A Hero's justice

Chapter 10

he dawn lit up a plain teeming with nomad horsemen-the very tribes that had destroyed Juramona, a walled town defended by a professional garrison.

Tol, keenly aware of his own tiny, amateur force, ordered his companies to form for a quick march back to camp. The kneeling men rose wearily to their feet. The nomads kept a wary eye on the Juramonans as they moved away.

Tol was watching the nomads just as carefully. “All companies will retire in line,” he said. “Keep your faces to the enemy!”

The Ergothians withdrew slowly. The nearest nomads followed, maintaining the distance between the two groups. When the rear of the militia reached the edge of their camp, the noncombatants gathered behind them. Civilians and soldiers alike backed through camp, trampling their own tents. Zala found herself next to Tylocost. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“Hylo Bay?” he suggested.

The rear ranks reached the ashes of Juramona. When the front ranks, those closest to the enemy, were treading on ashes, Tol called a halt. With the ruined town at their backs, they could not be outflanked; no riders would dare try to enter the tangle of broken walls and burned timbers.

To their credit, the Ergothians stood ready, pikes leveled. The noncombatants, clutching their pitiful belongings, huddled behind them, some sobbing, others tight-lipped. Fear, the morning’s heat, and the ash churned up by their passage had soldiers and survivors panting. Tol called for water. The bleating of a ram’s horn sent him up onto a pile of scorched masonry for a better view.

A small group of riders left the main body of nomads galloping forward. Some wore brightly burnished helmets, no doubt taken from slain imperial officers. One fellow rode ahead of the rest and blew again on a curved ram’s horn.

“Sounds like they want to parley,” Tol reported, coming down from his perch. “Tylocost, stay here. If there’s treachery, command falls to you.”

“How nice.” The Silvanesti continued to wipe the grime from his sweaty face.

Tol shouldered through his exhausted, doomed men, with Zala following.

“You should stay here,” he told her.

“I know,” she replied, not slackening her pace.

The small group of nomad riders had formed themselves into a semicircle. Three helmeted figures sat in the center-the three chiefs, Tol surmised: Tokasin, Mattohoc, and Ulur. Once Tol and Zala drew near, the two ends of the curved line swept forward, closing the circle.

The nomads were lean and sun-browned, dressed mostly in leather, with bits of captured armor here and there. Some had the fair hair and long jaws of high plainsmen, others the burnished bronze complexions and tightly curled hair of the northern seafarers. Unlike the forest tribes, who decorated themselves with feathers, bones, and seashells, the plains nomads favored metal adornments. They traded extensively with Hylo, Ergoth, and Silvanost, obtaining silver and golden trinkets from their settled neighbors. Tol observed quite a lot of jade. The only source of the mineral he knew was in dwarf territory; the plainsmen must be dealing with Thoradin, too. All the nomads in the group were male.

The youngest of the three chiefs was a rough but striking rogue with a shoulder-sweeping mane of red hair and a thick mustache. Despite the warmth of the morning, he wore a fine, heavy mantle of fox fur, whose color matched his hair perfectly. On his right was an older, thick-bodied man, with a bull neck, dark skin, and a lumpy, shaven head. The third chief was older still, but lean and tough as whipcord. His iron gray hair was twisted into numerous long braids, his beard divided into three plaits, held tight by jade beads woven into them.

Although he could hear Zala’s rapid breathing behind him, Tol felt surprisingly calm. This was his element, matching wits against dangerous foes. The despair that had gripped him on beholding the vast nomad host vanished. Time to show these barbarians who they were dealing with.

Zala noticed the change in his attitude. Tol’s back had straightened, his expression hardened, and a new spring was now his step. She couldn’t fathom it. In her head, a single word pounded over and over: run. Only by sheer force of will did she keep her eyes fixed on the waiting chiefs and fight the urge to bolt and not stop running till the walls of home surrounded her again.

Tol murmured, without looking at her, “Calm yourself. We’re not lost yet.”

He strode forward, halting only when they were within arm’s reach of the red-haired chief’s horse; its roan color matched its rider’s furs and hair. Raising a hand, he greeted the three chiefs Dom-shu fashion.

“You have come to speak. Speak.”

The red-haired chief leaned forward on his horse’s neck and grinned unpleasantly. He’d cut quite a dashing figure until then. The image was spoiled by a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth.

“I wanted to see who’d put spines in these dirt-foots,” he said. “Must be you, Ergoth.”

“I command here.”

“You’ve put up a good fight,” said the oldest of the three chiefs, tugging on one of the three plaits of his beard. “For this, we’re willing to let you and your people leave this place. It is ours now.”

Zala’s gasp was audible only to Tol. He said, “We are where we must be. It is you who must go.”

Red Hair laughed. “Who are you, Ergoth?”

Tol gave his name and the dark-skinned chief, heretofore silent, exclaimed, “I heard Tolandruth was dead, slain by the treacherous slavemaster he called emperor!”

The chiefs exchanged glances. Braided Beard said, “Since you have given us your name, I will speak ours. I am Ulur, chief of the Tall Grass Riders.” He indicated his burly colleague. “This is Mattohoc, chief of the Sand Treaders.”

The dark-skinned nomad grunted in acknowledgment. Red Hair spoke for himself, saying, “I am Tokasin, chosen chief of the Firepath people, and leader of this warband.”

Warband he called it. There must be ten thousand nomads at his back, a greater concentration of plainsmen than had ever been known.

“My itch has been scratched,” Tokasin announced to no one in particular. “Tolandruth or not, put down your arms and depart, or we’ll trample you into the ashes of your city!”

“It is you who must depart, Tokasin,” Tol said coolly. “I have come back from exile to drive every marauder from the empire. Return to your lands in the east and I will not punish you further.” He gestured with his chin at the ruined town behind him. “Many injustices have been inflicted on your people in the past by the empire. I will count the sack of Juramona against that tally, but here your cruelties must end. Go home!”

Ulur and Tokasin laughed at Tol’s bold demand. Mattohoc did not. He regarded the Ergothian thoughtfully.

Tokasin ended the parley with a ringing boast: “I will build a tower of skulls here, and yours will sit at the top, Ergoth!”

The three chiefs wheeled their horses in tight circles. They and the rest of their party began to ride back to their waiting warriors. The two heralds blew their horns, ending the truce.

Tol started back to his people, with Zala pointedly guarding his back. She never took her eyes off the nomads.

“Are we going to die?” Zala muttered.

“Certainly,” he replied. “But only the gods know when.”

The Ergothian pikemen parted ranks, allowing Tol and Zala to pass.

Tylocost hailed them. “Welcome back, my lord. Did they surrender?”

Tol repeated the gist of the discussion, with Zala adding Tokasin’s remark about building a tower of skulls. The tired militiamen stirred anxiously, like a herd of elk scenting a panther.

Frowning, Tol loudly declared, “Our fate is in our hands, not theirs! They’re not sure of victory, else they would not have bothered to parley Companies, stand to!” The Juramonans took up their pikes.

Tol went to the rear of the formation and spoke to the unarmed refugees huddled in the ruins. With the enemy host before them, all must play a part in the coming battle. He told any who could stand and bear a weapon to do so.

No one argued. The old and infirm, the sick, and the injured-all shuffled into place, adding some three hundred bodies to the lines. When the stock of salvaged pikes ran out, Tol armed them with axes, billhooks, scythes, and any other long-handled weapon or tool that could be found.

Tol walked down the line with Tylocost and Zala behind him, speaking not only to the new recruits, but to all his people.

“Keep your eyes forward. Pay no heed to what’s behind you. All that matters is the enemy before you. No one is to break ranks without orders. The surest way to kill yourself and the rest of us is to open our lines, so keep your heads. Don’t fence with the enemy. Keep your points to them, and let them exhaust themselves trying to break through our wall of spears.”

He told Tylocost to take the right, the north, where the ground was higher, the ruins steeper.

The Silvanesti’s pale eyes narrowed. Abandoning his usual flippant tone he snapped, “You need not give me the easier position to defend!”

“That is my order.”

“Well, at least keep the half-breed with you. She’ll only get in my way.”

Zala glared at him. She’d never intended to leave Tol’s side, and all of them knew it.

Saluting with his sword, Tylocost said, “Here’s to luck, my lord. I trust the gods have granted you an everlasting supply.”

The relative calm was shattered by the screeching cries that heralded a nomad attack. The plainsmen were coming now and at a gallop. A ripple of nervous fear passed through the Ergothian ranks, but Tol and his officers speedily moved to quash it.

The dead-on charge puzzled Tol. It would have been much easier for the nomads to stand off and rain arrows upon the Ergothians. Instead, Tokasin was gambling on a quick, crushing victory, using a hammer when a needle would do.

The morning sun bathed the nomads in golden light. They were charging directly into its glare. This seemed to cause them little difficulty, but five paces from the Juramonan spearpoints they wrenched their horses hard around. It was obvious the militia would not simply break and run in terror, and the riders had no intention of impaling their animals.

Just to provoke them, Tol ordered a single company-his Seventh, the deserters-forward just far enough to drive the riders back. Some slower nomads were plowed down by the phalanx of pikes, but most danced out of reach. When other nomads poured in to attack the exposed sides of Tol’s company, he swiftly withdrew his men again.

A deadly rhythm ensued. The nomads charged, stopped, and the Ergothians sallied out to drive them back. The strange dance went on all morning, a tense, exhausting business, where the slightest misstep could mean disaster. The sun mounted higher in the sky, and the defenders of Juramona prayed Corij would send a scorching day. The militia had access to the town’s wells; children brought water to those fighting. The plainsmen had only the water they carried, and this was soon gone.

The god was pleased to answer their prayers. The heat increased; the yellow dust of the Eastern Hundred choked every throat, coated man and horse alike. The Ergothians drank deep and hung on.

Two hundred dismounted nomad archers gathered well out of pike range and began loosing volleys of arrows at the closely packed militia. Their shields went up, along with makeshift covers of scavenged planks, canvas, and wicker. The standoff continued.

Zala wiped gritty sweat from her forehead with an equally gritty hand and drew Tol’s attention to Tylocost. The elf sat atop a broken column in full view of the enemy, legs crossed and floppy hat tied securely under his chin.

She pronounced him a fool, but Tol, shaking his head, said, “He is one the finest generals of this age.”

“You beat him.”

“I was fortunate. Even the gods can be undone by an unexpected turn of fate.”

Horns blasted to the right and left. A solid wall of horsemen, brandishing swords, rumbled past the archers and started up the hill toward the center of the Ergothian line. As they had done this many times before (though never with so many riders), no one was overly concerned. The militiamen-once craftsmen, traders, and merchants, now increasingly seasoned as fighters-braced for the onslaught.

Ten paces away, the massive column picked up speed.

“They’re charging home!” Tol said, looking left and right along his lines. “Dig in! Stand firm!” He drew Number Six.

Three paces was as close as the nomads could approach and still have room to turn their ponies aside. That limit was reached-and still they came on. A spontaneous shout went up from the Ergothians, a third of whom were kneeling with their pikes butted against the ground.

“Juramona!” cried a thousand hoarse voices.

The nomads hit the Seventh and the companies on each side, the Third and the Eighth. Sheer weight of numbers bowled the Ergothians down. Many were trampled. An equal number of nomads and their horses were shredded by the hedge of spearpoints.

The Ergothian line was eight ranks deep. In moments the riders had bludgeoned halfway through. The clang of iron, the screams of the dying and their killers rose to a deafening roar. A nomad herald raised a horn to his lips and blew, but not a note could be heard over the unimaginable din.

A flash of color caught Tol’s eye. Red-haired Tokasin was flank to flank with his men, driving them forward.

Tol pushed through his tightly packed men, heading for the nomad chief. More than once he fended off attacks, cut at enemy riders, and felt the whiff of a blade through his hair, but he was making progress toward his goal. Then, a horse’s hindquarters swung around and caught him full in the chest. Down he went.

Unshod hooves kicked at his ribs and back. He scrambled to his feet, only to find himself directly in the path of a sword-wielding horseman about to cleave his head in two. Suddenly, a Juramonan thrust a fire-blackened spearhead into the nomad’s neck. Tol was astonished to see his savior was Wilfik. All this time he must have been hiding, in the ruins.

The dishonored guardsmen said nothing. Neither did Tol. Battle drew them apart again.

Tol continued to fight his way through the press toward Tokasin. When a riderless pony came across his path, he swung onto its back and bawled a challenge. Whooping with joy, Tokasin spurred his red horse at Tol.

The two horses collided hard enough to loosen both men’s teeth. Tol thrust overhand with Number Six. The chief leaned out of reach and aimed straight at his opponent’s eyes. Tol parried, noting the nomad chief wielded an Ergothian cavalry saber.

Tol urged his borrowed pony forward. Seizing the collar of Tokasin’s fox mantle, he drove his hilt into Tokasin’s jaw. The chief’s head snapped back, but he kept his seat. Tol hit him again just as their horses stumbled apart. Nose streaming blood, Tokasin fell sideways off his horse.

There was no opportunity for Tol to push his advantage. A heavy blow fell across his shoulders. Instantly his arms went numb, an icy chill racing to the tips of his fingers. He knew he was falling-the dust-veiled sun wheeled past his gaze-but he didn’t even feel himself hit the ground.

All sound ceased. Horses towered over him, pirouetting in the dance of battle. Blades and spears continued to fall. Yet he could hear nothing. He thought this must be what it was like to die.

You never see the blade that kills you, Egrin used to say.

That homily was meant to reassure nervous new shilder. Now Tol knew it was true.

He became aware of a shadowy figure standing over him. He thought it was Tokasin, come to finish him off, but soon realized the figure was in fact defending him from any who drew too near. Vision blurred by the stunning blow and the roiling dust, he couldn’t make out his protector’s identity.

Tol struggled to rise, cursing his awkwardness. The figure looked down at him, and he caught a glimpse of a bushy black beard and formidable brows over pale eyes.

Wilfik.

A set of hooves suddenly came plummeting toward Tol’s head, and he had to roll swiftly aside. Continuing the motion, he retrieved Number Six from the dirt and sprang to his feet. When he got himself upright, Wilfik was gone.

Tol was a good nine paces from his own line. The nomads had broken his half of the militia in two, driving the right portion northward, back to Tylocost’s position. Pride swelled in Tol as he saw the remaining Ergothians withdrawing in good order to the stump of a tower that had once graced the wall of Juramona.

Coated with dust, Tol was indistinguishable from the mounted foes around him. This fact saved his life. The nomads took him for a fallen comrade, as no other Ergothian had dared break their line. He wended his way through the milling horsemen, felling only a sole nomad who tried to stop him.

When he reached the broken tower, the militia regarded him in breathless wonder. They thought he’d been killed.

Tol nodded tiredly. “I thought so, too. Where’s Wilfik? I have him to thank for my rescue.”

The soldiers regarded him blankly. Tol said the disgraced soldier had fended off nomads until he could get back to his feet.

The captain of the Eighth Company shook his head. “It couldn’t have been Wilfik, my lord. I saw him slain before you were unhorsed. A nomad blade took his head from his shoulders.”

If the captain was certain of what he’d seen, no less certain was Tol. Apparently, even after death, Wilfik had been determined to redeem himself.

A furious blast of rams’ horns ended the discussion. Plainsmen wheeled their ponies about and flowed back down the hill. The slope before the broken tower was heaped with the slain and wounded from both sides. Injured horses fought to stand. Men cried out for water, or mercy.

One of the pikemen near Tol cried, “Mishas spare us!”

He pointed. The nomads were re-forming, plainly preparing to charge again. The brave defenders of Juramona could not withstand another assault.

Before panic could take hold, another blast of horns sounded, this time from the far right of the nomad host. A sizable body of horsemen faced about and rode off to the west. The remaining nomads milled about in confusion, an emotion mirrored on the faces of their foes.

Tol shaded his eyes from the late afternoon sun, trying to see what was afoot. At the same time, he warned his people to stand fast.

Yet another fanfare sounded on the left, from east of the ruins. A roar went up in the distance, which was quickly drowned out by the thundering sound of horses approaching at the gallop.

A battered pikeman sank to his knees, blood draining from his face. “We’re dead!” he moaned. “More nomads have come!”

The leather-clad host before Tol’s position wavered, then spontaneously broke apart. Half the riders turned their steeds east and galloped away. The rest scattered to the winds.

The horns sounded again, closer, and a great rush of relief surged through Tol’s veins. He lifted Number Six high, shouting, “Those are brass trumpets! Ergothians! Riders of the Great Horde!”

Arrayed in the famous wedge formation created by Ackal Ergot himself, four hordes of imperial cavalry passed through the confused ranks of the nomads like a knife into a sack of grain. The remaining plainsmen resisted briefly, then they too scattered.

The armored wedge drove straight across the field. Any plainsmen in its way were ruthlessly sabered. Before the sun touched the western horizon, no living enemy remained.

From their last-ditch position at the base of the shattered tower, the weary militia knew they’d been given’ back their lives. Without orders, the men sank to the ground. A few were asleep as soon as their heads touched the burned turf.

A score of Riders peeled off from the main horde and cantered toward Tol. The first face he saw was Egrin’s. A broad grin split Tol’s face. The grin became wide-eyed surprise when he spotted Egrin’s companions. Riding beside the former marshal of Juramona was a gray-haired warrior in an old-fashioned pot helmet. All the Riders wore armor twenty years out of fashion, and bore the standard of the Plains Panthers horde.

Egrin reined up and dismounted. Tol limped to him and they clasped arms.

“Never have I been so glad to see your face!” Tol declared.

“And I yours, my lord,” Egrin replied warmly.

Tol asked how they’d found him, and Egrin gave a rare grin. “All the raiders in the Eastern Hundred had gathered here,” he said. “Why else would they return to a despoiled town but to kill Lord Tolandruth?”

The gray-haired warrior riding beside Egrin was a big, clean-shaven fellow mounted on a fine gray gelding. The Rider had a familiar, misshapen nose.

“Lord Pagas!” Tol said, saluting the commander of the Plains Panthers, with whom he had campaigned long ago in the Great Green. “You looked like Corij himself, coming to our rescue!”

Pagas looked pleased by the praise but made no reply. A warrior of long service and steadfast courage, he had a high, nasal voice, the result of his misshapen nose. Although the injury had been honorably received in battle against centaurs, Pagas found his childish voice a severe embarrassment, and spoke little.

The Plains Panthers was one of the landed hordes, not part of the regular imperial army. All were former Riders of the Great Horde, who now lived and worked on country estates.

In time of crisis, an emperor could summon the landed hordes to his service. Ackal V had never called the Panthers, nor any other landed horde, to war. Unlike his full-time warriors, Ackal couldn’t bully the gentry, nor chop off their heads if they displeased him.

“He’s losing the war,” Pagas said, referring to the emperor. Word had spread about the defeats inflicted by the bakali. The debacle at Eagle’s Ford was only the latest in a series of blunders.

The lizard-men were now across the Dalti, Egrin related. Whether they would attack Daltigoth was still an open question. Thus far, they had not directly assaulted any walled city, as they lacked siege equipment. But west and south of the capital lay the richest land in the empire, the very heart of Ergoth. The region’s farms and herds fed the entire country. What was more, the sea route to the Gulf lay that way, too. If the bakali ravaged it, or worse, simply occupied it, the empire would be done. The cities would starve. Ergoth would shrivel.

Tylocost’s half of the Juramona militia marched over, providing Lord Pagas and his retinue with the shocking sight of a Silvanesti in command of Ergothians. Tol asked Egrin if he’d received word of Kiya, but the old warrior had not seen the Dom-shu woman since she’d departed for Hylo.

Pagas ordered his men to pursue the defeated nomads. Another landed horde, the Firebrands, marched half a day behind the Panthers. When they arrived, the Firebrands would occupy the site of Juramona and await new orders.

Once these dispositions had been made, Pagas dismounted. He drew his warrior’s dagger and held it aloft in salute.

“My lord,” he piped, reddening at the sound of his voice, “I pledge my honor and loyalty to you! Command us, and we shall follow you, even into the Abyss!”

It was a stirring pledge, but Tol heard none of it. Leaning against Egrin’s war-horse, he’d passed out cold.