by David Drake
"I shouldn't wonder either, milord," said Garric, "but it's important to give them a chance. You have Coerli units with you?"
"We've got catmen," Waldron said, frowning. "I wouldn't call them units, but it seems to work all right for them to swan about in little mobs. They're under the sailor, there."
He jerked his chin in the direction of Zettin.
"Milord?" prodded Garric, because the admiral clearly wasn't going to speak—again—without being asked to.
"Your highness, the Coerli make excellent scouts and foragers, especially at night," Zettin said, looking at some point beyond Garric's right shoulder. "Their discipline is improving rapidly since we started attaching petty officers, lead oarsmen or the like, to each, ah, war band."
"Not a stupid man," Carus said with a chuckle. "For all he gets above himself."
Garric smiled. He stretched, though not as high as he'd like to've done because there wasn't enough room under the tarpaulin.
"Very good, then," he said. "Unless there's something critical for my eyes . . .?"
No one spoke, though several councilors might've done so if he hadn't stepped on Lord Zettin so thoroughly. "Lady Liane, do you have anything?"
"Nothing vital, your highness," the kingdom's spymaster said politely. "Our surveyors have reported an Empire of Palomir to the south."
Garric frowned. "Palomir that the Scribe of Breen talks about?" he said, trying to recall just what he'd read in the chronicler from Cordin after the fall of the Old Kingdom. The—nameless—scribe had mixed real millennia-old information with a great deal of myth.
"Yes, I think so," said Liane, pleased that he'd caught the reference. "Palomir appears to be little more than a name in its present form, though. It can wait."
"Then, honored Councilors," said Garric, smiling around the group, "I'll retire to my quarters. I'm sure you'll all been busy, but I don't mind telling you that I'm about at the end of my resources right now."
A thought struck him. "Ah," he said. "Do I have quarters? I know you weren't expecting—"
"Yes, of course," said Liane, rising gracefully this time. "If I may, I'll guide your highness."
Garric bowed and stepped out of the shelter. Blood Eagles fell in around him as smoothly as if they'd escorted him to the meeting.
Coming toward Garric with a pair of hard-looking men was a trim woman he'd been afraid he'd never see again. "Ilna! he called in delight.
Of all things, Ilna was carrying a mewling Corl kitten in her arms.
* * *
Though the Last had long been reduced to sparkling coruscance, water continued to boil from the mountain crater. There was a sulfurous tang in the air: the volcano had awakened. Figures slowly melted from the ice which had encased them for uncounted ages.
The giant on the left shook out his long golden hair, laughed, and drew his sword. He was a beardless youth in all but size, lithe and heart-stoppingly handsome. His eyes were as cold as a viper's.
The female on the right could've been his sister, save that her hair was a deep blue-black and she held a trident. Her laughter echoed the youth's; it had the timbre of a hunting cat.
The figure in the center roused last. He wore a horned helmet, and his white beard spread over a scaled cuirass. He opened his gray eyes and paused for long moments before he raised his double-bitted axe.
"We are free!" he shouted. Thunder echoed the words.
The giant forms swelled and vanished into the storm clouds which rushed from all directions to fill the sky. "We are free!"
The gods of Palomir had returned.
THE END
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