“You’re too generous, Majesty,” the chief Wolf said in his vast, deep voice.
“Maybe. I’ve had a great deal to drink.”
He cast about for another full cup. Tathman took a goblet from a tray borne by a jumpy servant and handed it to the emperor. Ackal drained it.
“Still,” he said, “by sparing one, I’ll make loyal subjects of the rest.”
Tathman bowed his head. “The emperor is wise.”
What Ackal V did not know-or forgot in his drunken state-was that Breyhard’s elder wife was Kannya Zan, cousin of the late Pakin Pretender, and no friend of the Ackal line. Delaying in the capital only long enough to pack a few essentials, she and her children made for the port of Thorngoth. On the way south, Kannya told the story of her humiliation to every Pakin relative she encountered, and there were many.
Chapter 9
The day after the repulse of the nomads, Tol awoke wooden and groggy. He’d grown too accustomed to the relative comfort of his Dom-shu hut. His bedroll seemed to grow harder with every night. He was getting too old to be sleeping on the ground.
After stretching the stiffness from his limbs, he left the lean-to. A grim sight greeted his bleary eyes. Tylocost’s gallows had been filled overnight. The Seventh Company deserters hung there, dark against the brightening sky.
Strong emotions filled Tol: anger, that men should have to die like this, but forgiving cowardice in war only bred more cowards. Then came sadness, at this reminder of the frailty of life.
His melancholy musings suddenly were replaced by puzzlement. The Seventh Company comprised one hundred men; he’d told Tylocost to punish only one in ten, so there should be ten men on the gallows. Yet, more than twice that number of bodies dangled from the improvised gibbets. Those at the far end wore buckskins.
Furious, Tol shouted for Tylocost and Wilfik. The first person to respond was Zala. In response to his demand for an explanation, she said, “Your Silvanesti did as you ordered. Then they hanged the nomad prisoners.”
She could not tell him who had ordered the execution of the prisoners. So, Tol strapped on Number Six and strode into the awakening camp. He shouted again for his lieutenants. Tylocost appeared.
“You bellowed, my lord?” the elf said politely.
“Who gave the order to execute the nomads?”
“ Wilfik. It was a popular decision.”
“Why didn’t you stop them?”
Tylocost pushed back his floppy gardener’s hat. “I am Silvanesti, and still your captive. I have no authority over these people, save what you grant me.”
Tol could barely speak, he was so angry. “They were prisoners of war under my protection! And they could have told us much about the nomad armies!” Lives and opportunity both had been wasted, lost at the end of a knotted rope.
Wilfik arrived at last. His explanation was simple. “The savages weren’t going to tell us anything else, my lord,” he said flatly. “After what they did to Juramona, hanging was too good for them.”
Tol’s fist connected with Wilfik’s broad jaw, and the warrior went down. All around them, heads turned. Even more turned when their warlord’s powerful voice reverberated over the camp.
“Get out of this camp, Wilfik! Get out of my sight! If I see you again after midday, I’ll string you up beside those men!”
Wilfik looked up at his commander in stunned confusion. He opened his mouth to protest, but the fury in Tol’s posture left no doubt he was utterly serious. With as much dignity as he could muster, Wilfik stood, straightened his brigandine, and walked away.
Tol began to berate Tylocost again, saying the elf should have awakened him before letting the prisoners be hanged.
The Silvanesti shrugged one shoulder gracefully. “As a rule, my lord, I try not to interfere when humans are killing each other, but if you wish it, I shall hereafter.”
This bland indifference to the injustice swaying in the wind only infuriated Tol anew. He considered banishing Tylocost, too, but a sliver of reason intruded itself. That might be exactly what the elf was hoping for. Perhaps he was regretting his decision to fight alongside his captor, but his oath of surrender bound him until Tol freed him. And Tol wasn’t yet ready to lose the former general’s expertise.
Instead, Tol ordered Tylocost to have the dead cut down and decently buried. The elf departed, and Tol was alone with Zala.
“In war horror begets horror,” he said.
Tol’s loathing of executing helpless prisoners had been learned at a tender age, when he was forced to watch the Pakin rebel Vakka Zan beheaded in the town square of Juramona. Egrin had been required to do the deed, honor-bound to obey the marshal of Juramona, Lord Odovar.
There was nothing more he could do for the dead, so Tol turned his attention to the soldiers who’d guarded the captives. Once they were brought to him, he asked whether the prisoners had said anything useful to them.
One fellow scratched his head with a meaty hand. “Some of ’em talked bold,” he allowed. “Said as how their chief, Tokasin, would come back an’ kill us all.”
The captives had mentioned two other chiefs-Mattohoc and Ulur-but it was on Tokasin they pinned their hopes. He was chief of the Firepath tribe, which they called the boldest and hardest-riding folk on the plains.
Tol, like most Ergothians, saw the nomads as a faceless mass of mounted foes, cruel, with quicksilver tempers. Learning the names of their chiefs was worthwhile information.
The guards contributed one other piece of information gleaned from the nomad captives. The prisoners claimed to be scouting for a much larger band. Their comrades who had survived yesterday’s battle would return to the main force and that, they boasted, would be the end of Juramona’s pitiful defenders.
Tol drilled the militia all day. He didn’t share what he learned from the guards, but word got around. There was no more trouble with shirkers. The twin specters of nomad blades and the deserter’s noose had resolved all qualms. It was fight or die.
The trick, as Tylocost dryly noted, was to make certain the militia fought, and the nomads died.
Two nights later, Tol went to inspect Tylocost’s work west of camp. The wind was up, sweeping across the long grass. Zala, his omnipresent escort, carried a torch that flared wildly with every gust.
Tylocost had erected a large number of obstacles to screen the vulnerable western approaches. What appeared as random piles of loose masonry and fire-blackened timbers hid a grim purpose. Riders would have to slow their mounts to navigate the narrow passages. When they did, they would be perfect targets for archers and pikemen concealed behind the mounds.
As he drew nearer and details of Tylocost’s defenses became clear, Tol’s brisk pace slowed.
The elf had left an open lane through the center of the field. The enemy would be funneled into this lane. The thigh-high plains grass gave way to loose dirt. A length of rope was buried just under the surface. Some distance further along, Tol could see another patch of disturbed soil. The seemingly clear lane was filled with traps.
“That elf is tricky as a kender,” Tol muttered. Trained Ergothian warriors would never fall for such an obvious ploy, but the reckless, unsophisticated plainsmen just might.
Zala interrupted his admiration of Tylocost’s deadly ingenuity. “My lord, do you hear that?”
Tol started to shake his head-all he could hear was wind moaning around the piles of debris-then came a lull, the gusty breeze died, and he heard it. Zala’s keen ears had discerned a faint rumbling. Not like thunder, rolling through heavy clouds, this was more like the steady, distant roar of a waterfall. Tol knew that sound.
“Run!” he shouted, and they legged it for camp.
Zala’s torch expired, snuffed by the wind of their passage, and she threw it aside without pausing. She
