The Scepter's return

CHAPTER TWO

King Grus swung up into the saddle. General Hirundo, who was already mounted, grinned slyly. "You're getting pretty good at that, Your Majesty," he said. "Oh, shut up," Grus answered, and Hirundo laughed out loud. The trouble was, the general was right, and Grus knew it. Over the years, he had become a pretty decent horseman. He'd never intended to. On a river galley — even on one of the tall-masted ocean-going ships the Avornans were building in imitation of the Chernagor pirates — he knew what he was doing. He'd never planned on riding very much. He'd never planned on becoming King of Avornis, either. That had worked out pretty well, at least so far. As for horsemanship… When he shrugged, his gilded mailshirt clinked on his shoulders.

Instead of a stallion, he did ride a good-natured gelding. He'd done that even when he knew he was going to get in a fight. He valued control and obedience more than fire in a horse.

"Are we ready?" he asked.

"If we weren't, would we be doing all this?" Hirundo said reasonably.

"Let's go, then." Grus used the reins and the pressure of his knees to urge his horse into motion. Hirundo's high-spirited charger pranced along beside it.

As they rode out of the stables, mounted imperial lancers formed up around them. The guardsmen wore heavy shirts of mail and rode big, strong horses. Even the horses wore armor that protected their heads and breasts. The lancers' charge was irresistible at close range. The problem was getting the Menteshe, who usually kept but loose order on their ponies, to bunch together long enough to receive a charge.

"Your Majesty!" the guardsmen shouted. Grus waved to them. Under the bar nasals of their conical helmets, a good many of the troopers grinned at him.

He waved again. "Are we going to run the nomads ragged?" he called.

"Yes!" the lancers shouted. Grus waved again. I hope we are, anyway, he thought.

The rest of the army he would take south from the city of Avornis waited outside the walls. Before he could go out to it, though, he needed to take care of one loose end. "Where are Pterocles and Otus?" he asked.

"They were in there getting saddled up, too," Hirundo said. "What's taking them so long?"

"Well, if you think I'm a poor excuse for a cavalryman…" Grus said. Hirundo threw back his head and laughed. A minute or two later, Pterocles and Otus emerged. Both of them rode mules. Grus had hardly ever known a wizard who trusted himself on horseback, while the freed thrall (Grus hoped he was a freed thrall) hadn't had much chance to acquire the equestrian art.

Pterocles dipped his head to Grus. "Your Majesty," he murmured.

"Your Majesty," Otus echoed. He was a brown-haired, open-faced man approaching his middle years. He looked like anybody else, in other words. He sounded like anybody else, too. Oh, he had an accent that said he came from the south, but a lot of Avornans had that kind of accent. He also had a slightly old-fashioned turn of phrase. When thralls spoke at all, they spoke as ordinary Avornans had centuries before. They'd long been cut off from the vital, changing current of the language.

When he was a thrall, Otus might have had as many words as a two-year-old. He might not, too. He'd had to learn to speak as a child would after being freed from the charm that had held him down for so long. He'd learned far faster than a child would have, though. Only tiny traces of how he'd once talked lingered in his speech.

"Are you ready to head down to your homeland?" Grus asked him.

"Yes, Your Majesty," he answered. "I would like to see my woman freed. I would like to see all thralls freed."

"So would I," Grus said. "That's.. one of the things we're going to try to do. I hope we can." He glanced toward Pterocles. If they couldn't do that, and if they couldn't protect themselves from being made into thralls after they crossed the Stura, they would do better not to go over the river at all.

But Pterocles' magic had said that they would cross it. Not that they should, but that they would. If Grus was going to make the attempt, he wanted to make it on his terms. Pterocles nodded back. He had to know what was in Grus' mind. He seemed confident his sorcery could handle what was required. Grus didn't care whether he was confident. The king cared about whether he was right.

We'll find out, Grus thought. "Let's get moving," he said harshly. Flanked by the lancers, he rode toward the capital's southern gate. The streets that led from the palace to the gates were cobbled; most of the ones that ran into them weren't.

A few people came out to watch the king and his retinue go by. Men wore tunics and baggy trousers. Women had on either short tunics and skirts that reached their ankles or long tunics that fell just as far. In past years, Grus had drawn bigger crowds when he went out on campaign. He'd done it every year lately, though, and it didn't impress the jaded city dwellers anymore.

"Beat the lousy Chernagors!" somebody called, and waved a broad-brimmed felt hat.

Grus waved back without batting an eye. He had beaten the Chernagors the year before. Some people knew that. Others, like this fellow, hadn't gotten the word. These days, Grus took in stride things that would have infuriated him when he was younger.

The shout did infuriate Otus. "Don't they know what's going on, Your Majesty?" he demanded. "How can they not know? They're free. They don't have the Banished One clouding their minds. Why shouldn't they know?"

"They have their lives to lead," Grus answered with a shrug. "They don't care who the enemy is. As long as it's someone far away, that suits them fine. That's all most people want from a king, you know — to make sure enemies stay far away. Nothing else matters nearly as much."

"Except taxes." Hirundo and Pterocles said the same thing at the same time.

But Grus shook his head. "They'll even put up with taxes as long as things stay peaceful. If they get a fight on their doorstep, that's when they start thinking the king is squandering what they give him."

Out through the open gates they rode. The great valves had swung inward. The sun gleamed off the iron that sheathed the heavy timbers. No foreign enemy had ever stormed the city of Avornis. Back when Grus first took the throne, King Dagipert of Thervingia had besieged the Avornan capital. He'd had no better luck than any other invader. These days, King Berto — Dagipert's son — ruled the Thervings. Unlike Dagipert, he cared more for prayer than plunder. Grus hoped he had a long reign, and that he stayed pious. With trouble in the north and south, Avornis needed peace in the east.

Horsemen and foot soldiers were drawn up in neat ranks on the meadow outside the city. Most of the horsemen were archers. Some foot soldiers also carried bows; others shouldered long pikes, to hold enemy soldiers away from the bowmen.

"Grus!" the army shouted as one man. "Hurrah for King Grus! Grus! Grus! Avornis!" The cry came echoing back from the brown stone walls of the city.

Hirundo smiled sidewise at Grus. "You hate hearing that, don't you?"

"Who, me?" Grus answered, deadpan. Hirundo chuckled. The king raised his voice so the soldiers could hear him. "We're going south of the Stura. The Menteshe have had it all their own way down there for too long. Time to show them that land is ours by right. We've beaten them on this side of the river, and we're going to beat them on that one."

"Hurrah for King Grus!" the soldiers shouted again.

Grus pointed south. "We are going to go forward until we win or until I give the order to retreat. I do not intend to give the order to retreat."

The soldiers cheered again. Guardsmen around him, his general and his wizard and the freed thrall with him, Grus started down toward the Stura.

A dog pranced on its hind legs on a wooden ball. A cat leaped through a hoop. A rooster ran up a ladder and rang a bell at the top. Another dog turned flips on the back of a pony that trotted round and round in circles.

Crex and Pitta clapped their hands. Lanius and Sosia exchanged amused glances. They had to admire the animal trainer's skills, but neither one of them was quite as enchanted as their children.

"How does he make them do those things?" Pitta whispered to Lanius.

"He gives them food they like when they do something he likes," Lanius answered. "Before long, they get the idea."

Pitta shook her head. "It can't be that easy."

And so it wasn't, not in detail. She was bound to be right about that. But Lanius knew he had the broad outlines right. He'd trained Pouncer to come up and sit on his chest that way. It wasn't much of a trick — nothing to compare to what these animals were doing — but the principle couldn't be much different.

When the show ended, the pony lowered its head and extended its right forefoot in a salute. The dogs did the same. The rooster spread its wings while stretching out its leg. The cat… yawned. And the trainer, a big-nosed, bushy-mustached man named Collurio, put both hands in front of his chest and bowed very low.

"Well done!" Lanius called. His wife and children echoed him.

Collurio bowed again, not quite so deeply. "I thank you, Your Majesties, Your Highnesses. Always a pleasure to work for such an appreciative audience." He had a showman's voice, a little louder and a little more clearly enunciated than it needed to be. Lanius had also paid him well to perform, but he was much too smooth to bring up such a tiny detail.

He spoke to his assistant, a youth who, except for lacking a mustache, looked a lot like him. The youngster took charge of the animals and led them out of the audience chamber where they'd put on their show. Collurio started to follow. Lanius said, "Wait a moment, if you please."

The animal trainer stopped and turned back. "Of course, Your Majesty. I am at your service." Though he sounded more than a little surprised and curious, the bow he gave the king now was as smooth as any of the others.

Lanius got to his feet. "Walk with me," he said, and Collurio fell in beside him. When a pair of royal guards started to approach, Lanius waved them back out of earshot. They looked at each other, but obeyed. People mostly did obey Lanius… as long as Grus was away from the palace.

"Like I say, Your Majesty, I'm at your service. But what sort of service can I do for you?" Yes, Collurio was curious. He also sounded nervous. Lanius didn't suppose he could blame him for that.

"First things first," the king said. "Can you keep secrets? Give me the truth, please. If you say no, I won't be angry — I'll just talk to someone else. But if you say yes and then let your mouth run free, I promise you'll wish you were never born."

"I don't blab, Your Majesty," Collurio said. "And I'm not the sort who gets soused in a wineshop and spills his guts without even knowing he's doing it, either."

Did he mean it? Lanius decided he did. "All right, then. Have you ever tried to train a moncat? Would you like to?"

"I never have," Collurio said slowly. "There aren't many outside the palace." He was right about that. All the moncats in Avornis were descended from the pair a Chernagor ambassador had given to Lanius some years earlier. The king had made presents of a few of them to favored nobles, but only a few. Most he kept himself. Collurio went on, "I would like to, yes, if I get the chance."

"If you want it, I think it's yours," Lanius said. "There's one particular moncat I'd like you to try to teach one particular thing."

Collurio bowed one more time. "I am your servant, Your Majesty. What is it that you want the animal to learn?" But after

Lanius described it, the trainer frowned. "Meaning no disrespect, but that is not one thing. It is a whole series of things. The moncat would have to learn them one at a time, and would also have to learn to do them in the right order. I am not sure whether the creature would be clever enough. I am not sure whether it would be patient enough, either."

Did he mean he wasn't sure whether he would be patient enough? Lanius wouldn't have been surprised. The king said, "I want you to do the best you can. If you fail, I will not punish you, though I may try again with someone else. If you succeed, you and yours will never want for anything. I promise you that."

Collurio licked his lips. He was interested — Lanius could see that. But the animal trainer said, "Again, Your Majesty, I mean no disrespect to you, but would King Grus also make me the same promise?"

Even someone as far down the social scale as he was knew that Grus was the one with real power in the palace. "I'm not offended," Lanius said, which was.. mostly true. Though it wasn't completely true, it needed saying; Collurio looked relieved to hear it. The king continued, "Here, though, I think I can tell you that he would. This is also something in which he is interested. I will write to him and ask, if you like."

"No, Your Majesty, no need for that. I believe you," Collurio said quickly. He'd taken his doubts as far as he could — probably further than most men would have dared. "What you just told me is plenty good enough."

'Then I think we have a bargain." Lanius held out his hand. Collurio clasped it. The trainer's fingers, his palm, and the back of his hand bore an amazing number and variety of scars. Not all the animals he'd dealt with had been docile. Eagerness surging through him, Lanius asked, "Do you want to start now?"

"Might I ask to wait until tomorrow?" Collurio replied. "I would like to tend to my own beasts, if you don't mind."

Lanius realized he'd been too impetuous. He nodded. "Of course. Oh — one other thing." The animal trainer raised a curious eyebrow. Lanius said, "For the kingdom's sake, and also for your own safety, don't talk about what you're doing here, not to anyone, not ever. This is the secret I asked you if you could keep."

"Not talk about training a moncat, for my.. safety?" Collurio sounded as though he couldn't believe his ears.

"I am not joking," Lanius said.

The trainer's smile and the way he shook his head said he didn't understand but wasn't about to argue. "I'll keep quiet," he said. "My tongue's not a babbling brook. I told you so, and I meant it."

"Good." Lanius nodded again. "That's part of the bargain we just made."

"For a chance to train moncats, I'd keep my mouth shut about all kinds of things," Collurio said. Lanius liked that. Collurio didn't say anything about the chance to work with the king and under the king's eye. Lanius would have been amazed if that weren't in the animal trainer's mind. But he had the sense not to say it. Maybe training moncats really was more important to him. Lanius could hope so, anyway.

Impulsively, he stuck out his hand again. Collurio shook it. Lanius said, "I think we're going to get along just fine."

Some of the Nine Rivers were bridged. Ferries and barges took the Avornan army across the rest. River galleys, long and lean and deadly, patrolled upstream and down- at each crossing. With their oars moving in smooth unison, they reminded Grus of so many centipedes striding across the water. They also made him long for the days when captaining one of them was as far as his ambitions ran.

When he said as much to Hirundo, his general laughed at him. "You're only saying that because you've got a sore backside."

"I don't have a sore backside," Grus answered. "I've done enough riding by now that I'm hardened to it. But those were simpler days. I didn't have so many things to worry about. I was down on the Stura most of the time, but I hardly ever thought about the Banished One. The Menteshe? Yes — of course. Their lord? No."

"He didn't think about you in those days, either. If you find yourself in the Banished One's thoughts, you've come up in the world," Hirundo said.

Grus laughed. He supposed it was funny if you looked at it the right way. Still… "I could do without the honor, thanks."

"Could you?" Hirundo was usually the one quick to laugh. As he and the king sat their horses just beyond the riverbank watching the army come off the barges, the general seemed altogether serious. "If the Banished One didn't have you in his mind, would he worry about anyone in Avornis?"

Lanius, Grus thought. And Pterocles. Like him, they'd received dreams in which the Banished One appeared and spoke. Grus could have done without that honor, too. Never in battle had he known the fear that curdled his innards when he came face-to-face with the Banished One's calm, cold, inhuman beauty, even in a dream. He knew too well he was opposing someone — something — ever so much stronger than he was.

He didn't think Hirundo had ever had one of those horrifying dreams. For whatever reason, the Banished One didn't reckon Hirundo dangerous enough to confront that way. The officer wouldn't have spoken so lightly of the foe if he'd met him like that. No one who'd directly faced the Banished One's power spoke lightly of him.

Swearing sergeants shepherded soldiers back into their places. The army started south again. Peasants working in the fields took one look at the long column coming down the road and fled. Grus had seen that many times before. It always saddened him. The farmers and herdsmen didn't think the Avornan soldiers were invaders. They were afraid of being robbed and plundered just the same.

Here, though, the soldiers didn't have to forage off the countryside to keep themselves fed. At Grus' order, supply dumps awaited the army all the way down to the valley of the Stura. Wheat and barley would give them bread; cattle and sheep, meat; and there was ale and wine to drink. The soldiers had plenty. But the peasants didn't know that, and weren't inclined to take chances.

Low ranges of hills running roughly east and west separated the valleys of the Nine Rivers from one another. The roads that ran straight across the valleys wound and twisted as they went through the hills. They followed the passes that had been there since the gods made the world. Grus' mouth twisted when that thought crossed his mind. The god said to have made the world was Milvago, whose children had cast him out of the heavens and who was now the Banished One.

Had he turned to evil before Olor and Quelea and the rest expelled him? Or had being ousted and sent down to this lesser sphere infuriated and corrupted him, so that he became evil only after coming to earth? Grus had no idea. Only the Banished One and the gods in the heavens knew, and Grus would have bet they told different stories. In the end, how much difference did it make? The Banished One dwelt on earth now and was evil now, and that was all a mere mortal needed to know.

Riding at the head of the column, Grus escaped all the dust the horsemen and soldiers kicked up moving along a dirt road. When he looked back over his shoulder, the cloud the army kicked up obscured most of it.

Then Grus looked ahead, down into the valley of the Stura. The scars from the fire and sword the Menteshe had inflicted on it were still plain to see. Those scars would have been worse yet if the nomads hadn't started fighting among themselves instead of going on with their war against Avornis.

They were bad enough as things were. And they told King Grus everything worth knowing about the Banished One's disposition.

"I have warned you against your plots and schemes." The voice that resounded inside King Lanius' head reminded him of the tolling of a great bronze bell. The face he saw was supremely handsome, even beautiful, yet somehow all the more frightful because of that. The Banished One stared at him out of eyes as fathomless as the depths between the stars. "I have warned you, and you have chosen not to heed. You will pay for your foolishness."

It was a dream. Lanius knew that. He'd had them before. But the dreams the Banished One sent weren't only dreams, as people said after they woke up from bad ones. The terror they brought felt no less real than it would have in the waking world, and the memory of it lingered — indeed, grew worse — as the waking world returned. Ordinary bad dreams were nothing like that, for which the king praised the gods in the heavens.

"I would pay worse," Lanius answered, "if I did not do all I could for what I know to be right."

As always, the Banished One's laughter flayed like knives. "You think so, do you? You are wrong, worm of a man-thing. And when the heavens are mine once more, everyone will pay! Everyone!" He laughed again, and seemed to reach for the king.

Lanius woke up then, with a horrible start that left him sitting up in bed, his heart pounding like a drum. He breathed a long, slow sigh of relief. The one resemblance the dreams the Banished One sent held to the usual kind was that nothing harmful could really happen in them — or nothing had yet. When the exiled god's hand stretched out toward the king, though..

Sosia stirred sleepily. "Are you all right?" she asked, yawning.

"Yes. I'm all right now." Saying it made it feel more true to Lanius. "A bad dream, that's all." He eased himself down flat again.

"Go back to sleep. I'm going to," Sosia said. Within a few minutes, she was breathing softly and heavily once more. Lanius took much longer to drop off. He didn't find sleep so welcoming, not with the Banished One lurking there. He'd never talked with his wife about the dreams the Banished One sent. The only people to whom he'd mentioned them were Grus and Pterocles. They were the only ones he thought likely to understand, for the Banished One sent them dreams, too.

Lanius did finally fall back to sleep. A sunbeam sneaking between the window curtains woke him. When he opened his eyes — normally, sleepily, not with the terrified stare he always had after confronting the Banished One — he found Sosia was already up and about. He got out of bed, used the chamber pot, and pulled off his nightshirt and replaced it with the royal robes. Servants would have swarmed in to dress him if he'd wanted them to. He'd never been able to see much point in that; he was the one who could best tell how his clothes hung on his bony frame.

Halfway through his breakfast porridge, he snapped his fingers in excitement. Collurio was coming to the palace this morning. Lanius wondered what the animal trainer would make of Pouncer — and what the moncat would make of Collurio. The king ate faster. He wanted to finish before Collurio got there.

He did, by a few minutes, which was perfect. But when Collurio came into the palace, he startled Lanius. The animal trainer was far from the confident showman he'd been while presenting his beasts to Lanius and his family the night before. He was pale and subdued, and gulped at the wine a servant brought him. Concerned, Lanius said, "Is something wrong?"

The trainer started. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty. I didn't know it showed. It's nothing, really." His tone and his whole attitude belied the words. "Just… a bad dream I had after I got home last night."

"Did you?" Lanius said. Collurio nodded. The king urged him aside, out of earshot of the servants. To be safer still, he lowered his voice to something not far from a whisper before asking, "Did you dream of the Banished One?"

Collurio's bloodshot eyes widened. "By the gods — by the gods, indeed — how could you know that, Your Majesty?"

Instead of answering, the king looked around. No one seemed to be paying any special attention to him and Collurio. All the same, he was obscurely glad, or maybe not so obscurely, that Otus was nowhere near the palace. Still in that near-whisper, Lanius said, "How do I know? Because he came to me in the night, too, that's how."

"What — what did he want of you?" The animal trainer's voice shook.

"To warn me. To threaten me, really," Lanius answered. "When you see him, that's what he does. He's come to Grus, too, and to.. some others." Lanius didn't like calling Grus the king, or even a king. Sometimes, like it or not, he had to, but not here. He didn't know how far he could trust Collurio, either. The trainer didn't need to know the kingdom's chief wizard had seen the Banished One face-to-face in dreams.

Collurio shuddered. "I thought he would do worse than threaten. I thought those hands of his would tear out my liver."

Lanius patted the other man on the back. "I know what you mean. Believe me, I do. But the one thing I can tell you is that he can't hurt you in these dreams. He never has, not in all the years since I saw him for the first time. If Grus were here, he would say the same."

"He can frighten you half to death," Collurio said feelingly.

"Yes, but only halfway there." Lanius hesitated, then went on, "As a matter of fact, I can tell you one other thing, or I think I can. Seeing the Banished One in a dream is a compliment of sorts." By the way the animal trainer shuddered again, it was a compliment he could have done without. Lanius persisted even so. "It is. It means he takes you seriously. It means you worry him. It means he wants to frighten you out of doing whatever you're doing."

"Training a moncat?" Collurio's laugh was raucous. "He must be plumb daft if that worries him."

"Maybe. But then again, maybe not, too," Lanius said. The look Collurio gave him said he might have been plumb daft. All the same, Lanius continued, "You never can tell. Come on. You can see the beast for yourself."

By the trainer's expression, he regretted having anything to do with moncats. Lanius wondered if he'd have to look for somebody else. But Collurio gathered himself. "All right, Your Majesty. I'm coming. By Olor's beard, I've earned the right — earned it and paid for it."

"Let's go, then. Shall we stop in the kitchens first for some meat scraps?" Lanius said.

The question made Collurio smile for the first time since he'd set foot in the palace. "You know that much, do you? Yes, let's stop there. The way to get any beast to do what you want is to give it a treat when it does. One step at a time, that's how you work in this business."

He carried the meat scraps in a little earthenware bowl. Lanius led him through the palace's winding corridors to the moncats' chamber. The king hoped Pouncer wouldn't have decided to disappear into the passages between the walls. That would have been annoying, to say the least.

To his relief, the moncat he wanted was there with the others. Collurio stared at all of them with fascination, even after Lanius pointed out the one he'd be working with. "Here, let me have a scrap," Lanius said. "I've taught him one little trick myself." He lay down on the floor and thumped his chest. Sure enough, Pouncer came running over and scrambled up onto him to claim the treat.

Collurio made as though to bow. "Not bad, Your Majesty. Not bad at all."

Lanius scratched Pouncer behind the ears. The moncat deigned to purr. The king said, "He's also taught himself a trick or two. When he goes into the kitchen, he likes to steal serving spoons. He likes silver best — he has expensive tastes — but he'll take wooden ones, too. Sometimes he'll steal forks, but it's usually spoons."

Now Collurio studied Pouncer like a sculptor eyeing a block of marble and wondering what sort of statue lay hidden within. Here was his raw material. How would he shape it? "Well, Your Majesty," he said, "we'll see what we can do…"

Riding through the valley of the Stura toward the river that marked the border between Avornis and the lands of the Menteshe, Grus was doubly glad the nomads had fallen into civil war. Too much of the damage they'd done here still remained. Too many peasant villages were only crumbling rains with no one living in them. Here in the south, people planted when the fall rains came and harvested in the springtime, the opposite of the way things worked up by the capital. But too many fields that should have been fat with wheat and barley had gone back to weeds. Too many meadows were untended scrub, and too few cattle and sheep and horses and donkeys grazed on the ones that remained.

When the king remarked on that to Hirundo, the general said, "Now they're doing it to themselves, and it serves 'em right."

"But they're doing it to the thralls, too," Grus said. "If things go the way we hope they will, we're going to have to start thinking of the thralls as Avornans. We can turn them back to Avornans again." We'd better be able to, anyhow. If we can't, we're in trouble.

Hirundo raised an eyebrow. His laugh sounded startled. "To me, they're just thralls. They've always been just thralls. But that's what this is all about, isn't it?"

"That's… one of the things this is all about." Grus always had the Scepter of Mercy in his mind, and ever more so as he came farther south and so drew closer to it. But, as he drew closer to it, he also got the feeling talking about it, showing that he was thinking about it, grew more dangerous. He didn't know if that feeling sprang from his imagination alone. Whether it did or not, he didn't care to take the chance.

"By King Olor's strong right hand, it'll be good to hit back at the Menteshe on their own soil," Hirundo said. "We've fought here, inside Avornis, for a cursed long time. All they had to do to get away was make it over the Stura. We never dared go after them. But we owe them a bit, don't we?"

"Just a bit," the king said, his voice dry. Hirundo laughed again, this time sarcastically. How many times had the Menteshe raided southern Avornis in the four centuries and more since the Scepter of Mercy was lost? How much plundering, how much destruction for the sport of it, how many murders, how many rapes were they to blame for? Not even Lanius, clever as he was, could begin to give an accounting of all their atrocities.

The farther the army advanced into the broad valley of the last of the Nine Rivers, the worse the devastation got. Not only villages had fallen to the Menteshe. So had more than one walled city. The nomads didn't have elaborate siege trains, the way the Avornan army did. But if they burned the fields around a city, slaughtered the livestock, and killed the peasants who raised the crops, the townsfolk inside the walls got hungry. Then they had two choices — they could starve or open their gates to the Menteshe and hope for the best.

Sometimes starving turned out to be the better idea.

Otus rode close to King Grus. The former thrall stared at the countryside with wide eyes, as he had ever since leaving the capital. "This land is so rich," he said.

"Here? By the gods, no!" Grus shook his head. "What we saw farther north, that was fine country. This used to be. It will be again, once people finish getting over the latest invasion. But it's nothing special now."

"Even the way it is, it's better than you'll find on the other side of the river." Otus pointed south. "Farmers who care work this land. They do everything they can with it, even when that is not so much. Over there" — he pointed again — "you might as well have so many cattle tilling the soil. Nobody does anything but what he has to. The people — the thralls, I mean — don't see half of what they ought to do."

If things went wrong on the far side of the Stura, the whole army — or however much of it was left alive after the Menteshe got through with it — would probably be made into thralls. It had happened before. A King of Avornis had lived out his days dead of soul in a little peasant hut somewhere between the Stura and Yozgat. After that, no Avornan army had presumed to cross the last river… until now.

Was the Banished One laughing and rubbing his hands together, looking forward to another easy triumph? Had everything that had happened over the past few years, including the civil strife among the Menteshe, been nothing but a ruse to lure Grus and the Avornan army down over the Stura? Could the Banished One see that far ahead? Could he move the pieces on the board so precisely? Was Pterocles' thrall-freeing sorcery all part of the ruse?

Grus shook his head. If the exiled god could do all that, there was no hope of resisting him. But if he could do all that, he would have crushed Avornis centuries earlier. Whatever he'd been in the heavens, he had limits in the material world. He could be opposed. He could be beaten. Otherwise, the Chernagors would bow down to him as the Fallen Star, the way the Menteshe did. Grus' campaigns in the north had made sure that wouldn't happen.

Sunlight glinted off water in the distance. A smudge of smoke near the Stura marked the city of Anna. The king knew the town well from his days as a river-galley captain. It hadn't fallen to the nomads, even when things seemed blackest for Avornis. Lying on the broad river, it depended less on nearby fields for food than towns farther from the Stura. And archers and catapults on river galleys had taken their toll on the Menteshe who ventured too close to the bank.

Anna was used to soldiers and sailors. It was always heavily garrisoned. Any king with eyes to see knew the border towns stood as bulwarks against trouble from the south. A great flotilla of river galleys patrolled the Stura now. The river had tributaries that flowed in from the south as well as from the north. They hadn't seen Avornan ships on them for many, many years. Soon they would again.

Along with Hirundo, Grus stood on Anna's riverfront wall, peering south into the land where no Avornan soldiers had willingly set foot for so very long. It looked little different from the country on this side of the Stura. Off in the distance stood a peasant village. It was full of thralls, of course. From this distance, it looked the same as an ordinary Avornan village in spite of what Otus said. No matter how it looked, the difference was there — for now. With luck, it wouldn't be there much longer.