Tol’s gaze upward, toward the star-sprinkled sky. He sensed a presence. Although he couldn’t make out any shape, he felt that someone was staring down at them, an unfriendly someone. He sensed, too, that the formless, hostile watcher was coming closer, dropping directly down on his own sleeping body like a swooping bird-
Tol awoke, sitting up with a cry.
Egrin roused instantly, hand reaching for the sword lying next to him, and demanded to know what was wrong. Tol apologized and explained the dream he’d had.
“The evil was dropping down on me, like a hawk on a mouse.”
Felryn put his head up from the depths of his own bedroll, muttering, “I like it not. Someone else has his eye on you, Master Tol.”
“It was only a dream. Go back to sleep,” Egrin said, settling himself again on his blanket.
“There’s much stirring in the world, natural and unnatural, warden,” Felryn said sourly. “Everything is a portent these days.”
The healer’s words spoiled Tol’s rest for the remainder of the night.
Chapter 5
The next day they found the battlefield.
After their disrupted night, Felryn had arisen in a somber mood. What disquieted him he would not say, but as the morning progressed, signs of trouble appeared that upset them all. Thin columns of smoke rose in the distance. Crows and vultures wheeled overhead. Past noon the wind changed, bringing with it the unmistakable stench of death.
Egrin reined up. Felryn halted close beside him, glancing around with uneasy eyes.
“Where?” the warden asked.
Felryn fingered a deeply engraved white metal disk hanging from a cord around his neck. His face a blank mask of concentration, he pointed straight ahead.
They crossed a shallow creek and rode up the facing draw. The hills parted, revealing a broad, flat vale. From hill to hill, the valley was littered with the bodies of men and horses.
Egrin said nothing, merely touched his heels to Old Acorn’s sides and rode slowly ahead. The war-horse was undisturbed by the sight and smell of corpses. Not so Tol. He clung tightly to Egrin. Although he turned his head from side to side to avoid the horrible spectacle, there was no escape. Death surrounded them.
Felryn’s horse would not follow Old Acorn’s lead through the battlefield. The healer had to climb down and hood the animal’s eyes before it would advance. Even so, the terrified horse trembled in every limb, saliva dripping from its flaring lips, as it placed each hoof with care.
“Look well, Tol, and remember,” said Egrin. “This is what victory looks like,”
“What victory?” The boy’s words were muffled against Egrin’s back.
“These are Pakin dead. See the armbands, the banners?” The battlefield was Uttered with scraps of green cloth. “Those who win battles take their dead away with them. The defeated flee, leaving their men where they fall.”
The carnage was many times worse than what Tol had seen following Lord Odovar’s ambush. Egrin counted more than four hundred Pakins slain. He identified them as local levies, not of the warrior class. They were crudely equipped with leather armor, bronze-tipped spears, and the thick felt caps favored by men of the southern territories. There was very little metal among them-not much armor, no helmets. Here and there were scattered a few men of higher rank. They had been stripped to the skin, their valuable arms and armor carried away by the victorious Ackal warriors. None of their faces was familiar to the warden. Felryn agreed the men had been dead at least two or three days.
At the far end of the vale, Egrin found a mossy bank churned up by the hooves of many horses. Broken sabers Uttered the ground. He dismounted, felt the torn earth with his fingers, and studied the pattern of prints.
“This was not an ambush, but a pitched battle,” he reported. “The numbers were even, but the Pakin levies were no match for warriors of a Great Horde.”
“Imperial soldiers, here?” said Felryn, incredulous.
“Yes, see this sword hilt?” Egrin held up the stump of a shattered weapon. “That’s the pattern used by the Daltigoth Silver Blades, one of four hordes quartered in the capital.”
A horde was a fighting company made up of a thousand warriors. Each horde bore a proud and fearsome name, like the Silver Blades, the Ackal Bloods, or the Red Thunders.
“The fight started out there, on open ground. The Pakins charged, and the Imperial horde drew back, feigning retreat. Then they took the rebels in the flank, broke their formation, and drove them into this trap. Most of the Pakins died here.” Egrin stood up and dusted his hands. “Basic tactics.”
“I call it butchery,” Felryn replied.
Tol listened openmouthed to Egrin’s description of a battle he had not seen, then spoke up.
“These are the Pakins who ambushed Lord Odovar!”
Egrin regarded him skeptically. “How do you know?”
“Some of the men killed in the ambush, the Pakin ones, wore the same sort of hats. They, and the ones who came looking for Lord Odovar, had green cloths tied around their right arms, like these men. I remember wondering how right-handed men managed to do that.”
Egrin studied the fallen rebels again. “I believe you’re right. Good eye, lad!” A fresh thought struck him. “If these are the rebels who attacked the marshal, then Grane must have been with them. As far as I can tell he’s not dead on the field, so he must be on the run. He may still be in the province!”
“Calm yourself, son of Raemel!” said Felryn, as Egrin mounted quickly. “No one knows what Spannuth Grane looks like under his helm. Any one of those stripped nobles could be him.”
“True, but don’t wager on it! Grane would not stand and fight if the battle was going against him. He ran away at the battle of Thingard, and again before the walls of Caergoth.”
As he spoke, Egrin steered Old Acorn in a circle, clearly torn. Duty demanded he go after the traitor Grane, or at least ride back to Juramona with word of the Pakin defeat. But he had made a promise to take Tol home.
Felryn tried to resolve his friend’s dilemma. “Warden, the blood is cold on the ground,” he said. “If Grane abandoned his men as you say, then by now he’s three days hard riding from here.”
Egrin insisted Lord Odovar should be told.
The healer replied, “I’ll tell him. You take the lad home.”
Tol’s farm was half a day’s ride from there. Egrin promised to make straight for Juramona after speaking with Tol’s father.
“On the way back, I’ll cross country to the Caer road, in case Lord Odovar decides to sortie in search of Grane,” the warden said.
“I’D carry your words to him. Farewell, warden. Be on watch, always.”
“I shall. Fast journey, Felryn.”
The healer thumped his heels hard against his mount’s sides, urging the reluctant horse back across the awful battlefield. At the far end of the vale he turned and waved.
“He’s a good man,” Tol said, and he and Egrin waved back.
“The most honorable man in the Eastern Hundred.”
“More than you?” blurted the boy.
The warden looked away to the horizon, absently rubbing one earlobe under his short helmet. His face was devoid of expression.
“I’m not honorable,” Egrin finally said, “only obedient.”
The hills grew higher and closer together as they neared Tol’s farm. Mud squelched under Old Acorn’s hooves. The last of winter’s snow had melted, leaving the high ground dry but the notches between the hills sodden.
