axes. In a trice they broke through.
Within, a fire blazed on the marble floor. Two men were feeding parchment scrolls to the flames. The shorter, younger man was Wornoth.
“Seize the governor!” Tol commanded.
Wornoth wore a dagger, but offered no resistance beyond abusive language. While attention was focused on him, the other man – a portly, yellow-haired cleric unknown to Tol – took a small vial from his gray robe and flung it at them. It struck the floor two steps in front of Tol, and shattered.
The very air shuddered. Everyone but Tol was knocked flat by an invisible blast. Even as they were falling, Tol rushed up to the priest and put the sharp edge of Number Six to his double chin.
“Any more magic, and I’ll set your head on a spike!”
The astonished cleric surrendered but demanded, “Who are you, that the Hand of the Wind does not touch you?”
“Tol of Juramona!”
It was Wornoth who had answered his cleric’s question. The governor’s nose was bleeding and he glared in impotent fury at his captor.
“Traitorous barbarian!” he shrieked at Tol. “You’ll die a hundred times for this outrage!”
Tol ignored him. The fire had been reduced to glowing embers by the Hand of the Wind. He raked the point of his saber through the hot ashes and came up with a large, un-burned piece of parchment. It contained a list of figures. At the bottom was written, in a neat, scribal hand, “Collected from the squatters in University Square.”
The governor was apparently trying to hide his misdeeds, not from Tol, but from the person he’d been cheating: his patron, the emperor of Ergoth. If Ackal V learned Wornoth had not been sending him the full amount extorted from the refugees, his fury at being cheated would certainly cost the governor his head.
Tol dropped the parchment scrap. “For failing to defend the people under your rule, I depose you, Governor,” he intoned. “Once we sort out what’s happened here, I’m certain we’ll find other crimes to charge you with.”
“You have no authority! You are a proscribed man!”
Number Six came up so quickly everyone in the hall flinched at the sudden flash of steel.
“This is my authority! The empire was made by the sword, and it can be unmade the same way!” Tol stalked toward the governor —
— and found his way blocked by Miya. Unlike her stalwart sister, she was no warrior. She did not raise her weapon or speak, just stood before him, golden-brown eyes brimming with sympathy.
Tol glared at her for only a heartbeat. Her action made him realize just how close he was to murdering the unarmed Wornoth. The image of Zala, dead on the cold stones below, filled his head, and he was shaking with wrath.
Still staring at the silent woman before him, Tol growled, “Get him out of here! Put him and the priest in
separate cells under close guard. And search the cleric thoroughly before you lock him up!”
The captives were removed. Tol turned away. He burned with the need to strike something. The governor’s elaborate chair – the literal seat of power here in Caergoth – offered a handy target. He smote its heavy carved wooden back with Number Six, cleaving it halfway down.
“Listen,” Miya hissed. “Do you hear? Temple bells!”
The deep tolling penetrated even the citadel’s thick walls. Did they signify a new alarm, or a celebration of the city’s downfall?
The answer came in the form of a messenger who burst into the hall. The man saluted Tol.
“My lord! Lord Egrin is here with the army!”
Miya and Tol looked at each other. The Dom-shu woman grinned.
“Sister missed all the fun!”
*
Bells were pealing in Daltigoth, too. The emperor had returned in triumph after destroying the bakali in one epic battle. His welcome was surprisingly muted. The streets were crowded, but the people were more relieved than joyous. The day itself was less than auspicious, too. Gray clouds towered overhead, and the air was heavy with a threatening storm.
Ackal V rode into his capital with Prince Dalar on the saddle in front of him. Arrayed behind the emperor were his surviving warlords, less than half the number who had departed Daltigoth with him not so many days before. Following them were those warriors who had distinguished themselves in the battle. Many were seriously wounded. There was an interval of space, and then a rider bearing the standard of the Thorngoth Sabers. The Sabers had performed so nobly in destroying the bakali mound that none of them remained to receive the honors they’d earned.
Behind the standard of the lost horde stretched a long line of wagons laden with booty taken from the defeated enemy. Here and there an article of gold gleamed, but for the most part, the caravan contained arms and armor stripped from the bodies of slain bakali. In addition to the usual ring mail tunics, there were bronze and iron plates that had been shaped to fit strange reptilian bodies. Everything was coated with purplish red bakali gore. The emperor wanted the people of Daltigoth to know what the aftermath of battle looked like – and smelled like. The grisly trophies would be dumped in the plaza before the great temple of Corij, as an offering to the god of war. When an appropriate amount of time had passed, smiths would collect the armor and melt it down. Bronze would be used for statues honoring Ackal V, iron would go to the imperial arsenal, and the blades and helmets would enter service again with the Great Horde.
Near the end of the long line of wagons, the cargo abruptly changed. The bloody armor was replaced by piles of leathery, yellow-gray objects, each the size of a smallish wine cask. These were bakali eggs, salvaged from the ruins of the nest mound. Tens of thousands of eggs had been destroyed by the collapse of the mound and, later, by conscripted laborers. At the last moment, on a whim, Ackal V ordered a few dozen saved. Some would be given to his scholars to study. The rest he intended to let hatch, if they would. A few lizard-men would make interesting slaves.
The procession wound through the straight, wide streets of the New City. The Temple of Corij, largest in Daltigoth, lay at the edge of the Old City, its sacred precincts surrounded by a low granite wall. The hammered golden gates depicted, on one panel, Ackal Ergot, twice life size, mounted on a rearing horse. Facing him, and equal in size, was Corij himself, on his divine war-horse Skyraker. Their postures made it look as though man and god were dueling. As the empire’s founder had once vowed to fight anyone, even the gods, who stood in the way of his vision, the depiction was not entirely untruthful.
As Ackal V approached the temple, priests of Corij drew the double doors apart. Elder clerics were already arrayed on the sacred steps. They had donned their priestly vestments of golden scale armor, but in place of the usual brown surcoats, they wore short tabards of Ackal scarlet. Gravely, they watched Ackal V enter the holy confines on Sirrion’s muscular back, his pale, wide-eyed young son seated before him.
The emperor looked up at the temple’s massive dome and squat columned façade, built of rose porphyry and red granite. He well remembered how the priesthood of Corij had loved his father, Pakin III. An old soldier himself, Pakin III gave generous grants of gold and land to the temple. Ackal V did not. He had better uses for his money. Still, one could not ignore the gods completely.
“O Corij!” he shouted, voice echoing against the hard stone face of the temple. “See the tribute I bring you!”
The wagons of wreckage rumbled forward, drawn now by teams of warriors. Although war-horses were allowed in the sacred precinct, lowly draft animals were not.
Ten paces from the temple steps, the first wagon stopped. A dozen brawny Riders of the Great Horde braced themselves under its side and heaved upward. Iron helmets, ring mail tunics, bronze cuirasses, and axes clattered to the ground. The empty wagon was hauled away and another took its place. Wagon after wagon discharged their cargo, until the noisome heap was as high as the emperor on horseback.
The high priest of Corij, a solemn, long-bearded oldster named Hycontas, descended the steps. Once a Rider of the Great Horde, he was a provincial from the empire’s western reaches. His family were minor nobles, not particularly distinguished and only modestly well off. In Ackal V’s eyes he was little better than a peasant.
“Greetings to you, Great Majesty, and to your honored son,” Hycontas said. “It is a mighty gift you bring. The God of War has been well served.”
“Yes, at last. I sent too many fools to do what I should have done myself.” The emperor gave a tight-lipped, faintly mocking smile. “My apologies for the messy state of the offering, but time was short, and there’s much still to do.”
Hycontas bowed, his blue eyes sharp as icicles. “As Your Majesty says, but word has reached us the nomads have been defeated and dispersed back to their homelands.”
Surprise showed briefly on Ackal V’s proud face; he obviously wondered how word had reached the priesthood of the nomads’ defeat. His usual sneer returned quickly and he said, “Those country hordes had better toe the line! I won’t stand for any backcountry heroics!”
Hycontas bowed again. “Your Majesty rules with justice.”
Ackal V studied him for any hint of sarcasm, but Hycontas’s face showed only bland sincerity. The emperor wheeled his horse, turning Sirrion so tightly the horse’s long, dark red tail whipped past the high priest’s face. Hycontas did not react. For his part, Dalar had learned well his father’s abrupt ways and was holding tight to the pommel.
“When the dedication to Corij is complete, send word to the Arsenal, and the tribute will be removed,” Ackal V said over one shoulder, as Sirrion cantered back to the procession outside the temple wall.
Flies were gathering around the pile of gory trophies, and the sun’s heat only strengthened the rank odor of bakali blood. Hycontas ascended the steps to escape the stench. As he did, a shadow fell across him, cast by a single, large black vulture circling overhead.
Messengers come in all shapes, the old priest mused.
Chapter 22
A PLACE IN THE SHADE
Once Governor Wornoth’s capture became known, resistance to the Army of the East ended quickly. Only a small body of troops, the governor’s private guard, was imprisoned in the citadel. The streets grew calm. People seemed dazed, like sleepers awakened from a deep but troubled slumber. Refugees streamed out of Caergoth, leaving by every gate to every point on the horizon.
Tol and Egrin, standing on a balcony of Caergoth’s Riders’ Hall, watched the lines of ordinary folk leaving the city. The view was of the Centaur Gate and, beyond, the road running southwest toward Daltigoth. It was late afternoon, and Tol could hardly credit all that had happened since sunrise, when Zanpolo had escorted them through the city gate.
“It’s not wise to let everyone go,” Egrin was saying. “Those leaving should be questioned. There could be deserters hidden among them – loyalists who’ll carry
word to Daltigoth about what happened here.”
“Good. Saves me the trouble of sending word to Ackal V of our coming.”
Egrin started to say more, but loud laughter erupted from the open doorway behind them. Tol smiled. “Sounds like the party is well underway.”
“Something else we must keep an eye on,” the old marshal said gloomily.
They went inside, entering the feasting hall that took up the entire second floor of the Riders’ sanctuary. As he had no intention of ruling Caergoth, Tol had set up his headquarters not in the governor’s palace, but in the Riders’ Hall outside the citadel.
A hasty banquet had been laid out, provided from Wornoth’s impressive larder. The scene within was a merry one. Around the huge table were gathered Zanpolo, Pagas, Argonnel, Mittigorn, Trudo, and the other warlords who’d joined Tol; Casberry and her bearers; the Tarsans, Captain Anovenax and Syndic Hanira; Tylocost; Chief Voyarunta; and the Dom-shu sisters.
The reunion of Kiya and Miya had been memorable. Kiya, riding beside Egrin, had spotted her sister in the mob surrounding Tol at the citadel gate. She dismounted and shouldered her way through the happy throng of Juramonans and city folk, and came up on her younger sibling’s blind side. Gripping Miya’s shoulder, she whirled her around.
“Sister!” Miya exclaimed joyously.
Kiya slapped her hard across the cheek. The people immediately around them fell silent, stunned by the sudden violence.
“How dare you come here! Why did you abandon your child?” Kiya demanded.
Miya planted her fists on her hips. “Abandoned? Eli has more aunts than an anthill!”
So saying, Miya slapped her sister back, knocking the blonde warrior woman sideways.
A handful of militiamen stepped forward to stop what they were sure would be a fierce fight, but Tol waved them off. The sisters, each with the red imprint of a hand on her face, glared at each other, until Kiya finally spoke.
“Not bad – for a mother.”
“Ha! You know our mother had a harder hand than the chief ever did!”