A Hero's justice

Chapter 21

Tol’s entry into Caergoth was more confusing than glorious. Zanpolo chose to return the same way he left, via the Centaur Gate. The gate opened readily enough, but the soldiers there were plainly puzzled to hear the returning warriors shouting the name of the man they’d been sent to destroy. Zanpolo quickly ordered his own men to displace the city troops at the gates. No blood was shed; after a brief scuffle, the surprised soldiers found themselves imprisoned in their own barbican. Their compatriots, looking down on these events from the battlements, abandoned their posts.

“Little birds are flying away,” Miya said, gesturing toward the fleeing men.

Tol nodded. The men would certainly carry word of his coming to Lord Wornoth. As there was no way to prevent it, there was no reason to worry about it.

The first city square beyond the Centaur Gate was known as the Starwalk. Its broad white pavement was marked with bronze stars, and black lines of basalt radiated from a common point not quite in the center of the square. The square was a public observatory. By standing on the lines or on the various bronze markers at appropriate times during the year, ordinary folk could mark the movements of the moons and stars.

This day, it was not being used for any lofty purpose. Like all Caergoth’s public squares, the Starwalk had become a squalid shanty town crowded with war refugees.

Tol reined up. His Juramonans halted behind him. Zanpolo stopped his own horsemen and doubled back to see what was wrong. He found Tol surveying the smoky, fetid scene in the Starwalk with a scowl on his face.

Zanpolo grimaced with understanding. “I know,” he said. “With a few hundred sabers I’d clear this trash out!”

Tol shook his head, but said nothing. He turned in the saddle to look back at the column winding behind him. There was Queen Casberry, once more in her beloved sedan chair, borne on the capable shoulders of Front and Back; Uncle Corpse and his Dom-shu, a bit worse for wear; and the half-elf huntress, Zala, who had refused all aid and still carried her frail father. Still further back, the ugliest Silvanesti in the world led a human militia comprising artisans, merchants, farmers, and herders. Somewhere in the city, thousands of men were wearing out horses to join Tol’s army. Retired warriors, they’d left home and hearth and taken up the weapons they’d hung up years ago. In their company was the oddest contingent of all-soldiers of an army Tol had defeated, now led by a wealthy, embittered woman who had lost her own daughter in a struggle not her own.

All these people-all these different people-had come so far and done so much because of him. Their loyalty, their faith in him, had brought them from every corner of the empire and lands beyond.

Dismounting, Tol handed the reins to Miya, who’d been walking alongside.

“Watch out,” she said, seeing the look in his eyes. “Husband’s up to something.”

“All of you stay here. No matter what happens, stay here till I call you,” Tol said.

He walked into the maze of temporary shelters covering the Starwalk. The refugees moved out of his way. They knew to make themselves scarce when a warrior came near. They came from half a hundred small towns, from isolated farms, and from semi-nomadic camps. Not all were Ergothian. This human avalanche had been set in motion a thousand leagues away, by the arrival of the bakali and by attacks from plainsmen also displaced by the lizard-men. Most refugees regarded Tol blankly as he moved among them. If they did react, it was with fear.

Anger swelled in Tol’s breast. This was not why he had become a warrior. Most Riders of the Great Horde, born into wealth if not outright nobility, considered this their due-daily tribute in the form of terror. But Tol had chosen the life of a soldier because it promised more than endless years grubbing in the dirt, herding recalcitrant pigs, and praying daily to the gods for sun and rain, but not too much of either. He’d led a full life, earned loyal friends, and loved an intelligent, beautiful woman. The time had come to pay for those past pleasures and glories.

Forty paces away from his waiting comrades he found a waist-high stone pedestal and climbed on it. An alabaster disk was inset in its top. From this spot, when the square was clear, one could mark the passage of Solin through the seasons.

Those immediately around him fell silent and regarded him uncertainly. The quiet spread through the square, with neighbor nudging neighbor and gesturing at the warrior standing atop the Solin pedestal. Tol waited until the silence was complete, then spoke.

“People, listen to me! I am-” An instant’s thought, then-“Tol of Juramona. I bring you good news. The tribes who ravaged your homes have been defeated!”

There was no response. A baby began to cry. Several people coughed.

“You can go home! The nomad invaders are gone!”

The baby continued to howl. There were more coughs. A woman called out, “We ain’t got no home! They burned it!”

“You can build another!” Tol replied. “But you must leave the city! It’s too crowded for you to remain!” He was amazed disease hadn’t broken out among the refugees already.

“You drivin’ us out, m’lord?” asked a man standing nearby.

Exasperation sharpened Tol’s voice. “No! I’m telling you, you can leave! The nomads are driven out.”

“So it’s safe?”

Tol’s impatience evaporated. He answered honestly. “No, it’s not.”

The crowd began to mutter, confused and unhappy. Tol raised his voice again, saying, “But when were you ever safe? Were you safe when cruel warlords ruled over you, and a ruthless, mad emperor ruled them? You’ve never been safe, but the nomads have been defeated, and you must leave Caergoth. Here, there is only poverty and illness!”

Unfortunately, the wider import of his words was lost.

“The emperor is mad?”

“We was never safe? I thought the city wall was supposed to keep us safe.”

“I told ya’ they’d come to drive us out, and here they are!”

“This emperor is mad, too?”

“Let’s get out ’fore they attack us!”

Some refugees grabbed their meager possessions and set out for the nearest gate. Others argued whether to stay or go. These grew so heated that Tol was jostled off the platform.

When he disappeared into the crowd, Zanpolo and his captains spurred their mounts forward. They separated Tol from the mob and ushered him back to his waiting people.

Zanpolo’s bearded face wore a smile. “Clever stratagem, my lord! You’ve sowed the seeds of a riot,” he said. “It will tie up Wornoth’s loyal troops!”

Tol didn’t bother answering. He hadn’t meant to start a riot. He’d hoped to make the people understand they should reclaim their lives and not blindly follow the whims of emperors, warlords, or any of their lackeys. But the hopeless, helpless squatters didn’t see him as “Tol of Juramona,” born one of them. To them, he was Lord Tolandruth, Rider of the Great Horde, oppressor and protector. That he could be interested in their well-being was as unfathomable to them as the workings of the celestial map on which they squatted.

The noise around him quickly grew deafening. The unrest Tol had unintentionally incited radiated outward, spreading from the Starwalk through the clogged streets, to the next square, and the next.

“What did I tell you?” Miya shouted above the chaos. “When Husband acts, the world trembles!”

“This is crazy!” Tol protested. “I told them to go home and live for themselves. They think I threatened them!”

Tylocost said, “You did threaten them. You told them they weren’t safe. Safety was the one lie they all believed in.”

Zanpolo bawled orders at his men. Tol, feeling stunned and stupid, mounted his horse.

They headed for the citadel, sited atop the tallest hill in the city. Zanpolo’s hordes banged their sword hilts against their armored chests. The ominous sound frightened the refugees and they shrank from the column of fighting men. The hordes cleaved through the crowd without bloodshed, as Riders swatted slow-moving squatters, or booted them aside.

At the Great Square of Ackal Dermount, near the center of the city, they encountered their first serious opposition. The square seethed with panicked refugees, and at the opposite end of the plaza were several hundred horsemen in the funereal white and silver livery of the Governor’s Own Guard. Their sabers were out.

“Here’s where we cleave a few skulls,” Zanpolo said.

“Can we try persuasion?” asked Tol.

“Not with them, my lord. They take Wornoth’s coin, even as the Lord Governor takes the emperor’s. They’ll fight.”

Tol knew he was right. “Give quarter to any who ask for it, but we must reach the citadel before Wornoth seals himself inside.”

Zanpolo rallied his own horde, the Iron Falcons, with a roar that made Tol’s hair stand on end. With an answering bellow, the Riders raised their sabers high, then extended them at arm’s length. Zanpolo called for a point charge. In the tight confines of Caergoth’s streets, there wasn’t room for a full-tilt attack.

The Iron Falcons bolted across the Great Square. On their flanks, the Lightning Riders and the Bronzehearts surged forward. The Juramona Militia broke out of marching order and formed a wall of shields around those on foot. Tol rode with Zanpolo.

Innocent townsfolk and terrified refugees raced out of the way of Zanpolo’s charge. Some did not make it, and were trampled.

The Governor’s Own men were confused. They thought Zanpolo’s attack was directed at the refugees choking the Great Square. Their hesitation lasted only briefly, but it was long enough. If they had withdrawn immediately up the narrower side streets, Zanpolo’s thrust would have been less effective. Instead, they took the full brunt of the Iron Falcons’ charge.

Tol was bent low over his horse’s neck, Number Six extended. A guardsman tried to deflect his point with the small iron buckler strapped to his left forearm. Dwarf-forged steel pierced the buckler and, propelled by Tol’s strength and the horse’s speed, drove on through with only a momentary scrape of resistance. As their horses collided, Number Six buried half its length through the man’s neck. Tol recovered, and the guardsman slid lifeless to the ground.

After the initial contact, a brisk, slashing battle followed. The weight and power of the Falcons drove the Governor’s Own men back to the walls of the House of Luin, the hall of the Red Robe Order in Caergoth. Stubbornly, the governor’s men fought on.

“We can’t spend all afternoon at this!” Tol shouted at Zanpolo. “Keep going here-I’ll take my footmen on!”

“Can you really get through with that lot?” said Zanpolo, with a Rider’s traditional disdain for foot soldiers.

“They got me here, didn’t they?”

Tol broke off and rode back to his Juramonans, standing at the other end of the Great Square. All the civilians had fled and he made quick time across the empty plaza, sheathing his saber as he arrived.

Tol and the militia would head for the palace, with Zala leading the way. Her father, Voyarunta, and the other wounded would remain behind with the Dom-shu men. Miya, armed with spear and shield borrowed from a Dom-shu warrior, stood ready to go with Tol.

He gave her a surprised look, and she shrugged. “If you get yourself killed and I’m not there, Sister will skin me.”

Tol’s lips twitched at her reasoning, but he addressed himself to Queen Casberry, asking her to remain behind also.

The kender queen, dressed today in a sky blue tunic and matching trousers, consented and immediately invited Voyarunta to join her in a dice game called Three Times Dead.

Tol divided the two thousand men of the Juramona Militia into four companies of five hundred. Each company would follow a different route through the grid of streets, marching parallel to each other and reuniting before the main gate of the Caergoth citadel. Zala gave them quick directions that would allow them to avoid the public plazas, where troops loyal to Wornoth might have congregated.

Tol’s orders were simple. If challenged, the militiamen should fight. But if the opportunity arose, they were to offer opponents the chance to join them, and keep heading toward the palace.

The four companies set off at a trot. Tol, Miya, and Zala went with the center-right column. Tylocost accompanied the far left.

As they progressed, the streets grew increasingly narrow. Miya complained and Tol explained the constriction was intentional, to prevent large bodies of troops from attacking the governor’s palace.

At one intersection they flushed out a band of archers. The militia company charged, but the surprised bowmen, armed only with mauls for close-range fighting, turned and fled.

After passing down another tight street, the Juramonans found themselves before the citadel’s ceremonial gate. This portal, dedicated to Draco Paladin, was open, and some fifty soldiers wearing the governor’s colors milled about it in confusion. As the Juramona spearmen emerged from the alley, the soldiers sent up a shout. The ponderous double doors of the gate began to close.

“Secure that gate!” Tol bawled, and his contingent rushed pell-mell for the portal.

Tol was confronted by a subaltern wearing a fancy gilded helmet. The fellow was half Tol’s age, but wielded his slim blade with skill. Twice he scored, cutting a bloody line on Tol’s right arm and left thigh. Tol tried to cut him with his stronger blade, but his strikes met only air. The young officer was never still for very long. He darted from side to side, avoiding every swing aimed at him.

Sweat stung Tol’s eyes. His breath moved up and down his throat harshly. He’d never been adept at fancy dueling, and as the contest dragged on, his years began telling on him.

Finally, his enemy’s bright iron blade whisked over Tol’s shoulder, snagging briefly on his earlobe. As blood spurted from the cut, Tol managed to seize the man’s wrist.

“Yield!” he said. “Don’t fight us, join us!”

The subaltern punched Tol in the chest with his buckler. Tol staggered backward. The tip of the young soldier’s blade flashed toward his eyes. Reflexively, Tol threw his head back. A cut opened on the bridge of his nose.

Angry now, Tol gripped his saber in both hands. He made a whirling parry, binding up the officer’s slender, straight blade. The fellow hit him again and again with the iron boss of his small shield, but Tol ignored these blows, concentrating on the motion of the blades. At the top of an arc, he flung his hands up, yanking the young officer’s sword high. Disengaging, Tol drove Number Six at his opponent’s heart.

The subaltern brought up his buckler. An iron saber would have been turned aside, but Tol’s steel point punched through the shield’s brass rim and kept going, running the officer through. Mortally wounded, the fellow stumbled backward, dropping his sword. He gaped at Number Six, its hilt nearly touching his chest. There was no pain or fear on his young face, only bewilderment. He simply couldn’t understand how the saber had penetrated both his buckler and his damascened breastplate.

His eyes grew distant, and his lifeless body fell sideways, as Tol recovered Number Six.

“Husband, the gates!”

Miya’s warning drew Tol’s swift attention. The great portal was slowly swinging shut.

Her warning had been heeded by another as well. Out of the melee dashed a slight figure, sword in hand and a floppy hat on his head. Tylocost, running ahead of his men, sprinted for the closing doors. With the fleetness and agility of his race, he wove through the battle, avoiding swords and spearpoints with astonishing dexterity. Reaching the gate, he twisted sideways through the rapidly diminishing gap.

Tol was thunderstruck. He respected the Silvanesti’s skills as a general and knew him to be brave in the casual way of most well-born warriors. But to fling himself, alone, into the midst of a host of enemies was unbelievably courageous-and reckless.

Yanking himself out of his daze, Tol shouted, “To the gate! To the gate! Never mind the guards!”

The Juramonans tried to comply, but only Zala was nimble enough to evade combat and rush to Tylocost’s aid. Tol saw an unusual expression on the half-elf s face as she dodged and wove through the fracas.

Zala was worried about Tylocost.

The gates had stopped. When Zala arrived, the space between them was less than the width of her shoulders, but she pushed through.

For a few terrifying moments, she was blind as she left bright sunlight and entered the gatehouse’s gloomy interior. When her eyes adjusted, she beheld four guards dead or dying by the windlass that operated the gate. Tylocost was battling three more, all equipped with polearms that badly outranged his saber. The thunder of footsteps on the wooden stairs behind them told Zala reinforcements were on their way down.

One of the three soldiers aimed a thrust at Tylocost’s blind side. Lightning-fast, Zala drew a long knife from her boot and flew at the man. She turned aside the overhand chop from his halberd, saving Tylocost, The elf glanced at her, pale eyes widening, then resumed dueling with the remaining two guards.

Zala was panting from exertion. This was not her usual style of fighting. She could use a bow, or slay a charging boar with her sword at short range, but protracted battle, first outside the gate and now in the tight confines of the gatehouse, was foreign to her. Her opponent was an older man, his black hair flecked with gray, and he knew his business. He pushed her back with short jabs of the halberd’s spearhead, then followed with broad sweeps of its blade. She couldn’t reach him with her shorter blade.

Clang! The side of the axe caught her hand and sent her sword flying. Before she could recover and bring up her knife, the veteran soldier lunged. His spearhead took Zala below the ribs. She gasped in shock, and fell.

Just then, Tol, Miya, and two hundred Juramonans burst through the gate, knocking the double doors wide. A tragic scene met their horrified gazes: Zala lay on her back, clutching a belly wound from which blood welled. Tylocost stood over her fending off two determined halberdiers. A third lay dead at his feet.

Miya screamed. As she intended, the sound distracted one of the halberdiers. He glanced her way, and instantly died at Tylocost’s hand. The other went down beneath a swarm of Juramonans. Reinforcements coming down the stairs from the gatehouse above likewise met Juramonan iron, and after a brief combat, cried for quarter.

“Spare any who lay down their arms!” Tol shouted. “Search the citadel! Find the governor!”

More of the militia poured in to carry out Tol’s orders, and Tylocost’s saber clattered to the stones as he dropped beside Zala. He took her hand in both of his.

“Stupid girl,” he said. “I didn’t need your help!”

“They’d’ve chopped you to bits,” she gasped. Her face was translucent as wax.

Miya’s arms were crimson to the elbows from her efforts to stanch the flow of blood. She looked up at Tol and shook her head. Pain creased Tol’s forehead, and he, too, knelt by the fallen huntress.

Tylocost saw none of this; his attention was focused on Zala, on the blood that continued to well from her terrible wound.

“You shouldn’t be here. You’re not a warrior!” he said, voice harsh with emotion.

“I’ll soon be out of your way.”

He squeezed her hand, and her fingers twitched weakly in response. Helplessly, he whispered her name, heedless of the tears that were falling. Her dark eyes stayed on his face. She blinked once, then her hand went limp in his. Tylocost gently closed her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Husband,” Miya said quietly.

Tol touched her shoulder, but there was no time for more. Armed men were streaming past them.

“We must go. We must find Governor Wornoth,” Tol said. “Tylocost?”

“I will be here.”

Tol and Miya left the grieving general where he was. As they ascended the steps into the palace proper, Tylocost removed his absurd gardener’s hat and placed it gently over Zala’s face. He began to speak softly, in the melodic language of his people, offering an ancient prayer to Astarin.

Tol strode through the halls, boots thumping loudly on the carpeted floors. He’d been here before and knew the way to the audience hall. Close at his heels was Miya. Behind her, the crowd of soldiers gawked at the opulence. Wornoth had expensive taste, and had decorated the public halls of the palace with thick carpets, elaborate tapestries, and the finest works of the sculptor’s art.

All resistance had collapsed. The only people they encountered were servants or courtiers, often burdened with loot liberated from the city coffers. If they dropped their booty and fled, Tol ignored them. If they tried to flee with their ill-gotten goods, Tol sent soldiers after them.

The doors of the audience hall were bolted. Tol stood aside, and militiamen hacked the polished darkwood panels with axes. In a trice they broke through.

Within, a fire blazed on the marble floor. Two men were feeding parchment scrolls to the flames. The shorter, younger man was Wornoth.

“Seize the governor!” Tol commanded.

Wornoth wore a dagger, but offered no resistance beyond abusive language. While attention was focused on him, the other man-a portly, yellow-haired cleric unknown to Tol-took a small vial from his gray robe and flung it at them. It struck the floor two steps in front of Tol, and shattered.

The very air shuddered. Everyone but Tol was knocked flat by an invisible blast. Even as they were falling, Tol rushed up to the priest and put the sharp edge of Number Six to his double chin.

“Any more magic, and I’ll set your head on a spike!”

The astonished cleric surrendered but demanded, “Who are you, that the Hand of the Wind does not touch you?”

“Tol of Juramona!”

It was Wornoth who had answered his cleric’s question. The governor’s nose was bleeding and he glared in impotent fury at his captor.

“Traitorous barbarian!” he shrieked at Tol. “You’ll die a hundred times for this outrage!”

Tol ignored him. The fire had been reduced to glowing embers by the Hand of the Wind. He raked the point of his saber through the hot ashes and came up with a large, un-burned piece of parchment. It contained a list of figures. At the bottom was written, in a neat, scribal hand, “Collected from the squatters in University Square.”

The governor was apparently trying to hide his misdeeds, not from Tol, but from the person he’d been cheating: his patron, the emperor of Ergoth. If Ackal V learned Wornoth had not been sending him the full amount extorted from the refugees, his fury at being cheated would certainly cost the governor his head.

Tol dropped the parchment scrap. “For failing to defend the people under your rule, I depose you, Governor,” he intoned. “Once we sort out what’s happened here, I’m certain we’ll find other crimes to charge you with.”

“You have no authority! You are a proscribed man!”

Number Six came up so quickly everyone in the hall flinched at the sudden flash of steel.

“This is my authority! The empire was made by the sword, and it can be unmade the same way!” Tol stalked toward the governor-

— and found his way blocked by Miya. Unlike her stalwart sister, she was no warrior. She did not raise her weapon or speak, just stood before him, golden-brown eyes brimming with sympathy.

Tol glared at her for only a heartbeat. Her action made him realize just how close he was to murdering the unarmed Wornoth. The image of Zala, dead on the cold stones below, filled his head, and he was shaking with wrath.

Still staring at the silent woman before him, Tol growled, “Get him out of here! Put him and the priest in separate cells under close guard. And search the cleric thoroughly before you lock him up!”

The captives were removed. Tol turned away. He burned with the need to strike something. The governor’s elaborate chair-the literal seat of power here in Caergoth-offered a handy target. He smote its heavy carved wooden back with Number Six, cleaving it halfway down.

“Listen,” Miya hissed. “Do you hear? Temple bells!”

The deep tolling penetrated even the citadel’s thick walls. Did they signify a new alarm, or a celebration of the city’s downfall?

The answer came in the form of a messenger who burst into the hall. The man saluted Tol.

“My lord! Lord Egrin is here with the army!”

Miya and Tol looked at each other. The Dom-shu woman grinned.

“Sister missed all the fun!”

Bells were pealing in Daltigoth, too. The emperor had returned in triumph after destroying the bakali in one epic battle. His welcome was surprisingly muted. The streets were crowded, but the people were more relieved than joyous. The day itself was less than auspicious, too. Gray clouds towered overhead, and the air was heavy with a threatening storm.

Ackal V rode into his capital with Prince Dalar on the saddle in front of him. Arrayed behind the emperor were his surviving warlords, less than half the number who had departed Daltigoth with him not so many days before. Following them were those warriors who had distinguished themselves in the battle. Many were seriously wounded. There was an interval of space, and then a rider bearing the standard of the Thorngoth Sabers. The Sabers had performed so nobly in destroying the bakali mound that none of them remained to receive the honors they’d earned.

Behind the standard of the lost horde stretched a long line of wagons laden with booty taken from the defeated enemy. Here and there an article of gold gleamed, but for the most part, the caravan contained arms and armor stripped from the bodies of slain bakali. In addition to the usual ring mail tunics, there were bronze and iron plates that had been shaped to fit strange reptilian bodies. Everything was coated with purplish red bakali gore. The emperor wanted the people of Daltigoth to know what the aftermath of battle looked like-and smelled like. The grisly trophies would be dumped in the plaza before the great temple of Corij, as an offering to the god of war. When an appropriate amount of time had passed, smiths would collect the armor and melt it down. Bronze would be used for statues honoring Ackal V, iron would go to the imperial arsenal, and the blades and helmets would enter service again with the Great Horde.

Near the end of the long line of wagons, the cargo abruptly changed. The bloody armor was replaced by piles of leathery, yellow-gray objects, each the size of a smallish wine cask. These were bakali eggs, salvaged from the ruins of the nest mound. Tens of thousands of eggs had been destroyed by the collapse of the mound and, later, by conscripted laborers. At the last moment, on a whim, Ackal V ordered a few dozen saved. Some would be given to his scholars to study. The rest he intended to let hatch, if they would. A few lizard-men would make interesting slaves.

The procession wound through the straight, wide streets of the New City. The Temple of Corij, largest in Daltigoth, lay at the edge of the Old City, its sacred precincts surrounded by a low granite wall. The hammered golden gates depicted, on one panel, Ackal Ergot, twice life size, mounted on a rearing horse. Facing him, and equal in size, was Corij himself, on his divine war-horse Skyraker. Their postures made it look as though man and god were dueling. As the empire’s founder had once vowed to fight anyone, even the gods, who stood in the way of his vision, the depiction was not entirely untruthful.

As Ackal V approached the temple, priests of Corij drew the double doors apart. Elder clerics were already arrayed on the sacred steps. They had donned their priestly vestments of golden scale armor, but in place of the usual brown surcoats, they wore short tabards of Ackal scarlet. Gravely, they watched Ackal V enter the holy confines on Sirrion’s muscular back, his pale, wide-eyed young son seated before him.

The emperor looked up at the temple’s massive dome and squat columned facade, built of rose porphyry and red granite. He well remembered how the priesthood of Corij had loved his father, Pakin III. An old soldier himself, Pakin III gave generous grants of gold and land to the temple. Ackal V did not. He had better uses for his money. Still, one could not ignore the gods completely.

“O Corij!” he shouted, voice echoing against the hard stone face of the temple. “See the tribute I bring you!”

The wagons of wreckage rumbled forward, drawn now by teams of warriors. Although war-horses were allowed in the sacred precinct, lowly draft animals were not.

Ten paces from the temple steps, the first wagon stopped. A dozen brawny Riders of the Great Horde braced themselves under its side and heaved upward. Iron helmets, ring mail tunics, bronze cuirasses, and axes clattered to the ground. The empty wagon was hauled away and another took its place. Wagon after wagon discharged their cargo, until the noisome heap was as high as the emperor on horseback.

The high priest of Corij, a solemn, long-bearded oldster named Hycontas, descended the steps. Once a Rider of the Great Horde, he was a provincial from the empire’s western reaches. His family were minor nobles, not particularly distinguished and only modestly well off. In Ackal V’s eyes he was little better than a peasant.

“Greetings to you, Great Majesty, and to your honored son,” Hycontas said. “It is a mighty gift you bring. The God of War has been well served.”

“Yes, at last. I sent too many fools to do what I should have done myself.” The emperor gave a tight-lipped, faintly mocking smile. “My apologies for the messy state of the offering, but time was short, and there’s much still to do.”

Hycontas bowed, his blue eyes sharp as icicles. “As Your Majesty says, but word has reached us the nomads have been defeated and dispersed back to their homelands.”

Surprise showed briefly on Ackal V’s proud face; he obviously wondered how word had reached the priesthood of the nomads’ defeat. His usual sneer returned quickly and he said, “Those country hordes had better toe the line! I won’t stand for any backcountry heroics!”

Hycontas bowed again. “Your Majesty rules with justice.”

Ackal V studied him for any hint of sarcasm, but Hycontas’s face showed only bland sincerity. The emperor wheeled his horse, turning Sirrion so tightly the horse’s long, dark red tail whipped past the high priest’s face. Hycontas did not react. For his part, Dalar had learned well his father’s abrupt ways and was holding tight to the pommel.

“When the dedication to Corij is complete, send word to the Arsenal, and the tribute will be removed,” Ackal V said over one shoulder, as Sirrion cantered back to the procession outside the temple wall.

Flies were gathering around the pile of gory trophies, and the sun’s heat only strengthened the rank odor of bakali blood. Hycontas ascended the steps to escape the stench. As he did, a shadow fell across him, cast by a single, large black vulture circling overhead.

Messengers come in all shapes, the old priest mused.