A warrior's joyrney

Chapter 5

The next day they found the battlefield.

After their disrupted night, Felryn had arisen in a somber mood. What disquieted him he would not say, but as the morning progressed, signs of trouble appeared that upset them all. Thin columns of smoke rose in the distance. Crows and vultures wheeled overhead. Past noon the wind changed, bringing with it the unmistakable stench of death.

Egrin reined up. Felryn halted close beside him, glancing around with uneasy eyes.

“Where?” the warden asked.

Felryn fingered a deeply engraved white metal disk hanging from a cord around his neck. His face a blank mask of concentration, he pointed straight ahead.

They crossed a shallow creek and rode up the facing draw. The hills parted, revealing a broad, flat vale. From hill to hill, the valley was littered with the bodies of men and horses.

Egrin said nothing, merely touched his heels to Old Acorn’s sides and rode slowly ahead. The war-horse was undisturbed by the sight and smell of corpses. Not so Tol. He clung tightly to Egrin. Although he turned his head from side to side to avoid the horrible spectacle, there was no escape. Death surrounded them.

Felryn’s horse would not follow Old Acorn’s lead through the battlefield. The healer had to climb down and hood the animal’s eyes before it would advance. Even so, the terrified horse trembled in every limb, saliva dripping from its flaring lips, as it placed each hoof with care.

“Look well, Tol, and remember,” said Egrin. “This is what victory looks like,”

“What victory?” The boy’s words were muffled against Egrin’s back.

“These are Pakin dead. See the armbands, the banners?” The battlefield was Uttered with scraps of green cloth. “Those who win battles take their dead away with them. The defeated flee, leaving their men where they fall.”

The carnage was many times worse than what Tol had seen following Lord Odovar’s ambush. Egrin counted more than four hundred Pakins slain. He identified them as local levies, not of the warrior class. They were crudely equipped with leather armor, bronze-tipped spears, and the thick felt caps favored by men of the southern territories. There was very little metal among them-not much armor, no helmets. Here and there were scattered a few men of higher rank. They had been stripped to the skin, their valuable arms and armor carried away by the victorious Ackal warriors. None of their faces was familiar to the warden. Felryn agreed the men had been dead at least two or three days.

At the far end of the vale, Egrin found a mossy bank churned up by the hooves of many horses. Broken sabers Uttered the ground. He dismounted, felt the torn earth with his fingers, and studied the pattern of prints.

“This was not an ambush, but a pitched battle,” he reported. “The numbers were even, but the Pakin levies were no match for warriors of a Great Horde.”

“Imperial soldiers, here?” said Felryn, incredulous.

“Yes, see this sword hilt?” Egrin held up the stump of a shattered weapon. “That’s the pattern used by the Daltigoth Silver Blades, one of four hordes quartered in the capital.”

A horde was a fighting company made up of a thousand warriors. Each horde bore a proud and fearsome name, like the Silver Blades, the Ackal Bloods, or the Red Thunders.

“The fight started out there, on open ground. The Pakins charged, and the Imperial horde drew back, feigning retreat. Then they took the rebels in the flank, broke their formation, and drove them into this trap. Most of the Pakins died here.” Egrin stood up and dusted his hands. “Basic tactics.”

“I call it butchery,” Felryn replied.

Tol listened openmouthed to Egrin’s description of a battle he had not seen, then spoke up.

“These are the Pakins who ambushed Lord Odovar!”

Egrin regarded him skeptically. “How do you know?”

“Some of the men killed in the ambush, the Pakin ones, wore the same sort of hats. They, and the ones who came looking for Lord Odovar, had green cloths tied around their right arms, like these men. I remember wondering how right-handed men managed to do that.”

Egrin studied the fallen rebels again. “I believe you’re right. Good eye, lad!” A fresh thought struck him. “If these are the rebels who attacked the marshal, then Grane must have been with them. As far as I can tell he’s not dead on the field, so he must be on the run. He may still be in the province!”

“Calm yourself, son of Raemel!” said Felryn, as Egrin mounted quickly. “No one knows what Spannuth Grane looks like under his helm. Any one of those stripped nobles could be him.”

“True, but don’t wager on it! Grane would not stand and fight if the battle was going against him. He ran away at the battle of Thingard, and again before the walls of Caergoth.”

As he spoke, Egrin steered Old Acorn in a circle, clearly torn. Duty demanded he go after the traitor Grane, or at least ride back to Juramona with word of the Pakin defeat. But he had made a promise to take Tol home.

Felryn tried to resolve his friend’s dilemma. “Warden, the blood is cold on the ground,” he said. “If Grane abandoned his men as you say, then by now he’s three days hard riding from here.”

Egrin insisted Lord Odovar should be told.

The healer replied, “I’ll tell him. You take the lad home.”

Tol’s farm was half a day’s ride from there. Egrin promised to make straight for Juramona after speaking with Tol’s father.

“On the way back, I’ll cross country to the Caer road, in case Lord Odovar decides to sortie in search of Grane,” the warden said.

“I’D carry your words to him. Farewell, warden. Be on watch, always.”

“I shall. Fast journey, Felryn.”

The healer thumped his heels hard against his mount’s sides, urging the reluctant horse back across the awful battlefield. At the far end of the vale he turned and waved.

“He’s a good man,” Tol said, and he and Egrin waved back.

“The most honorable man in the Eastern Hundred.”

“More than you?” blurted the boy.

The warden looked away to the horizon, absently rubbing one earlobe under his short helmet. His face was devoid of expression.

“I’m not honorable,” Egrin finally said, “only obedient.”

The hills grew higher and closer together as they neared Tol’s farm. Mud squelched under Old Acorn’s hooves. The last of winter’s snow had melted, leaving the high ground dry but the notches between the hills sodden.

They passed the place where Odovar had been ambushed. Scarcely twelve days had elapsed, but the site was much changed. The bodies were gone, either dragged away by wild animals or interred by pious farmers. Dead horses had been butchered for meat, and the trampled wreckage of battle scoured clean by scavenging homesteaders. Only memory and the scarred soil remained. A similar fate eventually would engulf the larger battlefield they’d seen.

It was dusk when they arrived at the onion field. Tol leaned to one side to see around Egrin. Neat hills of seedling onions had been planted despite his absence. That cheered him, but his pleasure quickly gave way to guilt. His poor mother must be mad with grief, wondering what had become of him! Perhaps they’d be so relieved at his return they wouldn’t mind so much that he’d left the ashwood hoe in Juramona.

They followed the well-worn path over the hill. Beyond the crest, Egrin pulled Old Acorn to a halt.

“You’d best go in alone, Tol,” the warden said, “Let them know I’m coming. A mounted man arriving after dark would frighten them.”

Tol slid off the horse and made his way alone down the sandy slope. He took care to whistle a tune his father had taught him as a recognition sign.

The family hut was nestled tight against the facing hill, three walls of wattle-and-daub, with the hillside itself serving as fourth wall. A pigsty squatted to the side of the hut, and there was a brick cistern in the yard.

Tol’s whistling abruptly ceased. No plume of smoke rose from the chimney hole-where was the evening’s fire? And why were the windows shuttered and dark?

Tol licked his dry lips, thinking silence would be safer than whistling. He left the path and skulked along the row of hay-berry bushes that lined it. His father had planted the thorny shrubs to keep wolves and panthers away. They were as tall as Tol and practically impenetrable. Hayberry thorns were a handspan long and tough enough to punch through boiled leather.

A horse neighed nearby, and Tol almost jumped into the thorn bushes. His family was too poor to own a horse, yet three were tethered to a post on the far side of the pigsty. Two animals were sturdy war-horses of no particular distinction, but the third was a splendid gray animal, trapped with gold-edged green silk that shimmered even in the twilight.

Green silk. Pakins!

Dropping to the ground, he crawled along the base of the thorn hedge. By the pigsty he found a heap of cold ashes, and many burnt bones. Where once there had been three yearling pigs in the pen, now only two remained, stirring restlessly at the sty’s far end. Someone had obviously roasted the third.

He reached the hut at last, and pressed an ear to the wall. There was no sound from inside. All was deathly still.

Something cold and metal touched his cheek. Tol jerked in surprise and looked up. A very dirty, ragged-looking soldier stood over him, his iron saber pressed against Tol’s face. On his upper right arm, the soldier wore a blood-streaked swatch of green cloth. Snarling, he seized Tol by the collar and dragged him bodily out into the yard.

“My lord,” the Pakin soldier called out. “I caught this boy sneakin’ around.”

The door of the hut swung in, and a figure stood silhouetted against the brighter interior of the hut.

“Who is it?” said the dark apparition.

When Tol didn’t answer, the soldier slapped him. “My name is Tol!” he said, rubbing his stinging ear. “I live here! With my family!”

The man emerged into the starlight. Instead of a face of flesh, the intruder’s countenance was chiseled bronze, fixed in a hideous grin. Tol instantly recognized the armor and carriage of the man he’d met before at the onion field, the lord who had hunted Marshal Odovar and commanded the monstrous panther-creature. It was Spannuth Grane, leader of the Pakin rebels in the southern and eastern provinces.

“I know you, boy,” Grane said, voice hollow inside his closed helmet. “You’re the farmer’s son. Where have you been?”

“Carried off by soldiers, master.” Tol was surprised both by his own easy lie and that such a lordly fellow would remember him after their brief meeting. “I was made to work for them until a few days ago, when I ran away.”

The leering bronze visor nodded slowly up and down. “Put him with the others,” Grane said. A second Pakin warrior came out of the house, and together he and his disheveled comrade shoved Tol inside.

His family was there, huddled by the hillside wall-his father, Bakal, his mother, Ita, and his two sisters, Zalay and Nira. His father had taken a beating: his face was bruised, and one eye was blackened and swollen shut Tol’s mother whimpered with relief and tried to stand and take him in her arms. She was stopped short by a cord tied to her wrists and ankles.

The Pakin soldiers shoved Tol at his anxious mother. They sprawled in a heap on top of his sister Nira. Sorting themselves into sitting positions, they had a low-voiced but joyful reunion.

“How long have they been here?” Tol asked softly.

“Since sundown yesterday,” muttered his father through split lips. “They killed our best pig, and mean to take the others-”

“Shut yer hole,” one soldier snapped. Bakal prudently obeyed.

One man went back outside, to stand watch. Lord Grane shut the door and sat down in the only chair, Bakal’s, by the cold fireplace. A lamp flickered on the hearth near his knee.

Grane removed his fearsome helm. Beneath it, he wore a close mail coif, so all Tol could see of his face was his nose and eyes. He did not resemble Vakka Zan, the White Pakin, for Grane’s eyes were as black and cold as unburned coal.

“Is this all your brood, farmer? Are we to expect any more visitors?”

“This is all,” Tol’s father grunted.

With arms folded, Grane sat facing the cowering family. Tol kept his eyes downcast, even as he strained his ears to hear any sign that Egrin was coming. He heard nothing, and finally his curiosity would not be denied.

“Sir, what are you going to do with us?”

His father growled at him to hush, but Grane replied, “A fair question. Since you were brave enough to ask, I’ll tell you. I shall tarry here awhile, resting. If you do not vex me, I shall spare your lives. When I depart, I shall resume the campaign of my master, the Pakin Successor, against the Ackal tyrant.”

The carnage of the battlefield was still vivid in Tol’s mind. “But your army’s dead,” he blurted.

The Pakin soldier snapped a vulgar word at him. Grane merely shrugged. “Ah, you saw the battlefield,” he said. “A setback, I admit. My cavalry commander mistook Imperial troops for Odovar’s local lackeys. He paid for his blunder with his life.”

His escort sputtered, “My lord! Many a loyal follower of the true emperor died in that fight!”

“ ‘Life to the strong,’ ” was Grane’s ironic reply. He didn’t even glance at his man.

“Are these your strongest, then?” Tol muttered, glancing around.

The soldier advanced, blade bared. “Shut up, whelp or I’ll feed you to your own pigs!”

“Sit down, Yarakin,” Grane snapped. “The stableboy is baiting you, and you’re swallowing it like a starving dog. Sit.” Reluctantly, the anxious soldier complied.

Grane produced a short dagger with a sharply pointed, triangular blade. Tol’s mother grasped his wrist in alarm, but the Pakin lord merely dug the tip into the chair arm, idly whittling.

“By daybreak we’ll be gone, boy, so let us spend a quiet night, eh? Sleep, all of you. That is my order.”

Tol’s eyelids fluttered, and he yawned. The rest of his family followed suit.

“Sleep. Rest. Speak no more till sunrise…”

Grane’s voice had taken on a gently insistent tone. Although his mind was racing, Tol felt himself growing more and more tired. His mother’s grip on his arm slackened, and her head rested on his shoulder. Zalay and Nira sighed in unison, their heads drooping. His father yawned so widely his jaw cracked. The soldier Yarakin was already snoring, standing up, leaning on his spear.

“Sleep, all. Sleep. Close your eyes and visit the vale of dreams.”

Grane was working magic, putting everyone to sleep! Tol tried to fight the spell. He was certain Egrin would come to their rescue, and he needed to be awake to help the warden.

But his efforts came to naught. He felt as though soft weights were collecting on his limbs and his eyelids. His head grew so heavy he couldn’t hold it up.

“Sleep, stableboy. Sleep.”

The last thing Tol saw was Grane dragging the chair away from the hearth, into the deep shadows behind the door. The Pakin lord sat down again and drew one of Ita’s rag quilts close around his shoulders. The shadows swallowed him completely; only his greaves were visible, and light from the guttering lamp glinted on their rivets.

As sleep claimed him, Tol heard-or thought he heard-the deep voice of Grane, chuckling.

Light roused Tol. He cracked one eyelid. Slim bands of sunlight came through cracks in the shutters. In the beams, silent cascades of dust danced. Tol opened his other eye. Recognition returned as he looked around. His family, the Pakin soldier Yarakin, and Lord Grane slumbered on.

Tol shifted slightly, easing his mother’s head from his arm. With his family at their mercy, the Pakins apparently didn’t consider Tol a threat, and he had not been tied. If he could snatch Yarakin’s spear before the warrior woke, he could perhaps hold him at bay until his father got free.

He listened hard, but heard no sounds from outside. Why hadn’t Egrin come to save them? He was certain the warden wouldn’t simply have ridden away, but he couldn’t risk wasting this opportunity. Yarakin was slumped by the hearth, snoring gratingly. Tol crept toward him. When his hand closed over the spear, he tugged…

The movement unbalanced Yarakin. The soldier slumped forward, and sunlight fell on his face. His eyes opened.

“Ha!” he shouted, taking firm hold of the shaft. He dealt Tol a sharp blow on the thigh, then another in the ribs. Tol went down, dazed with pain.

“My lord, awake!” Yarakin cried.

Deep in the shadowed chair, Lord Grane did not move. Tol’s family did. His father thrust away from wall and, despite his hobbles, butted the Pakin soldier in the stomach. Yarakin reeled back, stumbling over Tol, who was curled up on the floor in agony.

Tol’s mother wept with terror, but his father and two sisters lost no time in falling upon the soldier as soon as he went down.

Tol could hardly believe his sisters would attack so fearlessly. Zalay, the eldest, butted Yarakin’s face repeatedly with her head, and sturdy Nira sat on the hapless fellow’s stomach, lifting herself a short distance and dropping her whole weight on him over and over.

Tol heard noises outside, men’s voices, the ring of metal on metal. Swordplay! Still Lord Grane did not rise from his chair, speak, or assist in any way.

Seeing his father and sisters could handle Yarakin, Tol crept on hands and knees around the hearth, toward the motionless Grane. He took up a length of firewood. It was seasoned oak, and made a good club.

Tol abandoned stealth. He got up, let out a yell, and charged, firewood held high.

He brought it down hard, smashing into Grane’s left knee. The articulated armor plates took the blow, and Grane’s right boot fell to the floor. The quilt covering him fell away and, in a motion that scared Tol half to death, his armored sleeve fell from the chair arm, clanging against the floor. A dark powder streamed from the boot and Grane’s sleeve.

Tol cupped his hand under the stream, filling his palm with cold grit. Black sand. The armor slowly collapsed as the sand poured out. Tol flung back the visor in time to see the empty coif sinking into the suit’s neck. There was no one inside the richly gilded metal. Stunned, Tol stood there staring at the rapidly deflating suit of armor.

Yarakin broke free of his tormentors and made for the door, howling for help at the top of his lungs. He flung the door open and dashed outside. Immediately he gave an inarticulate yell and snatched the saber from his belt. Tol heard the clash of blades, backed by a chorus of neighing horses.

With Grane’s helmet in hand, Tol ran to the door. The second Pakin soldier, the filthy one who’d caught him last night, lay facedown in the yard. Blood was pooling beneath him. Yarakin was trading frenzied cuts with a man in red-trimmed scale-mail. Egrin!

Yarakin jabbed at Egrin desperately. With power born of desperation, he managed to rake the tip of his sword down Egrin’s left cheek. Blood flowed, and the warden of Juramona gave ground, backing toward Old Acorn, who stood by the pigpen fence.

Tol thought of lobbing the gilded helm at the Pakin, but he wasn’t sure of his aim. The last thing he wanted was to hit Egrin.

Clutching the helm and yelling encouragement, Tol was startled to see his father come charging out of the house with Yarakin’s spear in his hands. He caught the Pakin soldier from behind and drove the spear’s bronze head in. Yarakin whirled, slashing at Bakal. The farmer leaped back, tripped on his unwound leggings, and fell against the cistern.

Blood streaming from his lips, Yarakin brought his saber up, but he’d reached the end of his strength. The sword fell from his hands, and his knees buckled. He was dead by the time he hit the ground.

Freed of their bonds, Tol’s mother and sisters spilled out of the hut, all talking at once. They converged on Bakal. Fortunately, Yarakin’s saber had barely nicked the farmer, making a shallow cut across his windpipe. A hair deeper, and he would have been dead beside his attacker. Ita bound the cut with a strip torn from her skirt, clucking worriedly yet proudly all the while.

Egrin shoved his weapon back in its scabbard and caught Old Acorn’s reins. While the warden tied his horse to the sty, Tol held up Grane’s helmet and cried, “Come inside, sir! Lord Grane!”

Egrin’s hand went to his sword hilt. “Is he here?”

“Yes! No! Well, some of him is!”

Puzzled, the warden followed him into the hut. They examined the empty suit of armor from coif to boots. Every lacing was tied, every buckle fastened. Even the frog at the neck of Grane’s cloak was still hooked. All that remained of the man inside was two hundredweight of fine ebon sand, drifted now around his sabatons. It looked for all the world like Grane had wafted away, leaving behind his fine armor filled with dust.

“I wish Felryn were here,” Egrin said. With the blade of his dagger, he scooped up a small sample of the black sand into his belt pouch. “He might make sense of this.”

Tol told of the sleep spell Grane had cast. Egrin nodded grimly. He’d realized Tol’s peril fairly quickly the night before and had followed in after him, but just as he got close to the hut, he’d fallen into a strange sleep himself. The Pakin on sentry duty had been a victim of his master’s sleep spell too. Fortunately, the sentry dozed in the shade, while Egrin had been awakened as the first rays of the rising sun struck his upturned face.

Outside, Tol’s father had made a tidy pile of the two dead Pakins and their weapons. The dead men’s metal and horses would bring a pretty price at the next trader’s fair.

Egrin left the hut with Tol, and both regarded Grane’s fine gray horse, still tied with the other two. The warden scratched his bearded chin in puzzlement. Lord Odovar would have to be told of these doings, and word sent to the emperor himself.

At his mother’s urging, Tol introduced his family to the warden. Tol’s family were awed that their son knew the warden of Juramona by name.

“You’re Bakal, son of Boren?” Egrin said to Tol’s father. “Those sound like dwarvish names.”

The farmer shuffled his feet in the dirt. “Folks say that, but my father was a man like any other. We do come from the highlands near Thorin, but we had no dealing with dwarves.”

“And you, good lady?”

Her cheeks colored. “I’m Ita, daughter of Paktan and Meri.”

Tol’s sisters, openly admiring the valiant warden, fetched him food and water. While Egrin refreshed himself, Tol brought water and fodder for Old Acorn.

Ita praised Egrin profusely for his care of Tol and his help liberating the farm.

“It’s nothing, lady. Your son and I are comrades,” Egrin said good-naturedly, clapping the boy on the back. “Saved my life, Master Tol did.”

Still deferential, Bakal asked why the warden had come in the first place. Was he tracking the mysterious Lord Grane?

Egrin explained the proposal he’d made to Tol, that the boy return with him to Juramona and become his shield-bearer.

Ever plainspoken, Bakal asked, “Why, master? Why our Tol?”

Egrin held out his hand to the boy, who was holding a bucket of water for Old Acorn. “I’ve seen your son face danger,” he said. “He’s a brave lad, with a cool head and sharp wits for his age. He could go far.” Egrin looked at his own calloused and scarred hands. “And he saved my life at great risk to his own. To become a shield-bearer is a great honor. This is my way of settling the debt.”

Bakal pondered. Tol’s leaving would mean a great loss of help around the farm, but Zalay and Nira were strong and willing helpers and soon would have husbands to help in the fields. The more he thought it out, the more convinced Bakal became.

“I’m for it,” he said at last.

Thinking of Tol’s departure, so soon after he had been restored to the family, set Ita to weeping. Egrin consoled her with talk of visits and gifts. Tol would earn a wage as a shilder, he explained.

Tol’s father called the boy over. “This excellent sir wants you to be his shield-bearer,” Bakal said. “What say you, son?”

“I say, yes!” he replied, and then ran to his mother, who was weeping harder now, and hugged her. He would have done the same to his father, but it no longer seemed like the thing to do.

His uncertainty lasted only a moment before Bakal put out his work-roughened hand. For the first time, father and son shook hands, in the way of men.

Two days later, on the road to Juramona, Tol was swaying uncertainly on the back of Grane’s gray horse. Egrin had left the other two Pakin horses and all the soldiers’ gear with Bakal to sell, but he’d taken Grane’s fine armor to present to Lord Odovar and had given the gray gelding to Tol. Scorched on the leather harness with a branding rod was the animal’s name, Smoke. Tol could not read, but Egrin told him what the letters meant.

Tol wondered why Grane had run; how had he known Egrin was near? The warden shrugged, saying, “That sorcery of his may have warned him. He’s escaped every time we’ve tried to take him. One day…” His words trailed off. Egrin’s lips firmed to a hard, thin line. “One day, we’ll get him.”

The land was greening with spring. With the destruction of Grane’s Pakin rebels, farmers, hunters, and herdsmen returned to their work, resurrecting the rhythms of everyday life. It was good to see, but Tol found himself unable to enjoy the sight. Something was nagging at his mind, a feeling that he’d left something undone, or unfinished.

It was not until they reached the village of Broken Tree that the niggling question was resolved. They stopped to have a farrier repair a loose shoe on Old Acorn. While they waited, the farrier shouted for his stableboy, telling the lad to pump the bellows and heat the forge fire.

Stableboy!

“Egrin!” Tol shouted.

The warden was haggling over price with the farrier. Tol’s yell made both men jump and caused the farrier’s lad to drop the bellows.

“Great Draco Paladin! What is it?” Egrin demanded.

“Grane! I know who he must be!”

The warden strode over to Tol, who was still mounted on Smoke.

“What are you talking about?”

“I know who Grane is! He as much as told me so himself at the farm! He called me ‘stableboy,’ more than once. Why would he call me that unless he’d seen me working in a stable? The only stable I ever worked in was the Household Guards’, in Juramona! Grane must have seen me in Juramona!”

Egrin looked stunned. “The traitor’s in our very midst. Still, we don’t know who-”

Tol was shaking with excitement. “I know exactly who he is: Morthur Dermount!”

Egrin’s frown broke and he laughed, unconvinced. “That fool of a feast-hall warrior? How could he be Spannuth Grane?”

“I saw his eyes! Grane wore a hood up to his nose, but I very clearly saw his eyes. They were black, just like Lord Morthur’s, and he has the same thin nose and white skin!”

“It’s little enough to recognize a man by,” Egrin said. “Lord Morthur is an important man in Juramona. How could he leave and assume the guise of Grane without being detected?”

“The same way he left his empty armor in my father’s chair.”

Egrin lowered his voice. “Look here, Tol. You’re a smart lad, but keep this to yourself! By the gods, you can’t go ’round accusing a scion of the Dermount clan of being a traitor! A word from Lord Morthur, and you and I both would end in unmarked graves.”

“But shouldn’t Lord Odovar be told?”

“Yes, but let me tell him. Odovar despises Morthur, but even the marshal of the Eastern Hundred has to be careful who he brands a rebel.”

Old Acorn finally had his new shoe, and they departed from Broken Tree. Egrin was not convinced by Tol’s identification of Morthur Dermount, and he coolly refused to discuss it until they reached Juramona.

Once home, they found the town abuzz with news: The Pakin army in the Eastern Hundred had been defeated by Imperial troops under Lord Regobart, which Egrin and Tol knew already. Besides those killed in battle, hundreds of Pakin levies had scattered across the province. Lord Regobart, one of the greatest warlords of the empire, was hunting down the stragglers. He pointedly declined to invite Lord Odovar to join in the roundup, a snub which put the marshal in a towering rage.

Seeing-and hearing-Lord Odovar’s fury as soon as they entered the High House, Egrin stayed clear of his liege. He sent word of his safe return, but lingered in the High House, keeping to the side and watching the flow of lackeys, servants, and petty officials. Tol asked him what he was waiting for.

“I think I should pay my respects to Lord Morthur,” Egrin said evenly.

Tol’s heart beat fast. “Will you face him, sir?”

The warden put a strong hand against Tol’s back, and propelled him forward. “We shall face him!”

Lord Morthur was a cousin of the imperial house, a direct descendant of Ackal Ergot, first emperor of Ergoth. One did not antagonize so powerful a person with impunity. Tol’s heart continued to hammer as they wound their way through the intricate passages and then mounted a spiral set of steps leading to the floor where Lord Odovar and other high nobles of the province dwelt.

Egrin walked up the door to Morthur’s suite and knocked loudly on the carved oak panel. “My lord!” he boomed. “My lord, I must speak to you on important business!”

A lackey should have answered the warden’s summons, but all was quiet within. Egrin drew his saber and delivered a mighty kick to the door jamb. Tol was appalled. He wished he’d never spoken of his fantastic theory.

Egrin slammed the door again with the sole of his heavy boot, and the wood splintered. Shouldering in, Egrin quickly surveyed the antechamber. It was in disarray. Sheets of parchment were scattered about. Caskets and chests had been flung open, and their contents-mostly clothing-had been tossed all around.

“Lord Morthur!” called Egrin warily. “Where are you?”

Silent as a ghost, the man they sought appeared in the doorway of a side chamber. Morthur Dermount was dressed in a smooth silk robe and velvet vest the color of ox blood.

“How dare you barge into my chamber!” he said. “You’ll pay for this insolence, Warden.”

Egrin extended his saber. “I don’t think so, my lord Dermount. Or perhaps I should call you Spannuth Grane?”

By rights, Morthur could have denied the charge and rejected the warden’s label. Instead, his gaze flickered to Tol, standing behind the warden, and he whipped his right hand out from behind his robe, revealing a long, thin court blade. He lunged.

Egrin parried, shouting at Tol, “Bar the door! Don’t let the traitor escape!” Tol used all his might to drag a heavy chest in front of the broken door.

“Traitor?” Morthur said, laughing. “The blood of emperors flows in my veins-how can I be a traitor?”

They traded four fast cuts, neither man gaining an advantage. “You subvert the rightful emperor in favor of the Pakin Pretender!” Egrin declared.

“I worked with the Pakin claimant, true, but in no one’s favor but my own.”

“You have designs on the throne yourself? You must be mad!” Egrin said. Morthur was many generations out of the line of succession.

The sorcerous noble made practiced, wicked thrusts at Egrin’s eyes. More than once Tol thought the stalwart warden would be blinded or killed, but each time Egrin fended off Morthur’s blade.

“There is only one truth in this world,” Morthur said, panting. “Power belongs to the one strong enough to take it!”

So saying, he drew back suddenly and swept the empty air before him with his sword. Magical sparks fell from the narrow blade. Then voices called from the stairs. The tramp of many heavy feet resounded. Tol heard Egrin’s name being called. He jumped off the chest and shoved it aside, flinging open the door.

“Here! We’re here!” he cried. “Hurry! Help!”

A line of soldiers came storming up the steps. Morthur was inscribing an intricate pattern in the air with his sword, and Egrin could only watch helplessly. Although he strained mightily, grunting with effort, his feet were rooted to the floor.

Felryn led a squad of soldiers through the open door. He snatched the medallion from his neck, uttered a swift, incomprehensible sentence, and hurled the bright metal disk into the room. There was a clap like thunder, and Tol was thrown down. When he regained his senses, Felryn was standing over him. The healer drew him upright with ease and set him on his feet.

Lord Morthur’s suite was now filled with a fine haze, like smoke, but without any odor of burning. Egrin was down on one knee, shaking his head to clear it. Of Morthur Dermount, also known as Spannuth Grane, there was no sign.

“He has escaped?” Egrin asked as the soldiers helped him stand. He was uninjured, only stunned.

Felryn shrugged. “I had to choose: save you two or stop Lord Morthur’s flight,” he said simply.

Egrin asked Felryn how he’d known to come to Lord Morthur’s rooms with troops.

“I’ve been scrying, watching the boy,” Felryn admitted. “When I saw you standing before Lord Morthur’s door with a drawn saber, I knew there’d be trouble.”

They thoroughly searched Morthur’s rooms, finding a collection of magical scrolls, and a wax tablet impressed with the seal of the Pakin Pretender. No one could read the strange glyphs on the tablet, but there was more than enough evidence left behind to confirm Morthur’s duplicity.

Curiously, Lord Odovar refused to believe his second was Spannuth Grane. He accepted the proof of Morthur’s complicity with the Pakins readily enough, but his pride would not let him admit that the cunning foe who had ambushed his troops and nearly killed him was the pleasure-seeking fool he knew as Morthur Dermount. Still, from that day forward, no one ever again mentioned the names of Morthur Dermount or Spannuth Grane to the marshal, on pain of his violent displeasure.