hard charge, then they quit!”
Tol agreed. Since their first attack on Tylocost’s defenses, the plainsmen had been fighting the Ergothians persistently for many marks, probing here and there. Although they broke off when things got too hot, they didn’t ride away, but came back at a different point.
Drenched in blood and sweat, the Ergothians battled on, leaning on their pikes to rest whenever the enemy gave them breathing space. Perhaps this was the nomads’ new strategy-to wear them down-but surely they and their animals must be exhausted, too.
Clouds in the eastern sky showed the first pink tinge of the coming dawn. Tol’s little army was drawn up on a slight rise below the ruins of Juramona, the western plain spread out before them. The first sliver of sun peered over the horizon at their backs, its light sending their shadows out ahead of them, banishing the last of the long night.
On beholding what the new sun illuminated, Tylocost exhaled slowly, face blank with disbelief.
“Astarin have mercy,” he breathed.
From north to south, as far as the eye could see, the western plain was covered with horsemen. The prisoners’ boasts had been true-the main body of nomads had returned when word of their advance party’s trouble reached them. The defenders of ruined Juramona, whittled by battle to barely eight hundred, faced thousands upon thousands of fresh, ferocious enemies.
The banquet hall of the imperial palace in Daltigoth was an enormous room one hundred paces long and forty-four wide, paved in black granite and walled with the finest North Coast gray marble. The vaulted ceiling rose to a height of two stories. A single massive table filled the center of the hall. It seated six hundred, and more guests could be accommodated at temporary tables erected alongside. For an imperial banquet, massive bronze ovens were wheeled in to keep hot the tremendous quantities of food necessary to serve so many.
The hall was so large it had its own weather. On damp days, mist formed in the high crevices of the ceiling, and dew collected on the cold stone floor. The worst heat of summer never penetrated the thick stone walls. If the great ovens weren’t present, roaring with contained fire, the chamber could be downright chilly.
Most found the banquet hall unpleasant unless it teemed with diners, but Empress Valaran relished it. In the vast open space, she could tell she was not being spied upon. Her every whisper in the palace was heard frequently by the wrong ears. In the echoing emptiness of the banquet hall, she almost felt free.
Clad in a white dressing gown quilted with red thread, the Empress sat at the head of the long table. Her son, Crown Prince Dalar, sat on her right. The only other occupant of the hall was a single female servant, standing a few steps away by a wheeled sideboard.
Dalar slurped loudly at his soup. The empress rapped her pewter spoon once on the rim of her golden bowl. Chastened, the five-year-old prince swallowed his next mouthful more decorously.
Twenty rooms and three floors away, the Consorts’ Circle was celebrating the birthday of Princess Consort Landea, the emperor’s fourth wife. A well-fleshed, vain chatterbox with a fondness for sweetmeats, Landea followed her husband’s example: the news of Lord Breyhard’s defeat did not interfere with her merrymaking. Her suite rang with shrill laughter, as sweet wine and honeyed confections were consumed in staggering quantities. The festivities would go on all night. Never mind that Breyhard’s army lay dead along the Dalti shore. Never mind the city seethed with discontent, riots, and murder. Not even the execution of Breyhard’s young wife dampened the spirits of Landea and her idiot friends.
A clang of metal on metal echoed lightly in the hall, pulling Valaran out of her dark thoughts. Dalar had tapped his spoon on the rim of his soup bowl and was looking up at her with a glint in his green eyes.
“Mama,” he said, “you’re fidgeting.”
Valaran realized she’d been drumming her fingers on the tabletop, just the sort of restless behavior for which she always chided her son. The look on his face was so endearing she couldn’t help but smile, but she thanked him quite seriously.
The boy returned his attention to his soup, pleased at having caught her. His mother never fidgeted. She could sit unmoving through even the longest, most boring speeches and ceremonies.
Her own dinner had congealed by this time, but Valaran didn’t notice. She continued eating mechanically, her thoughts once more on the terrible situation in the city.
Since word of the debacle at Eagle’s Ford, Ackal V had been on a rampage. Enraged beyond the point of reason, he ordered the families of the leading warlords in Breyhard’s hordes punished. Labeled as weaklings unfit to serve the empire, the warlords’ adult sons were beheaded. Their wives, sisters, and daughters were condemned to slavery on imperial estates far from the city. Any councilors or courtiers known to have favored Breyhard were likewise punished. The headsmen had been at it for days-another reason Valaran supped in the banquet hall. Here she was spared the sickening sound of the executioner’s axe.
The doors at the far end of the hall burst open. Two Wolves entered, one announcing, “His Majesty, the Emperor of Ergoth!”
Valaran touched her lips with a snowy napkin, and stood. The servant stepped forward to shift the heavy chair for the young prince, and Dalar hopped down.
Ackal V stormed in. These days he was perpetually furious. No richly bedecked councilors or warlords in glittering panoply dogged his heels. He was surrounded, as always, by his brutal, loyal Wolves. A black bearskin cape of prodigious weight was draped over his shoulders, and he had taken to wearing gloves, even indoors, but never could seem to keep warm.
“Lady, why are you here?” he rasped. Out of breath from his continuous tirades, he was disheveled, red hair and beard untrimmed and wildly awry.
Valaran replied calmly, “For dinner, Your Majesty.”
“I can see that! Why aren’t you with the Consorts’ Circle? Your absence is an insult to Landea!”
Valaran bowed her head. “I wished to dine with our son, sire. My heart is too heavy with recent events to pass an evening in idle pleasure.”
Ackal V plucked a morsel of bread from his son’s plate and chewed it rapidly. “You always have a glib excuse, don’t you?” She said nothing, as he glared at her. “Someday I’ll have your head, lady.”
“Your Majesty has my head any time he desires it,” she said, gazing steadily at him.
The Wolves, lounging casually around their master, exchanged startled looks. Few dared to speak thusly to the wrathful emperor, but Ackal V reacted with dark amusement.
“By the gods, you’re the only man in the whole palace, besides me!”
The emperor’s mercurial mood had turned remarkably affable. Perhaps it was all the bloodletting in the plaza. Dispatching underlings always cheered Ackal V.
Dalar had been edging slowly toward his mother since the emperor’s arrival. He stood now half-concealed by her dressing gown, pulling nervously at a red thread hanging from its silky surface.
Ackal V approached his son’s chair. The servant moved quickly to pull it back but was forestalled by a glaring Wolf. The emperor seated himself. His lip curled as he regarded the meal before him.
“What is this filth you’re feeding the boy? Carrots? Milk soup? A man needs meat!” He sniffed the pewter cup. “Fruit juice? He should be drinking beer!”
“He’s only a child.”
“I’ll make a man of him,” Ackal said, and bawled for a libation.
The servant filled a tall goblet with beer. The emperor drained it. The servant refilled it, and Ackal ordered Valaran to sit. Dalar stood by her chair, on the side farthest from his father.
“Have some beer, boy.” When Dalar didn’t move, Ackal V grabbed the boy by the back of the neck and shoved a brimming cup to his lips. Dalar swallowed once, then coughed convulsively. Disgusted, his father took the drink away.
A snicker came from one of the Wolves. The emperor looked to the giant he called “my Argon,” and snarled, “No one laughs at my son and lives!”
From beneath the silvery wolf pelt he wore, the giant drew a dagger in a lightning-swift motion and plunged it into his hapless comrade. The fellow dropped to the black granite floor and lay still.
Valaran was so proud of her son. Although Dalar’s hand clenched convulsively around hers, the boy made no sound at all.
Ackal finished the last of his son’s meal, drained the goblet of beer again, and jumped to his feet. Valaran
