beneath the axe or spear of a legendary Bloodskull chief or champion. But most expressed contempt, not respect. The skulls of women and children taken near places such as Glister or Hulburg or Thentia cluttered the walls, mocking enemies too weak to defend their families and homesteads from Bloodskull raids. Scores of orc warriors and their women slept in this room, and they were just beginning to stir when Mhurren and his guards made their appearance. “Kai! The warchief! The warchief!” shouted the Skull Guards as they kicked and prodded careless orcs out of the way.
Mhurren threw himself into the thronelike seat on its dais at the end of the hall, one hand resting on a short sword at his side. More than once he’d been attacked in that very seat, and he’d learned to keep steel close at hand. He surveyed the warriors in the hall for a moment and spotted one that would do. “Huwurth, take five spears and bring the Vaasan,” he commanded. “Tell him that I summon him, and that I am ready to hear him out. Give him time to make himself ready, and let him bring two hands of bodyguards if he wants. If he wants more than that, tell him no. Come back if he refuses.”
Huwurth, a young warleader, nodded. “I go, warchief,” he said. Despite his youth he was quite clever and patient, a rare combination. He gathered five warriors from his band and led them from the hall. Huwurth was smart enough to ignore almost any offense the humans might give, as long as he was doing Mhurren’s bidding. Others among the Bloodskull warleaders and berserkers simply couldn’t have walked into that camp without finding some mortal quarrel with a human who met the eye too long, or looked away too quickly, or turned his back, or found some new way to invite a battle.
Mhurren composed himself to wait, brooding with his chin on his fist as he studied the warriors watching him. There was a small commotion off to his right, and the warpriest Tangar appeared with his group of acolytes. To become a priest of Gruumsh, He Who Watches, a priest had to pluck out an eye, so Tangar and his followers each wore a thick leather patch stitched to cheek and brow. Evidently the warpriest had hurried from his chambers, for his acolytes were still busy fitting his armor plate to him as he strode into the room. Doubtless Tangar could not abide the idea of Mhurren holding court without him present. “You send for the Vaasan?” the cleric demanded.
The warchief frowned. “I will hear him out, priest,” he answered. He didn’t like the idea of Gruumsh’s priest hovering over his shoulder, but there was little he could do about it. He decided to occupy himself by tending to a chief’s duties and looked to the nearest Skull Guard. “I will hold judgment,” he said. “Does any warrior here have a quarrel to lay before me?”
A hale, scar-faced warrior came forward and dropped his spear on the floor. “I will speak,” he growled. “I am Buurthar.”
“I see you, Buurthar,” Mhurren replied. “You have set down your spear. Speak.”
Buurthar nodded and spoke briefly, explaining how another warrior’s young sons had shirked their shepherding duties, resulting in the loss of two of his own sheep. “I say that Gaalsh must give me two of his sheep since his lazy sons were careless of mine. Gaalsh says that the missing sheep were likely taken by a red tiger, and so he owes me nothing. What is your judgment, Chief?”
Mhurren had to judge over quarrels just like this every day. If a strong chief didn’t, one of the orcs in the quarrel would just kill the other, and the brothers or sons of the dead warrior would kill in return, and before long the hold would run red with the blood of the feuding orcs. Gaalsh, the other warrior, wasn’t at Bloodskull Keep, so Mhurren decided against him. “Hear my word, all of you! Until someone finds some sign of this tiger, Gaalsh must give two of his sheep to Buurthar. Now, pick up your spear and go.”
The veteran retrieved his spear, grinning in vindication. Mhurren doubted that any tiger had made off with the missing sheep, but he did not want to accuse a warrior who was not in front of him of stealing the other’s livestock. He heard two more quarrels between his warriors. Then Huwurth and his followers returned to the great hall.
Before them strode a tall human in armor of ebon plate, his face hidden beneath a black helm that was fitted with gilded ram’s horns curling from the sides. A single servant in a tunic and cloak of dark gray followed, a human woman who wore her reddish hair cut short in a warrior’s manner. She had a light mask of black across her eyes, but her face was otherwise bare. Six Vaasan knights in fine black mail guarded them.
Mhurren motioned with his hand, and the orcs before his throne shuffled out of the way, making space for the humans to approach him. The Vaasan lord was confident enough; he strode through the ranks of orc warriors filling the room as if he couldn’t care less that he’d just put fifty spears at his back should Mhurren decide to have him killed. The black knight halted a few feet before the throne and reached up to remove his helm. Beneath his helmet the man had pale skin, hair of iron gray, and a clean-shaven face. His eyes were a deep, bloody crimson.
“You are Warchief Mhurren?” the man asked in passable Orcish.
“I am Mhurren. Who are you, Vaasan, and what do you want with the Bloody Skulls?”
“I am Kardhel Terov, an fellthane of the Warlock Knights. And I am here to offer you power, Warchief-the power to make yourself the king of all Thar. Every tribe in this land will call you master and do as you bid them.”
“We are already the strongest tribe in Thar!” Tangar the priest shouted angrily. “Who dares to make war against us? No one, human!”
Fanaticism was occasionally useful, Mhurren reflected. The cleric saved him the trouble of raising his own voice. He held up his hand to restrain the priest from speaking further, since he did not really want to provoke a fight with the Vaasans without at least finding out why they were here.
“Power? What power?” Mhurren sneered.
“I can deliver to you the Burning Daggers, the Skullsmashers, and the Red Claws,” Terov said. “They will call you lord, pay you tribute, and march as you command. I can arm your warriors with a thousand hauberks of good steel mail. I can give you ten Warlock Knights to wield their battle magic in your service. And I have control over a number of strong monsters from the high mountains-manticores, giants, chimeras, even a young dragon or two. They will be yours to command. Tell me, Warchief Mhurren, what would you do with an army such as that?”
Mhurren laughed harshly. “Raze Glister, smash Hulburg and Phlan, lay Thentia and Melvaunt under tribute… and if you give us warships too, I suppose we might cross the Moonsea and burn Myth Drannor while we’re at it! Why not?”
The Warlock Knight’s mouth twisted in a cold smile. “I don’t think we’ll have to burn the elves out of their forest-yet. But as for the rest, so be it. The cities you named I will give to you to sack or enslave as you wish.”
“They are not yours to give away, human.”
“No, but they are yours to take, Chief of the Bloody Skulls. Glister you might manage without my help, perhaps Hulburg too, but the others are beyond your strength. I can change that. Are you interested? Or shall I go to Guld of the Skullsmashers or Kraashk of the Red Claws and make one of them king in your place?”
The warchief’s laughter died in his throat. Mhurren leaned forward in his throne and scowled at the Vaasan. “You mock me, Vaasan,” he said slowly. “Assuming you can do all that you say, why would you? What price do you demand?”
Kardhel Terov glanced at the crowded audience chamber and switched to the human tongue. “I am told you understand Vaasan, but few of your warriors do,” he said in that language. “My price is an oath of fealty to the High Circle of Fellthanes, sworn on my iron ring.”
“You come into my keep and expect me to bend my knee to you?” Mhurren hissed in the human’s language. He surged up from his seat and seized a spear from the nearest of his Skull Guards. With a fierce cry he hurled the weapon with all the strength of his rage right at the Vaasan’s heart.
The heavy iron-shod spear flashed through the air, striking Terov in the center of his chest-and rebounded, shattered into kindling. The Warlock Knight staggered back a step and grunted from the sheer mass of the spear, but he was otherwise unhurt. Mhurren’s sudden fury abandoned him. He knew his own strength. Thrown at ten paces, the spear should have transfixed the human and carried two feet or more through his back. But instead the weapon had snapped like a dry twig.
The surrounding orcs roared in anger and astonishment at the sorcery revealed in their midst. Some recoiled in fear, while others rushed forward to drown the Vaasans in a black tide of stabbing blades before any more magic could be used. But the black-veiled woman behind the Warlock Knight quickly slashed her hand across her body and hissed a few words in some sibilant language. A racing windblast of ebon flames appeared around the Vaasan party, howling and swirling as it walled the Bloody Skull warriors away from the humans. A warrior in the back of the room threw another spear, but it was caught by the sorceress’s black flames and burned to ash in midair.
“Hold your warriors, Mhurren!” Terov shouted. “We are protected by powerful magic, and any who approach will be killed!”
