“As I recall,” Janis said, “Your footwork nearly did you in the day I rescued you.”
“No,” Khollo disagreed, shaking his head. “That was just a small detail I overlooked.”
Janis snorted and shook his head impatiently. Ondus ignored him and remained intent on Khollo.
“You can move without being heard or seen?”
“Sometimes,” Khollo said, nodding, uncertain where all this was going.
“Ondus,” Janis said suddenly. “No.”
“But, Janis, you heard the boy’s skills! And we need to know – !”
“I said no!” Janis said ominously, glaring at his second. “And my word is final on this matter. I expect you to respect my judgement where the boy is concerned.”
“But we need more scouts to report on the enemy movements,” Ondus protested. “He could help!”
“No!” Janis shouted thunderously, shooting to his feet. “Khollo will stay here.”
Ondus muttered something under his breath and looked away. Janis eyed him for a moment, then resumed his seat.
What was that all about? Khollo wondered. “Will that be all?” he asked hesitantly.
Janis sighed heavily. “Not yet. Take a seat, Khollo.”
Khollo was surprised by the direct form of address. Normally, he was referred to as ‘boy’. Khollo hoped this new familiarity meant he was being brought into something big.
“The original reason I summoned you here, Khollo, was not to discuss your training,” Janis said slowly, glaring at Ondus. “I sent for you because there is a growing danger to the kingdom, one I believe King Orram is blind to. He is far removed from the front lines, ensconced in Etares at the north end of the Furnier Sea.
“The kingdom has been at peace for ten years now,” Janis continued, sliding to his feet and pacing to the windows. “Our lands stretch east and west around the world, and our people can walk into the setting sun from any northern city right around until they reach the point where they began without fear. The north is controlled by our hardiest villagers, and the seas by our skilled navy and the merchant fleet.”
“Trade has flourished in this age,” Ondus put in. “Cities have grown larger, villages prosper. Nobles grow fat and sleek as they once were. In ten years, the nightmare of the war has been forgotten, as well as what we fought.”
“I’ve read of the war, at the Academy” Khollo said hesitantly. “There are few details, except that the kingdom was ill-prepared for conflict and the heroism of a few men saved us from certain destruction.”
“That much is true,” Janis confirmed. “But what is important to us now is what has not been revealed. Do you know who we fought in that war, Khollo?”
Khollo frowned. That was never explained, he realized. There are no empires elsewhere that we could fight. Rebels would have been much easier to put down, not nearly the narrow escape history records.
“Someone from across the Southern Sea?” he guessed finally.
Ondus shook his head. “The sea is the bottom of the world, lad. There is nothing there but ice and water.”
“Then who did we fight?”
Janis returned to his seat and leaned over it, gripping the back of his carved chair until his knuckles turned white. “We fought an enemy that appeared from within our borders,” he said finally in a tight, angry voice. “We fought monsters, Khollo. The vertaga.”
A chill settled over the room. Khollo shivered and hunched lower in his chair. “Who were they? The vertaga, I mean.”
“Not who, what,” Ondus said, eyeing Janis warily. “The vertaga are not human. They are taller, broader, with thick gray skin and long black nails that can be used as claws. Their mouths are filled with fangs, and on the sides of their heads are curling horns like the mountain sheep in the north.
Khollo tried to picture such a creature and failed. He simply did not have the imagination or the experience to grasp what was being described to him. “Do you have a sketch?”
Janis reached over and slid a single sheet of parchment towards Khollo. On the center of the page was drawn a beast out of nightmare. Muscles bulged beneath a black iron breastplate and legs thick as Najni pines extended from beneath a kilt of hardened leather plates studded with iron. Black, iron-shod boots equipped with nails on the soles covered the creature’s feet. In one meaty hand was gripped a scimitar, in the other a round buckler. The creature’s head was bare, save for the horns Ondus had described. The mouth was a leering slash filled with yellow fangs, the eyes above small, cruel, and utterly merciless.
Khollo’s mouth went dry as he studied the beast. “We fought . . . that?” he finally managed to squeak.
“Thousands of them,” Ondus said quietly. “I would barely come up to that one’s shoulder.”
Khollo sat back in his chair, overwhelmed by the image he had been presented with. In his mind’s eye he saw a battlefield on which stood two armies. One, the smaller of the two, composed of humans, blocked a narrow, twisting pass between two hills. Beyond, a force of monsters, vertaga, nearly twenty times the number of humans. And in between, a vast space strewn with the fallen, carrion birds tearing at their exposed flesh.
Why does this matter now? Khollo wondered suddenly, frowning.
“You’re wondering why we’re telling you all of this,” Janis said softly, his
