three-toed bakali prints.
Tol knew those long, narrow footprints. One of the Dom-shu sisters had been abducted by the lizard- men.
Taking the lead himself, he drove his men relentlessly onward. The tracks continued, following the old stream bed.
Near dusk, they found Sanksa and Kiya hiding in a tree. With happy shouts, the two swung down, and for the first time in their “marriage,” Kiya threw her arms around Tol and embraced him with real ardor.
“I knew you would come!” she said. “Hurry! They have Miya!”
As they moved out, Kiya explained that she, her sister, and the two men had risen well before dawn and gone out to reconnoiter as planned. When the mist first formed, they climbed trees to see over the fog. Then the bakali appeared. Communicating by hand signals, the scouts decided Valvorn and Miya would warn Tol, while Kiya and Sanksa stayed aloft to keep an eye on the lizard-men. Once Miya and Valvorn were in the fog, they lost consciousness, however, and the bakali fell on them. Valvorn was slain immediately and Miya taken captive. Sanksa and Kiya had been following the lizard-men all day. Tol had caught up with them as they rested briefly in the treetops.
“Miya is in their camp, two hills away,” explained Sanksa. The plainsman’s copper-colored face was grim. “I counted twenty-eight lizard-men.”
Tol drew his saber. “Let’s rush them!”
“Wait,” Egrin said, struggling to draw breath. “Why not work around the camp and take them one by one?”
“There’s no time. Besides, the way everyone’s coughing, the bakali will surely hear us coming.”
Tol sent Tarthan’s healthy men straight on, while four companies under Narren, Wellax, Allacath, and Lestan followed as closely as they could. Egrin’s band would swing wide on the right, while Frez’s men took the left. The remainder, under steady Darpo, would wait in reserve, moving up where and when the situation warranted.
Tol followed Tarthan’s men through the widely spaced trees. Light was failing fast, and he didn’t want the bakali to elude them in the coming darkness.
From the top of the hill, they plunged down the slope, slipping and falling in the loose leaves. Deaf oldsters could have heard them coming, and as they advanced up the facing slope arrows flickered through the trees. A few men were hit, and the first wave of Ergothians faltered.
Rallying his men, Tol hacked through a wall of briars and kept going. Arrows thudded into trees and turf around him. Gasping and coughing, but still slogging forward, Narren’s company topped the hill and started down behind Tarthan’s. Tol heard crashing in the underbrush, punctuated by hacking and wheezing, and knew Egrin’s men were on their way as well. He saw the dark silhouettes of several bakali as they stepped out from behind trees to loose their missiles. More of his men toppled, arrows in their chests.
“Long live the emperor!” shouted Tarthan, raising his sword high.
The soldiers answered in ragged fashion and charged uphill the last twenty paces. Confidently, the small group of bakali waited, thinking the line of sharpened stakes around their camp would halt the humans, who could then be punished by a rain of arrows. Tol reached the stakes first, and wormed between them without much trouble. The lizard-men had bungled. They had spaced their stakes to stop enemies as bulky as themselves, not such slender humans.
The bakali were poorly equipped with plundered weapons. Although they fought tenaciously, by the time Egrin’s men closed in from the opposite side, the lizard-men were all dead. Tol searched the camp for Miya, finding her under a flimsy lean-to of willow leaves and moss. She was staked out on the ground, hands and feet bound with thick rawhide straps. Tol was shocked to see her at first because she’d been stripped of her clothing and her skin was covered with bloody red streaks.
“Husband!” she shouted. “Glad to see you. Get me loose, will you?”
Egrin and Narren arrived at the lean-to, and Miya managed a surprising yelp of modesty. Startled, the two men withdrew.
Tol sawed at her bonds with his dagger. “What happened? Did they hurt you?”
“Nay, I’m not harmed.” She stared in the direction where Narren and Egrin had come and gone, making sure they did not return.
“What are all these marks?” He rubbed a finger down her arm. The red streaks smeared at his touch.
She explained the bakali had been in the process of marking her for butchering when Tol and his men arrived.
“These lizards eat humans!” she said. “Lucky for me, they like certain cuts better than others. They took too long, arguing over who would get what part of me.”
The image she conjured up was horrible, but Tol found himself grinning with her.
“What part did they consider the choicest?” he asked, thinking thigh or calf, but Miya pinched the ball of her left thumb.
“Two of the lizards were going to fight to the death over who got this part of my hands,” she said with a shrug.
Miya recovered her discarded clothing, using a scrap of hide to scrub away the bakali’s butcher marks.
Tol said, “I’m glad you’re well. Kiya would never forgive me if anything happened to you.”
“Huh! She stayed safe in a tree. Next time, she gets to run from lizards.”
Shouts from the bakali camp sent Tol dashing out of the lean-to. Tarthan was waving to him.
“We found another prisoner, my lord,” Tarthan called.
Tol followed him into a crude bark hut, expecting to find one of the woodcutters. It was dark inside, but he could see a man sitting in the dirt, legs crossed.
“Someone bring me a light,” Tol said.
“No need,” said the stranger. “I have one.”
A glowing yellow ball formed, hovering over the stranger’s outstretched hand. By its light, Tol saw that the man was somewhere past thirty years of age, with thinning brown hair and a high forehead. He wore a belted gray robe, striped on the sleeve and hem in blue satin. The linen was much-mended, yet the garment was still far too fine for the forest. His fleshy face was drawn and haggard, the countenance of one accustomed to easy living, but who hadn’t experienced much lately.
He uncrossed his legs, standing awkwardly. “I am Mandes,” he said, pronouncing his name as though it were recognizable and important. “At your service, sir. And to whom do I owe my deliverance?”
“I am Tolandruth of Juramona.”
“Ergothian, aren’t you?” Tol nodded. Mandes gave a slight bow, saying, “Thank you for rescuing me, my lord. I thought my days were truly numbered!”
In response to Tol’s original call for light, Allacath arrived, bearing a blazing brand. Kiya and Narren were close on his heels. Mandes drew his outstretched fingers together, and the globe of light he had created flared and died.
“How long have you been a prisoner of the lizard-men?” Tol asked.
“Many days. I’ve not eaten in so long. Can you spare a crust or two?” Narren gave Mandes what rations he had on him. The former captive devoured the stale bread and smoked beef strips.
They left the tiny hut, Mandes wincing with every step. He had large, soft feet, and was obviously unused to being barefoot. He looked around the camp, counting the dead bakali.
“Five are missing,” he said.
Tol waved a hand. “Don’t worry. They’re all dead. I killed the others this morning.”
Mandes’s thin brows arched. “You? Alone?”
“Yes. My warriors were paralyzed by a sorcerous mist.”
“And you weren’t affected?”
Tol let the question fade, as the answer was obvious. He was watching the reunion of the Dom-shu sisters. Kiya and Miya did little more than grunt and nod at each other, but he could tell they were delighted to be together again.
The bakali camp yielded little else of value-a handful of coins, a woman’s silver torque, and a hodgepodge of weapons, most in poor condition. Tol set a party of his healthiest soldiers to work building a pyre for the lizard- men’s bodies. There was enough disease abroad in the land without adding rotting corpses to the mix. Six men in
