Realms of War

'To the hold!' shouted King Valon, and the men rode into battle, their unlikely allies right behind.

Mass panic broke out among the goblin raiders. King Ertyk Uhl let out what sounded like a strangled wail, then he fled the battlefield, lumbering off the same way he had come. A dozen ogres padded after him, their footfalls shaking the ground as they chased the goblin king.

Spotting Purdun and Tammsel on the ground, Korox kicked his horse and pounded into the fray. He swung his sword like a mallet, in long, looping circles, taking the heads from three goblins as he made his way to the crusaders.

Reaching his friends, he leaped from his horse, sending the goblins and worgs scattering.

'No luck in Tethyr, I gather?' asked Tammsel, eyeing the fifty riders making their way to the drawbridge. 'At least you got away with your life.'

Korox shook his head. 'We didn't go to Tethyr,' replied the newest prince of Erlkazar. 'My father managed to negotiate help a little closer to home.'

The battle wasn't over, but it was clear the tide had changed. Without their king, the goblins were in disarray, and they scattered before the ogre forces.

Korox and Tammsel helped lift Purdun back to his feet, hefting his weight between the two of them.

'How did you manage to get the ogres to agree to an alliance?' asked Purdun, wincing from the pain in his shoulder.

'Turns out they hate the goblins even more than we do,' replied Korox. 'Come on. This fight's not over yet, and we need to get you fixed up before it is.'

And the men left the battlefield to begin preparations for retaking Zerith Hold.

MERCY'S REWARD

Mark Sehestedt

The Year of the Serpent (1359 DR)

'Wake.'

The side of Gethred's face stung, and there was a high-pitched ringing in his ears.

'Wake.'

He felt it on the other cheek this time. Someone slapped him. Hard.

'Open your eyes or I cut the lids off. Now.'

The voice was deep and had the precise pronun shy;ciation of one not used to speaking Common.

Gethred opened his eyes and winced. A meager gray light suffused the gloom, but even that was enough to stab through to the center of his head. He groaned and tried to reach for his forehead. His hands didn't move, so he tried harder, and he felt the bite of rope cutting into his arms.

Massive hands grabbed him by the shoulders, hauled him into a sitting position, then let go. Gethred fell back, and his head bounced off a stone wall. He cried out and squeezed his eyes shut.

'I said open your eyes.'

Gritting his teeth, Gethred forced his eyes to open.

The gray light wrapped around the edges of a massive figure standing before him. In the gloom, the man seemed as tall as an ogre. Standing between Gethred and the source of light, the man's features were hidden, but he could make out a great mass of hair, though where it ended and the man's clothes began, Gethred could not tell. The man dressed all in skins and furs. Most wise. So near the edge of the open steppe at the base of the mountains, the winter cold could kill quicker than the Horde.

Around the massive man Gethred could see what only the most magnanimous man ever born would have graced to call a hovel. It was a cave, dry but far from clean, with only the barest signs of human habitation-a few hide blankets, a pack, and a smattering of bones. Bits of flesh still clung to one wolf skull.

The man nudged Gethred with his boot and said, 'Who are you?'

'Just a starving, half-frozen traveler,' said Gethred.

The man crouched, and the sound he made sounded half sigh and half growl. 'You're a liar. You're no Rashemi, and Westerners don't wander these foothills with no supplies. But you're no Thayan by your coloring. You're a mystery. A mystery I don't care to solve. You robbed my trap. Why?'

'The wolf was suffering.'

'So were you.'

'I only wanted to show another creature a little kindness before I lay down to die.'

'Hmph. You had your first wish. I'll grant your second.' A moment's silence, then, 'You don't know them, then?'

'Them?'

The man just crouched there, watching. Gethred squinted and tried to make out the man's features. He could not. But the stench he emitted said enough.

'If you lie,' said the man, 'I'll hurt you before you die. Hurt you a long time.'

'Lie?' said Gethred. 'About what? I… don't understand.'

The man took a deep breath through his nose. 'You hold your tongue, but I can sense you're hiding something. I smell it. But you don't hold the stink of the shen gusen. And you're a man. Magic, then?'

'Magic?'

'The shen gusen are cunning. Powerful. You could be a spy.'

Gethred swallowed. His throat hurt. 'I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what a shen gusen is. I swear.'

'You swear to your gods?'

'Yes.'

'Good,' said the man. 'Let's send you to them.'

The man stood, reached behind his back, and when his hand reappeared Gethred saw the light glinting off the edge of a huge dagger. The blade was almost as wide as Gethred's palm. It looked more like a cleaver with a point, and when the man turned it, brandishing the blade, Gethred saw runes carved into the metal-sharp etchings that he could not read but which nevertheless made the back of his eyelids itch.

'Please-'

'Please what?' said the man.

'I'm no spy,' said Gethred. 'I swear. Please.'

'But you are a robber. And it pleases me to give you justice.'

Gethred tried to scramble away, but ropes bound his ankles, knees, and thighs, and he could do little more than wiggle like a stiff caterpillar. He only succeeded in sliding farther along the back wall of the cave.

'Nowhere to go.' The man laughed and snatched the ropes around Gethred's ankles. He pulled his legs up and planted the point of his dagger in Gethred's crotch. 'Think your gods will mind if you come to them less than a man?'

'Please!'

Gethred closed his eyes and stiffened his entire body. The agony in his head was forgotten as he lay there, panting and waiting for the steel to pierce.

Nothing. Gethred opened his eyes. The man stood over him, still as stone, head cocked as if listening. He didn't even seem to be breathing.

In the sudden silence Gethred heard it too. Horses approaching. Not at a gallop, but there was no mistaking the slow, careful approach of several horses.

Growling, the man dropped Gethred's legs and turned away. Blinding light filled the cave as he opened the thick matt of sticks and twigs that served as a door. He looked over his shoulder once-his eyes were still deep in the shadow of his great tangle of hair-then left the cave, slamming the rickety door behind him.