A Hero's justice

Chapter 19

The Caergoth archers loosed a single volley into the rebellious prisoners. Three of the Dom-shu went down, and Chief Voyarunta received an arrow in the upper thigh. Grunting, he broke off the fletched end, pushed the shaft on through, and yanked it free of the hard flesh of his leg. The Dom-shu, with other prisoners, formed a human ladder pushing against the fence. Miya and a dozen captives climbed the tangle of limbs to the top of the cage. Their swift progress unnerved the archers, who shifted their aim to pick off the prisoners as they reached the top of the spiked fence. They never let fly the second volley. A barrage of brickbats and paving stones struck them, knocking some flat and spoiling the aim of the rest.

The sergeant of the guard whirled to see who dared interfere with his men. On the steps of the Temple of Corij were more than a dozen short figures. He took them for children until several in front bent over and bared their bottoms. All heckled the soldiers in loud, high-pitched tones.

“Kender!” the sergeant bellowed. “You men there! Get those stinking-!”

A heavy weight landed on his back, driving him face-first to the pavement. It was Miya. She stepped off the unconscious man and said mockingly. “Thank you for breaking my fall!”

Although Chief Voyarunta’s leg was bleeding, he had taken his place among his men at the base of the human ladder. When he saw his daughter outside, he shouted for Zala’s short sword and tossed it to her through the bent bars. She caught it deftly and hurried to free him and the rest.

Luin’s Field was in full uproar. Buoyed by the success of the Dom-shu, the rest of the captives were storming the fence. Guards rushed from one point of crisis to another. Prisoners threw rags and blankets over the spikes along the top of the barrier, climbed over, and dropped to the ground. Kender darted through the confusion, tripping soldiers, or pelting them with rocks. Mounted warriors tried to charge the escapees, but instead found themselves fighting to control their horses as kender menaced the animals with stolen torches. No horse would charge into fire. The riders were set upon by throngs of prisoners, dragged from their mounts, and stripped of arms.

The sole entrance to the condemned prisoners’ cage was on the opposite side from the Temple of Corij. Miya fought her way to it through the mob. It was secured by a crossbar as wide as Miya’s waist, and kept in place by a thick black chain. No one had dared climb the gate. It was studded on both sides with sword-sharp bronze barbs.

Miya regarded the gate helplessly. The short, thin sword in her hand was of no use against either the massive crossbar or the chain.

“Need help, lady?” said someone, tapping her elbow.

She turned. Four soot-stained kender stood behind her. The one who’d spoken added, “I’m Curly Windseed, at yer service, and this is Cuss, Juniper, and Fancy.”

“Get this gate open, quick!” she told them. The prisoners had to be freed before the city garrison arrived.

“Sure. Fancy, you got that bar?”

The tallest of the kender pulled a thick metal rod from his collar. It was a straight iron prybar, and evidently had seen a great deal of use. Fancy put one end in the chain and proceeded to wind the bar around and around, binding the chain in the process.

“Lend a hand, big lady,” said the smallest kender, the one called Cuss.

With Miya and the kender pulling and straining for all they were worth, the chain finally snapped. Prisoners rushed forward, and the heavy crossbar was thrown aside.

Before Miya could move, a wall of escapees surged against the gate, swinging it open and almost knocking her fiat. She held onto a gatepost while the torrent flowed past. Of the helpful quartet of kender, there was no sign.

Once the flow of prisoners thinned, Miya saw Zala run into the open pen, calling her father’s name.

Miya yelled, “Your father’s in the shanty. He was too sick to stay out in the open!”

Together they raced across the rapidly emptying compound. Zala’s father lay under a makeshift lean-to. A gray stubble covered his face. His eyes were rheumy and dull.

“Papa!” Zala said, grasping him by the shoulders. “Papa, I’m here. You’re safe!”

“Hurudithya,” the old man whispered. “I knew you’d come!”

Miya looked a question at her, and Zala shook her head. “I was named after my mother,” she explained. “I don’t use often.”

The clatter of iron-shod hooves warned them the city garrison was on its way. Supporting Kaeph between them, Zala and Miya crossed the empty prison compound and quickly moved out the gate.

The great square of Luin’s Field was almost empty. The freed prisoners had not lingered, and neither had the kender. Miya helped Zala get her father to the steps of the Temple of Corij. Leaving them there, the Dom-shu woman raced back to the prison cage to look for her own wounded father. However, save for a few unconscious guards and slain prisoners, the cage was empty.

Miya called for her father, but her cries were lost in the growing thunder of approaching horses. She ran back to the Temple of Corij.

Zala and her father were not where she’d left them.

With a low cry of frustration, Miya dithered on the temple steps. Where was everyone? Where was her father?

A diminutive figure in a brown surcoat came down the steps toward her. His head was covered by a brown hood.

“This way, friend,” he said, holding out a hand. “Enter the sanctuary of Corij.”

Corij, god of war, was served by a priesthood of soldiers and former soldiers. This little person could hardly be one of them. Miya spun him around and tugged back the hood of his vestment.

The Dom-shu found herself staring at a brown, leathery face seamed by hundreds of wrinkles. It was not a visage easily forgotten.

“Queen Casberry!” she exclaimed. Who wasn’t in Caergoth tonight?

“You better lift those big feet!” the old kender said, sprinting nimbly up the steps.

Casberry led Miya through the temple’s open portico. Burning candles lit the dark interior and spread a musky scent. A crowd of people huddled among the thick columns. Among them, Miya was relieved to see, was her father, as well as his warrior escort, the half-elf Zala, and her ailing parent.

A genuine priest of Corij came forward. Although his long beard was gray, he was broad of shoulder and straight-backed.

“I am Almarden, high priest of Corij,” he said. “I will guide you to safety.”

Armed with a hooded lantern, Almarden led the way. The house of Corij was the largest temple in Caergoth. Parts of the complex predated the city itself. Through passages broad and narrow, straight and twisting, the priest never lost his way. The fitful light illuminated shadowy figures lining the passages. These weren’t enemies, but suits of armor belonging to famous, long-dead warriors. It was customary for a family to dedicate a dead warrior’s armor to the god of battle.

Fleetingly, Miya wondered whether Tol would have a suit of armor here someday, or an unmarked grave on the endless plains.

The high priest reached a bronze door and halted. Holding his lantern aloft, he whispered, “Outside is the Street of the Coopers. It runs straight down to the Dermount Gate.”

“Thanks to you, holy one,” Voyarunta said. “You are a true man, even if you are a grasslander!”

Behind the Dom-shu chief, naked blades gleamed. Determined not to be taken without a fight, the escapees had helped themselves to the weapons of the ancient heroes on display.

Almarden raised no objection, saying only, “May Corij and Mishas favor you. Good luck.”

Voyarunta and his warriors moved out first, and the rest of the escapees followed them into the dark street of the barrel-makers. Queen Casberry had shed her priestly garb somewhere along the way. She tossed the high priest a cheery, “Thanks!” as she departed.

Last in line were Miya, Zala, and Kaeph. The old man was moving on his own now. To Miya’s surprise, he and the priest of Corij embraced before parting. Zala, her short sword back in her hand, surveyed the street outside, then waved her father forward.

As Almarden gave Miya a saber, she asked, “Why do this, holy one? We were prisoners of your governor. Why help us escape?”

“The rulers of our land are not always just. When Queen Casberry came to me, my duty was clear. Corij will judge my actions, not Lord Wornoth.”

Almarden watched Kaeph and Zala move slowly away. “Besides, what man could refuse to save his own brother’s life?”

“Enough.”

Wornoth, seated in his governor’s chair, frowned. Despite the best efforts of two brawny guards, Helbin still refused to say why he was in Caergoth, or how he had entered the city.

“Why are you here?” he demanded yet again. “Who came with you?”

Helbin lifted his bloody face. One eye was beginning to swell shut, so he peered at his captor through the other.

“I came with the Queen of Hylo!” he said, and no one believed it.

One of the guards raised a meaty hand, but the governor waved him off.

“I have a death warrant for you, wizard, signed by the emperor himself. Tell me what I want to know, and your death will be quick and merciful.”

Helbin made as if to speak again, but a fit of coughing interrupted him. At Wornoth’s direction, the soldiers dragged the wizard to a sitting position.

“Your days are numbered, savage,” Helbin finally rasped. “The greatest warlord of our age is coming fast upon you. I may die, but you will not long outlive me!”

“What are you raving about? What warlord?”

“Tolandruth of Juramona.”

Wornoth snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous! The emperor banished him years ago.”

Helbin’s split lips moved in a ghastly smile. “Mark my words. He is coming.”

The wizard’s certainty, even after such a beating, rocked Wornoth. At his last encounter with Lord Tolandruth, the formidable warlord had threatened to kill him.

He declared, “Tolandruth is a condemned exile, and a traitor. If he dares show his face in Caergoth, his head will decorate the highest tower of the citadel!”

The wizard began to shake. Thinking him broken at last, Wornoth beamed. His toothy smile froze when he realized that Helbin was laughing, not weeping.

Wornoth snapped, “Take him away! Carry out his sentence at once. I’ve no time for his foolish threats!”

The soldiers dragged Helbin to his feet. He realized the time had come for a last, desperate act. He had a single spell remaining, one he’d prepared before leaving Tylocost’s camp. He wasn’t certain its effects were reversible, but trying it was better than death-he hoped.

He pushed a parchment-thin wooden chip out between his teeth. Through all his rough treatment, he had kept the chip hidden beneath his tongue. The sigils on its face were clear and sharp, not eroded by blood or saliva.

Wornoth immediately spotted the chip. Certain it was magical in nature, he shouted for the guards to stop the wizard.

He was too late. Helbin bit down, snapping the chip in two.

In the next instant, the wizard began to writhe as though in terrible agony. As the guards drew back in fear, the ragged silk of his crimson robe shredded and long, black feathers pushed through skin and cloth. Helbin’s sandy hair fell out, revealing a mass of flame-red skin. His head shriveled. Gray eyes darkened and shrank. His swollen, bloody mouth elongated into a hard yellow beak.

In the space of half a dozen heartbeats, man transformed into vulture-a monstrous, black-plumed creature fully as tall as Helbin had been. The vulture spread its wings and uttered a single, sharp screech. The cry was deafening.

Terror-stricken, Wornoth tried to climb over the back of his tall, heavy chair. He shrieked at his men to kill the monster.

The closest soldier tried to bring out his dagger. The vulture’s hooked beak raked a bloody line across the man’s face, from right eye to chin. The soldier threw his hands over his eyes and fell aside, cursing.

The way was open. Talons slipping on the polished marble floor, the huge vulture scrambled away, wings flapping.

The guards in the audience hall had only spears and sabers, no bows. They could not hem in the flailing creature. The vulture reached an open window and leaped onto the wide stone ledge.

Casting one last black-eyed glance over his humped shoulder, the vulture that had been Helbin the Red Robe let out a piercing scream and leaped into the air.

Wornoth rushed to the window, following the vulture’s flight. Dawn was breaking over Caergoth. When the black curl of the vulture’s wings finally vanished, the governor turned his gaze downward. The sight that met his eyes sent an icy shaft of fear through his gut.

An army was mustering on the plain outside the city. A sizable army, it bore before it the standard of Juramona.

Hundreds of miles away a pall of dirt and smoke hung high over the collapsed bakali stronghold. Two days had passed since the end of the battle, and still the dark cloud remained.

Few Riders of the Great Horde knew what the great earthen mound contained, but the despair of the lizard-men over its fall was powerful. A great blow had been struck against the invaders.

Even so, the bakali’s withdrawal, though swift, was in good order. Under the cover of roiling clouds of dirt, they had formed into three compact columns. They retreated swiftly northwest, toward Ropunt Forest. Caught off guard by the sudden change of fortune, and utterly exhausted, the imperial army did not try to stop them.

Ackal V had his victory, but it was not the crushing triumph he’d expected. Half his army was dead or wounded. An entire horde, the Thorngoth Sabers, had perished in the collapse of the bakali mound. The battlefield was heaped with the dead and dying of both sides.

A prolonged blast of trumpets had summoned the surviving commanders to attend upon the emperor. Servants spread a gold and scarlet carpet on the blood-soaked ground, and Ackal V’s portable throne was set up. Prince Dalar, looking wan and limp, was delivered to his father by two brawny Riders who had been guarding him. The boy was required to stand at his father’s right hand.

There weren’t many warlords left to answer Ackal V’s summons. Many of those who finally gathered before him were swaying on their feet from exhaustion or wounds. All were streaked with gore, grime, and sweat.

Vanz Hellman was in remarkably good condition. Although his armor bore the marks of many blades, his face and bare arms were unmarred. Ackal V ordered the towering warrior forward, and Hellman went down on one knee before him.

“What is your will, Majesty?”

Even restrained, his voice rolled out like thunder.

“My will is to have your head on a pike! Why didn’t you come immediately, when I ordered you into battle?” Ackal said.

“I did come, Your Majesty. My hordes broke the lizards’ resistance.”

“You delayed responding to my command!”

Dalar flinched at his father’s shout, but knew better than to retreat a single step from his prescribed place.

The kneeling warlord pressed a hand to his heart. His gesture of sincerity seemed somehow mocking.

“As commander of the reserve, sire, I had to judge the best time to strike. I waited until the lizards were deeply committed against Your Majesty’s position, then I attacked.”

“You hoped they’d kill me first!”

“No, sire!” Hellman said instantly. “I acted to insure victory. I am Your Majesty’s most loyal servant.”

Ackal V regarded Hellman through narrowed eyes for a long, heart-pounding moment. It was a ruthless warlord indeed who dared dispute with the Emperor of Ergoth, but Ackal V could not deny that Hellman’s final charge had been perfectly timed. The carnage around them was testimony to that.

Ackal V did the one thing that made even the bravest of his commanders tremble, Vanz Hellman included. He smiled.

“Very well. I am sure of your abiding love for the throne of Ergoth. As a loyal servant of the empire, you will gather what remains of the army and pursue the lizard-men.” The emperor’s tone was almost genial. “Harry them out of our realm. Drive them into the sea, and spare none, do you hear? I want to hear of nothing but mounds of bakali skulls from here to the Seascapes!”

Hellman stood. His demeanor remained calm, but sweat trickled down his smooth, dark face. He vowed he would carry out the emperor’s command.

“See that you do,” Ackal V said. “Your life is pledged against your success.”

Hellman and his retainers withdrew. Other warlords were called forward to give accounts of their losses. The death rate was unusually high-neither the Ergothians nor the bakali had shown mercy to those who fell. When a handful of survivors from the right wing of the army told of the discovery of eggs inside the mound, it became clear why the lizard-men had fought with such tireless abandon.

The emperor commanded the priests and clerics from his entourage to come forward. These learned folk were led by a priestess of Zivilyn named Talatha.

Although the eldest of the group, Talatha was not yet middle-aged. She wore her dark hair tightly confined in a long braid, and her moss-green robe was simple and shapeless.

Ackal V wanted to know why the bakali had fought their way to the heart of the empire to build their nest, when they could have done so anywhere.

Talatha cleared her throat and replied, keeping her eyes lowered, “Great Majesty, I believe they were compelled to do so by their own natures.” She held a hand out, and a lesser priest put a thin scroll in it. “This document is from the time of the Dragon Wars. It speaks of the life cycle of the bakali. After many generations, the lizard folk are driven by instinct to return to the breeding ground of their ancient ancestors.”

The emperor’s brows rose in surprise. “That’s a revelation. Why was I not told this before?”

His words, spoken gently, drained the color from Talatha’s face. Nervously, she fingered her gold medallion of faith.

“The, uh, document is a most obscure one, Your Majesty. No more than a gloss, pasted onto a larger scroll in the temple library, it was discovered only this day, during the battle, as we searched for the meaning of these events.”

Ackal V made no reply. Instead, he called for wine. He did not offer refreshment to anyone else. Talatha and her colleagues remained still, gazes deferentially on the ground. Only after he’d drained his golden goblet twice did Ackal dismiss Talatha. She led her people away in grateful haste.

The emperor addressed his warlords again. “We must make absolutely certain all the bakali eggs were destroyed. I don’t want to have to fight again when the creatures’ progeny hatch out among us!”

The bakali stronghold would be excavated, he decreed, and every egg found inside destroyed. Ackal did not specify who was to undertake this prodigious task, and the commanders began to shift uncomfortably and mutter among themselves. Would the emperor really set his noble warriors to digging, like so many slaves?

Ackal V laughed, a short, harsh sound. Cuffing his son, he said, “See, Dalar, how the mighty lords of Ergoth tremble at the thought of a little labor!” The boy managed a weak smile at his father’s wit.

The warlords were visibly relieved by the emperor’s next orders. All warriors not going with Vanz Hellman were to organize into bands and sweep the countryside. All peasants, farmers, or stray travelers they found would be drafted into work gangs; any who resisted would be put to death. These gangs would dig through the bakali mound.

“One thing more.”

Ackal V sat back, gripping the arms of his throne. “The tradition of my ancestors demands that I, as victor, raise a mountain of our defeated enemies’ heads here on the battlefield.”

He paused to send a cold glare across the assembly, then added slowly, “This task you will conduct yourselves. It is the duty of the Great Horde to offer up the enemy dead to their emperor.”

Not by word or look did the nervous warlords betray their distaste for the gruesome task he had set them.

By sundown, the emperor’s order had been obeyed. Two great pyramids of death rose beside the fallen mound. One was made of bakali heads, the other of decapitated corpses.

Valaran stood alone in the palace solarium, before a magnificent wall of firetongue orchids. Bright red in daylight, the stamens of the orchids glowed in the dark like hot coals. Filling a corner of the sunken garden with color, the rare flowers were a pet project of Ackal V’s youngest wife, Lady Halie. Only eighteen years old, Halie was an extraordinary beauty, with thick red-gold hair cascading well past her waist and eyes as violet as the twilight sky. She was the emperor’s current favorite. Valaran knew her husband. He could not be swayed by mere beauty. Halie’s loveliness was coupled with a quiet, obedient disposition-just the sort to find favor with Ackal V.

Valaran had come to the solarium to read. This morning that simple act, which had sustained her soul for as long as she could remember, brought her no peace. She couldn’t concentrate. As daylight brightened the isinglass panels above her, she abandoned the marble bench to walk the path that wound through the garden.

If only Dalar was here! Were she certain of the boy’s safety, she could revel in her daydreams of Ackal V hacked to pieces by lizard-men. Instead, all such thoughts ended the same way: Dalar shrieking in hopeless fear, Dalar set upon by bakali, Dalar lying dead on a distant battlefield…

She smote a clenched fist on the low wall beside the path. She would not give in to mindless fear. She was a woman of reason and intellect, a Pakin. Her husband might be evil, a brutal tyrant, but he wouldn’t allow harm to come to his son. Succession was intensely important to him.

If only her other nightmare could be rationalized away so easily.

White robes flapping in the wind. The old woman screaming, growing smaller and smaller with distance. A heart-stopping impact.

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

Valaran flinched at the unexpected interruption. A lady of the court was rushing toward her. Flushed with excitement, her starched headdress askew, the woman dropped a quick curtsey, her slippers skidding on the white marble.

“Majesty! Talatha, priestess of Zivilyn who accompanied His Majesty, has sent word to the College of Wizards,” she panted. “The emperor has achieved a signal victory-the lizard invaders are defeated!”

Valaran said nothing. In fact, she was so pale, so motionless, so long silent, the lady-in-waiting grew concerned.

“Your Majesty?”

“Praise the God of Battle,” Valaran finally said, her voice toneless. “The empire is saved.”