spatters and held them to his nose, inhaling deeply before opening his mouth to rub a small smear over his thick tongue. Having fixed the scent in his nostrils, he circled the area, following the unseen trail. Not all orcs had noses as keen as Buurthar’s, and Mhurren could never have managed it-a weakness of his human blood. After a short time the tracker returned to the castle steps, still frowning. “I have read the ground, Warchief, but the tale it tells makes no sense to me.”
“Then tell me what you can, Buurthar. I will not be angry with you.”
“I hear you, Warchief.” Buurthar moved around to a confused series of splatters near the last head in line, the one on the lowest step, and pointed with the tip of his spear. “Here all five heads were dumped together on the ground. Emptied out of a sack, I think. The creature who set the heads where you see them carried them one at a time from this spot. It was a big cat, like a red tiger-look, here you see where it stepped in blood and left a paw print. But it was not a red tiger. I know their sign and scent well.”
“An animal carried the heads in a bag and dumped them here?”
Buurthar shook his head and motioned for Mhurren to follow him. “This is the part that makes no sense to me,” he said. He led the chief and the others about fifty yards from the keep, into the barren, rock-strewn ground a little way off the cart track leading to the gatehouse, and pointed again to the ground. “The blood-scent, the cat- scent, the paw prints… they all stop here, right at this spot. If the creature had carried these heads any farther, I would smell it. It is as if the creature simply appeared right here. It is not natural.”
“Nor is it natural for a tiger, or something like it, to carry heads in a bag and line them up neatly when it finds the right spot,” Mhurren muttered. “You can go, Buurthar. I cannot ask you to track ghosts.”
The warrior struck his spear to his hide shield and trotted back to his post.
“The harmach had some sorcerer with a spell of shapechanging deliver Morag’s head to us,” Sutha said quietly. “Or he had one of his infidel priests summon some sort of invisible cat-demon to perform this task. It is not hard to explain.”
“Explaining it is not the problem,” Yevelda corrected her. “There were two messages sent here, my chief. The first is the one you saw on the steps of the keep. The second is that the harmach commands magic or magical allies to deliver it. If he could arrange for some monster to appear fifty yards outside your walls, he could arrange for that monster to appear inside your walls. Or perhaps in your bedchamber, to murder you in your sleep.”
“I understand it, Yevelda,” Mhurren said.
He turned on his heel and stalked back toward the keep, his mind filled with thought. Before Glister, he already would have had his warriors mustering for the march to Hulburg. But if he began his march, and Kardhel Terov told him to cease, then Mhurren would appear fatally weakened in the eyes of the Bloody Skulls. He would have to make sure that the Vaasan lord would make no effort to restrain him before he told his subchiefs and warleaders to send their spears south. The notion of asking for permission to make war against Hulburg and avenge the mortal insult given to the Bloody Skulls made him seethe with anger, but that was the price he had paid for Vaasa’s aid. If he hadn’t agreed to do as the Warlock Knight bade, Mhurren had no doubt that Terov would have elevated some other chief of Thar to dominance, and the Bloody Skulls would now be another tribe’s weaker allies. If he could not run free, well, then he would make sure that no other wolf sat closer to the master’s table than he did.
Mhurren passed through the gate and turned aside into the stairs that led up to the keep’s eastern tower. These chambers had been given over to the Vaasan warlocks who remained with him to provide his army with its newly found battle magic. Human guards in fine black mail bowed to Mhurren when he approached. “I am not to be disturbed,” he told them.
“Yes, Warlord,” the guards answered. They grounded their halberds to the floor.
At the topmost floor of the tower, Mhurren came to a door, struck it twice in deference to the human custom, and entered. “Avrun!” he said in Vaasan. “I need your speaking magic.”
A fair-haired Vaasan sat behind a small desk, poring through a thick tome. He looked up at Mhurren, slowly stood, and offered a shallow bow behind a cool smile. “Of course, Warlord. I presume this is in reference to the return of your envoys from Hulburg?”
“I want you to tell Terov that the Hulburgans killed my messengers. I march against Hulburg tomorrow at sunset with all my strength. I mean to raze Hulburg, kill all its men, and take its women and children for thralls. The harmach will rue this day before long, I promise you.”
The Vaasan wizard nodded. “Give me ten minutes to prepare the magic, Warlord.”
Mhurren waved his hand in assent, and the human quickly and efficiently began to make ready his ritual. From shelves along the wall he took a variety of arcane implements-tall candlesticks of wrought iron topped with fat yellow candles, jars filled with strange liquids, a skull made of some reddish crystal. He arranged the candlesticks in a five-pointed star, lit the tapers with a magic word, and sprinkled drops from the jars around the candlesticks. He sat down cross-legged on the floor in the center of the candles and used another minor spell to suspend the crystal skull in the air over his shoulder. Finally Avrun opened his heavy tome and read a long passage of some sinister gibberish while Mhurren paced anxiously outside the circle.
The wizard finished with his chants and made a small gesture to the floating skull. The rosy crystal began to glow with a ruddy light. “Kardhel Terov,” he intoned. “This is Avrun, speaking for Mhurren. Hulburg slew his envoys and sent back their heads. Mhurren marches tomorrow night to attack and raze Hulburg.”
Mhurren shuddered at the crawling sense of sorcery filling the small room. For a long moment nothing more happened, and the orc chief wondered if the spell had somehow failed. But then Avrun grunted and straightened, and the crystal skull began to speak. “I am Terov,” it said. “March on Hulburg, crush their defenses, but spare the town until I arrive. I need it. You will be well satisfied with the ransom they pay.”
“Ransom is fine, but Harmach Grigor must die for the insult he gave me!” Mhurren snapped. “I warn you, Terov, it will have to be a rich prize indeed if I find Hulburg helpless before my horde!”
The candles around the Vaasan mage abruptly guttered out, and the small crystal skull sank down in the air. Avrun reached up and deftly caught it in his hand and shook himself slightly before climbing to his feet. “I am sorry, Warlord, but the magic of the sending ritual only allows me to send a single message and receive a single answer. Fellthane Terov did not hear the last thing you said. It would take me some time to make ready another one.”
Mhurren growled and waved his hand. “No matter. I heard all that I needed to hear. The rest can wait for now.”
“Shall I have my Warlock Knights make ready to march?” Avrun asked.
“If you have been told to remain close to me, then you will,” Mhurren answered him. “I go to Hulburg to put my steel at the harmach’s throat. And then we will see what ransom he can pay that will satisfy me.”
NINETEEN
28 Ches, the Year of the Ageless One
Early on the morning after the duel with Urdinger, Harmach Grigor surprised Geran with a sharp rap at his chamber door. Geran had just finished his morning exercises and was preparing to refresh his arcane wards and spells, but he set aside his tome and stood when the old lord limped into the room, leaning on his cane. Grigor glanced at the spellbook. “You’re more of a student now than you once were,” he observed. “You had little interest in arcane matters when you were a younger man, but I see that you’ve learned much in the years you’ve been away from home.”
“I didn’t know it myself until I went to Myth Drannor,” Geran answered. “I learned Elvish there and studied under an elf bladesinger named Daried Selsherryn. My swordplay caught his eye, but he saw that I also had a talent for magic that I’d never suspected.” He closed his spellbook. “What can I do for you, Uncle Grigor?”
“I hope you will forgive the interruption, but Sergen came to see me shortly after sunrise this morning. He presented a demand from House Veruna and the Merchant Council for your immediate arrest on charges of murder.”
Geran snorted in disgust. “The forms might not have been strictly observed, but it was a duel, not a murder,” he said. He’d told Grigor, Kara, and Hamil about his encounter with the Veruna captain the previous evening, expecting that his uncle and his cousin would be appalled by his rashness. To his surprise, Grigor simply heard out his account of events and then asked him to remain at Griffonwatch until the consequences of the duel sorted
