Talatha cleared her throat and replied, keeping her eyes lowered, “Great Majesty, I believe they were compelled to do so by their own natures.” She held a hand out, and a lesser priest put a thin scroll in it. “This document is from the time of the Dragon Wars. It speaks of the life cycle of the bakali. After many generations, the lizard folk are driven by instinct to return to the breeding ground of their ancient ancestors.”
The emperor’s brows rose in surprise. “That’s a revelation. Why was I not told this before?”
His words, spoken gently, drained the color from Talatha’s face. Nervously, she fingered her gold medallion of faith.
“The, uh, document is a most obscure one, Your Majesty. No more than a gloss, pasted onto a larger scroll in the temple library, it was discovered only this day, during the battle, as we searched for the meaning of these events.”
Ackal V made no reply. Instead, he called for wine. He did not offer refreshment to anyone else. Talatha and her colleagues remained still, gazes deferentially on the ground. Only after he’d drained his golden goblet twice did Ackal dismiss Talatha. She led her people away in grateful haste.
The emperor addressed his warlords again. “We must make absolutely certain all the bakali eggs were destroyed. I don’t want to have to fight again when the creatures’ progeny hatch out among us!”
The bakali stronghold would be excavated, he decreed, and every egg found inside destroyed. Ackal did not specify who was to undertake this prodigious task, and the commanders began to shift uncomfortably and mutter among themselves. Would the emperor really set his noble warriors to digging, like so many slaves?
Ackal V laughed, a short, harsh sound. Cuffing his son, he said, “See, Dalar, how the mighty lords of Ergoth tremble at the thought of a little labor!” The boy managed a weak smile at his father’s wit.
The warlords were visibly relieved by the emperor’s next orders. All warriors not going with Vanz Hellman were to organize into bands and sweep the countryside. All peasants, farmers, or stray travelers they found would be drafted into work gangs; any who resisted would be put to death. These gangs would dig through the bakali mound.
“One thing more.”
Ackal V sat back, gripping the arms of his throne. “The tradition of my ancestors demands that I, as victor, raise a mountain of our defeated enemies’ heads here on the battlefield.”
He paused to send a cold glare across the assembly, then added slowly, “This task you will conduct yourselves. It is the duty of the Great Horde to offer up the enemy dead to their emperor.”
Not by word or look did the nervous warlords betray their distaste for the gruesome task he had set them.
By sundown, the emperor’s order had been obeyed. Two great pyramids of death rose beside the fallen mound. One was made of bakali heads, the other of decapitated corpses.
Valaran stood alone in the palace solarium, before a magnificent wall of firetongue orchids. Bright red in daylight, the stamens of the orchids glowed in the dark like hot coals. Filling a corner of the sunken garden with color, the rare flowers were a pet project of Ackal V’s youngest wife, Lady Halie. Only eighteen years old, Halie was an extraordinary beauty, with thick red-gold hair cascading well past her waist and eyes as violet as the twilight sky. She was the emperor’s current favorite. Valaran knew her husband. He could not be swayed by mere beauty. Halie’s loveliness was coupled with a quiet, obedient disposition-just the sort to find favor with Ackal V.
Valaran had come to the solarium to read. This morning that simple act, which had sustained her soul for as long as she could remember, brought her no peace. She couldn’t concentrate. As daylight brightened the isinglass panels above her, she abandoned the marble bench to walk the path that wound through the garden.
If only Dalar was here! Were she certain of the boy’s safety, she could revel in her daydreams of Ackal V hacked to pieces by lizard-men. Instead, all such thoughts ended the same way: Dalar shrieking in hopeless fear, Dalar set upon by bakali, Dalar lying dead on a distant battlefield…
She smote a clenched fist on the low wall beside the path. She would not give in to mindless fear. She was a woman of reason and intellect, a Pakin. Her husband might be evil, a brutal tyrant, but he wouldn’t allow harm to come to his son. Succession was intensely important to him.
If only her other nightmare could be rationalized away so easily.
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”
Valaran flinched at the unexpected interruption. A lady of the court was rushing toward her. Flushed with excitement, her starched headdress askew, the woman dropped a quick curtsey, her slippers skidding on the white marble.
“Majesty! Talatha, priestess of Zivilyn who accompanied His Majesty, has sent word to the College of Wizards,” she panted. “The emperor has achieved a signal victory-the lizard invaders are defeated!”
Valaran said nothing. In fact, she was so pale, so motionless, so long silent, the lady-in-waiting grew concerned.
“Your Majesty?”
“Praise the God of Battle,” Valaran finally said, her voice toneless. “The empire is saved.”
Chapter 20
Pale predawn found Tol riding slowly down the ranks of the Juramona Militia. Tylocost rode beside him. Egrin and the mounted hordes were on their way, but with Miya at risk inside the city, Tol could not wait.
He directed the men to straighten their line, to hold shields and spears up. It wasn’t going be easy to intimidate the governor of Caergoth with only two thousand foot soldiers and five hundred Riders. Wornoth commanded at least twenty-thousand seasoned troops. Still, knowing the governor for the weakling he was, Tol felt it worth the risk to try to bluff him into releasing his prisoners.
The militia was deployed across the face of a low knoll east of the city. At their backs, scarcely a quarter- league away, flowed the Caer River. Instead of their usual close ranks, the men were positioned in open order, like spots on checkered cloth. Shields were held out on their left and spears to their right, as they tried to take up as much space as possible. From the high walls of Caergoth they might appear as though twice their number. The demi-horde of Riders Tol held in reserve, just behind the knoll.
Tol and Tylocost turned their mounts about and rode back toward the center of the line.
“What if the garrison sorties?” the Silvanesti asked. “We’ll have to hold them off till Egrin arrives.” Tylocost’s disbelief was silent but unmistakable. Tol nodded to some veterans he recognized in the ranks, then said, “What’s the matter? Don’t elves like to gamble?”
“In point of fact, no. We find the human love of hazard inexplicable. It’s an extravagance we prefer to avoid.”
Tol chuckled. As a general, Tylocost was famous for taking enormous risks. At the Battle of the Capes he defeated an Ergothian force eight times larger than his by dividing his army. The Ergothian commander, Lord Lembroth, could not attack one of Tylocost’s divisions without exposing his flank to the other. Lembroth’s nerve failed utterly after the elf repelled attacks on both forces. Lembroth lost his army and his life.
Tol was taking a terrible risk today. The treasure recovered from the nomads lay unguarded in Tylocost’s hidden camp. Egrin, with thirty thousand Riders, plus Hanira’s Tarsans, was at least half a day’s march, perhaps a whole day’s, away. If Wornoth sortied all his hordes, no one in Tol’s small army would live to greet Egrin.
Tol and Tylocost took up positions at the center of the line. The sun had cleared the knoll behind them, its light streaming across Tol’s army and onto the walls of Caergoth. Lookouts on the walls would have that glare in their eyes. So would Riders emerging from the gate on this side of the city. In a situation like this, any advantage was welcome.
Signal flags went up from the towers along the wall. Horns sounded, muted by distance and thick stone walls.
