A Hero's justice

Chapter 4

The great plaza before the imperial palace in Daltigoth was ablaze, lit not by looters’ fires but by massed torches. Six hundred imperial guards, standing shoulder to shoulder, ringed the plaza. The light of their blazing torches cast a brilliant, wavering glow on the high stone walls surrounding the Inner City, and gave their polished armor a coppery sheen.

Within the perimeter of straight-backed guardsmen a smaller contingent of armed men stood more casually. Lean and unkempt, with gimlet eyes and hard, scarred faces, each man wore a wolf pelt on his back, the beast’s head perched atop the crown of his brass helmet. These were the Emperor’s Wolves, Ackal V’s private guard.

The emperor was seated in an ornately carved and gilded chair. Various officials were arranged behind him-Lord Breyhard, general in command of the Riders of the Great Horde; court functionaries; and important city leaders, such as guildmasters, merchants, and priests. To the emperor’s right stood the empress, holding the hand of a small, black-haired boy. A misty green veil covered her face. Custom had long decreed that no man could be alone with the empress. Ackal V had added to the stricture: in male company, the empress must be veiled.

All eyes were on the figure who occupied the space between emperor and the Wolves. Out of the entire multitude, only the emperor was smiling at the sight.

Oropash, chief of the White Robe wizards in Daltigoth, lay flat on his back, wrists and ankles chained to heavy stone halls. A thick wooden platform, about the size and shape of a common door, rested on the wizard’s chest. The platform was covered with lead ingots, and the Wolves stood ready to add more. Oropash’s face and bald pate were flushed deep red, his breathing dreadfully labored. The platform and ingots formed a terrible weight.

“Tell me, White Robe, what traffic had you with the lizards?” Ackal V asked loudly.

“None, sire! None!” Oropash wheezed.

“Then, how do you account for their success?”

The wizard made several abortive attempts to reply, finally gasping, “I am not a military man!”

“No. You’re not.” Ackal V gestured to the Wolves. “Another half hundredweight.”

Five more ingots were placed on the platform. The additional burden wrung a high-pitched groan from the wizard. Valaran looked away, and her son buried his face in her robe.

“I require you to see this,” Ackal V said sternly. Valaran’s shrouded head turned back. The boy didn’t move.

“Prince Dalar, too.” When she did nothing, he added, “Turn him, or I shall.”

Valaran knelt and spoke softly to the boy. Only five years old, the Crown Prince of Ergoth was obviously his father’s son. He had the high forehead and rather sharp features of the Ackal line, but his mother’s influence could be seen in the green of his eyes and the dimple that appeared at the corner of his mouth when he grinned.

Dalar whimpered, and shook his head at his mother. She placed a gentle finger under his chin, whispering, “Do as you’re told. Your father commands it.”

This close, Dalar could see through her veil, could see the loving expression only he was privileged to know. For everyone else-especially for the emperor, his father-her face was always set in a cold, hard mask, her green eyes as unyielding as the peridot ring Dalar wore on his little finger.

Taking a deep breath, the boy turned his head. The old wizard no longer struggled for air. His eyes were open, unblinking, and his tongue protruded from between his teeth. Now Dalar found he could not look away.

Ackal V stood abruptly. Many in the crowd behind him drew back quickly, but his glare was directed at the crown prince.

“I arranged this lesson for your benefit,” the emperor said, as though the old wizard’s death was a lecture on history or swordsmanship. “Do you think I question high mages every day? He died too quickly, and the lesson was wasted.”

Without turning, Ackal V pointed to a scribe seated on the ground by his chair and intoned, “Crown Prince Dalar will have nothing but bread and water for the next three days.”

Valaran drew breath to speak. Still not moving his eyes from the shivering boy, the emperor added, “If the empress protests, she’ll have the same for a fortnight!”

She had borne worse, but Valaran would not give him the satisfaction of punishing her in public. Taking Prince Dalar by the hand, she left.

“Tathman!”

“Yes, Majesty!” The captain of the Wolves stepped forward. Tathman, son of Tashken, was a tall, rawboned hulk. Lank brown hair was gathered in a single braid reaching well past his shoulders. Narrow brows cut a straight slash over dark eyes. The eye sockets of the wolf pelt Tathman wore held polished garnets, a sign of his patron’s favor that only added to the captain’s frightening appearance.

“Have the traitor’s carcass removed. Hang it from the outer wall, head down.”

“The whole body, sire? Not just the head?”

“That is your order, Captain.”

The Wolves began clearing away the weights. A delegation of White and Red Robe wizards approached the emperor cautiously. They had chosen a middle-aged White Robe named Winath to speak for them.

“Gracious Majesty,” Winath said. “Permit us to honor our late chief with a proper burial.”

“Oropash was a traitor,” was the cold reply. “Like his colleague, Helbin.”

Winath bowed. “It is true Helbin has disappeared from the city, Mighty Emperor, but poor Oropash had nothing to do with that. Oropash was no traitor.”

The Wolves ceased their labors, their eyes fixing on the wizard. Behind Winath, her colleagues froze. They too stared at Winath’s slight figure, but for a different reason. A glance at the Wolves would be taken as a challenge.

Ackal V replied with deliberate emphasis. “Under Oropash’s leadership, you failed, not once or twice, but three times to keep the bakali host from entering the heartland of the empire. Is that not so?”

The female White Robe inclined her iron-gray head. “It is, Great One.”

“Oropash was a weakling, a fool, and incompetent. That makes him a traitor, too.”

Silence descended in the plaza as Winath considered Ackal V’s words carefully.

“If Your Majesty judges so, it is so,” she finally replied, and it seemed that all present, save the Wolves and their liege, breathed a collective sigh of relief.

The emperor delayed dismissing the wizards until they had witnessed one final humiliation. A rope was tied around one of Oropash’s ankles, and two Wolves dragged him away. The knot of mages tried to show no reaction. Many failed.

Ackal turned his attention back to Winath. “You’re the traitor’s successor, are you not?” he said.

She nodded. She had been Oropash’s second, and until the White Robes convened and elected a new leader, she had command of the order.

“I want new and different spells,” said the emperor. “The bakali have reached the bend of the Dalti River, barely twenty leagues from here. They are not to cross it. Do whatever is needed to stop them.”

“Is that not a task for the Great Horde, Majesty?”

Winath’s boldness earned her one of Ackal V’s unnerving smiles.

“The army is being re-formed. You keep those lizards east of the river, or I’ll begin to question your loyalty, too.”

From the palace emerged a group of Wolves, manhandling some prisoners. The captives, eleven in all, had cloth sacks over their heads. Unable to see, their hands hound behind their backs, the prisoners stumbled awkwardly down the palace steps. The Wolves yanked them roughly to a halt at the bottom.

“Wait a moment longer,” Ackal said to Winath, his tone almost pleasant. “I have another lesson to give.”

Drawing his saber, he swept away from the closely clustered wizards. The emperor’s weapon was no flimsy ceremonial blade, but a standard cavalry saber, deeply curved and well oiled. Only the ornate golden hilt and egg-sized ruby in the pommel distinguished it from an ordinary sword.

“Down, you worthless dogs!” Ackal bellowed, and the Wolves kicked the prisoners’ legs out from under them. The hooded men fell hard to the ancient mosaic pavement. At the emperor’s command, the hoods were removed.

Shocked exclamations, hastily muffled, rippled across the imperial plaza. The men kneeling before the emperor were well-known warlords. Their long hair and beards had been crudely shorn.

“By the law of my illustrious predecessor, Ackal Dermount, I sentence you all to death,” the emperor said. “You abandoned your men and your honor on the field of battle. For that, your heads will dry on the city wall!”

In the center of the line of captives was Lord Relfas, face bruised, beardless jaw looking naked and pale in the torchlight. He tried to straighten his back, struggling against the harsh grips of the Wolves who held his shoulders.

“Majesty!” he cried. “The fault is mine! I commanded the army. Kill me, but spare the others! They fought well! They did not dishonor the empire!”

Ackal V sneered. “You lost. That’s dishonor enough.” Smiling, he added, “Still, since you accept the fault of failure, I shall give you this dispensation: you will be the one who dies last.”

The Wolves guffawed at their master’s clever joke. What he called a favor was of course the worst of punishments. Lord Relfas must watch his subordinates executed, one by one, before the mercy of death blotted out his horror for good.

Relfas’s face went ashen. Two Wolves yanked him to his feet and dragged him to one side.

No specially trained executioner was called. No broad headsman’s blade was used to cleanly behead the captives. The Wolves simply drew their swords and slashed the ten warlords to pieces. When they were done, Ackal V turned and beheaded Relfas with a single sidelong blow. The Wolves raised a cheer for his keen eye and steady hand.

Ackal V returned to the group of wizards. “Remember what I said. Impede the bakali-now.”

He wiped his blade with a hood that had once covered a captive’s head. Relfas’s blood ran down the back of the emperor’s hand.

Dismissed at last, Winath led her colleagues across the great plaza and through the line of torch-bearing guardsmen. As they entered the grove that surrounded the Tower of High Sorcery, one of the Red Robes would have spoken, but Winath’s upraised hand silenced her.

With the setting of the white moon, the great tower’s usual brilliant halo had dimmed and the lofty structure glowed only softly, like foxfire in the forest. Alabaster walls appeared seamless and translucent by starlight. Small minarets sprouted from its sides at regular intervals all along its height. Their crystal peaks gave off a faintly pinkish light.

Winath always allowed herself at least a brief moment to drink in the sight of the tower. It never failed to steady her. For her predecessor, the unfortunate Oropash, the tower had been a hiding place. He hated every moment he was outside its enclosing safety. Winath did not share that feeling. There was too much she wanted to accomplish, goals that could be attained only through the concerted efforts of herself and her colleagues. For her, then, the Tower of High Sorcery was the rational center of her being, an unchanging certainty amidst the maelstrom of the uncertain world.

Enclosing the tower on three sides was the wizards’ college. Each of its four floors was faced by a colonnade. Although the columned walkways were deserted just now, lights burned in several of the building’s many windows. Few were the nights that found no lights burning in the wizards’ college, and sleep had become even more rare since the invading bakali had pushed closer to the capital.

The wizards quickly traversed the white marble courtyard surrounding the tower. The instant they crossed the threshold of the tower’s only entrance, silence could be maintained no longer.

“Beast!” exclaimed a Red Robe. “He murdered Oropash!”

The deaths of the dishonored warlords meant little to her, but Oropash had been one of their own. Other Red Robes echoed her sentiments.

“Remember where you are!” Winath snapped. All knew she referred not to the sanctity of their surroundings, but to the prevalence of imperial spies. The emperor could have eyes and ears even in their ranks, and any number of spies might be hiding behind the alabaster columns of the two levels of galleries overhead.

“We should all have left with Helbin,” another Red Robe despaired.

“No!”

Winath stamped her sandaled foot. The movement made little noise in the vast, circular chamber, yet the tower quivered from foundation to pinnacle. Already the power that had been Oropash’s was beginning to flow within her.

“Helbin betrayed us all!” she said, her voice ringing off the chamber’s domed ceiling. “For three hundred years we slaved to establish this sanctuary in the heart of the empire. In my lifetime I have seen a living tower rise where nothing but a dream once stood. I will not endanger the gains we have made by running afoul of the emperor!”

“He’s a madman!”

This came from one of her own order, but Winath folded her arms and directed her words to the entire assembly. “Read your chronicles. Many cruel tyrants have worn the crown of Ackal Ergot. We have survived them, and we will survive this one-if we keep our heads!”

Her unfortunate phrasing reminded them of poor Oropash, being hung in disgrace from the Inner City wall. On that somber note they dispersed to their private chambers.

Winath climbed the stairs to her former master’s rooms, which opened onto the second level of galleries overlooking the main chamber. His quarters still smelled of berry jam, for which Oropash had had a well-known weakness. She uttered an illumination spell. Every lamp ignited at once.

On the table in his study were several manuscripts, a brass censer, and a shard of pottery covered with figures scrawled in Oropash’s distinctive hand. Winath studied the scrolls. They were notes on tele-clairvoyance-it appeared this had been Oropash’s last conjuration. He had summoned an image of the future, but not for himself. Winath frowned. To whom had he sent it? And why?

She took the pottery shard back to her own room, on the opposite side of the tower. The writing was a cipher of Oropash’s own devising. Knowing him well, it took her only one mark to discern who he had gifted with a glimpse of the future. The name surprised her.

Winath rubbed away the letters with a piece of cloth. If anyone in the emperor’s pay saw that name, the life of every White Robe in Daltigoth would be forfeit.

“Down! Down!”

Zala grabbed Tylocost by the hem of his tunic and dragged him to the ground. A band of mounted nomads galloped past, brandishing firebrands and screaming. Although the stars and moons were shrouded by clouds, Zala feared discovery. The blazing town cast a great deal of illumination.

Juramona was in flames. Mounted nomads filled the streets, battling the few townspeople still trying to fight. Zala and Tylocost lay next to a gutted tavern, in the cover provided by a jumble of broken wheelbarrows and crockery.

“We waited too long,” she murmured.

“The actions of savages are notoriously difficult to predict,” Tylocost answered. His pedantic tone was at odds with his disheveled appearance. Free of its confining band, his hair hung loose about his shoulders, and soot stained his face and clothing.

“I heard that some townsmen thought they could save their own lives and property by arranging for Juramona to fall without a fight. They opened the south gate for the nomads.” Zala shook her head. “I hope they were among the first to die!”

“Humans. They’re never so foolish as when they think they’re being clever.”

The last of the mounted nomads passed. In the lull, Zala and the elf sprang to their feet and ran for the open gate. Away from the dying town. Away from the flames and screaming.

Tylocost might be ill-favored in some ways, but he was by no means awkward physically. He easily outpaced his companion during the dash across the open ground beyond the city gate. He reached a line of cedars and pushed through, promptly colliding with a fiercely painted nomad.

Elf and man both were shocked at the unexpected encounter. While they gaped at each other-for no more than a few heartbeats-Zala sprinted by, ran the man through, and kept going. Tylocost stepped over the falling body and raced after her.

Near a dry creekbed, they found horses tethered to a stand of saplings. Zala dropped to the ground. With commendable silence, her companion fell into place beside her. She glanced his way and almost cried out. Tylocost’s face and chest were covered in blood. She quickly realized the gore had come from the nomad she’d slain, but the elf resembled a ghastly specter, come back from the dead.

Composing herself, Zala turned her attention back to the tethered horses. Their owners were arguing over the division of the booty they’d taken from the town. Zala could see the men’s bare, suntanned legs on the other side of their horses.

“Mocto killed the Ergoth warrior. Let him have the first choosing!” said one loud voice.

“Warrior? Ha! An old man with a soup pot on his head!”

“But I did kill him,” said a third voice, presumably Mocto.

“Well, I killed the woman and boy who carried the goods in a rolled-up rug,” said a fourth voice. “I should get first choosing!”

Disparaging remarks were made about parentage. Punches were thrown, and one nomad fell to the ground. More curses filled the night air.

Zala gathered herself, holding her knife so its blade lay flat against her forearm. Soundlessly, she slipped between two of the tethered horses. The biggest nomad, the one who claimed to have slain a woman and boy to steal their goods, received the point of her long knife in his kidney. He dropped to his knees, his face a mask of astonishment. He died thinking one of his comrades had murdered him.

The other three spotted the intruder in their midst and lunged for the weapons they’d left sheathed on their saddles. Zala got one fellow in the ribs. He backhanded her, sending her reeling away, then fell to his knees, lung punctured, unable to breathe.

A third nomad drew his own knife. He and the half-elf traded cuts, but her fighting style confused him. Zala feinted an overhand stab, which the nomad tried to block with both hands. Pivoting backward on one heel, she drove her blade into his chest.

The last nomad had taken to his heels, running back toward Juramona and his comrades. Tylocost retrieved a bow lying next to the nomads’ swag, nocked an arrow, and let it fly. The fellow tumbled head over feet and did not get up.

It was a skillful shot, and Zala congratulated Tylocost on his prowess.

“I was a warrior of House Protector. I am proficient with all arms, no matter how coarsely rendered,” he said, dropping the bow.

Nettled by his arrogant tone-after all, she had dispatched three of the savages-she swung herself gracefully into the saddle of a painted horse without touching the stirrup and asked sarcastically, “Can you ride?”

In answer, Tylocost vaulted over the rump of the nearest animal, using his hands to boost himself over the leather pillion and into the saddle. He leaned down and loosened the reins. With a quick glance at the stars, he pulled his mount’s head around and cantered off, south by east.

Zala thumped heels into her mount’s flanks and followed, wrapped in a thoughtful silence. Her peculiar companion was proving to be rather useful.

Being mounted proved a camouflage for the two travelers, Several times they passed sizable bands of nomads in the dark, yet none challenged them. They were taken for fellow plainsmen, or perhaps it was the blood-spattered visage of the elf that forestalled questions. Tylocost certainly looked as though he’d come from a frightful battle.

They rode long into the night with Tylocost in the lead, following a trail only he could see. Other than studying the stars periodically, he did not take his eyes off the tall grass before him.

A few marks before dawn they halted by a small creek that wound around the foot of a bramble-covered knoll. While their mounts drank, Tylocost splashed water on his gory face.

Zala watched his ablutions in silence for a moment then said, “You’re not the overbred, high-toned fellow you pretend to be.”

“Well, I certainly am overbred. How else did I acquire this misshapen face? I’m high-toned, too, if I understand your meaning.” He looped wet hair behind ears that stood out like jug handles. “What I am not is a weakling, or a fool.”

“No? Then why did you stay in Juramona all these years, even after Lord Tolandruth was exiled? You could have left any time.”

“And gone where? I’m an outcast in my homeland. Besides, I gave my word of honor to Lord Tolandruth when he paroled me. After my defeat at Three Rose Creek, I could have been executed or imprisoned. Tolandruth preserved me from that. In return, I swore to remain where he sent me and not take up arms again. It was a matter of honor.” Clean but dripping, he sat back on his heels and looked up at her. “Though you’re a half-breed and a female, I think you know what honor is.”

Ignoring the gibes, Zala gave a slight nod. Completing her mission for the empress was not only a matter of earning her pay, or protecting her father from the empress’s anger should she fail, it also was a matter of honor for Zala. She had given her word to the empress. She would not break that vow.

A search through their saddlebags produced provisions enough that they wouldn’t starve any time soon. Zala offered Tylocost venison sausage and a roll of pounded vegetables and seeds called “viga,” nomad trail food. He accepted the latter. Sitting in the sand by the small creek they ate their rough meal. Zala asked where they were headed.

“The Great Green. That’s where Tolandruth is.”

She chewed a mouthful of spicy, smoky deer meat. “How do you know?”

“Reason, dear.” He drank water from his cupped hand. “That pair of giants he called wives are members of the Dom-shu tribe. Exiled from imperial territory, where else would he go but to his wives’ people?”

His reasoning was impeccable, but now that they were away from Juramona and the rampaging nomad hordes, Zala wondered how much she could trust him. Was this slippery Silvanesti taking her to Tolandruth, or merely leading her on a wild goose chase?

“You must trust me, dear,” he said, deducing her thoughts with irritating accuracy. “You’ve kept your part of our bargain, now I shall keep mine.”

“The Great Green is vast. What makes you so sure we can find him?”

False dawn was brightening the eastern sky. Tylocost had finished the viga. He dipped his hands in the creek and shook them dry. “Think of Lord Tolandruth as a mountain peak,” the elf said. “He stands above most men, and such a landmark can be seen from far off.”

He smiled, and for the first time Zala did not shudder at his looks.

From its usual temple-like calm, the house of Voyarunta’s daughters had taken on all the frenetic activity of market day in Daltigoth. Every possession had been turned out, piled in twin heaps outside the door. Miya and Eli dragged items to the door while Tol and Kiya sorted them into “take” and “leave” piles.

The morning had begun on a contentious note. Kiya said she would accompany Tol to Juramona, but Miya declined, using Eli as her excuse. The boy protested; he wanted to see “Jury Moona” for himself.

“Are you going to abandon Husband now?” Kiya demanded. “And me? After all we’ve been through together?”

Miya returned her sister’s glare. “I’m not abandoning anybody. You’re the ones leaving!”

“Where Tol goes, I go. And so should you.”

They argued through breakfast, through Eli’s bath, and through the first stages of sorting their belongings for the trip. Finally, Tol intervened.

“Eli stays. War is no place for children-and he needs his mother.”

Eli complained and Kiya argued, raising Miya’s ire and pulling her into the fray. Tol’s shout finally put an end to the discussion. He rarely asserted himself directly over his boisterous family, but when he did they obeyed resentfully.

The sisters and Eli returned to packing. Baskets and blankets were flung, clothes trampled, and gear deliberately mislaid. If the rift between Miya and Kiya hadn’t been so serious, Egrin would have laughed.

He was heartily glad his friend had chosen to return to Ergoth. Once there, Egrin was certain Tol would realize the Tightness of joining the fight against the bakali and the nomads.

“Blanket!” shouted Miya, flinging a brown horsehair cloth at Tol. It hit him on the back of the head, enveloping him in its dusty folds.

“We have blankets!” Kiya retorted. She was shouting, too, of course.

“It’s for the horse!”

“What horse?”

Miya, flushed from her exertions, paused in the open doorway. “You don’t intend to walk all the way to Daltigoth, do you?”

“I’ve done it before!”

Tol dragged the blanket off his back. “We’re not going to Daltigoth,” he said, waving away the clouds of dust. “And if we buy horses, we’ll buy blankets for them, too.”

“Then give it back!”

Kiya snatched the heavy cloth and flung it at Miya. The latter stood aside and let it go winging into the hut’s interior. From within came Eli’s howl of protest. The boy stomped out and threw the blanket at Miya’s feet.

“How do you stand it?” Egrin asked, his mouth close to Tol’s ear.

Tol smiled. “You get used to it. If they didn’t shout at each other every day, I’d think I’d gone deaf.”

By midday Tol had worked the “take” pile down to three bundles of manageable size, one for each of them to carry. The chosen equipment was spare indeed-a water bottle each, a bedroll, dried and smoked rations for the road.

Egrin asked about weapons, and Tol went inside. He stood on a block of firewood and reached up into the rafters, halfway between the chimney vent and eaves. Visibly alarmed, Miya asked what he was doing.

“Fetching Number Six.” This was the remarkable steel saber he’d been given by a dwarf merchant, after Tol’s party saved the dwarves from bandits in the Harrow Sky hill country.

Miya hurried over. “I’ll get it for you!”

Before she reached him, the tip of Tol’s buckskin-wrapped bundle snagged on something further down the rafter. A small leather box fell to the dirt floor.

Miya tried to pick up the box, but Tol’s hand closed over it first. He opened the box. For the first time in six years he beheld the millstone, the ancient Irda artifact that possessed the ability to absorb any magic directed at the one who possessed it. After gazing at it for a silent moment, he tugged a small leather bag from under his sash belt. After dumping out its contents-four silver coins-Tol put the millstone in and tucked the bag inside his pack.

Miya’s eyes were screwed shut, her body braced to receive his fury, but it never came. Instead, he patted her cheek. Her eyes flew open in shock. At that moment Egrin and Kiya entered.

“What’s this?” Kiya sputtered.

“Just thanking Miya for keeping my weapons safe and sound,” he said, winking. Miya’s face was bright red. “You know me, I don’t always take proper care of these things.”

He handed the leather-wrapped sword to Egrin. The old marshal had seen the box overturned on the floor and recognized it as the one Eli had been playing with. He said nothing, only freed the saber from the oily buckskin. The iron hilt was frosted with tiny flecks of rust, which oil and sand would soon remove. Number Six’s blade still had the slight bend it had acquired in a battle with Mandes’s mercenaries, six and a half years ago.

Egrin presented the hilt to his friend. “Your sword, Lord Tolandruth.”

Tol took Number Six. “Thank you, Lord Egrin,” he said wryly.

By midafternoon the trio was nearly ready to depart. Egrin was alone in the sod hut with the Dom-shu sisters, as Tol said his farewells to Eli outside. Once more, Egrin found himself the unwitting cause of an argument between members of Tol’s family.

The old warrior was nearly ready to join Tol outside, when he noticed Kiya holding a piece of jewelry. Crouched by her pack, she was wrapping a beaded headband in soft leather before packing it. The headband was very fine: multicolored beads worked in an intricate pattern, with a fringe of tiny, carved ivory animals on its lower edge. Its ties were as long as Egrin’s forearm, and were decorated with more carved beads and ivory animals. When he commented on its beauty, Kiya’s reaction-and Miya’s-took him by surprise.

“Jewelry?” Miya exclaimed, hurrying over to investigate: “Sister owns no jewelry, except-”

“Shut up!” Kiya snapped.

Miya demanded, “Why are you taking your burial beads?”

Although Egrin didn’t know the particulars, the term “burial beads” certainly had a gloomy ring to it. However, Kiya brushed aside Miya’s question, reminding her that they were going off to fight, after all.

“Besides,” the elder Dom-shu added, directing a glare first at Miya and then Egrin, “it is my concern and no one else’s.”

Egrin nodded quickly, embarrassed to have intruded on such a private matter. Miya gave her sister glare for glare, but said nothing more.

Outside, they found Tol kneeling by Eli. The boy was trying not to cry but he was failing. When his mother appeared, he hurried to her and held her hand tightly.

Chief Voyarunta and his senior warriors had come to see the travelers off. The crow’s feet had vanished from the chief’s eyes. His hair was now yellow streaked with white. Yellow stubble sprouting from his chin.

“Son of My Life, it pains me to see you go,” Voyarunta declared. He embraced Tol Dom-shu fashion, clapping a hand on the Ergothian’s broad back.

Tol nodded. “I thank you, Father of My Life. Your kindness has been boundless.” He waited, prepared to receive whatever wisdom the forester chief felt appropriate, but Voyarunta’s next words caught him by surprise.

Dark blue eyes agleam with ancient ferocity, the chief said, “Take back what is yours, Son of My Life. You are a warrior of warriors, a bear among dogs. Do not let a few curs steal your glory. Your land was made by the sword-by the sword it can be saved, and you with it.”

Egrin wanted to shout agreement, but solemn silence seemed more suitable to the moment. Tol’s thoughts were unreadable. He stood back from the chief and saluted him, open handed.

Voyarunta embraced Kiya, too, adding an affectionate chuck on the chin.

“No wise words for me, Father?”

“What can I tell one wiser and braver than me?”

The praise was so unexpected that Kiya stared open-mouthed at him. Grinning, he added, “The gods walk at this man’s heels. Stay by him, and some of their favor may fall upon you, too.”

Without further ado, Voyarunta departed.

Eli fled into the hut, unable to watch his aunt and uncle leave, and only Miya remained to watch the three shoulder their packs and walk away. Tol waved good-bye to her, as he had many times since coming to the forest. Always before he’d been going hunting or fishing, or just roaming the woodland. Now he was traveling much farther, heading deliberately into harm’s way.

Miya waved back. In her other hand, she held the empty leather box.