so-called landed hordes, comprising warriors, retired for the most part, who had been granted estates by Ackal V’s predecessors, Pakin II and III, and the short-lived Ackal IV. As they did not owe their positions to him, the current emperor did not trust the landed warriors. Steeped in the intrigues and plots that were a part of everyday life in the capital, Ackal V was certain these “provincial lords,” as he termed them, would like nothing better than to plan his downfall. He preferred that they and their armed retainers remain scattered on their holdings.
Kiya and Miya argued strategy, while Egrin finished eating. He listened with half an ear to the women, but most of his mind was on the man who sat quietly next to him, by the fire.
Six years was a brief span to a long-lived half-elf like Egrin, and even for a human it was not so great a length of time. Yet, the six years that Tol had passed in the Great Green seemed to have wrought many changes on him, Egrin thought. Some were physical. Tol seemed bigger. Not taller, but broader in the chest and shoulders. He’d allowed his beard to grow and it now reached his chest. His hair, likewise untrimmed, hung loose past his shoulders and was threaded here and there with gray. New lines feathered out at the corners of his eyes, and bracketed his mouth. His eyes, however, were just the same. In them, Egrin saw the memory of the boy he’d watched grow into the finest soldier in the empire.
Other changes were less obvious. Tol seemed somehow quieter than Egrin remembered, less given to speech, more introspective. As the Dom-shu sisters enjoyed one of their all-too-frequent arguments, Tol sat and stared into the fire, giving no sign he even heard the sisters. It was as though he had withdrawn into himself.
Egrin ate the last of his meal and set aside his empty bowls. “There’s more,” he announced.
The Dom-shu ceased their wrangling and Tol looked up from the dancing flames.
“There’s been a second invasion.”
Miya swore. “More lizard-folk?”
“Nomads. The bakali invasion displaced tens of thousands of them. Having lost everything to the lizard-men, they formed an army and now they’re trying to seize as much Ergothian territory as they can. The Eastern and Mountain hundreds are crawling with their warbands, and Hylo is threatened. Some isolated garrisons sent out small detachments, demi-hordes, to stop them, but these were swept aside.”
Tol shrugged, saying, “Who can blame the nomads? For centuries Ergoth has taken their land and slaughtered them in battle.”
“They’re savages!” Egrin exclaimed. Miya snorted, and Kiya gave him a dry look. Embarrassed, Egrin cleared his throat. “Beg your pardon, but the plains nomads are far more barbarous than any forest tribe.”
“Grasslanders,” said Kiya, shaking her head. Egrin didn’t know whether she meant the plainsmen or himself.
Soft snores from Eli, who had fallen asleep with his head in Miya’s lap, recalled them to their surroundings.
Tol rose and carried Eli to bed, a pile of furs in the darkest corner of the hut. Rejoining his comrades, he said, “The chief will have supped by now. He should be told of these events. Let’s pay a visit to Uncle Corpse.”
Kiya and Egrin preceded Tol out, but Miya remained where she was. Only warriors could enter the chief’s great hut. However, Tol gestured for her to accompany them.
“You fought beside me for twenty years, Miya. That should make you warrior enough. If anyone protests, we’ll fight them. That’s tribal law, too.”
Miya stood, hitching a patterned shawl up around her shoulders. “That’s my old husband!” she said, grinning down at him. “I’ve missed him!”
Tol gave her a friendly shove through the door flap.
The Repetition of Births ceremony was the Dom-shu’s most important ritual, celebrated every three years once the chief’s hair turned white. The rites would continue for nine days, with exhausted dancers and drummers being replaced by fresh ones to keep the spirit level high. Voyarunta’s great hut, six times the size of any other structure in the village, was crammed with sweaty, noisy warriors. Most were seated on the hut’s blanket-covered floor. When Tol and his companions entered, the sight of Miya brought the revels to a sudden halt.
“Son of My Life, why have you come here?” said the chief, peering through the haze of hearth smoke at the newcomers arrayed inside the door.
“Father of My Life, a visitor has come from Ergoth. He seeks to deliver a message to us,” Tol answered.
Several of the warriors called for Miya to be sent out. She didn’t budge, but cast a wary sidelong glance at Tol. With his own gaze fixed on Voyarunta, Tol declared, “All here are warriors. Both of the daughters of Makaralonga have fought at my side. Does anyone care to dispute this with me?”
He shrugged off the bearskin. His shoulders, arms, chest and stomach were impressive, rippling with muscle.
Noting Egrin’s wide eyes, Kiya whispered, “He chops wood every day.”
“A great deal of wood, apparently,” Egrin muttered.
Voyarunta, looking very hale despite his mane of snowy hair, waved away his warriors’ objections. “Miya fights better than most of you. She may stand by the door.”
It was a great concession, and the Dom-shu woman swelled with pride. Tol introduced Egrin, and the old warrior moved further into the room and saluted the chief.
“I know you!” Voyarunta said. “You were in the battle where the chief of the grasslanders perished.” He meant Lord Odovar. “You were the one whose sword struck twice for each blow!”
It was an apt description of Egrin’s fighting prowess. Egrin inclined his head in gratitude. The chief bade him speak his message.
Egrin shared the tale of the bakali invasion. He held nothing back, recounting the twin defeats of the imperial hordes in grim detail. A few Dom-shu expressed dry pleasure at their old enemy’s plight, but when Egrin mentioned the second menace-from the plains tribes-the foresters erupted.
“The men of the plains are our brothers!” declared one. “We should stand with them!”
“Death to the iron soldiers!” shouted another.
One particularly tall fellow with bronze skin and yellow hair stood and addressed his chief.
“The gods are punishing the grasslanders for their pride,” he intoned. “Great Chief, will we leave our forest and fight alongside our plains brothers?”
Voyarunta leaned back in his blanket-draped chair. His penetrating blue eyes were fixed on Egrin. “I do not think Twice-Strike came here to rouse the Dom-shu against his own people, Turanaki.”
“No indeed, Great Chief!” Egrin said quickly. “I came to warn the Dom-shu of this peril. No one knows where the host of lizard-men will strike next. It could be the Great Green!”
The blond warrior, Turanaki, made a sound of disgust. “They will not come here! The forest would swallow them. There are richer takings in the west!”
As the foresters debated the merits of aiding the plainsmen in ravaging the Eastern Hundred, Egrin finally realized just how much hostility they felt for Ergoth. Anger held for generations now blazed forth.
Voyarunta silenced them after a time. The chief looked beyond Egrin to where Tol leaned against the doorpost with Miya and Kiya.
“Son of My Life, what say you?”
Tol paused, allowing an interval of silence to pass to dampen the echoes of the heated argument, then he said slowly, “For twenty years, the Dom-shu and Ergoth have had peace. In that time, have the Ergothians ever broken their word to the Dom-shu?”
His gaze traveled around the room. No one spoke because all knew the answer.
“Has trade with the empire enriched the Dom-shu?”
Another question with an obvious answer.
Tol came forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with his old friend. Egrin was still the taller one, but age had begun to whittle down his frame.
“The emperor now reigning is a cruel man, and he never forgets an insult, however slight. If you go to war against the empire, Ackal V will not rest until he has laid waste to the forest. He will kill not only you who fight, but your children, the old ones-all who bear the name Dom-shu.”
Turanaki opened his mouth to speak, but Tol went on, raising his voice. “It may cost the emperor the life of every Rider in his hordes, it may swallow all the gold in the imperial coffers, but he will not stop. He will drown you in the blood of his own warriors if no other means of vengeance remains to him.” Tol shrugged his broad shoulders. “This you should know.”
