A warrior's joyrney

Epilogue:

The days that followed the battle were frantic and noisy. Imperial soldiers, elated by their hard-won victory, celebrated long and heartily.

Tol retired to the tent that had been Lord Urakan’s. Amid the carpets and tapestries, gilded braziers and leather camp chairs, he felt very out of place and very much alone. His first night there, for reasons he did not understand, he was seized by violent fits of trembling. He downed a cup of Lord Urakan’s best vintage, and the shivering faded.

Scattered across the dead general’s trestle table were sheets of the finest foolscap. Tol sat down, took up an ink-stained pen and wrote a lengthy missive to Valaran.

The battle is won, he wrote in a neat but slow hand. But I would give up all the cheers I hear now and the honors I will receive, if I could be with you tonight…

He was still at the table when Egrin found him, slumped forward, sleeping with his head resting on his folded arms. The conqueror of XimXim, liberator of Hylo, and victor over Tylocost had ink on his fingers and a black smudge on his nose, the result of a careless scratch while he was writing his long missive.

Egrin did not try to wake him. Tenderly, the elder warrior draped one of Urakan’s heavy capes around Tol’s shoulders, then went out to begin the reorganization of the scattered imperial army.

Within ten days of Tylocost’s defeat, all opposition to Ergoth was overcome. Tol marched through eastern Hylo, driving out the Tarsan garrisons posted in Free Point and other towns. Tarsan mercenaries not captured at Three Rose Creek fled the country, taking ship or escaping over the mountains. Although they expected vengeful Ergothian hordes to pursue them, the imperial army had little strength left to chase anyone.

Tol halted his tired hordes at Old Port and requisitioned all available ships. Then he turned all the captured Tarsan soldiers loose. Stripped of arms and armor, with only enough food to get them home by the most direct sailing route, nine and a half thousand men were sent on their way. They were all that was left of the force of fifty thousand who’d come to Hylo to wrest the kender kingdom from the empire’s sway.

Veteran warlords under Tol’s command, including Egrin, argued against such clemency, saying the freed men would only take up arms against Ergoth in the future.

“They’re defeated,” Tol said. “Let them go back and show their masters in Tarsis their humiliation. Let the wealthy syndics of the city feed and house them, not us.”

Tol defied accepted custom in another way: He did not send Tylocost’s head to the emperor. The elf remained his prisoner. To disguise him from vengeance-minded Ergothians, Tylocost’s hair was cut to chin length, and he was dressed in nondescript yeoman’s clothes. He was hidden in plain sight among the enlarged retinue of warriors and servants now attached to Lord Tolandruth. Tylocost took captivity in good stead, but proved to have a melancholy nature to match his eccentric looks. His life depended on Tol’s good will, so he readily played the biddable captive.

One evening, during supper in the vast tent Tol had inherited from Lord Urakan, Miya blurted, “I thought all Silvanesti were finely made. What happened to you?”

Tol nearly choked on his roast, but Tylocost took the rude query calmly.

“It’s said my mother, while burdened with child, beheld a human woman in the forest, and the image of the wretched creature was impressed on my features before birth.” After a brief pause, he added, “It was a Dom-shu woman she saw.”

Miya flushed, and Tol smothered a laugh.

“No Dom-shu is as ugly as you!” Miya said hotly.

And so the evening’s wrangles would begin. It seemed more than passing strange to Tol to have the former terror of the empire at his side, shabbily dressed, matching jibes with his boisterous wives. Even so, Tol held no illusions about Tylocost. The acute mind that had defeated Lord Urakan and three other Ergothian generals in the past twenty years had not been thrown out with his gaudy helmet. Tylocost was biding his time.

Knowing he needed a sharp pair of eyes on the elf, Tol designated Kiya to act as the elf s guardian. He had no specific suspicions but realized Tylocost might try to escape or foment a plot from within Tol’s camp.

Hylo was firmly in imperial hands, but the war continued. Tarsan fleets raided the west coast of Ergoth. Far to the south, Tarsan gold raised the pirate fleets of Kharland into open war against the empire. Elaborate and flattering treaties were proposed to convince the Silvanesti to enter the war as Tarsis’s ally. Thus far, the elves had resisted Tarsan blandishments, but the pirates quickly choked off all trade in the Gulf of Ergoth. Something would have to be done about them.

Victory had not ended the war, only changed its venue.

Before the winds of autumn set in, Tol organized the return of the sick and wounded to their homes. More than one thousand Ergothians were seriously injured, and another two thousand were needed on their farms to finish the harvest. Tol gave Egrin the task of leading the sizable column south, calling first at Caergoth, then Daltigoth. He prepared lengthy documents describing the death of XimXim and his subsequent victory over Tylocost. With Egrin busy rounding up wagons and carts to transport the sick, Tol decided to entrust his dispatches to another-Mandes the wizard.

Mandes had weathered his personal catastrophe well. The loss of his left arm was a hard blow-a wizard needed two hands to perform most incantations-but Mandes proved surprisingly adaptable. By the time the imperial hordes returned from clearing out the last Tarsan garrisons, Mandes was up and walking. He spent most of his time in Old Port, drinking in noisy kender taverns or prowling the seedy shops lining the waterfront. Such shops were treasure troves of odd merchandise, brought in by wandering sailors or “found” by kender on their wide-ranging travels.

One afternoon, with the chill of early autumn in the air, Tol found the wizard in the Wave Chaser Inn, the same place they’d captured the Tarsan soldiers. The wizard was seated in a snug corner by the hearth, at a table heaped with moldering manuscripts. A wooden tankard of mulled wine steamed by his right hand.

Tol greeted him. Unlike nearly every other soul in Hylo, Mandes did not rise and salute the now famous warlord, but he did bid Tol join him in a pot of warmed wine.

Tol dragged up a three-legged stool and accepted the offer of a drink. When the wine arrived, it proved to be heavily spiced. Though not to Tol’s taste, he sipped it politely.

“You’ve heard I’m sending men home to be discharged for wounds or work?” he said. Mandes grunted assent. “Would you like to go along?”

That brought the wizard upright on his bench. The wool blanket draped around his shoulder fell away, exposing the empty sleeve of his velvet robe. The cuff was pinned to his chest.

“I, go to Daltigoth?” he said, and Tol nodded. “That is a handsome offer!”

Tol smiled. “There’s a price to be paid. Some letters and dispatches I’ve written must be delivered. Will you see to it?”

Mandes leaned forward, knocking old scrolls from the table top. “Gladly, my lord! To whom will I give them?”

“Crown Prince Amaltar gets the reports bearing Lord Urakan’s seal.” Tol had inherited the old warlord’s signet with command of his army. “The remainder-only one-goes to his wife, Princess Consort Valaran.”

He expected some comment, but Mandes showed no sign of recognizing the unusual nature of the second recipient.

“I’ve long dreamed of going to Daltigoth,” the sorcerer said, sinking back in his bench. “Tarsis was too tight-fisted, too mercantile for me. In Daltigoth, a man can be recognized for his talent and rewarded for his deeds. When do I leave, my lord?”

“Tomorrow morning, first light. I’ve secured a conveyance for you. Not a wagon or a kender’s cart, but a real coach-and-four. You’ll have company on the ride, but it’s still better than a ox-drawn wagon, eh?”

Tol called to a pair of soldiers waiting by the inn door. They brought a strong box, strapped with iron, and set it on the floor at Mandes’s feet. Tol opened it. Nestled inside were eight short, thickly wound scrolls. Seven bore the seal of the warlord, pressed into the red wax enclosing the parchment. The eighth scroll was tied with white ribbon and sealed with ordinary white wax.

Tol looked over the brief legends inked on the outside of the rolls. Finding the one he wanted, he tapped it with a finger.

“I haven’t forgotten you,” he said. “This dispatch mentions the bakali, your role in helping to stop the Red Wrack, and our battle with XimXim. I would be very surprised if His Highness Prince Amaltar didn’t reward you for your deeds.”

He closed the box and clamped a soft lead seal around the hasp. Rising, he said, “I thank you, Mandes-for everything. And I know you’ll see my words safely into the proper hands.”

After Tol departed, Mandes rose from his chair, swaying slightly from too much wine. He summoned two kender from the kitchen to carry the box to his room on the second floor. Gathering up his old manuscripts, he followed them upstairs.

Alone in his room, he sagged heavily on the straw-stuffed mattress. His features lost their carefully neutral expression and twisted with omnipresent pain. Agony lanced through his shoulder, throbbed down his left arm, and ended as it always did, in the tips of the fingers of his left hand-arm, hand, and fingers he no longer possessed.

Mandes held up his right hand, palm down, and felt his crippled shoulder flex as though lifting his left as well. He could see his left arm and hand alongside the right; the phantom limb glowed faintly in the gloom. His searches through the scrap shops of Old Port were not merely a cure for idleness. Mandes was looking for magical tomes that might contain secret recipes to restore his arm, or at least give flesh to the phantom limb he was certain he possessed. He’d found nothing so far and had begun to despair. But now-

Now he was to go to Daltigoth!

The empire’s capital contained perhaps the greatest concentration of wizards and sorcerous literature in the world. Only the libraries of Silvanost could rival it, and they were beyond the reach of a mere human.

Mandes shivered, more in anticipation than from the autumnal chill. Lord Tolandruth’s offer was a gift from the gods. Yet it was a gift he felt he had more than earned with his suffering.

Pain was replaced by the equally familiar rage. Mandes stood and flung the useless manuscripts across the room.

Tolandruth! It was that fool’s fault he’d lost his arm! True, he had consented to help in the fight against XimXim, but he’d never imagined he’d have to battle the monster himself in that hellish cavern!

Now, Gilean’s book of fate had turned a new page. He was getting that which he most desired: access to the great and powerful. In Daltigoth he would place his magical skills at the disposal of whomever offered him the highest rewards. It was only right and proper. Wealth and power belonged to those who could do, whether they were warriors, woodcutters, or sorcerers. One day, he vowed, he would be the most powerful wizard in Ergoth. When that happened, his persecutors in Tarsis would have cause to regret their past injustices to him.

Giving the bakali the Balm of Sirrion had been a mistake, he now realized. Embedding the Red Wrack in the mist had been an even greater folly. The lizard-men hadn’t asked for a plague. That had been his own idea. Since the Tarsans and kender were not sufficiently admiring of his talents, he’d decided to repay them with pestilence. But the dead bakali had taken the blame, and no one living knew the truth but him. Even so, he wondered if Tolandruth still suspected.

The sealed box sat by the door, black and bulky. Within were Tolandruth’s thoughts on the events of the past sixty days. His decisions, his opinions, his praise, his condemnation-all were locked inside that box. Mandes needed to know what had been written. It would be to his advantage to embellish adulation of himself and expunge any criticism.

The lead seal was weighty in his hand. He knew no spells to remove seals intact, but he did know how to re-forge broken ones.

Mandes was awake till dawn. He read and wrote all night, scraping off Tol’s carefully penned letters and inking in his own. The former farm boy had little skill as a writer; his simple handwriting was easy to alter.

The last scroll, addressed to Princess Valaran Mandes found most interesting, but it mentioned him not at all. He did not bother changing any of it. Instead he made a copy.

The caravan rolled out at sunrise. Tol saw it off. Egrin led the homeward-bound column on horseback. He saluted his former shield-bearer proudly, and Tol returned the gesture with enthusiasm. Egrin bared his dagger and raised it high, holding it there long after he’d passed Tol.

Behind Egrin came those riders going home to their families and farms. Most were from the Caergoth region. They raised four cheers for their valiant commander as they rode.

In their wake came the walking wounded. Weakened, they did not shout so lustily, but there was pride in their stride and gratitude in their eyes.

Lastly, a long, irregular parade of carts and wagons rolled by, filled with warriors too hurt to walk. Leading the line of wagons was a black coach drawn by four matched bay horses, once the property of a rich Tarsan merchant who spent some months each year in Old Port. Tol’s men had found the coach hidden away in a barn and liberated it for their commander’s use.

Mandes sat in the coach’s rear seat. The other places were taken by riders who’d lost limbs or sustained other grave injuries. The wizard did not wave as he passed, but did incline his head to the author of his new opportunity. — Tol called out, “Farewell, Mandes! When I return to Daltigoth, we’ll feast at Juramona House!”

He remained until the last cart in the long caravan was gone, then turned Cloud about and rode back to camp.

It was the middle day of autumn. Tol expected that once his letters were received, he would be recalled to the capital to confer with the crown prince and the highest warlords of the empire. Fresh hordes would be needed if Tarsan territory was to be invaded. Tol had fewer than seven thousand men, enough to defend Hylo but not enough to conquer the powerful city-state.

He knew no attack could be mounted until spring. Winter’s snow would close the roads and make troop movements laborious and expensive. Tarsis might launch coastal raids in the meantime, but the loss of a huge army and their best general had to give them pause. Time would tell how much.

Riding back into camp over ground crunchy with frost, Tol was stricken anew with longing for Valaran. She’d been much on his mind during the journey north, but once they encountered real danger, his mind had been fixed on the peril in front of him. His pent-up desire surfaced with a vengeance now. How long would it be until he saw her again? The letter he’d entrusted to Mandes begged her to write to him. Before, when he’d been on the move, there was no way for her letters to find him, but he would be in camp for some time now and regular correspondence was possible. He was lord of the northern hordes. The thought made him smile with pride.

A few flakes of snow drifted down, melting on Cloud’s gray hide and Tol’s bare hands.

It will not be long, Val, Tol vowed. Not long.

Snow was falling in Daltigoth. The sun shone warmly over the Inner City, as it always did thanks to the college of sorcerers, but the outer city lay muffled under a fresh mantle of white.

Treading carefully through the drifts came a man swathed in furs from head to heels. He made directly for the gate of a darkened villa sited in a cramped corner of the Old City. Stucco was peeling off the villa’s wall in wide patches, exposing red bricks underneath. Snow padded the spikes atop the wall.

Few people dared approach the crumbling mansion. It was inhabited by a gang of disreputable nobles, former members of the city Horse Guards, drunkards, wastrels, and thugs. They were called-though not to their faces-Nazramin’s Wolves, in honor of the prince who was their patron.

The gate was shut, so the fur-clad man tugged on the chain hanging nearby. A bronze bell tolled dully. The wicket opened.

“Who is it?” demanded a deep voice from within.

“A visitor to see your master.”

“Go away before I set the dogs on you.” The deep baying of hounds within proved the threat was not an idle one.

The wicket started to close. Quickly, the stranger held up his hand, palm out, and muttered a short cantrip. A brightly glowing ball of fire, no bigger than a hen’s egg, shot from his hand through the wicket.

Exclamations and curses from the other side told the visitor his credentials had been noted. The wicket widened, and a fiercely scowling face appeared.

“Why didn’t you just say who you were?”

The man’s clean-shaven face, lined by recent suffering, twitched into the faintest of smiles. “I just did.”

The old gate swung inward, scraping back a wedge of newly fallen snow. Seven hard-looking men, cloaked and hooded, stood on the other side. One jerked his head to indicate the visitor should proceed straight ahead to a columned porch and a great brass door much dulled with tarnish. The visitor strode on, only to be stopped by the point of a sword against his breastbone.

“Open your furs. I have to search you for arms.”

Wordlessly, the stranger allowed the guards to probe him for weapons. One of them noticed his left sleeve was pinned to the breast of his robe.

“What’s this?” he said, snatching the cylinder of cloth free. It swung limply by the man’s side.

“As you can see, I have no arms to hide,” said the stranger. The guards grunted, and sent him on his way.

The villa’s interior was almost as cold as the evening outside. Only every third wall sconce held a burning torch, giving the hall a dim and forbidding air. Suits of armor hung on stands along the walls, and racks of spears and swords were everywhere. The villa had more the air of a barracks than a fine old house.

A stooping servant, bearing a tray with a tall beaker on it, scurried down the stairs and entered the door at the far end of the hall. When the door opened, a blaze of heat and light washed out. The visitor followed the servant and stood, unannounced, in the open doorway.

The room beyond proved his host was not averse to comfort after all. It was well illuminated and heated by crackling fires in two large fireplaces. Between them was an enormous chair padded with leather. A table to one side was laden with food and drink, heavy plates and goblets wrought in bright gold. On the chair’s right was an identical table, covered with partially unrolled scrolls. Two wolfhounds lolled by the fire. They growled at the visitor.

“Come forward, Master Mandes,” beckoned Prince Nazramin. He set aside the document he was reading and leaned back in the leather chair.

Mandes pulled off his cape and let his robe hang open. Although he’d been cold before, the heat here was stifling.

The prince waved to the pile of parchment. “You bring amusing gifts. The peasant boy has been busy, hasn’t he?”

“Indeed he has, sire.”

Nazramin’s brown eyes narrowed. “I am not my brother,” he said slowly. “Do not call me ‘sire.’ ”

“Forgive me, Lord Prince. I am but lately come to Ergoth. My sojourn in the uncivilized wilds-”

“You altered these dispatches, wizard. What parts did you change?”

Sweat beaded on Mandes’s high forehead. “Only those portions that mentioned me, Lord Prince. Some I embellished to make more flattering; others I repaired because they were, ah, critical of my deeds in Hylo.”

“I see.” After a moment’s thoughtful pause, Nazramin added, “You left Lord Mudfield’s description of his own successes. Those will have to go. In fact, I intend to change them all. I know several expert forgers-though for this lout’s handwriting, a pig with a pen would suffice. When I’m done, no one will care a whit about farmer Lord Tolandruth!”

He drained a golden goblet in one toss. He did not offer his perspiring guest any refreshment.

“Lord Prince, many soldiers were present at the battle of Three Rose Creek,” Mandes said carefully. “Lord Egrin himself is now in the city, and knows the truth. How can you take Lord Tolandruth’s acclaim away without arousing suspicion?”

“First, Lord Urakan won the battle,” the prince said, refilling his goblet. “I’ll put those words in the upstart’s own mouth. That Urakan died is both poignant and useful. He was a military blockhead, but also a noble of the first blood. Let Urakan have the glory. He’ll bear it better than a peasant boy, no matter how high my brother elevates him!

“Second, the situation in Hylo is delicate. Very delicate. Lord Mudfield will request permission to remain there, to keep an eye on the machinations of Tarsis. He will be granted permission. And stay there he will-until he rots!”

Without warning, the prince flung his goblet on the stone floor. It rang loudly, and showered yellow nectar on Mandes’s feet. The wolfhounds, each one hundred fifty pounds of muscle, teeth, and fur, rose and stalked to the nervous wizard, sniffing the spilled wine. They began to lick the sticky droplets from the floor and Mandes’s boots.

Mandes bowed his head. He would have bowed more deeply, but didn’t dare shift his feet. The hounds were still busily licking them.

“An excellent stratagem, Lord Prince,” he said. “The frontier is a dangerous place. Lord Tolandruth may perish amidst its dangers.”

Nazramin gave a disgusted snort and scrubbed strands of red hair from his face. “I doubt it. Peasants are like cockroaches: Try to stamp on them, and they survive.” Slightly drunk, he mimed his own words, lifting one foot unsteadily off the floor. Letting it fall heavily, he added, “I prefer he survives anyway. I’ll savor it more if he wastes his life away on a distant frontier.”

“Alive, Lord Tolandruth is a threat,” Mandes offered.

“Perhaps to you, wizard. Not to me.”

Gauging his words carefully, Mandes said, “May I ask, gracious prince, why you loathe Lord Tolandruth so?”

Nazramin seized the front of Mandes’s robe, dragging him close. Nose to nose he whispered, “He offends me, wizard. Because he’s not in his proper place. Because he does the deeds of a hero, even though he was born to grow turnips. A proper order must he maintained if the world is to turn as it should. Don’t you agree?” A dangerous glint came to the prince’s eyes. “Most of all, he gives me a convenient way to torment my brother.”

He shoved Mandes away, swept a hand through the scattered scrolls, and came up with the one Tol had addressed to Valaran. He smiled at it-and Mandes suppressed a shudder at the singularly unpleasant expression.

“And this,” Nazramin murmured, caressing the scroll. “This gives me a chain I can bind around Valaran’s slender throat. I pull, she comes. I let the chain go slack, she flees-but never very far. She is privy to my brother’s doings, which I otherwise would not hear of. By making certain alterations to this”-he tapped the scroll against his palm-”I can twist the chain, convincing the princess to give voice to the words I want said.”

“Your vision far exceeds mine, Lord Prince,” said the sorcerer. “I confess it is beyond me.”

The prince gave a dismissive wave. “Get out. Do not approach me again unless I send for you.”

The dogs had gone to sleep, forsaking Mandes’s boots, so he stepped back and bowed deeply.

“As you command, Lord Prince.” Necessity required Mandes to add, “A reward was mentioned for what I placed in your hands…”

Nazramin took a weighty purse from the folds of his dressing gown and tossed it to Mandes. The sorcerer was not yet adept at catching with one hand, and the bag of coins thumped into his belly and fell to the floor. The clatter of heavy coins woke the dogs. In a flash the wolfhounds were on their feet, barking and snarling. Mandes paled and drew back.

The prince rocked with laughter. “Take your reward, wizard! Buy yourself a new arm!”

Mandes scooped up the purse and backed out of the sweltering room. As he was about to close the door, Nazramin said a word to the dogs, and they leaped for him.

Mandes shut the door just in time. The savage beasts hurled themselves against the oak panels time and again, howling like the cursed hounds of H’rar. Sweating and shaking, he beat a quick retreat. Out in the snowy streets, he clenched his fingers tightly around the prince’s gold.

Buy yourself a new arm. Nazramin had meant it as a cruel joke, but that’s exactly what Mandes planned to do. With a new arm, his campaign would start. Not for him the petty plans of Prince Nazramin.

His goal was nothing less than the magical conquest of Daltigoth.

Valaran let Tol’s letter fall from her hands.

On the sunny battlements of the Imperial Palace, she looked over the silent, gray city. Snow always stole the color from everything. All the poets said so, and for once, she saw the truth in their fanciful words.

“Duty demands that I remain here, to guard the borders of the empire,” Tol had written. “I cannot say when I will see you again. Our lives mean little compared to the glory of our nation… here I can serve the empire best, instead of rotting away as the crown prince’s lackey.”

She could hardly believe it. He had promised to come back-and now seemed in little hurry. The realization stung like a slap in the face. If he’d been ordered to stay, she might have accepted it-they both had their duties-but he didn’t want to come back! At first she couldn’t fathom it, then her eyes found the letter’s final sentence, and all was made dreadfully clear. That cheery postscript had stolen the breath from Valaran’s lungs and driven her, pale as a wraith, to this great height.

“The Dom-shu sisters have been of great worth to me. Kiya is an excellent warrior, though she still cannot cook. Miya has proven herself in other ways. Our child will be born in the spring.”

Valaran looked down in despair. It was a long way to the plaza. Unblemished by winter’s snow, the heroic mosaics sparkling in the sunlight seemed to mock her, ridiculing her pain. She could see every one of the thousands of stones in them. In a moment she would see them closer still.

Two women crossed the plaza slowly. From this height Valaran couldn’t recognize their faces, but their elaborate gowns and deliberate, stately tread marked them as imperial wives. How they and the rest of the Consorts’ Circle would coo and jabber over her fate! Poor Valaran the Wisp, the skinny, unfeminine scholar who had somehow caught the eye of the hero Tolandruth, and killed herself when he was unfaithful. Silly girl! Didn’t she know all men are unfaithful at some point in their lives?

Anger flooded her, sending hot blood to her face. No! Not for any man would she throw away her life-certainly not for an upstart, arrogant peasant who imagined himself a noble!

Upstart, arrogant, lying peasant! What a fool she had been to believe him!

The wind dried her tears. Valaran turned away from the parapet and made her way with firm steps down the winding stone stair into the palace. She went directly to the imperial library and filled her arms with books. Ignoring courtiers and servants, she moved purposefully through the halls, back to the corridor between the kitchens and the Consort Circle’s salon. She wanted nothing now but to seclude herself in her old hiding place, where she’d first met Tol.

She shook her head savagely, excising that event from her memory. It hadn’t happened. He hadn’t happened. How stupid she had been to order her life around such a ignorant, unfeeling farm boy!

Valaran closed the curtain and sat down to read.

Through the cold and achingly dull winter, rumors began to circulate among Daltigoth’s elite. People having problems with health, love, or business dealings could seek help from a man who could solve any problem, a wise and discreet man, said to be unknown to the college of sorcerers. Skilled in many magical arts, he was new to the city. For gold, or the right sort of favor, this clever wizard would unravel even the most difficult problems, no questions asked. Fortunes changed hands. Enemies disappeared, or succumbed to the worst “luck” imaginable.

When word of this dangerous freelancer reached Yoralyn’s ears, she attempted to find out more about him, but she had foresworn spies, and could find out little with her own resources. By the time the name of Mandes became better-known to the college, the rogue wizard was too entrenched, too popular, too protected by powerful patrons, for the White Robes or Red Robes to move against him. It was said that even Prince Amaltar consulted Mandes-most discreetly.

Emperor Pakin III took ill that winter and never left his bed again. Tough and stubborn still, Pakin III clung to life but gave up his power. No longer simply co-ruler, Prince Amaltar was proclaimed Imperial Regent by a conclave of warlords. Formerly a penniless outcast, Mandes now moved closer to the most powerful man in the empire.

The sorcerer settled into a sumptuous house only a short distance from the entrance to the Inner City, living there alone. The day Prince Amaltar was made Imperial Regent, Mandes stood in the center of his beautifully appointed, scroll-filled study and rubbed his hands thoughtfully. One hand was pale and soft, like the rest of Mandes’s flesh. The other was muscular and brown. Unable to grow a new arm, he’d found a suitable replacement. Its former owner had not given his limb willingly, but he was past protesting. His lifeless body had been consigned to the Dalti River before it froze over for the winter.

Too easy, too easy, some part of Mandes’s mind told him. His goals may have been too modest, for everything he wanted had seemed to fall into his hands within six months of his arrival in Daltigoth. Only two things still vexed him, in minor ways. Prince Nazramin, whose power behind the scenes had grown enormously, remained indifferent to Mandes and rarely sought his counsel. The other niggling problem was Lord Tolandruth. Consigned to the distant reaches of Hylo, the young warlord still lived. Even with half the nobles of Daltigoth on his side, the other half under his thumb (for he knew too much about their indiscretions), even with the patronage of the regent himself, Mandes could not contemplate Tolandruth without foreboding.

Days passed into months. New hordes arrived to bolster Tol’s army, but no word came with them-not from Prince Amaltar, Egrin, or Valaran. The silence was so troubling that Tol wrote new letters to Valaran and Egrin.

When the sun broke through on the first day of spring, sixteen new hordes arrived under the command of Lord Regobart. Many years Tol’s senior, Regobart bore orders from Regent Amaltar which named him commander of the northern army. Regobart had been charged to convey the prince’s appreciation to Tolandruth for keeping station through the winter, and his continued affection for his champion. That was all. No words of praise or gratitude for last autumn’s victories. No personal missive came from Valaran.

When a private message finally did arrive, it came in the form of Sanksa, one of Tol’s chosen retainers. The Karad-shu man had gone to Daltigoth with Egrin. He returned looking haggard and grave, and Tol’s heart fell. He feared the worst.

Muddy and trailworn, Sanksa gratefully accepted a flagon of warm grog.

“Egrin’s at the Bay of Ergoth. Been there since before the first snowfall,” he told Tol. Upon their arrival in Caergoth, Sanksa went on to say, they had been ordered to the south coast to train six hordes to fight the Kharland pirates, who plundered the empire’s coasts at the behest of Tarsis. The rest of the caravan, including Mandes, went on to Daltigoth.

Tol had heard about the depredations of the pirates from other new arrivals and wondered why Egrin hadn’t written him before this. Sanksa’s response caused fresh worry.

“From then until now he couldn’t write because our raising of seaborne hordes was counted a secret,” the Karad-shu said. He lowered his voice. “To bring you this word, I left our camp on the bay and stole my way to you!”

“Desertion? What could possibly make you, a loyal warrior, do such a thing?” Tol asked.

“I will not water the wine, my lord, but pour it straight: That faithless villain Mandes has set himself up in the capital as a free sorcerer, taking on clients for gold and defying the edicts of the colleges. The Red and White Robes would have moved against him, but he has made powerful allies, chiefly Prince Amaltar. The colleges dare not provoke the prince, as he now rules the empire in his father’s stead. Worse to tell, Mandes must have altered or destroyed your reports, offering instead to the prince his own lies. He claims to have bested XimXim alone, and gave sole credit for the defeat of Tylocost to Lord Urakan, who he said died of his wounds on the very doorstep of victory!”

Sanksa clawed dirty blonde hair from his face and drained the flagon. “The final clod of dirt on your grave was a letter claiming, in your name, that ah you wanted from life was to remain in Hylo with the army until Tarsis was defeated. With Mandes performing wonders for him, Prince Amaltar’s fears for his own safety have been greatly eased, and he does not feel so strongly the need of a champion. So, my lord, you, Egrin, and the good men of Juramona are condemned by lies and villainy to exile at opposite ends of the empire!”

Stunned and silent, Tol wandered to the tent flap. Outside, the imperial camp was alive with activity as Lord Regobart’s new arrivals sought their billets.

“And Regobart?” Tol said, casting an ugly look over his shoulder at Sanksa. “Is he also a part of this web of deceit?”

“Egrin says Lord Regobart is not to blame for your predicament, being an honorable soldier and a loyal vassal of the emperor. ‘Serve him well, as you did Lord Urakan,’ Egrin told me to tell you,” the lanky warrior said.

Tol turned away, his shoulders hunching slightly in defeat. Rising to his feet Sanksa exclaimed, “Do not despair, my lord! The gods know virtue and will punish evil. You will best your enemies as you did XimXim and Tylocost, two mighty foes!”

Tol thanked the earnest warrior for his efforts and bade him stay in Tol’s own tent to rest and eat. He promised to make right Sanksa’s desertion.

Stepping outside the modest tent (he had ceded the larger one to Lord Regobart), Tol inhaled the cold air of early spring. It had been a morning like this, many years ago, when he’d gone to the onion field to work, and instead ended up saving the life of Lord Odovar. What would he be doing now if he had run away and left Odovar to the Pakin rebels? Still hoeing onions on a frosty morn? He banished such thoughts. There was no going back. Whatever destiny the gods intended for him, it was not on a hardscrabble farm in the wilds of the Eastern Hundred.

He looked south at the greening sward of forest between the camp and the plains of Ergoth. Juramona lay that way, and beyond, Daltigoth. Valaran was there. Had Mandes altered his letter to her, too? Loneliness like a fist gripped his heart. Had she been told he was staying away by his own choice? Would she believe that of him?

“My lord!”

The call did not penetrate Tol’s troubled thoughts. Fellen approached, saying, “The new infantry spears are ready for your inspection. Will you see them now?”

Tol’s gaze was still fixed southward.

After a moment, Fellen asked, “My lord?”

“Take it back!” Confused, Fellen asked him what he meant.

Tol looked at the engineer and proclaimed, “I will crush my enemies, and when they are dust, I shall take back what is mine!”

Fellen took him to mean the Tarsans. Later he would remember Tol’s words, and know the truth.