A Warrior’s Journey
The Ergoth Trilogy - 01
Paul B. Thompson
Tonya C. Cook
Prologue:
The Prince’s Charge
Tarsis, Year of the City 224
From Valgold, Prince of Vergerone, to Hanira of the Golden House, chosen voice of the guild of jewelsmiths.
Secret! This document is not to be shared outside the Golden House!
Greetings, Lady Hanira. Let me be the first to congratulate you on your accession to the ambassadorship to Ergoth. As a former emissary to the imperial court myself, I feel obligated to give you a foretaste of what awaits you in Daltigoth.
Since the founding of the Ergoth Empire by the savage warlord Ackal Ergot just two years after the founding of our own sovereign city, there has been continual conflict and competition between us. The Bay War, the Mountain War, the War of the Silver Skulls checked the southward expansion of Ergoth’s mounted hordes, but each time at enormous cost to the city’s treasury. The great drain on our coffers continues so long as we are forced to maintain a mercenary army in the field to deter Ergothian aggression.
Lately the crisis has been focused on Hylo. Large numbers of itinerant Ergothian merchants have infiltrated the kender kingdom, infringing on the natural monopoly of trade Tarsis enjoys there. The kender, lacking patriotic feeling, have done little to resist this peddler invasion. Ergothian traders supply considerable quantities of food, cattle, leather, textiles, and wine from the large farming estates of their western provinces.
Our merchants provide similar commodities. But as these must come by sea and from further away, our prices tend to be higher than the Ergothians’. Witless kender, not realizing they are selling their independence for the sake of cheaper cloth, increasingly choose Ergothian goods over ours. There is evidence the emperor’s agents have bribed Kharolian pirates to harass our ships as they round the continent on their way to Hylo. It is for this reason that every convoy from Tarsis must be escorted by armed galleys of the City Navy, an expense that only serves to increase further the cost of our trade goods.
Trading rights in Hylo will therefore be one of the foremost topics of your discussions in Daltigoth. As chosen chief of the guild of gold, silver, and jewel makers of Tarsis, you are accustomed to dealing with wealthy and powerful clients. This will serve you in good stead in dealing with the proud but violent Ergothian nobility.
Shortly after I returned from Daltigoth, it was announced that the king of Hylo, Lucklyn I, had openly declared his vassalage to the emperor. If true, this is a setback for us, but not a fatal one. Money and trade are more important than feudal loyalties, so if you can wrest concessions in Hylo from Ergoth, then the kender king can bend his knee to the emperor as deeply as he likes.
Great things are astir, Lady Hanira. The dormant war between the Ackal and Pakin dynasts has flared anew since the assassination of Emperor Pakin II, an Ackal in spite of his name. The Pakin Pretender has raised an army of unknown size in the north and threatens several minor provincial strongholds. Forces loyal to the Ackal heir are moving to destroy him. Do not become entangled in this brutal, confusing struggle! The intricacies of the Ackal-Pakin feud would confound the wisest sages in Tarsis.
For example, the murdered emperor, Pakin II, chose his regnal name in an attempt to reconcile both sides to his rule. Far from being reconciled, the Pakins’ response was to slay him with knives in his own council chamber. His brother (likewise an Ackal) took the throne as Pakin III, in honor of his slain sibling. Pakin III is no gentle conciliator. He will send his hordes to the ends of the world to track down the Pakin Pretender, and will not rest until the Pretender’s head decorates the palace roof in Daltigoth.
For all his ferocity, the current emperor is a just and honorable ruler. But his opponent is neither. The Pakin Pretender is by all accounts a vicious, treacherous man, and potentially a worse enemy than his Ackal rival. His troops are little more than bandits. They have sacked peaceful villages near the Hylo border, robbed caravans, and tortured Tarsan merchants to death.
Master Vyka, of the White Robe Council, tells me the Pretender does not blanch from practicing black magic. Among his closest advisers are known Black Robes, including one Spannuth Grane, believed to have been involved in the murder of Pakin II and under sentence of death in Ergoth for his various sorcerous crimes.
Assure the emperor of our best wishes in his struggle against the Pretender. At the same time, we are sending a fleet of fifty galleys to Hylo to impress the kender with the power of Tarsis! They are feeling pressed these days, not only by imperial power, but by the Pakin Pretender’s forces. Our High Admiral, Anovenax, has instructions to land the army of General Tylocost if need be, to convince the kender of the wisdom of retaining their ancient trading relationship with Tarsis. That relationship is worth thirty million gold crowns a year to us, or a quarter part of all revenues of the city. Our hegemony over Hylo must be preserved—without war, if possible, but preserved nonetheless!
May Shinare guide and protect you, lady. Remember you are going to a splendid but savage place, where men kill for honor and massacre for glory. As a woman, you may find the Ergothians’ notions of honor peculiar, but you are well-equipped to take advantage of their weakness for feminine glamour. I trust a woman of your experience, wit, and talent will accomplish far more in Daltigoth than I ever could. And if not—well, Lord Tylocost has fifty thousand mercenaries ready to take ship to Hylo.
All success to you, Lady Hanira! The hopes of your city go with you!
(sealed)
VALGOLD, PRINCE OF VERGERONE
from the Griffin Palace
Chapter 1
A Strange Harvest
Again and again the blade rose, lingered for a moment in the clear spring air, then fell to earth with a thud. Each blow cleaved in two a clod of red-brown clay. Inside each broken clump dark soil gleamed, heavy with moisture from the snows of winter. Night still held enough chill to preserve crusts of ice in the deep shade of the woods, but here in the onion patch the newly turned ground had thawed and was soft.
Tol labored tirelessly, pulverizing the weed-woven dirt. His father had plowed the field at dawn. While his father returned the borrowed bullock to their neighbor Farak, Tol finished preparing the soil. He had to be done by midday, when his mother and sisters would come with dried onion bulbs, carefully stored through the winter in the root cellar beneath their hut. By sundown the field would be lined with little hillocks, each tiny mound holding a single bulb. If the hard yellow seedlings survived until summer (and fewer than half would), each onion would mother three or four others. With good rains and fair taxes, Tol’s family would harvest enough to feed themselves and have some left over to barter for things they did not grow—like apples, Tol’s favorite fruit.
Halfway through one swing, Tol heard a strange sound. For the first time he broke his rhythm, hoe held high over his head. The sound was a distant rumble that rose in volume, then fell, seeming to fade into the hills behind him.
Tol lowered the hoe. He turned his head slowly, trying to gauge the source of the strange noise. It seemed to begin beyond the two tall hills northeast of the onion patch. They often masked thunder, making it hard to judge the distance of an oncoming storm. A breeze lifted his long, loose hair and tossed it in his face. He combed the thick brown strands aside and squinted against the morning sun.
Another sound reached his ears. He recognized this one—though he heard it seldom—and knew it for an ominous portent. Bright and hard, it was the clash of metal on metal. He realized then the strange ebbing and flowing noise must mean a battle
was raging nearby.
Tol took a step backward, uncertain. Should he run home and warn his family? He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of their homestead. It was five minutes’ walk away, but if his father returned and found him gone, his work not yet finished—Tol shook his head at the thought of Bakal’s certain wrath.
Last autumn there had been other battles. Swarms of mounted men, clad in bronze and iron, had fought to possess the Great Road
that ran through the southern end of the province. Once, Tol had seen a small mob of warriors bearing green streamers. They rode helter-skelter north, pursued by a larger band of fighters under a scarlet banner. The green riders had burned six farms and killed the local healer, Old Kinzen, when he couldn’t save their leader from his wound. Tol’s father and his cronies sat around the fire all winter, drinking plum dew from a stone jug and talking in anxious voices about war. The emperor’s Great Horde was fighting itself, they muttered. Men of Ergoth were making war on each other.
Tol understood little of what was said. The affairs of men were not for women and children, and the ways of warriors were even more remote. All he knew was, where men went with horse and sword, blood and fire followed.
Suddenly a truly mighty shout went up, echoing off the intervening hills and penetrating Tol’s worried ruminations.
He heard a terrific crash, as if all the trees in the forest had fallen down at once. The plowed earth beneath his feet shivered. His fingers tightened nervously around the hoe handle.
The strange ground tremor did not subside, but grew stronger. An indeterminate rumble of combat gave way to the sounds of individual hoofbeats and shouting voices. It rose steadily in volume. The fight was coming his way!
He cast about for a hiding place. The onion field was a shallow, bowl-shaped depression between three hills, about thirty paces long and half that wide. Other than Tol himself, the only thing in it that morning was a chest-high pile of compost his father had dumped the day before. Formed from the family’s refuse collected all winter, mixed with the scrapings of the chicken coop, it was a malodorous heap.
Tol didn’t hesitate: He sprinted for the compost pile, leaping nimbly over the newly turned sod. Better to lie in filth than be trampled by a warrior’s charger, or hacked to death by an iron sword!
Before he reached cover, a lone horse appeared in the cleft below the north hill. Tol’s panicked dash halted abruptly when he spied the coal-black beast. It was an enormous animal, and it was riderless.
When the horse galloped by, eyes bulging, teeth bared, foamy sweat streaking its ebony neck, Tol saw why it was so terrified. Gripping the animal’s mane was a man’s hand, fingers tightly knotted into the long strands. Severed below the elbow, the limb thudded rhythmically against the horse’s neck. Blood stained the blaze on the horse’s chest.
Hardly had the first runaway steed gone by when two more rounded the base of the hill. Neighing frantically, they weaved this way and that, almost colliding. They shied from Tol and cantered off. One animal had a wound on its rump, but neither bore a rider, or even part of one.
Someone blew a ram’s horn close by. The sudden blast sent Tol scrambling again for the compost pile. With the wooden blade of his hoe, he began hacking out a niche large enough to hide in.
He’d made only a shallow hole when a fourth horse appeared. Unlike the others, this animal had a rider, slumped forward over its neck. The horse came on at a steady trot. He was a magnificent stallion, broad and strong, the color of morning mist. Heavy mail trapping coated him from head to tail, the small iron rings sewn to rich crimson cloth. He came directly to the amazed Tol, and stopped. The reins fell from the unmoving rider’s hands.
At first Tol could only stare dumbfounded at the apparition looming over him. When the horse dropped its head to nuzzle his chest, he started violently, but regained his wits enough to speak.
“Sir? Master?” he said tentatively. The slumped rider did not reply, so Tol edged closer. The huge, dappled-gray horse watched him closely but did not shy, so he circled to the side to see the mart’s face.
The rider was a burly, yellow-bearded fellow. He’d lost his helm, but his fair hair was still matted from its weight. Fresh blood dripped from his slack fingers, and a nasty gash scored his left temple.
“Sir?” said Tol again, daring to touch the rider’s dangling hand. The limp fingers suddenly seized his arm. Tol tried to pull free, but the man’s grip was surprisingly strong.
“Boy,” he rasped, “don’t make a sound if you want to live!”
Tol hadn’t yelled when he was grabbed, and he wasn’t about to do so now. He simply nodded.
“All is lost. The Pakins have won the battle. They will come for me,” the man murmured. He coughed, and his hand relaxed, releasing Tol.
The ram’s horn bleated again, very near, and Tol understood its significance. Hunters used horns to signal each other when tracking prey. This man’s enemies were hunting him like a wild animal.
Tol slapped the horse sharply on the flank. The powerful beast gazed at him contemptuously. Surprised, Tol picked up the reins and tried to lead the horse away. The broad hooves never budged. It was like trying to shift an oak tree.
There was a rumble of many hoofbeats, growing louder, and Tol was torn. If he ran away, the unconscious warrior would certainly be caught and killed. If he stayed, the man’s enemies might slay him too!
His gaze fell upon the hoe, lying at his feet where he’d dropped it. The sight of it gave him an idea.
He planted his hands against the horse’s side and shoved. To his relief, the startled animal shuffled sideways a few steps. Tol cupped his hands under the injured man’s left heel and heaved. The warrior was big, and weighted down with much metal, but the gods were with Tol. The man rolled off his saddle and fell heavily to the ground.
Tol tore the scarlet band from the warrior’s sleeve and laid it over his face. That done, he attacked the compost pile once more with his hoe, flinging rotting leaves and manure over the unconscious man. Not satisfied with the amount he was shifting, he dropped to his knees and plunged his hands into the stinking heap. In short order the fallen warrior was completely buried.
Filthy up to his elbows, Tol confronted the horse, shouting and waving his arms. The stolid animal merely snorted, short plumes of mist furling around its wide nostrils.
“Stupid beast! Get away! How can I hide your master with you here?”
The war-horse only shook its big head and refused to move. In desperation, Tol did something his father had told him never to do: he swatted the animal hard on the nose, a blow no horse will bear.
The gray stallion finally woke to anger, rearing high and lashing out with its metal-shod hooves. Tol dodged briskly. A single blow from those heavy hooves could crack his skull open like a walnut.
The outraged horse trotted away. It followed the natural draw of the field, disappearing in the direction of the south woods. Hardly had the stallion merged into the morning haze than several riders burst from the defile. The lead warrior spotted Tol immediately and shouted. Whipping his long sword in a circle around his head, he led three companions toward the boy.
Tol’s heart hammered against his ribs, but he concentrated on working the soil with his hoe and on keeping his eyes from straying to the compost pile. In moments he was surrounded by mounted men, each wearing a strip of green cloth tied around his right upper arm.
“It’s just a peasant,” said one, reining in his prancing charger. “And a smelly one at that.”
“They’re all smelly,” said another, bearded face twisted in disgust.
“Look here, boy,” said a third, whose helm bore a green feather plume. “How long have you been here?”
“All morning, master,” Tol replied. He was surprised by his own coolness. Though his heart was racing, his tongue was calm. No quaver spoiled his voice.
“Seen any riders come by? Riders with red trappings?”
“Yes, my lord.” Tol ceased his lab
ors with the hoe, but kept his eyes downcast.
“How many?” asked the man in the green-plumed helmet. Tol shrugged, and the tip of a nicked iron saber pressed into his ear. “Loosen your tongue, boy, or I’ll have it out for good.”
“Three horses, good master, with no men on them! And one with a rider.”
All the warriors but one had spoken. Unlike the rest, this fellow wore a closed helm. Its fiercely grinning, hammered bronze visor covered his face completely. As tall as his companions, he was of slighter build, and even to Tol’s unschooled eyes his arms seemed finer and more costly.
“What did the rider look like?” the visored man asked, voice low but carrying.
Tol looked up at him, then quickly back down at the ground. The evil, grinning metal visage filled him with dread. Even though he was farthest away and his sword was sheathed, the visored warrior somehow seemed the most dangerous of them all.
“He was a big man, lord,” Tol said truthfully, “with hair and beard the color of straw.”
His answer obviously pleased them. “Odovar!” said the horn bearer, glancing at the masked man. “Which way did he go, boy?”
Tol indicated the tracks of the big man’s horse. “Yonder, lords.”
Standing in his stirrups, the rider with the ram’s horn put it to his lips. He blew a loud, wavering note. Iron blades flashed as each warrior lifted his weapon high.
The visored warrior said, “Remember, men: the weight of Odovar’s head in gold to him who brings it to me.”
With whoops and yells, the riders spurred their massive horses and galloped away.
The visored man lingered and Tol felt his gaze on him. Curiosity overcoming his natural caution, Tol ventured to ask, “My lord, who are you? Why do you fight?”
To the boy’s surprise, the man deigned to answer.
“I am Grane, commander of the northern host of the Pakin Successor. I am sworn to return the house of Pakin to its rightful place on the imperial throne,” he said. His voice betrayed amusement. “Does that satisfy you, boy?”
[Ergoth 01] - A Warrior's Journey Page 1