A Hero's justice

Chapter 12

The bakali were across the Dalti.

The news flashed through the streets and squares of Daltigoth. No one knew who first delivered the awful tidings, but within a day, everyone in the capital had heard them. Prices of food, wine, cloth, leather, and other commodities tripled in a single day. A family’s carefully horded savings evaporated before their eyes. For the common folk of Daltigoth, there was only one recourse: they rioted.

Hundreds of people spilled out into the streets and market squares, smashing sellers’ stands and assaulting merchants. The city guards were quickly overwhelmed. In the Canal District, warehouses were broken open and looted. This encouraged hundreds more to take to the streets and make their way to the waterfront to join the plundering.

Ackal V, wrapped in furs despite the summer heat, listened stone-faced as anxious representatives of the merchants’ guilds recited the growing chronicle of lawlessness. When they finished, silence descended on the audience hall. The interval lengthened, grew awkward, and the guildmasters and merchants nervously shuffled their feet.

“Summon the city garrison, Your Majesty!” urged the chief of the goldsmiths. “Give the rioters a taste of imperial iron!”

Still, Ackal V said nothing. He seemed lost in a dream, eyes staring into the distance. Valaran, seated at his side, prompted him almost inaudibly. Her veil, white this time, allowed her to do this without attracting the notice of the assembled commoners. Ackal V glanced at her and smiled. The empress drew in a breath. The closest ranks of petitioners recoiled from the deceptively benign expression on Ackal V’s face. They knew only too well that when the emperor smiled, blood would flow.

“The garrison is arrayed to protect the Inner City,” he said. “There it will remain.”

The merchants and guildmasters dared not protest. Valaran did so on their behalf, albeit most tactfully, her voice low.

“Sire, please reconsider. The safety of the city depends on order being kept.”

“Oh, I shall put Daltigoth in order.” He raised his voice. “Tathman! Captain Tathman, where are you?”

The Wolf stepped forward and bowed stiffly.

“Captain, you and the Wolves will stop the rioting,” Ackal V said simply.

Equally simple was the reply: “As you wish, Majesty.”

Tathman’s sepulchral voice always made the hair on Valaran’s neck rise. The assembled guildmasters were stricken. The thought of the Emperor’s Wolves set loose on the city stunned and terrified all.

The emperor said, “You want order, don’t you? You want an end to the looting, don’t you? My Wolves will pacify the city in one day-maybe less.”

They had come to beg for protection, so the merchants and tradesmen could hardly protest, yet all knew the Wolves were capable of any atrocity. Recruited from the poorest, most distant provinces of the empire, they owed nothing to Daltigoth and everything to their patron.

Ackal V stood abruptly. In a body the guildmasters shrank back from him.

“You see? You have only to ask, and your emperor responds!” He folded his arms and glowered down at the cowering men. His words laced with irony, he added, “I know you’re anxious to return to your shops. Go, and spread the word that peace will soon return to the city-peace guaranteed by the Emperor’s Wolves.”

They managed to depart without actually trampling each other, but no one could mistake their desire to be elsewhere.

Ackal nodded to Tathman. The captain and the other Wolves followed the guildmasters and merchants out.

The next order of business was the emperor’s council with his warlords. Lackeys struggled forward with a carpet-sized map of the land east of Eagle’s Ford. They unrolled it at the emperor’s feet, and the leaders of the Great Horde lined up along the map’s edges. The warlords saluted Ackal V, but there was a notable lack of fervor in their greeting.

Consternation gripped Valaran as she realized she didn’t recognize a single face among them. The warlords from her first husband’s reign were gone-slain by bakali or nomads, or executed by their own emperor for failing to win victories. Only two commanders of experience remained, Lord Tremond and Lord Regobart. Tremond governed the city of Thorngoth, on the south coast. He and his hordes guarded the mouth of the Thorn River, doorway to the heartland of the empire. Regobart commanded the garrison at Six Dunes, the imperial fortress near Tarsis. The empire’s longtime enemy had been quiet so far, but Ackal V did not dare withdraw Regobart’s hordes, for fear the Tarsans would join against the empire.

Most of the new warlords were quite young. There were a few graybeards, men loyal to the Ackal line who’d been recalled from home and hearth to serve in this time of crisis. But not one of them had ever commanded more than a handful of hordes, much less an army.

“The enemy is across the Dalti,” Ackal V said, his matter-of-fact tone at odds with the frightening news. “Their strength and purpose are unknown. Where and how do we destroy them, my lords?”

One of the graybeards, Andruth by name, stepped forward. “Your Majesty, we have twenty hordes concentrated at Verdant Isle.” He bent stiffly and placed a fist-sized onyx token on the map at a spot some five leagues from the capital. “Twelve more are coming down from the Northern Hundred under Lord Ducarrel, and eight are mustered at Bengoth. Lord Crumont’s army has fallen back to the Ackal Path to defend the capital.” Andruth set more tokens down at those spots.

“A line two hundred leagues long and only ninety-eight hordes to defend it?”

Andruth scrubbed his iron-colored beard and exchanged a look with several of his older comrades.

The emperor knew the meaning of that look. “I will not call up the landed hordes! Fat landowners and their sheep-herder minions! I might as well cast the crown of my ancestors into the gutter and be done with it!”

“Majesty, the landed hordes are loyal to the empire.”

Valaran admired the old general’s nerve. His well-chosen words were a veiled reproofs-loyal to Ergoth did not necessarily mean loyal to Ackal V.

“In the reigns of my uncle and father, of unfortunate name”-the emperor meant Pakin II and III-“landed hordes fought against the dynasty and for the line of the usurpers.”

Many provincial hordes had indeed aligned themselves with the Pakin Pretender. That was ancient history to everyone but Ackal V.

Andruth nodded, “Few warriors from those days remain, Majesty. There are over one hundred and fifty landed hordes available. They need only be summoned to service.”

Ackal kicked over the onyx marker signifying the troops at Verdant Isle. “Mention those traitors again and I’ll have your tongue out!” he snarled. Andruth firmed his lips and said no more.

“Send couriers to the Seascapes and the Southwest Hundred,” Ackal V said, resuming his seat. “Muster every imperial horde in both provinces and march them”-he looked at the map-“to Gaer.”

This was a small town in the fertile, forested triangle between the Thorn and Dalti rivers, southwest of the city. Scribes took down the emperor’s order, and couriers were dispatched immediately.

The warlords took turns describing the progress of the bakali through the open country northeast of the capital. Following their usual pattern, the lizard-men moved in a tight column, driving out every human they encountered.

Thousands of refugees were streaming south, to Daltigoth, seeking protection. So far the enemy was moving more west than south, toward the hill country between the capital and Ropunt Forest. There would seem to be nothing there to entice them-no cities, not even many farms. The council listened to learned sages from the College of Wizards speculate on the bakali’s goals, but in the end, no one could say with confidence what the lizard-men would do.

A courier arrived, and hurried to whisper in Andruth’s ear. The old warrior said, “Your Majesty, there is news from the east-a messenger from the governor of Caergoth!”

The messenger came forward. Although exhausted and still covered by the dust of his journey, he saluted his emperor smartly.

“Wornoth, by Your Majesty’s grace Governor of Caergoth and Marshal of the Plains Hundred, sends you greetings,” the messenger declaimed.

He then described rather grim conditions in Caergoth. The city was strongly held by eleven hordes, but food was in short supply as marauding nomads had cut off incoming supplies.

The emperor appeared bored by another litany of trouble, but the courier’s final piece of news pierced his disinterest.

“There is good news Your Majesty! We have word of a victory over the plainsmen!” Surprise rippled through the council. “Lord Wornoth has it on good authority that the raiding tribes of Chief Tokasin were defeated near the razed town of Juramona.”

The name of Tol’s hometown made Valaran’s pulse quicken.

“Who has done this? What general? What hordes?” Ackal V queried sharply.

The courier flushed. “Nothing more is known, Your Majesty. Foragers from Caergoth caught some nomads fleeing south. Lord Wornoth had them questioned. Under torture the savages admitted that their chief, Tokasin, had led some four or five thousand plainsmen to Juramona to destroy a band of Ergothians. Instead, he was himself destroyed!”

“Andruth, what imperial troops remain in the vicinity?” the emperor asked.

The old general, lately come to his post, plainly didn’t know. “They could he remnants of Lord Bessian’s men.”

The courier shook his head. “Forgive me, Majesty, great lords, but the nomads said the Ergothians were not Riders of the Great Horde. They fought on foot.”

Astonishment gusted through the audience hall. Valaran, found her husband glaring at her. His thoughts were plainly the same as hers, only far less kindly intended.

“Where’s Winath?” Ackal shouted. “Send the Mistress of the White Robes forward!”

Steady old Winath slipped through the press of armored warlords. She looked small among such company, but carried herself with great poise.

“Old woman,” Ackal said, “scry for me what’s happening at Juramona. Put all your sages to work on this. Nothing else is important right now.”

“Yes, Majesty.” After a brief pause, she added, “We’ve not had much success scrying the distant provinces, sire. An unknown power obscures every scene, like a wall of fog.”

The emperor’s eyes were hard. “Your failures interest me not at all, White Robe. Find out what I want to know, or give way to someone who can.”

Winath understood him perfectly. If she did not succeed, she would face the same gruesome death as her predecessor, Oropash.

As the wizard departed, Valaran, claiming fatigue, excused herself. She exited slowly and with all decorum, but outside the audience hall, she dismissed her escorts and hurried up a small, hidden staircase that led to the rear of the imperial library.

A male scribe working within uttered a startled squeak as he beheld the empress’s entrance. He fled as the law required, and the other scribes likewise abandoned the library. As the main doors banged shut behind them, she knew she need not fear interruption.

She flipped her veil back over her head. Heart hammering, hands shaking, she took down the cedarwood chest that held the Ergothinia and quickly freed the magic mirror from its hiding place. She lifted its lid, but only her own wide, shadowed eyes stared back at her from the mirror’s perfect surface.

“Where are you, wizard?” she hissed. “I must speak with you!”

She continued her attempts to contact him until the lamp’s oil was exhausted and the smoky yellow flame went out. Helbin never appeared. Valaran slammed the mirror box shut, all but cracking the precious glass with the force of her frustration.

Where was Helbin? He was supposed to remain at Tuva’s Blockhouse on the Plucked Path, keeping watch on the advancing bakali, while waiting for Lord Tolandruth to appear from the east. Valaran had no doubt the victory at Juramona was Tol’s doing. Only he could lead foot soldiers successfully against swarms of horsemen. But where in Chaos’s name was Helbin?

Valaran took a deep breath, mastering her emotions. She had to maintain her poise, or Ackal V would know his suspicions were correct. He would know Tol was back in the empire. There could be any number of innocent reasons for Helbin’s silence. He might be involved in an incantation, or perhaps he’d left the blockhouse for a short time and not taken his mirror.

Or perhaps he’d been detected! The wizards in the Tower of High Sorcery had not gained their places by being foolish. Winath’s people might have found Helbin and neutralized his activities. He might even have fallen victim to random brigands or nomads.

She returned the mirror box to the cedar case, and the case to its place on the shelf. Her fears were pointless. Whether Helbin was lost, she certainly was not. She had many resources, her design would go forward. As long as there was breath in her body, she would not give up.

And what of Zala? The half-breed had had plenty of time to find Tol, and perhaps she had succeeded. Valaran could easily imagine Tol, upon learning of his hometown’s fall, rushing there to rally the survivors in the province. It would be a logical step, and an honorable one, just like him. It also would explain both Zala’s tardiness and the unexpected victory over Tokasin’s rampaging tribesmen.

For the first time in weeks, Valaran smiled. Even now Tol might be on his way to her.

She seated herself at a nearby table. Taking a fresh page of vellum and a sharp quill from the small store on the table, she unfastened the pendant from around her neck.

The pendant was a rose, wrought in silver, three finger-widths wide. Hollow, it was actually a tiny flask. Such trinkets were nothing out of the ordinary-two other intricately worked pendants had been made for the empress, to hold the scents she preferred. Valaran had chosen the innocuous silver rose to hold not perfume but a special ink. She’d learned of this unique fluid while reading the private memoirs of the Empress Yetai, chief consort of Emperor Ackal III.

She opened the tiny concealed cap and dipped a nib in the ink. On touching the page, the colorless ink turned pale lavender. Valaran wrote swiftly. As the ink dried, it faded from sight, and would become visible again only when the letter was held in steam containing certain herbs. Empress Yetai had used the vanishing ink to communicate with her lover, Lord Gonz Hellmann, as they plotted the murder of her husband.

Valaran preferred not to dwell upon the final fate of Yetai: betrayed by her lover to save his own life, the long-ago empress had been found guilty of treason and executed by her husband.

The note was addressed to her chief agent in the city. The plan is progressing, she wrote. The Wolves are coming, but do not fear. Proceed as you have been doing. Our reward comes soon.

Even with the concealment of Yetai’s ink, she kept her words vague. After adding some coded details about money and arms, she turned the parchment over and wrote on the other side, in normal ink, an innocent order for writing supplies for the imperial library. The order would be delivered to the Scriveners’ Hall today, where her minion would pass it along to its true recipient, who knew how to uncover the secret message.

Valaran tucked the sealed missive into the sleeve of her gown. In the corridor outside the library she encountered the chief White Robe, Winath.

The wizard greeted her. “Seeking a palimpsest?” Valaran asked.

“No, Majesty, I seek you.”

Valaran offered her chilliest royal smile-lips firmly together, eyes half-closed-as she looked down at the older woman. “Yes?”

At the wizard’s suggestion they moved away from the library entrance. Once they turned the corner into a narrow side passage, Valaran heard the pack of impatient scribes scurrying back into the library.

Satisfied they were alone, Winath said, “Majesty, I have recently come across some writings of my predecessor, Yoralyn. I think they offer insight into the current crisis.”

Valaran could think of numerous crises facing them just now, but she merely waited for the White Robe to continue.

“The inability of our scryers to observe the doings of the bakali has always smacked of interference, Majesty. Now I am sure of it.”

Alarmed but outwardly composed, Valaran prompted her with a nod.

Winath lowered her voice even further. “Has Your Majesty ever heard of a millstone?” Valaran said she had not. “It’s an artifact, made by the ancient Irda race, for protection against magic,” Winath explained. “It works, so the old books say, like a sponge, absorbing all ethereal power it encounters.”

Although an interesting fact to Valaran the scholar, Valaran the empress could see no point to this conversation about a legendary artifact. She allowed her impatience to show.

Winath added quickly, “Majesty, according to Yoralyn’s papers, Lord Tolandruth possessed just such an artifact!”

Not even Valaran’s great self-possession could withstand that revelation. Astonishment bloomed on her face. The old woman’s words explained so much that Valaran instantly believed her claim.

Years ago, Tol and Val had enjoyed trysts in the garden of the wizards’ college, despite the barrier spells that protected it. As long as Valaran was with Tol, she could pass through the spells without hindrance. She’d asked him about his ability, but he would say only that knowing the secret would endanger her. He’d also survived every murder attempt by the rogue wizard Mandes, when others fell like autumn leaves around him. People said Lord Tolandruth possessed the gods’ own luck. Perhaps it was not luck, but the ancient knowledge of the Irda that protected him!

“Majesty,” Winath said loudly, interrupting Valaran’s thoughts. “I feel it must be the millstone that obstructs our efforts to spy upon the bakali. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Valaran did not understand the old wizard’s apology.

“Sorry to be the one who tells you that Lord Tolandruth must be collaborating with the enemy.”

The statement was so absurdly wrong Valaran almost laughed. Poor Winath. Although a notable scholar, she had never really been groomed for leadership. When it came to politics, she was out of her depth.

“Majesty, Lord Tolandruth must have turned against the empire out of hatred for his humiliation and exile.”

Valaran’s slow nod hid her racing thoughts. A chilling realization suddenly came to her. Maintaining her regal mask, she said, “Have you told anyone else about this, Winath?”

“No, Majesty. Yoralyn’s manuscripts are protected by grievous wards. Only the chief of the order has the power to read them.” A dark shadow passed over the wizard’s lined face. “Oropash must have known-may he rest in the arms of Draco Paladine.”

“You have not approached the emperor?”

Winath looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Such a powerful artifact should not fall into the wrong hands,” she replied carefully.

The empress agreed, and Winath relaxed. “Majesty,” she asked, “what should be done about this?”

Valaran linked her arm in the old woman’s. The wizard was startled by the intimate gesture. As Valaran began to walk, the White Robe accompanied her.

“That is indeed the question: what is to be done with this knowledge?” Valaran murmured. After a thoughtful pause, she asked, “You’ve had no success piercing the veil surrounding the bakali?”

Winath admitted they had not. Even attempts to scry ahead and behind the field of obscurity, thereby detecting the direction of the enemy, had yielded contradictory and unhelpful results.

The two women mounted the winding stairs leading to the servants’ quarters. It was midafternoon, and the warren of rooms was empty.

“Is it possible, Winath, that the veil over the bakali is a simple ward, well cast by a powerful magician?”

“It’s possible, Majesty, but there aren’t many who could work so deep and long-lasting a spell.”

“Could you?”

Winath shook her head, looking somewhat regretful. “My specialty is language and conjuration. I was never strong with wards. Yoralyn was a powerful wardmaster, as was Helbin.”

The White Robe glanced at the empress, but she did not seem especially disturbed by mention of the Red Robe, branded a traitor and coward by the emperor.

A whiff of smoke came to them. They were passing a window slit in the circular stairwell. Valaran glanced out and saw plumes of gray smoke rising from various parts of the city.

“Helbin, you say?” she murmured. “He disappeared, yes?”

“Yes, Majesty. Before the bakali reached Caergoth, he stole out of the city and fled. The Red Robes searched for a time, but Helbin is clever. If he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.”

Winath stopped abruptly. “By all the gods! Helbin! Majesty, do you think he-?”

“Why not? You said he was skilled at warding.”

“But why would Helbin aid the bakali?”

The empress did not reply. They had reached the top of the spiraling stair, a turret on the roof of the palace. Still linked arm in arm with the White Robe, Valaran said, “Come, let me show you something.”

They went out onto the narrow balcony that encircled the turret. The balcony was protected by a low parapet. From here, the vast panorama of the imperial capital spread out beneath them. Four distinct columns of smoke rose from the sprawling collection of buildings, and the wind brought the sound of harsh voices, the clatter of arms, and the screams of the angry and anguished.

“The city is reeling,” Valaran said sadly, “like the empire. What has taken two centuries to create could be lost in our lifetime, Winath, unless we are prepared to fight for it.”

“Of course, Majesty.” Winath gripped the empress’s arm with both hands.

Valaran’s voice hardened. “The emperor is more than a cruel tyrant. He is mad. Not like my late husband, the unfortunate Ackal IV. He lost his wits completely. No, Ackal V knows exactly what he is doing, and he chooses the path that most gratifies his lusts. Do you understand?”

“No, I’m sorry. Majesty, let’s go back inside, please.”

“I have suffered many outrages, to my person and my lineage. When the bakali appeared on our border, I took them for a sign from the gods. They would be my instrument for removing Ackal V from the throne of Ergoth.”

The wizard’s face was ashen, and not from fear of the height.

Valaran added, “It was I who sent Helbin out of Daltigoth. And Helbin, not Lord Tolandruth, raised the veil over the bakali.”

Her eyes were distant, clouded by emotions Winath couldn’t read. “To save a dying man, it is often necessary to administer very strong medicine, unpleasant though the remedy may be. When the Great Horde is defeated, and the emperor’s authority exhausted, he will be overthrown.”

“That’s treason!”

The strange distance vanished, and Valaran looked down into Winath’s shocked face.

“No,” the empress said firmly. “Patriotic necessity.”

Valaran caught the wizard’s wrists in her hands and pushed her backward to the low parapet. Disbelief showed on Winath’s face for only a heartbeat, then horror suffused her expression. She fought the younger woman, hut was borne inexorably to the edge. They struggled briefly, Winath’s eyes tearing from wind and terror, Valaran grimly determined. All the hate for Ackal V that she’d stored over the years seemed to flow outward through her hands. A final shove, and Winath toppled. White robe fluttering like a moth’s wing, the wizard vanished into the canyon of lower rooftops. Her thin scream was barely audible above the wind.

Valaran was trembling so violently, she had to clutch the parapet to keep herself from falling. She’d had no choice. It had to be done. Winath knew too much. A guileless old woman, she would never have kept Valaran’s secrets, not with the emperor’s spies swarming about.

Shouts echoed from the open stairwell. Valaran turned away from the drop as servants and guards burst out onto the balcony. Seeing the empress, they halted, astonished.

“Your Majesty!” sputtered a guard, lowering his gaze quickly from her unveiled face. “What happened?”

“Winath of the White Robes has killed herself.” She had no need to counterfeit the tremor in her voice. “Unable to find the bakali army, she confessed her fear of the emperor’s punishment and leaped. I could not stop her.”

Still exclaiming in shock, the male guards and servants departed immediately, leaving the women with the empress. A plump, motherly washerwoman looked over the edge, then regarded Valaran with pity.

“How terrible, Majesty! What does this mean?”

Valaran let out a pent-up breath. She lowered the white veil over her face. A part of her mind noted with pride that her hand did not shake. She was Empress of Ergoth. She was equal to the task she had set herself.

“It means,” she said calmly, “the White Robes must choose a new chief.”