The Seven Forges Novels
Author: James A. Moore
Date: 2017-11-07 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy
Description: All four volumes of the extraordinary, and vivid Seven Forges series: epic fantasy to devastate your world. The whole brutal saga of Seven Forges, The Blasted Lands, City of Wonders and The Silent Army.The people of Fellein have lived with legends for many centuries. To their far north, the Blasted Lands, a legacy of an ancient time of cataclysm, are vast, desolate and impassable, but that doesn’t stop the occasional expedition into their fringes in search of any trace of the ancients who once lived there… and oft-rumoured riches.Warriors from the hard-pressed land of Fellein go in search of t
Publisher: Angry Robot

JAMES A MOORE

Seven Forges

Seven Forges

The Blasted Lands

City of Wonders

The Silent Army

Seven Forges Book I

Seven Forges

The book is dedicated to Charles R. Rutledge for all of his help, and to the memory of Fritz Leiber and Robert R. Howard for the inspiration.

One

An unfortunate fact about the Pra-Moresh: they tend to run in packs. The damned things are not only large, but they are also violent to a fault. The good news for most people is that they are rare. The bad news for Merros Dulver is that they still show up from time to time, and just at that moment, they’d decided to make their presence known.

Seventy-three days into the expedition across the Blasted Lands and they’d run across no sign of another living thing, unless one qualified the dust and the ice storms as being alive merely because they moved with such violence. Merros was many things, but stupid wasn’t among them – his present situation excluded, as he would have argued the intelligence of his decision to lead the trip to the distant Seven Forges mountain range.

Seventy-three days of bitter cold and constant twilight and the same number of nights wasted as they moved slowly through the near-complete darkness toward the stone towers in the distance, their light the only source of illumination under a near-constant blanket of clouds that spewed ice on some occasions and a bitter tasting dust on others. The parts of him that weren’t numbed by the cold were still aching with a deep and abiding chill that refused to go away. If it weren’t for the thick furs he wore, he’d have been worried about frostbite and worse. If the money hadn’t been such a sweet offer he’d have never considered this insanity.

And now Morello, the damned cook of all people, had alerted him to the howling screams of the Pra-Moresh. He wasn’t upset with the cook for noticing; quite to the contrary, he was very grateful. He was also extremely annoyed that neither he nor any of the twenty soldiers with him had heard them first.

Merros stared out into the darkness of the afternoon and looked at the shapes where they moved, slowly circling around the camp, their low moans and high-pitched cackles grating on his nerves and sickening him with the odd noises that crept past even the sharp winds that tried to snatch all sounds away.

There has been a great deal of debate among the scholarly as to exactly what the Pra-Moresh are and where they came from. There have been no definitive answers, but most people accept that they’re damned scary, damned big, and capable of eating roughly five times their not inconsiderable body weight in a single meal.

Merros had no desire to be dinner. To that end he called for his soldiers to get their asses in gear. The group had stopped for the night – day, whatever – only a little over an hour earlier and now they gathered their weapons and wits as quickly as they could, knowing by Merros’ tone that this was not a drill or an exercise, but a serious issue that had to be dealt with immediately.

They were none of them pups anymore. Each of the soldiers he’d chosen to bring along had been chosen for several reasons, not the least of which was experience. The Empire demanded service from all of the men who lived within its reach, but this was different. The men he’d chosen were lifers, the sort who’d spent ten or more years in the ranks. Some of them had even seen real combat in various border skirmishes over the years, though not many, to be fair. It had been close to a century since the last major war involving the Empire had occurred. The Empire had won, so really there wasn’t much to fight about.

Still, most of them had fought alongside him in a few bar skirmishes, and all of them had done combat in numerous exercises. He trusted them to know what end of the sword to use on the brutes that were looking at them from a distance, and more importantly, he trusted them to know how to use the crossbows. He didn’t want to get close enough to the Pra-Moresh to get himself chewed on. He’d only ever seen illustrations of the damned things and one skull on display at the duke’s palace. They were a great deal larger than he’d imagined.

“How damned long for the bows?” He was pleased that his voice didn’t crack as he feared it might. Certainly his heart was pounding well enough to break his sternum.

Wollis loped in his direction, his game leg giving a twinge that did nothing to stop the man from coming along at a hard jog. His second carried a crossbow in each hand and a quiver of bolts was slapping against each hip. “Got ’em. Just had to dig them out of the extra blankets.”

“Seriously, Wollis? Did you not think they might be a little more important than a damned blanket or two?”

The man looked at him and smirked. “You’re the one that wanted extra blankets. It’s been over two months and no encounters, so don’t go getting all bitchy with me when something finally happens.”

Anyone else and he would have been offended. Wollis knew him too well. Wollis was a northerner; he was used to the cold and to the heavy steppes that led to the Blasted Lands. He had also been on two previous expeditions into the great frozen waste, and as a result was invaluable as an asset. He had, however, never once encountered any living thing on his treks across the least hospitable part of the Empire.

Wollis looked at the shapes and let a low whistle spill from between his chapped lips. “I always figured the heads were, I dunno, properly sized to the bodies…”

The heads and faces of the beasts were large, but nearly tiny in comparison to the rest of them. The savage jaws of the things belonged to an animal the size of a bear, but the bodies? They didn’t make bears that big.

Even as they assessed the creatures in the distance, the rest of the soldiers followed years of practice and loaded their crossbows, set their shields in the ready positions, and laid out spears and swords alike. None of them looked the least bit confident in their actions, which made perfect sense, really. The Pra-Moresh hadn’t even attacked yet and their voices were making every last one of the trained veterans edgy. The creatures – whether they were smart enough to be called intelligent or not – had uncanny voices that called out in different tones and seemingly from different locations. One of the damned things sounded like a room full of people crying and laughing both. Several together sounded more like a small gathering of the damned.

From almost fifty yards away one of the things reared up onto its hind legs and let out a roar that warbled and shook through the air, calling in a dozen voices, challenging and demanding and weeping all at once. Even from that distance, Merros could feel the bones in his chest rattle with the sounds.

And then the damned things charged as one, their heavy claws carving trenches into the ice, allowing them purchase, whereas the soldiers had to balance themselves carefully or kneel in order to use their crossbows.

“At will! Take out their vile eyes!” Merros’ voice was calm and loud despite a desire to hide away and do whatever he could to avoid being noticed. It was automatic after the years in a position of command. He was very grateful for the ability to sound like he wasn’t ready to piss himself as he took careful aim and fired.

He watched the heavy wooden missile cut through the air, noticed how the feathers gave just the right spin to the shaft, allowing the bolt to stay true and go farther than he’d have hoped in the bitter winds. The metal tip of the bolt drove into the wrinkled fur of the creature’s muzzle, driving deep and cutting through the muscles before stopping against the bone of the skull underneath. The Pra-Moresh shrieked-wailed-screamed and shook its head, but did not stop charging.

“Oh, shit.” It was all he could think to say.

Wollis’ missile took the creature in the eye and it reared back, the screaming noise replaced by a different sound, a single note of pain that was loud and clear and almost deafening.

There wasn’t time to celebrate. The damned things were still charging. They moved hard and fast and lowered their heads, showing mostly the thick hide of their skulls and their impossibly broad backs. There would be no time to reload the bows. Instead it was down to using the spears.

The spears were designed to take down horsemen, and the soldiers knew how to use them. They braced the long poles in the hard-packed ground, digging in with the short spikes designed to help on the icy surface, and waited, holding to the places where they knew they might well die. Running would be a guarantee of death, something they’d all been taught in the army. More than one fool had tried and been executed for his troubles in the time that Merros had been with the army. He’d killed a few such men himself, a sad side effect of being an officer.

Damn it, they were big creatures. The ground shook as they came closer and every last one of his men was looking as nervous as he felt. “No one moves! No one runs, or I’ll kill you myself, do you hear me?”

“Aye! Ho, sir!” The answer was automatic and belied the fear he saw on their faces. They would not run. They had never been trained for cowardice.

The first of the Pra-Moresh hit the line three soldiers away, and the spear that Kallir Lundt held drove in deep, puncturing flesh, cutting meat and stopping only when it reached the shoulder blade on the monster’s other side. The beast shrieked – a sound that made Merros’ teeth ache from this range, and his eyes vibrate in their sockets – and slapped one gigantic paw across Kallir’s face and chest, carving his face away in one stroke. Kallir lived through it, which only made the situation worse.

And then there was only time to look at the nightmare in front of him, the enormous wall of charging teeth and claws that filled his entire world with a cacophony of screams that seemed designed solely to drive him mad. The spear in his hands shuddered with impact and then, damn every imaginable imp of ill fortune, broke in his grip. The splintering oak stung his fingers and shredded his gloves and the flesh on his palms as the beast drove forward, the wide, yellowed teeth snapping shut scant inches from his face. Wollis was there again, his spear pushing the beast back as it sank deep into the thing’s side. It looked toward Wollis for a second, shriek-cry-roaring, and then lunged for Merros a second time.

He was a dead man. Nothing to be done but accept it. He had lived a good life, with women and friends and the occasional special moments that made everything feel right for however fleeting a time. He would miss the world; he would certainly miss not having raised a family, but it was alright. This was at least a worthy death, better than dying in a pool of his own vomit like that fool lieutenant he’d known when he was just starting his training.

The axe ripped past his head in a savage arc, cleaving the air hard enough to make a sharp whistling note he heard even over the demented noises of the Pra-Moresh. An instant later the animal that was about to end his existence was throwing itself back, trying to escape the blade that took out both of its eyes and drove deep into its brain. The haft of the weapon vibrated in the monster’s ruined face and Merros looked at the thing as if he’d never seen an axe before. Mostly because this one was nothing quite like what he’d seen in his years of training. The metal was thin and black; the design spoke of a weapon meant to be thrown like a knife, despite the grip. Even as he took in the sudden save – Alive! How the hell? – and considered the odd-looking weapon, he saw another of the monsters fall, driven down by his men. The pain in his hands stopped him from attacking anything. Instead he looked at the heavy splinters which had pierced his flesh in a dozen places and tried to wrap his mind around being alive.

A second axe whistled past his head close enough for the blade to almost part his hair, and crashed into the face of another beast that had been turning toward Wollis with every intention of biting his second in half.

Merros frowned. One axe was strange. Two was simply crazy. He finally put the thoughts together and turned his head sharply, assessing where the axes had come from.

The rider hurled a short spear past him and Merros stared at the long cord that trailed from the thing back to the rider and the strange mount he rode. Everything was happening too damned fast, and he didn’t like it. He stared at the rider for only a moment and then looked at the long streamer of rope that led past him and toward something behind him where the monsters were. Where he should have been looking all along if it weren’t for the axes moving past his shoulder. Too much to see, to take in. He didn’t like it at all, damn it.

The spear was buried deep in the neck of one of the monsters, which was roaring-shrieking-sobbing as it tried to get away from the barbed point that refused to come free.

Rider and mount backed up abruptly, and the beast let out a louder series of noises as the cord drew tight and then tighter still. The Pra-Moresh tried to get away, but the hooks in its neck were stubborn. As it started to slash at the tether leading back to the rider, the man pulled a preposterously long bow and drew back with a strength and speed that was unsettling. Merros didn’t much like bows. He preferred crossbows because he felt the accuracy was better and the lack of range was easily compensated for by the ability to steady the weapon, even when mounted and riding. The man behind him apparently did not agree. The arrow he fired buried itself in the screaming thing’s eye, and the creature fell hard and fast, very likely dead before the arrow had finished its journey.

While he watched the single rider slaughtering his enemy, four of Merros’ soldiers died horribly at the hands of the Pra-Moresh. Tardu, Hanliss, Mox and the southerner, Alcard Hammil, were torn apart, the creatures hungrily shoving mouthfuls of their bleeding flesh into mouths that snapped and slavered. How long had it been since the creatures had eaten? Even with all of the supplies they’d brought with them, he and his men had to be careful. The beasts had brought nothing. For all he knew they’d been starving for weeks.

Merros drew his sword and held it tightly, looking from one fallen beast to the next. His men had killed three of the things. The single man behind him had killed three more. No. Four. The arrow whizzed past his ear and took out the last of the things as it came from up from behind the supply wagons. He prayed it hadn’t gotten to the women. He hadn’t even had a chance to think about them. Everything had happened too damned fast.

The rider again. Merros turned back toward the stranger just in time to watch him pull three more of his short spears from a strange-looking holster on the saddle of his mount. The spears were all barbed, much like the first one had been, and with unsettling accuracy he launched them hard and fast, each slamming into the thick fur and fat of the Pra-Moresh the man had killed.

“Wait! What are you doing?” The words left his mouth without any conscious thought. He damned near flinched at the hostile tone he found himself using. The rider had to be part demon. He’d killed four of the things and never even entered the combat save at a distance.

Also, frankly, he looked very, very large sitting atop the odd beast he was riding. It could have been the creature itself, which was substantially larger than any of the horses, even those bred for hauling the supply wagons.

The rider ignored him completely and turned his mount, which began moving slowly forward, the thick claws on its feet getting purchase on the slick, icy surface before it began pulling the four dead beasts behind it.

Wollis, faithful, sturdy and sometimes a little stupid, pulled his spear from the side of the dead nightmare he’d impaled and held it at the ready. “Captain Dulver asked you a question! You’d do well to answer it!”

He wanted to yell a loud no, wanted so much to stop Wollis from being so damnably efficient before it cost the man his life. Because while the facts weren’t adding up for his second, Merros was having no trouble at all doing the math. The rider was a terror. No one should be that fast, that good at killing. No one.

The rider turned his head slowly to look first at Wollis and then at Merros. He wore a helmet, which in turn was partially covered by a thick fabric hood. The night was almost upon them and the little light that existed was fading, until they had only their torches and the distant Seven Forges to grant them meager illumination. That meant Merros couldn’t truly see the face of the rider, but he saw the eyes clearly enough. They gave off their own light: a dead, gray color that shone out from under hood and helm alike, letting each man see clearly when he was being stared at.

Merros stood his ground. Wollis did too, but he looked a bit like running seemed a fair notion.

Before either of them could have done so, the rider’s hand lashed out and a long line of leather unfolded like a frog’s tongue. From seemingly nowhere the man had found and unfurled a whip, which cut the air. Had Wollis moved he would surely have regretted it. The whip caught the head of the spear and the rider tugged. Wollis squawked as the spear sailed away from him, his hands obviously stinging from the strength the rider used.

They stood that way for several heartbeats, Wollis staring at the rider, Merros doing the same, while the dark figure and his unnatural mount stood their ground and waited.

When no more words were forthcoming, the rider turned his odd mount around and they moved, pulling the four cooling corpses along as their prize.

“What the hell was that?” Wollis’ voice was subdued.

Merros stared at the retreating figure, watched as it moved toward the distant Seven Forges. He took his time answering, seriously considering everything that had just happened.

“I have no idea. Gather the men. Gather the dead. Do it quickly. We’re going to follow that rider until we get some answers.” It was the sort of response he hadn’t planned on giving. Not really. He’d have preferred to say something wiser, perhaps to have suggested that they forget all about the strange rider and his preposterous mount. Instead he’d said something that bordered on responsible.

Damned if his training wasn’t going to get him killed.

Wollis looked at him for another long moment and responded. “Aye. Ho, Captain.”

Damned if Wollis’ training wasn’t going to get them killed too.

Naturally they couldn’t merely get on with what was planned. That would require participation from the people who’d hired them, in this case the three women who worked for Desh Krohan. Krohan was a legendary sorcerer. According to the stories he was not only old enough to remember the third Emperor, he was also powerful enough to kill his enemies from hundreds of miles away. The annoying thing about those sorts of claims was that they were damned hard to disprove. Maybe the wizard had killed an enemy in another part of the world and maybe he was just saying he had. What was known for certain was that a few people who’d angered him had died under unusual circumstances. Also, just because the books of lore claimed that a wizard named Desh Krohan lived four hundred years back didn’t guarantee it was the same man. Merros was hardly the only soldier to have borne his name, and yet no one mistook him for his great grandfather or his second cousin. Hard to prove.

What Merros knew for certain was that the alleged sorcerer paid in gold, and that whatever the hell was hiding under the cloak had offered him a very large sum of money and paid him enough in advance to supply the wagons. What he suspected was that the man was probably adept at certain magicks and had built a reputation for himself that was at least half false claims. In any event the money was good and it was best not to refuse a man who could just possibly destroy your entire bloodline with little more than a few drops of blood and the very large cauldron he’d seen delivered to the sorcerer’s domicile.

Even if that meant dealing with the three women who were now heading in his direction, while the surviving soldiers and workers gathered their dead and their belongings.

They were distractingly attractive women. Even dressed for the cold as they were, the soldiers turned and looked as the three approached Merros. He set his jaw and did his best not to look into their eyes. Despite extremely shapely forms – shapely enough that the furs seemed only to emphasize rather than detract from them – it was when he looked at their faces that he tended to forget how to think and to reason without wanting to–

Enough of that.

The brunette, Pella, spoke to him, her voice clear despite the wind. “Desh asks that you gather the bodies of the Pra-Moresh and take them with you as you follow the rider.”

“What? How does he know about the beasts? About the rider for that matter.” He didn’t mean to be curt, but he’d seen and heard nothing from the sorcerer in over a month, and had only encountered the women who served the wizard when they left their wagon to tend to nature’s call or to eat.

The blonde this time, her hair almost as white as the snow, her eyes so light a blue as to make him want to stare. Her lips full of promises and temptations best not thought about. Her name was – he looked away from that mouth with an effort – Goriah. “Desh has seen the battle with the Pra-Moresh. He has also seen your meeting with the rider.”

“Really? Would you care to tell me what happens then?” Even he heard the skeptical tone in his voice. He believed in the abilities of wizards. It was sorcery that had destroyed the land he stood on, magic that had raised the City of Wonders from the ashes of old Canhoon. Still, the claims of seeing the future always left him doubtful. How could it be proved after the fact? He had heard far too many claim they could see the future.

The red-haired one responded, waving one delicate hand dismissively. “What has been seen will come to pass. Your inability to believe in the Sooth does not change it.”

“So he knows nothing then?” Merros shook his head and damned near bit his own tongue. What had he been saying to himself ever since he took the commission? Angering mages is a wonderful way to end a life or twelve.

The redhead, Tataya, stared at him with hazel eyes that glittered in the cold. “You will lose your hand, find your fist and gain an ally. You will also meet your enemy face-to-face.”

Without another word the woman spun away, heading slowly back toward her wagon. He stared for a moment, cursing her shape for being distracting, cursing his tongue for asking questions and his mind for immediately trying to interpret the riddle of her words.

“Wait. What does that mean?” His voice was harsh, bordered on demanding as he looked to the other women.

Both of them lowered their eyes, lowered their faces, and then stepped back toward the wagon, not quite as dismissively as the redhead, but their postures told him he would get no more answers.

He gave thought to spitting, but it was cold enough that the damned stuff would likely freeze to his skin. Instead he pulled his scarf back over his lower face and moved to join the men as they readied the horses.

Fifteen minutes after the rider had left the campsite, Merros and his people did the same, following behind the stranger as best they could in the near-darkness of the late afternoon. They’d have surely lost him but the bodies of the Pra-Moresh left long trails to follow and even the constant winds of the Blasted Lands weren’t enough to scour away the heavy marks left in the occasional drifts of snow and ash.

The ride was long, and better men than Merros were in charge of following the trail and taking care of poor Lundt, who was sobbing softly as he fought to keep his life for himself and not for the great darkness. He left them to it. Instead he reflected on exactly how he’d come to this point and what it meant.

Retirement from the army meant a stipend. Not enough to live comfortably, but enough to eke out a living. As Merros had hired on when he was barely of age, he’d retired while young enough to do other things with his life. The sad fact was, however, that there was little he was good at aside from being a soldier. Little that interested him for that matter. So when the three women came to him and made their offer on behalf of the wizard, he said yes. There was a real possibility that he might not have said yes quite as quickly had they not been very attractive women, but the odds were still that he would have. The money was good and he was on the edge of going out to the pubs and looking for fights to join into, or worse, signing on with the City Guard to keep himself from getting too bored. The City Guard: as far as he was concerned they were the worst sorts of rabble. Most of them couldn’t make it as soldiers and so they had signed up as local enforcement and bullied their way around, believing that made up for their lack of actual skill. He’d lived in a dozen towns and as far as he was concerned it was the same in all of them.

He didn’t know why the wizard wanted to examine the Seven Forges. He didn’t much care, either. He understood the reasoning well enough. There were, according to the legends, numerous treasures just waiting to be recaptured: great war machines, cold and sorcerous weapons lost during the great Annihilation that founded the Empire of Fellein, hundreds of years ago – possibly more than a thousand, though, of course, no one could say with certainty any longer. Too many years, too many wars and catastrophes had happened to guarantee the accuracy of anything written in the history books.

All he needed to know was that gold was involved. If that sounded mercenary, then so be it. The fact was simple: he was taking on a very dangerous assignment and he had every intention of finishing it as quickly and efficiently as he could.

The rider they were following, however, did not go with any of the ideas he’d had for how this would play out. There were expeditions that had not come back in the past. Some did; Wollis was a perfect example of successful expeditions. He’d spoken with his second at length regarding what to expect and so far they’d encountered exactly what was supposed to be out here. Nothing.

Now Pra-Moresh came out of the damned shadows and strange riders came along to kill the monsters and take the bodies. He looked behind the last wagon and saw that the remaining carcasses were still chained to the end of the wagon, as they should be. Wollis had another rider with him, both trailing behind the wagons, and his second nodded before moving forward. He hadn’t meant to summon the man, but didn’t much mind the company.

Wollis pulled up next to him, the horse under him looking as calm as could be, despite the way all of the animals had acted earlier when the Pra-Moresh came for them. That was good. The animals being skittish would have made everything worse.

“Do you think we’ll catch him?” Wollis’ voice was brusque. It was always brusque.

“Maybe not for a few more hours.” He squinted and looked toward the distant smear on the horizon. “Whatever that thing is he’s riding, it’s faster than the horses.”

“Damned well should be. Did you see the size of it?”

“It’s pulling four Pra-Moresh. Our best horses are struggling with the weight of three.”

“Well, they’ve also got a wagon.” Wollis looked back at the team of four horses. “Alright. And his mount is pulling four…” The man looked from the team toward the distant shape. He let out a low grunt of disbelief.

“So you can see why I think he might outdistance us with ease.”

“I don’t suppose we could take half the soldiers and catch up with him?”

Merros shook his head. “Much as I would like that, I don’t feel we can safely leave our supplies and our charges undefended.” Wollis opened his mouth to protest and Merros countered before he could. “We have just survived an attack by seven particularly large beasts. I don’t want to take a chance that there are more of them out there. Also, I don’t want to offend that rider without having a great deal of back up.”

“But–”

“He killed four of the beasts. Four. Think that through. We lost six men. Seven if you count poor Lundt. We killed three of the damned things.”

Wollis nodded his head and sighed. They rode in silence for a while and finally Wollis spoke up again. “I’ve been out here twice and never seen so much as a shrub growing. In one day we’ve seen more than I have seen in over a year of my life spent out here.”

“What do you suppose that means, Wollis?”

The man looked out at the distant mountains. The glow from the Seven Forges was lighting the sky in that direction a dark, angry red. Even from miles away the light from each mountain was distinct. There were seven red stains on the underbelly of the clouds.

“Honestly? I think it means I was lucky.”

“Why’s that?”

Wollis reached into his saddlebag and pulled a stick of dried meat from its depths. He brushed it clean of lint and dust and then clamped it between his teeth before he answered. “Either it means I’ve never had the misfortune of running across the Pra-Moresh before, or I’ve never had the misfortune of running across the sort of man who hunts them.”

“Hunts them?” Merros looked hard at him.

Wollis chewed on his dried meat for a moment while his eyes scanned the horizon. Best to be careful, a lesson they’d almost forgotten earlier. “Hunts them.”

“Why the hell would anyone hunt those things?”

“Merros, why would anyone come out to this gods-forgotten land and kill those things and then take the bodies with them? They wouldn’t, unless they were actively hunting them down to kill and keep.”

Merros stared hard at the distant shape. The shape they were following, because he’d ordered it.

“Well, that’s… that’s…”

“Insane? Maybe.” Wollis finally had the meat softened enough to actually tear a chunk free. The rest he put back in his saddlebag. “Now tell me, Captain, what does that say about the sort of fools who then follow the man who goes hunting after that sort of creature?”

Merros had no answer to that. Wollis drifted back to the end of the caravan, and Merros let him. He had to think. He had a lot to think about.

They kept riding, not quite immune to the cold, the ash and the wind, but close enough that they seldom noticed unless the winds gusted. Merros didn’t like to think about how long it had been since he’d had a proper bath. Back in the capital city of Tyrne he had bathed nearly every day, and when he was younger, before the army moved him to a different place, he had bathed every day in the river at the edge of the family farm. A smile crept across his face as he thought about a few of the encounters he’d had with Delih, the girl who’d lived just down the road from his family back then. He didn’t let himself dwell on those memories for too long, however, as the only women he’d seen in far too long were decidedly unavailable for his needs.

Not married. Never married. He told himself he was fine with that, but sometimes there was that little ghost of a voice that wondered how different his world would have been with a family of his own: a wife, children, possibly even a son among them.

Enough. The dot in the distance was growing a bit larger. Either the rider had stopped to rest, or he was waiting for them. Either way, he wanted this done.

No. There was one option he hadn’t considered. The rider was coming back. He gestured over his shoulder and a moment later Wollis pulled up beside him again, not the least bit inconvenienced by the change of plans.

“Is it me? Or is he coming back our way?”

Wollis stared long and hard and finally spat a wad of dark phlegm into the snow. Wollis was from a people that spat to show their dissatisfaction. In this case, however, he was merely clearing his mouth of the ash that constantly blew through the air of the Blasted Lands.

“It’s not you. He’s definitely coming back.”

“Right then. Alert the others and be ready.” He looked at Wollis long and hard. “I’m going to meet him.”

“Do you want company?”

“No.” He looked back at the Pra-Moresh being dragged behind the last wagon. “But I want those bodies. Have Lomma catch up with me.”

“He’ll be delighted, I’m sure.” The sarcasm was obvious, even through the winds. Lomma was not a fighter. He was a whiner. He’d been damned near crying at every opportunity since they’d started this fool’s expedition. That was the problem with hiring civilians for a trip, but in this case the man also owned the wagon and the horses. He had come along to protect his property.

“He’s not that bad, is he?”

“He is, and you know he is. I swear he whines more than my wife did when she gave birth to our ass-first son.”

Merros chuckled and shook his head. “Does Nolan know you call him that?”

Wollis rolled his eyes. “Gods no. If he did he’d have slit my throat in my sleep.”

That was probably true. At fourteen the lad was constantly in a bad mood. “Get on with it and wish me well.”

“Oh, I wish you very well. Make a friend, not a foe. I should rather not die today.” Wollis turned his horse and rode back at a fast trot, while the captain shook his head, checked his sword and weapons, and then charged forward, quickly moving past the caravan. He spared one look behind him to see that Lomma was indeed following, though not quite as quickly.

He had long enough to consider what he wanted to say to the stranger. Having seen the man kill four of the fiercest creatures he’d ever seen in motion, he wanted very much for their meeting to be friendly.

The wagon lurched to a halt next to his horse, and Lomma looked toward him, a worried sneer on the lame man’s round face. Lomma had been a soldier once, but hadn’t fared well in a border skirmish to the south. The end result was a right foot that was missing all of the toes, and a knee that refused to hold him in an upright position unless he was bracing himself with a cane. To that end, the man seldom left his wagon if he could avoid it.

“That the one I saw earlier killing all those things?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I just wanted to make sure.” He very calmly reached over and held up his crossbow: a massive thing, with a bolt large enough to take down a bear. It was also only good for one shot, because to reload it required the use of a pulley system.

“You plan on using that, don’t even raise it unless he attacks me first.”

“Don’t plan on using it at all, but if he kills you, I’ll give it a try.” Lomma didn’t even bother looking at him. Instead he focused on the rider coming closer. Merros took the time to look the rider over again as well, and was not made more comfortable on the second assessment.

The man was large. Not gigantic, but decidedly large. Though like everyone else he was bundled up against the cold, his forearms were exposed to the elements, and even from a distance Merros could see the muscles moving smoothly under the skin as the rider casually moved the reins and rested one hand near the hilt of a well-worn sword pommel. His face was still covered by both a veil to protect from the ash and by the heavy helmet he wore under the hood of his cloak.

The thing he rode, first taken for a horse, was anything but. Closer up he could see the thick fur of the thing, the heavy, padded feet and claws designed for gripping the rough, icy surface, and the metal latticework over the face that both helped protect from the elements and, unfortunately, hid away the features of the thing. Merros thought he’d imagined the claws on the feet of the beast earlier, but now knew better. What the hell was he getting himself into?

Merros might well have continued staring at the man, but motion at the edge of his vision caught his attention and made him look to his left, where the three women of the mage were walking closer, their cloaks whipping in the strong winds.

“Why are you here?” His words were demanding. They were not here except to report to their damnable wizard. He didn’t like that they were suddenly comfortable walking where they pleased after so long keeping to themselves.

Their faces were too well-covered, but he recognized the blue eyes of the blonde woman. “In case you cannot speak his tongue. In case you need someone to speak on your behalf, Captain.”

“You know about this man? About the thing he rides?” The notion was preposterous. How could they know of him when they’d never been out here before?

She shook her head. “Desh Krohan has suspicions about the rider. He believes we might be able to translate if the need arises.” Her words were a lie. He felt it in the beating of his heart. Still, he had no choice in this. What if the rider wanted to speak and they had no common tongue? What then?

“We can aid you or leave you with your rider, but decide now, Merros Dulver.” There was no anger or recrimination in the woman’s voice. She was merely stating a fact. “Your rider is almost here.”

He looked away from her and was startled by how much closer the man was. The great beast under him stopped moving and the rider swayed softly as he compensated for the change. Beyond that he was motionless for a long moment.

Lomma made a noise in his throat that could have been a cough or a worried note.

The rider slid from the saddle and landed with ease, the armor and leather on his body jostled and the cloak covering him opened enough to reveal that he was carrying still more weapons.

One of the other women spoke; Merros didn’t have the inclination to look away from his opponent to determine which one. “Captain? What is your decision?”

“Speak to him.”

Before any of them could attempt it, the rider came closer; his stride was efficient, but not overly cocky. He stopped well within reach of the blade he wore on his hip, a fact that Merros did not miss.

The rider’s voice was low and harsh, the words a nonsensical blend of sibilance and barking noises that obviously formed language, but one completely unknown to the captain. The tone was dark enough that Lomma’s hand moved toward the crossbow and Merros stopped him with a gesture.

“He demands to know why you follow him.” The woman’s voice was not completely confident.

“Is that a guess or are you sure?” He made himself look at the woman. It was the redhead speaking this time. He could see the dark red curls of her hair flowing from the edge of her hood.

“A near certainty.”

“That’s not comforting.” He was aware of the rider, knew the man was staring hard at the back of his head, could damned near feel the man’s eyes looking for the best place to bury the blade of his sword.

“It is what it is, Captain.” He forced himself to look away from her eyes and whatever secrets they might be holding.

“Then tell him we wish to offer our thanks for his assistance, to gift him with the kills he left behind.”

The brunette spoke, calling out in a strong, steady voice that was easily heard over the sound of the winds. The rider tilted his head, listening to her words, and Merros wished again that he could see the face buried under shadows, to know what the man was thinking. The eyes that looked him over still shined with that odd gray light, but gave away nothing, no hint of what the rider might be thinking.

Another exchange, the words that snapped from the rider’s mouth were harsh, guttural, and had an undercurrent of odd sounds that made him think of the Pra-Moresh, as if more than one voice was being heard. He felt the fine hairs along his neck rise at the very thought.

All three women spoke at the same time, their voices spiraling around each other in an odd harmony that once again brought the savage beasts to mind.

This time, when the rider answered, it was with laughter, loud and rough. He lifted both of his hands over his head and waved them almost daintily, and though he had no correlation to the gesture, Merros understood it was a sign of humor, simply because that notion fit.

The redhead turned toward Merros and sidled closer. He lowered his head until he was closer to her level, despite still being on his horse.

“He has invited us to join him in a meal.” She paused for a moment. “I offered him the beasts and he accepted.”

“What did you say that made him laugh?”

“Initially he was offended. He took insult to the notion that we thought he could not kill his own dinner.”

They eat those things? The thought was slightly sickening.

“What made him change his mind?”

“I told him he caught you and your men on the chamber pot. For that reason you felt you did not deserve the kills.”

“So, you insulted me to the rider?”

She nodded slowly but shrugged at the same time. “No. I insulted you on your behalf.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about that.” Merros frowned as he stared at the rider. The man was a brute, and it was best not to be fighting him. Still, it was hard to accept.

“You should feel very good about it. Had I not allowed humor to take the place of what he saw as a challenge, he had every intention of challenging you to a blood match.”

His eyes took in the arsenal of weapons surrounding the rider. “Fair enough. Please thank him for the hospitality and accept on our behalf.”

Her eyes smiled and she nodded again. “Consider it done.”

A few moments later the caravan began moving, led by the rider. No one moved very quickly as the winds grew stronger. The women who served the wizard walked across the landscape, seemingly unfazed by the elements, while Merros and his men huddled in their cloaks and did their best not to be blown from their horses.

Magic. Maybe the women were protected by it. Whatever the case, they seemed far more at ease than he felt as they rode ever on toward the Seven Forges in the distance.

Two

The entire caravan was forced to stop when the storm came, a howling, furious thing that made standing in the open a near guarantee of a savage battering. The men worked hard and quickly, covering the horses with the padded blankets that would have never been brought along had it not been for Wollis’ insistence. Merros was glad he’d listened to his second. The wind brought harsh blades of stone and ice that slid across the ground and skipped through the air, cutting at flesh wherever they touched. Between the cuts and bruises he’d received on his hands while fighting the Pra-Moresh, and the three slashes that graced his neck and face when the storm first hit, it seemed like every part of him was aching and miserable. Then again, that much hadn’t changed since the trek had started.

Still and all, he hardly had anything to complain about. The rider sat across from him in the center of the wagon – that also carried the three servants of Desh Krohan – the interior of which was decorated in thick furs and a scattering of pillows, save where they managed a small fire in a metal contraption that allowed them to cook and heat the wagon without catching the whole thing aflame. The women had cooked for them, an unexpected treat – several delicacies that shouldn’t have been possible in the frozen wasteland – and now they sat facing each other in the insulated interior, safe from the worst of the winds and the cold.

Which, so far, had done nothing to reveal anything at all about the rider. He had taken off the helmet protecting his head, had pulled down the hood of his cloak, but only revealed that his head and face were covered with a thick layer of insulating cloths that he did not remove. It was still impossible to see much aside from his eyes and the skin around them, which had a gray tint and was well weathered. Even when he ate, the rider merely slid whatever morsel he was eating under the cloth that covered his lower face and chewed slowly.

Merros resisted the urge to pull the damned cloths away. Curiosity wasn’t worth getting himself killed over.

As they finished the meal, Pella settled herself down on the cushions to the left of the rider and touched his gauntleted arm with her long, delicate fingers. She spoke softly, but the foul language distorted her voice and made her normally pleasant tones uncomfortable.

The rider listened and responded in kind, and though Pella looked at Merros, it was Tataya, the redhead, who spoke to the captain. “His name is Drask. His title is Silver Hand.” She frowned. “I have no idea what the title means.” She shrugged and poured a strong, hot elixir into several small cups. He had watched her settle tealeaves into the pot, but seen a few other liquids and plants tossed in as well. Though he was suspicious by nature – it was almost a requirement among officers in the army – Merros took the offered drink and sipped at it carefully. The heat of the brew was pleasant, and whatever had been added to the tea had the muscles in his body relaxing in a decidedly comfortable way.

Drask drank without hesitation as well. Despite his earlier attitude at being followed, he seemed a trusting enough soul. It was the blonde who spoke next – and if he couldn’t remember her name soon, it was going to drive him into a rage. It was on the tip of his tongue, damn it – her voice carrying an odd, nearly lazy quality. “This is tiresome. Better if you could speak to each other, I think, without our interference.”

Merros frowned. “I’ve yet to learn how to speak new languages without years of practice.”

Tataya touched his forehead and Pella brushed her fingers over the exposed skin of Drask’s eyes at the same time. Then the two women reached out and touched their free hands to each other, palm to palm, fingertips to fingertips.

And the blonde whispered something into the air. For a moment the pressure in the cabin seemed to triple and Merros blinked, gasped, struggled to breathe. And then everything was fine again.

“What did you do to me?” He was thinking the words, even as Drask spoke them.

The blonde waved her hand and moved to sit in a thick pile of furs. “A trifle. You can speak freely now, and understand each other.”

“You’ve used sorcery on me?” Merros’ skin suddenly felt clammy and chilled again, the pleasant heat from the fire and the drink alike fading to nothing.

“A minor thing. Only so that you can speak to each other without having to speak through us. This way the words you hear are as they were meant to be heard.” Tataya spoke, her tones soft, placating, her eyes as nearly hypnotic as ever. And he had to concede her point. There had certainly been occasions where translators had made errors. For that reason alone he forced himself to calm down. There was a man here. For all he knew him, Drask, lived alone, but he doubted it. The weapons, the armor, they all bespoke a soldier, and very few soldiers ever lived off by themselves. He was here to map out the Seven Forges mountains. There was always the possibility that meeting a people who lived near the mountains would be worthy of extra rewards. Haste was a foolish waste of energy. So, too, anger at what was already done.

“Should the need arise again, Tataya, I’d ask that you and yours ask before gifting me with any form of sorcery.” That sounded properly polite. He was annoyed, yes, but not foolish enough to taunt someone who could use enchantments. His childhood was filled with stories of people who crossed wizards, and all one had to do was look around to see what happened when the greatest of them warred between each other.

Tataya opened her mouth to speak, but Drask talked first. “You have fed me. You have sheltered me. We should rest. When the winds have calmed, I’ll take you to meet with my elders.” His words were for Pella. His eyes looked to Merros.

Merros was a captain in the army. He had long since developed a skill for knowing when he should answer and when he should hold his tongue. In this case, he let the woman answer.

“We were glad to offer you the shelter, Drask and we are far more grateful to meet your elders, your family.” He couldn’t have said it better himself.

The wagon rocked in the savage winds, and the wood creaked as the air outside roared its frustration at not getting inside. Despite their protection, Merros wondered if the horses would be well when the storm abated. Without the horses, they were as good as dead. They couldn’t possibly carry the supplies, and the journey had already left them far away from any form of shelter save whatever Drask and his people might offer. And while they were, for the moment at least, speaking civilly, he had to remember that several expeditions had come this way previously. For all he knew the ones that had never showed again had fallen victim to whatever hospitalities were waiting at the Seven Forges.

“I am curious, Drask. If I may, why do you carry the title ‘Silver Hand?’” He asked mostly just to keep the conversation going while he pondered the possibilities of what lay ahead.

Drask looked at him for a moment, his eyes unreadable, and then raised his right hand to eye level before he pulled away the armored glove that covered it. The skin of his forearm and wrist, as with his face, had a gray tinge that looked unhealthy, but from the edge of his wrist up, his entire hand changed. The texture, the color, was unmistakably metallic. Merros leaned in closer and stared hard at the appendage, fascinated. The hand was not real. It couldn’t be. The flesh was silver; it shone with the warmth of the fire, but the skin where the hand connected to the rest of the arm was rough, scarred, and twisted with lines of silver that shot directly into the rider’s natural flesh. Though they seemed organic in nature, there were deep scars running across the silver surface, runes and markings that had to be etched in place when the limb was forged, or before the metal had completely cooled.

“How on earth…?” His voice trailed away. Magic, of course. Not a sorcery he was familiar with, but what else could it be?

Drask very casually reached out and worked his glove back over the metallic surface. “A gift. A replacement for what was taken from me.” Drask’s tone wasn’t quite brusque, but Merros nodded his head and forced himself to ask nothing else. Whatever had happened to the rider’s hand, it was apparently a private thing. The captain chose to understand that. Why antagonize the man?

There was no more speech that night. The storm was far too severe for anyone to brave heading out into it, and so the five of them stayed the night together in the wagon. Merros settled himself near the door, and the three women slept together in a pile of furs he couldn’t help but envy. The rider, Drask of the unnatural hand, placed himself in a corner – a proper spot for anyone who was left in uncomfortable surroundings – and soon drifted into silence if not sleep.

Merros was considering how likely it was that he’d never get to sleep when he drifted away into a deep rest.

The morning brought the sort of calm that seldom shows up save before or after a storm, and Merros crept carefully from the wagon to inspect the damage. Most everything was fine, save that the bodies of the Pra-Moresh had been stripped of half their fur in the blasting winds. If that was the worst thing that happened, he was glad to call the storm a successful encounter.

They were ready and on their way again in short order, with Drask riding at the front and Merros keeping the strange man company. They mostly rode in silence.

Three hours or more into the day’s journey the sun managed to force itself through the nearly perpetual twilight brought by the clouds, and changed the way that damned near everything around them looked. The bright rays struck the land, and, in turn, the land retaliated with a thousand shimmering reflections. Even from a distance, he could see the ruins as they approached them.

There were stories, of course. But that was all most people would ever have when it came to the Blasted Lands. The tales of his youth told that the land had once been populated by great cities, and until the sun broke through the cloud cover, Merros would have thought the stories little more than myths. That changed when he saw the mounds to the west of them.

He stared, unable to look away, drawn to the shadows that hinted at other things buried in the fractured, broken glass towers that had been worn nearly smooth by centuries of harsh winds, but that still survived against the impossible odds. The glinting sunlight made him squint, which only made the half-shapes buried in the glass seem even more… organic.

“What are they?” He was barely aware that he’d spoken aloud.

Drask answered him with an oddly detached tone, as if the answer should have been obvious, but still he had trouble looking away. “The Mounds. Death.”

“Death?” That seemed a bit dramatic.

“Nothing that goes too near the Mounds survives. Nothing. No one.” Drask shrugged. “Things live there. Things that only come out in the darkness.”

“How do you know that?”

“Your kind has tried to explore them before, looking for treasures. They have never come back.”

“You’ve seen my kind before?”

Drask chuckled. “Only from a distance.”

“Why is that?”

“They always want to explore the Mounds.”

Merros opened his mouth to ask another question but the query faded from his lips, his mind, as the sound came from the Mounds. It was a low, deep noise, so low that he nearly felt it more in his teeth than heard it. A long, deep ululation, a mournful tone that made the horse under him dance nervously, and the steed he rode was a well-trained animal, not known for being skittish.

The beast under Drask did not get skittish, but it turned to face the Mounds and a loud hiss escaped from under its armored mask. The thick claws of the thing scratched at the ground and everything about its posture made Merros think it wanted little more than to attack whatever was making the impossible noise.

Drask cuffed the beast between its ears and screamed something that sounded like a different language altogether. The animal immediately calmed down.

“What the hell is that?” The noise was fading away at last, and the scrawling sensation that Merros had barely been aware of eased on his flesh.

“The Mounds.” Drask shrugged. “Things live there.”

“Have you ever seen the things that live there?”

“No.”

“Aren’t you curious?” A foolish question. He might be curious himself; on the other hand he had a strong sense of self-preservation that said exploring the Mounds would be a hideous notion.

“Of course. But it is forbidden.”

“Who forbids it?” This was a chance, just possibly, to hear about the authorities of Drask’s people. The lawmakers, the enforcers. Merros was looking forward to making his encounter with the strangers but a little knowledge would have made him feel a good deal more comfortable.

Drask looked at him, his face still hidden, but the eyes that stared at him expressed their surprise well enough, as did the tone of his voice. “The gods. Who else?”

They rode on a while longer in silence while Merros considered that answer. As they rode, the darkness crept back in and obscured the Mounds, but not before Merros could recognize some of the distant debris for what it was: there was at least one wagon over there, broken, yes, but the design was familiar enough. He’d been living in one just like it for the last two and a half months.

“So, none of my people ever made it to your home before, Drask?”

Drask looked back at him, his face once again lost. His eyes glowing dully. “Not that I have met.”

Vagaries. He hated that. “Have you ever heard of any making it?”

Drask did not answer.

When they finally stopped for the day Merros’ body ached from the long ride. He knew the horses were probably exhausted, and that the soldiers were as tired as he was and in fact they’d ridden for close to three hours longer than he would have preferred, but there are many ways to learn about the people you deal with and one thing he didn’t feel he could do was offer any weakness to the rider. Drask was a worthy fighter and more, and he could not allow the man to think that he and his would tire sooner than Drask or his people. It went against his training.

While the soldiers set the wagons for the night, preparing for the possibility of another storm after Drask warned them, Merros rode a small distance away with the rider and they observed the mountains, closer now than ever.

“How long until we reach your home?”

Drask rolled his shoulders and stretched his arms. For a moment the area where his flesh arm met his metal hand was bared and Merros stared, mesmerized by the odd fusion of skin and silver. Scar tissue and weaving strands of metal and muscle were visible. What sort of man could withstand the pain that had surely been a part of the marriage? The very notion made him want to shiver.

“Two more days to the mountains. One more day to get through the pass and then we are there.”

“What took you so far from your home in the first place? Surely you weren’t merely looking for the Pra-Moresh.”

“Hunting.”

“For the beasts?”

Drask slid easily from the saddle on his mount, his hand touching the beast the entire time he descended, a reminder to the animal that he was there and not a threat. He was a big man, a brute, to be sure, but next to his animal he seemed small. The great creature yawned and bared wide, predatory teeth as it did.

“No. The Cacklers are just a bonus.” Cacklers. A nickname they had for the Pra-Moresh. It seemed almost a term of affection for creatures that could kill a dozen men with ease.

“Then what were you hunting for?”

“You.” Drask slipped his hand into the saddlebag on his mount’s side and dug around and as he did so, the skin on Merros’ body crawled again. Sometimes the doubling effect of the rider’s voice still unsettled him. His hand moved toward his sword without conscious thought. He rested his fingers on the hilt.

Drask pulled out a metal horn that was neither elegant nor elaborate. “Who do you plan to call, Drask?”

“My people. They will meet us here. To come further without their permission would be foolish.” Damned if his voice didn’t seem even more unsettling, more alien than before.

“Why is that?”

“We do not see strangers often.” With no more warning the rider turned toward the mountains and pulled the cloths from his face. Merros nearly cursed under his breath because the man’s face remained hidden, turned away from him as the horn was lifted and then sounded. The note was clear and sharp, unexpectedly loud.

Less than a minute passed before a horn sounded in the distance, faint, but still clear enough to be heard over the winds. There was no mistaking the sound.

“Now what?”

“We wait. They will come.”

“We have to wait three days for them?”

“No.” Drask pointed toward the north, toward the mountains. “They will be here in hours. They will ride as fast as they can to meet you.”

“Why were you waiting for us, Drask?” He shook his head. “Why were you looking for us?”

“What the gods command, we do. It is our way.”

“Are your people very religious, Drask?”

“Aren’t yours?”

“Some of us are, I suppose.”

Drask patted his animal and slid the horn back into his saddlebag, his face once again obscured by the cloth and the helm alike. He did not look at Merros as he spoke again, but instead made himself busy checking the buckles and straps that held his saddle on his mount. “When the world was younger and our people were separated from yours, we expected to die. We were prepared for it. Do you understand?”

Merros blinked and slowly nodded. He hadn’t expected to hear that Drask and his people remembered the Great Annihilation, though he supposed he should have.

“We readied ourselves for death, but death did not come. Instead the Seven Gods awoke and took us in. They offered us life if we served them, and so, we have served them well and faithfully and they have given us life for these many years.”

“The Seven Gods?”

Drask gestured toward the distant mountains. “You call them the Seven Forges. We call them the Hearts of the Gods.”

Merros shook his head and kept his tongue. He’d heard of savages worshiping fire before, but had never thought to meet any. Like so many things he’d heard about, he thought the tales were merely stories meant to entertain children. Or possibly to frighten them.

“Do your gods speak to you?”

“They speak when they want to speak, and to whom they want to speak.” Drask looked out at the darkness, his eyes scanning the horizon for signs of approaching riders, perhaps, or just for any sign of change.

“Have they ever spoken to you?”

“Of course. I am here. I would not be here if they did not tell me to go out and find you.”

“Just you?”

“No. Others rode out as well. It was my fortune to find you.” His tone was exasperated, as if he were explaining to a child and rapidly growing bored, but still Merros had to ask more questions.

“And your gods, they wanted you to meet us?” He mulled that over as he asked.

Drask turned and looked him over from head to toe. “No.”

“But you said–”

“Not ‘us.’ You. I was sent to meet you.”

“Me? Personally?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” The notion was absurd. He didn’t believe in his own gods, let alone the gods of a stranger.

Drask scuffed at a rock with his foot and the stone skipped and skittered away into the darkness. In the distance a few of the horses whinnied, but there were no other sounds to hear in the oddly still air.

When Drask finally answered he did so with an odd finality that put an end to the conversation. “I do not question the gods. I obey the gods.”

Merros was puzzling over those words when Drask spoke again. “They come.” He pointed out into the distance where several shapes moved toward them, dark riders on dark beasts that looked much like Drask and his mount.

They rode hard, tearing up the distance, their bodies low over their mounts, their cloaks whipping frantically in the air.

“Why are they in such a hurry?”

Drask stared at the distant riders and a sigh escaped him, long and drawn out. “We are expected. You are expected. It is time.”

Merros shook his head. “Time for what?”

Drask shook his head. “Only the gods can say.”

Merros checked the weapons on his body, making sure he had easy access to all of them. “Honestly, Drask. I truly hate this cryptic nonsense. You either know why they’re coming for me in particular or you do not know.”

He turned his horse and moved back toward the camp at a canter. “Wollis! I need you!”

Wollis nodded and moved to meet him, still on foot. “Aye! Ho, sir!”

“There are riders coming. Apparently they’re interested in meeting me. I have no idea why. Whatever the case, you’re in charge until I return. If I don’t return, it might be best to assume we’re dealing with hostiles.”

“Do you want us to come after you?”

Merros muttered faint laughter. “Of course I do. I’ve no death wish. But if the numbers look too outrageous, retreat.”

All three of the mage’s women came toward them. Sometimes he thought they were just waiting for him to act in any sort of official capacity before they came over to add in their own comments. Other times he bloody well knew it.

Pella spoke up, her voice urgent. “This is a time of great opportunity for you, Captain Dulver. Desh Krohan believes you are supposed to meet your destiny here.”

“Really?” He rolled his eyes. “Your great sorcerer feels I need to meet my destiny here. Has he told you what that destiny might be?” He leaned down in the saddle until he was closer to her face. She was beautiful, but just then he wasn’t much worried about her looks. He was worried about the forces coming for him, because if they were anything like the single rider he’d been talking with, he was fairly sure his destiny would involve getting cut into so many shreds of meat. “Has he told you why a rider out hunting the most dangerous animals I’ve ever seen might feel the need to bring a few friends along for me to meet this destiny?”

She shook her head.

“Then with all due respect to Desh Krohan as my employer, I’d ask that in the future he either keep his opinions to himself or give me a little more advanced warning when I’m about to get myself killed.” Merros hissed the words. He was nervous. He was very nervous, but he also knew he had to keep his calm well enough to make sure that the women and the other people he was in charge of were kept as safe as possible.

He looked to Wollis again. “Stay here. Get the men armed and ready. If I live through ‘meeting my destiny’ you might need to get out of here in a hurry.”

“Do you think they mean to kill you?”

“I have no idea, but let’s just assume they’re riding over here at high speed to do something a little worse than shake my hand, shall we?”

With that he turned his horse again and tapped with his heels, giving the command to move faster. The horse listened and started toward the riders coming their way. Merros was a little unsettled to see how much closer they’d gotten while he had his conversation.

Throughout the entire exchange Drask had remained where he was, but as Merros started riding toward the approaching group, he quickly climbed back onto his mount and moved to pace alongside him. The damned beast he rode was still unsettling to watch; it was too big and too predatory for his happiness. And the men coming toward him were riding more of the same things.

Merros was not a religious man; just the same, he said a quick prayer to the gods he was familiar with and left the gods of the Seven Forges out of the equation. Better the deity you know, after all.

It seemed like the riders should have been hours away, but the distances were distorted out in the darkness of the Blasted Lands, and despite any hopes he might have had for more time to prepare himself they were soon within hailing range. Drask did not hail them. Instead he kept riding. Merros resisted the urge to reach for his sword. It was a nervous notion, surely, and he didn’t like the idea of appearing any more nervous than he had to.

The riders stopped their mounts, the great beasts snorting and panting steamy breaths into the air. They looked tired and Merros was grateful for that. Maybe that meant they’d only want to kill him and his horse, and not play with their food first. Whatever doubts he’d had about the beasts before were removed as he looked them over. They were definitely predators. They had teeth that were as long as daggers and the masks they wore to shelter them from the wind, while different from the one on Drask’s mount, were still heavily armored.

So too were the men who’d been riding them. The riders dismounted with a small clatter of arms and armor alike. All of them wore helmets, great metallic contraptions that bore ornamental horns in some cases, or were sculpted to look like the skulls of great beasts in others. Years of service to the Emperor’s army and he’d never seen a more intimidating lot of men in his life. They did not move with menace, but rather with the sort of grace that spoke of hard years learning to move in their armor and to wield their weapons while encumbered. Worse, even in the darkness of the Blasted Lands, he could see the scars and pit marks on the armor. It wasn’t for show; it was for function.

One of the riders stepped in front of the others, tilting his head slightly as he looked Merros over from his boots to the hood he was using to stay warm. His eyes gave the same unsettling light as Drask’s.

When he spoke his voice was calm, and he spoke the Emperor’s tongue, but with a thick accent that was harsh but intelligible. “You are Merros Dulver.” It wasn’t a question.

“I am.” He swallowed his heart, which was doing its level best to sneak out of his throat and make a run for it.

“We are here for you.”

“What do you want of me?” His hand slid closer to the hilt of his sword and he saw the eyes of the speaker flicker briefly down to observe the motion. That wasn’t a comforting notion at all.

“Tarag Paedori, Chosen of the Forge and King in Iron asks that we escort you to him. Beyond that I know nothing.”

“‘King in Iron?’ He’s the king of your people?” Stupid question. He knew it as soon as he said it and the look that the rider offered him made clear that they knew it too.

“He is the king of our people. Will you join us?”

“What about my people?”

The speaker looked around and nodded to the horizon, in the direction from which they’d come. “Another storm comes, a powerful one, by the looks of the clouds.” Merros looked. The clouds seemed no different to him. “Your people are welcome. They will be our guests as well, but I would urge that we move quickly, before the storms reach us.” He lowered his head as he spoke, possibly as a sign of courtesy, but it wasn’t easy to say one way or the other. They were a different people and likely had different customs. He’d once seen a merchant from Freeholdt nearly get himself slaughtered for using a gesture that was a greeting in his homeland and a request for sex near the docks where he employed it. Happily he’d been a better fighter than the offended sailor, or he might not have lived long enough to make it to captain.

He’d come here to map out the Seven Forges and now he was meeting people who very likely already had maps and might be willing to share. In any event he had little doubt that saying no would not go well. One does not, as a rule, turn down the offers of kings without risking life or a few years in a dungeon. The men he was looking at didn’t seem the sort to look at a stone cell as a good idea of how to settle a disagreement.

Merros lowered his head as the speaker had done. “I am honored that Tarag Paedori, the Chosen of the Forge and King in Iron would invite me to his hearth. I thank you for your offer of escort.”

The men around him relaxed just the smallest amount. That in turn made him relax little. Good to know they were a little nervous, too.

The riders followed him back to the camp and Wollis and the soldiers gaped as the group approached. Within half an hour they were on their way, riding toward the mountains again.

What they encountered was nothing at all like what Merros had expected.

Three

They rode hard, driving the horses and the steeds of their escorts with a nearly reckless abandon that worried Merros. If the horses took lame, they wouldn’t be able to get home, assuming that was still a possibility. He had to consider that this was a journey with no return destination. Taking away from that worry was the sight that awaited them when they finally got their first real look at the first of the mountains, which Drask informed him was called the Forge of Durhallem.

There were illustrations, of course. There were maps and sketches, and the mage had made absolutely certain that Merros and his people had the very latest of them to examine as they approached the Seven Forges. That did not change the absolute shock of seeing the mountains up close for the first time.

Pictures seldom do justice to the reality. The Forges were immense, great, black towers that rose from the uneven ground and continued to rise until it seemed scarcely possible that they could have an ending. Merros had traveled a good deal of Fellein, had served the Empire for two full decades, and in all of his travels he had never seen mountains that looked so fresh. The stone was hard, glazed and black, and looked as clear and sharp as the insides of a gem he’d once seen shattered by a jeweler’s hammer. That was the part that unsettled him the most: not the impressive size of the mountain range, but the feeling that the Forges were somehow more vital than the land around them. From far above, the sky was lit up with color, an angry red of a stormy sunset, though there was no sign of the sun itself. There were some who believed the Forges were volcanic. Merros could understand why.

He did not mention that fact to the men who escorted him. Instead he took a hint from them and simply rode with his thoughts, occasionally looking back to make sure the caravan was still there.

Where the mountains met the plain it was easy to see why they were called the Forges. The air held a smoky quality, and the air was much hotter than which they’d been forced to grow accustomed to over the months of travel. Certainly it wasn’t uncomfortable, but instead a welcome reminder that there were places in the world where one didn’t have to cover the entire body in layers of fur and cloth.

The Forge of Durhallem held an unexpected surprise: a massive cave entrance that opened at the base of the mountain and had obviously been used for a good number of years, maybe even centuries, as a method of getting into the mountain itself. Though Merros was tired, and knew the other riders were feeling the same level of exhaustion as he was, they continued on at the same insane pace, riding hard into the dark mouth of the cavern. He’d expected darkness, of course. He’d expected to be nearly completely blinded even after the weeks of riding in constant cloud cover that left the world in perpetual twilight, but instead a new source of light took the place of the sun. The walls of the cavern, the ceiling above, even the ground below glowed sporadically. He stared hard at one of the stripes of light that spilled down from above them – not letting himself consider what would happen if the rocks should suddenly fall or the cavern crack while they were riding beneath the largest mountain he had ever seen in his life. Though a great deal of the cave was lost in darkness, the warm orange glow let him see that the tunnel around him was either made of glass or crystal, or shot through with translucent rock. The light came from within the mountain itself, and shone out through the transparent portions of the nearly smooth tunnel.

Had he trusted his horse to do the work of guiding itself he’d have closed his eyes and kept them that way until they reached the other side. Instead, he focused on the back of Drask’s animal and looked away from the glowing walls that defied all logic and hurt his sense of balance as they ripped past.

And then the glow of the walls faded, lost behind the brightest glare he’d seen since they’d reached the desolate plains of the Blasted Lands, a warm glow that brought to mind the hearth in winter, a bright, inviting light that seemed impossible after so long in the cold.

Up ahead, the other end of the cavern came into view and revealed that warm, wondrous light. And so much more.

The group rode just as hard through the exit of the tunnel, unwary, perhaps even uncaring if there should be anyone or anything in their path, and as soon as they had passed through the tunnel they veered hard to the right, down a strong slope for another half mile at least, where the walls of rock rose on both sides of them, natural outcroppings that had formed the path they followed. There was no reason to worry about obstacles, as the road was smooth and clear of any debris.

Merros ground his teeth. He was tired and his body ached from the long, hard ride. He was worried about the horses, the supplies, the people, and whether or not his hosts would ever stop moving at a hard run.

He needn’t have worried. The curving path they followed suddenly opened up on a level field and just as it did, the riders brought their animals to a halt, the great beasts all panting, grunting for breath in air that was fresh and sweet, and felt as alien as the sight revealed by the plateau.

They had stopped on a ridge, easily large enough for a fortress, though there was, instead, a small collection of buildings left in the open. The buildings themselves were squat, built from the same black stone as the walls of the mountain, though without the odd glazed areas of nearly transparent rock. A fenced-in pen waited for the mounts, next to stables that Merros suspected would hold their horses. Unlike the other buildings, the stables looked newly built from wood that had only recently been cut and planed. He knew fresh wood when he saw it. He’d spent two years in the forests of Trecharch, and had watched on three separate occasions as the people there felled trees that rose hundreds of feet into the air.

The riders dropped from their beasts, moving with ease that seemed impossible for Merros himself as he half-crawled from the saddle. He almost expected to hear the soldiers laughing at his discomfort, but instead they were silent and began to efficiently strip their animals of saddles and supplies.

All of which meant nothing at all to Merros as he looked out across the valley below, seeing the land that had been hidden by the Seven Forges. Drask removed his great helmet and moved toward the edge of the land where it abruptly dropped down into the valley, and despite his exhaustion, Merros moved to join him.

The sky above was lighter in color than he’d expected, as if the clouds themselves were held at bay by the height of the mountains. The light was not as strong as he’d been familiar with, but after the long time in near darkness it was strong enough to make him squint. And below that brightness, the black stone walls of the mountains cradled what seemed like a dream.

The valley below was lush with vegetation, trees and fields that had obviously been cultivated and carefully tended for a long while. Several streams and rivers fell from the sides of the mountains, merging in lakes that, from this distance, seemed like mirrors reflecting the glare of the sky back in defiance. And spread here and there, too far distant to see clearly, he could see towns, possibly even cities.

“How can this be here?” He spoke to himself, his voice breathless, stunned.

Drask answered him, shrugging his heavy shoulders. “The Daxar Taalor are kind to us.” Daxar Taalor. The words meant the Gods of the Forges as near as Merros could tell. Most words seemed to translate with more ease, but those were different. They sounded wrong in his mind.

Wollis stepped toward them, clearing his throat and pulling down his cowl and his hood. Baring his face to the gentler temperatures they were experiencing. There was sweat on Merros’ neck. He hadn’t felt sweat in what seemed like forever. “We’re stopping for the night. There are rooms and food.” His face split into a grin and he shook his curly dark hair. “They have beds, Captain. Enough for all of us.”

Merros could understand his second’s enthusiasm. The ground was hard, even with blankets and furs to soften the rough land.

Drask nodded. “This is an outpost. Any riders coming through who plan to leave the valley stop here first. Those that come back almost always rest here.”

“That happen a lot? The people not returning?” He looked toward Drask as he spoke, curious about what the man looked like now that he was in his home area. He needn’t have wasted his time as the man’s features were still hidden behind layers of cloth.

Drask regarded him silently for a moment and then lowered his head in a way that spoke of formality. “The Daxar Taalor are kind to us. The land beyond the Forges is not as forgiving.”

Wollis slapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sending the men for rest. They’ve earned it.”

Drask finally looked away from the view, away from the home he had not seen in the gods knew how long. Merros envied him that glance. It had been too long since he’d had a decent meal or slept with a woman. If he survived this trip he would be wealthy. That was the part he had to remember. Without glancing in his direction, Drask made a final comment before heading toward the distant buildings. “The structure to the left, the one closest to the pass, is where you and your men will stay the night. There will be baths and food. Then you should rest. We’ll rise early.”

Merros tried to listen. He ate food: fresh meat and fresh vegetables – a delight after the last few weeks – and then he took a long, luxurious bath in warm clean water and scrubbed his flesh until it was pink. He had not bathed in so long he feared the color of the gray grit would never leave his skin.

And after that, he tried to sleep, but rest was elusive. He had seen the strangers, yes, but he had not met their people, nor had he met Tarag Paedori, their so called King in Iron. How long had it been since anyone from the Empire had met a new people? One mistake, one stupid blunder, and he could cause not only his own death, but the death of every person in his command. One foolish misstep and he could very well cause the start of a war between his people and the people he was just meeting for the first time.

Frankly, if they were all as good as Drask, that was a terrifying notion.

Sleep did not come easily.

Desh Krohan settled himself at the marble table with ease. He had been here before, many times, and while the world was about to change, he felt no reason to suddenly be uncomfortable in the company of kings, or emperors for that matter.

Pathra Krous, the Emperor of Fellein, sat across from him in the small dining chamber. The man’s hair fell in well-oiled ringlets, a fashion that Desh refused to follow himself. The Emperor didn’t much seem to care what his hair looked like as long as the girl who was taking care of his appearance was the one handling the matter. To that end he currently had long oiled locks and a mustache that ran down to his chin. At least his face was long enough and narrow enough to carry it off. Several men trying for the same look had come across as little more than comical in Desh’s eyes. Desh kept his graying hair short, because there was less effort in maintaining it every day. He had little enough spare time on the average.

There was no gathering for this meal, there were no followers on, or family members to get in the way. That was what Pathra wanted, and what he wanted, he usually got.

“Have you news of your little expedition?” The Emperor started almost every conversation with the same question. It wasn’t a matter of manners, so much as the powerful desire the man held in his heart to be on the trip himself. Since he was a child, almost five decades earlier, the man had suffered from a nearly insatiable wanderlust. Sadly the duties of his crown had kept him from traveling the world. He was, unlike so many of his family, a man who took his station very seriously.

Desh nodded his head and smiled, reaching for a particularly juicy looking piece of pabba fruit. Most would have waited for permission to eat in the presence of the Emperor. Desh asked permission of no one. To his credit, Pathra couldn’t have cared less about etiquette when it came to the sorcerer. The sweet essence of the stuff perfumed the air as he peeled it and he offered half to the head of the nation before he took a bite. The man took the fruit gratefully. He knew he needn’t worry about any sort of dangers with the mage in his presence. “They have reached the Seven Forges.”

The Emperor smiled. “Have they indeed? And have they found anything interesting?”

“Not that they’ve shared with me, not yet at least, but perhaps we’ll know more tomorrow.”

Pathra looked out the window down into the courtyard far below, his eyes once again taking on the wistful look that Desh knew so very well. “I envy them.”

“Don’t envy them yet, highness. If they should find Korwa there’s no way to know what might be waiting for them.”

The rumors and innuendo did not come from mortal sources, but from the spirits themselves. Desh knew better than most that spirits tended to lie and even the ones that were telling the truth often had no idea what they were describing. Everything he’d tried pointed to Korwa waiting in the Blasted Lands, and that was not a pleasant notion.

“I don’t see how the wreckage of the First Empire could be of any concern, Desh.” Pathra shook his head and scratched idly at his chin. “A thousand years ago there was a war. What could possibly be left now that would matter?”

The wizard chewed on a wedge of the sweet citrus and then licked his lips before he answered. “Where is your capital located?”

The man looked at him as if he’d just possibly grown a second nose. “Where it has always been. Right here.”

“And where was Korwa located?”

“Is this really the time for a geography lesson, old man?” Pathra scowled and looked out the window. Most would have thought the Emperor had suddenly grown addled. The wizard looked to be the same age. Then again, the man had not aged in the five decades that the Emperor had known him.

Desh ignored the slight barb. Only he knew exactly how old he was, and he chose not to share that information. “There is always time for lessons, Pathra. Don’t ever forget that.” Pathra Krous was the Emperor, born and bred into a family that had ruled for centuries. Some had ruled wisely, some had not, but one thing had not changed much in that time. The Emperors accepted the word of their advisor and they accepted his calling them by their first names. Desh ate another piece of fruit and wiped the excess juice across his wrist. “Korwa was a very large city. It was the seat of power just as Tyrne is the seat of your Empire. No one has seen any sign of Korwa in the Blasted Lands. No one has looked. Still, the spirits are telling me that Korwa is near the Seven Forges. They won’t tell me what’s left of it, or where exactly it is, and as I have said before, the spirits often lie, but they seldom do so without a reason. If they say Korwa still exists, then I believe them.”

This time it was the Emperor who chewed at his fruit before answering. “Even if it does, what is the possible threat of a city without people, Desh?”

“The Blasted Lands, Pathra. What have we seen come out of the Blasted Lands in the last thousand years?”

“Plague Winds, the Pra-Moresh and an astonishing amount of dust.”

“The Plague Winds are long past, thank the gods. The Pra-Moresh are different. They’ve come from the Blasted Lands for centuries. Not often, but when they do they always bring destruction and death in their wake.”

Pathra waved an impatient hand. “Make your point.”

“How many expeditions have we… no, have I sent into the Blasted Lands? Dozens? Hundreds? Even I lose count.” Desh shrugged. “In all that time we’ve never had anyone come back from the Seven Forges, or even make it all the way to the mountains before now. They’ve never run across anything before, or if they did whatever they ran across killed them. The Pra-Moresh come and go, they don’t interfere with us too often. But they’re out there and they have to feed on something more than dust and snow. I’ve studied their bodies at the behest of your family in the past and I can tell you, they need to eat a great deal of food to stay alive. That means they’ve been feeding on something out in the Blasted Lands.”

“And?” Again the Emperor made his gesture, waving his fingers for Desh to get to his point.

“Whatever they’ve been feeding on might come from somewhere beyond the Seven Forges. Or it might come from the forges themselves. Or it might come from Korwa.” And here Desh leaned toward the Emperor and stared hard at him. “Or they might have been sent from Korwa to test what might be found on the other side of the Blasted Lands.”

Pathra Krous leaned back in his seat and scowled in thought. “Is that what your spirits tell you?”

“No. The spirits refuse to tell me much beyond the fact that Korwa still exists. But, Pathra, how can we know for sure that Korwa and the people of the First Empire haven’t been waiting on the other side of the Seven Forges for centuries, sending occasional expeditions out to see if anything still remains of the upstarts who tried to take the Empire from them so long ago?”

Pathra Krous tossed aside the portion of his fruit that he had not yet consumed, his appetite destroyed.

Desh Krohan reached to the roast in the center of the small table and cut off a slab of rare meat that was perfectly seasoned. “You have ruled Fellein very well, Pathra. You have been wise and you have ended almost every conflict with minimal losses. Like your father before you, you are a good and decent man.” Desh’s voice was kind. “But the fact remains that we have no idea what lies beyond the Blasted Lands, and the fact remains that, though the process is slow, the Blasted Lands have been receding. Perhaps the damage from the Great Annihilation is mending itself. For all we know, the very world is growing smaller. Whatever the case, within a hundred years it’s possible that the Seven Forges will be only a few days away through lands that are almost recovered from the damage done.”

Krous shook his head, uncomfortable with the talk of the table though they’d certainly had the conversation before. “What’s out there, Desh?”

“I’m working on finding out. Whatever the case, you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that we could well be facing enemies who are not only unknown to us, but who control creatures like the Pra-Moresh and who knows what else.”

He took a look at the Emperor’s worried expression and sighed.

“I don’t think you have to worry at just this moment, Pathra. I simply want to make sure you’re contemplating the need to strengthen and train your armies. I can’t imagine that things will change too quickly, but just the same, I’ll let you know what the expedition has to say.”

Far below where the likes of emperors and sorcerers had conversations, Tyrne swarmed with business and life. Shopkeepers dealt with patrons, the City Guard dealt with squabbles and thieves, and Andover Lashk prayed to the gods he didn’t believe in for a miracle.

Andover was sixteen, legally an adult in the eyes of the land. His parents would have disagreed completely had they not already cast him out into the world to fend for himself. You steal enough from your parents, and even they can turn their backs on you. Andover was learning that lesson, but he was learning it very slowly.

“There has been a misunderstanding! I don’t know what you think I did, but I assure you, it wasn’t me!” Lies, all of it. He was caught good and proper, and he knew it, but circumstance was forcing him to lie if he wanted to keep his hands, and he desperately wanted to keep them. He had not stolen from a shop. That would have been a few lashes in the square – he still had the scars to remind him that three pabba fruit up a billowing sleeve was not worth the cost of recovering from a good whipping, thank you just the same. So, no, it wasn’t trying to be a thief that had him in trouble this time around.

It was the other thing that normally got him in trouble. It was a girl. Actually, to be precise, it was her fiancé. Tega of the blonde hair and green eyes, with freckles aplenty dusted across her nose and cheeks, and a smile that tended to lead him to distraction, was not a problem at all, except for the distraction part. And how the City Guard who fancied her decided he didn’t much like Andover looking at the girl.

Currently, that meant that half of the City Guardsmen who should have been stopping crime were instead standing around Andover while one of them held his arms over his head and two more held his legs. He had an excellent view of the towering giants as he was currently pinned to the ground, his hair half-submerged in a puddle he didn’t want to consider too carefully. They were near the abattoir, after all. A beating he could have accepted. He’d had his share, to be sure. It wasn’t their fists they were planning to use today.

The one with the nasty smile, complete with a broken tooth to match his often broken nose, was the one who claimed Tega as his own. He couldn’t for the life of him – just possibly in a literal sense – remember the man’s name. Still, that didn’t mean the man wasn’t willing to talk to him.

“Purb, over here…” He jerked a thumb in the direction of a man who seemed to have no neck. His head just sort of fused into his shoulders, which were preposterously wide – “He says you’ve been trailing after Tega like she was a bitch in heat.” He had the thick accent of a west-ender, a guttural quality that did nothing but make him sound ignorant in Andover’s eyes.

“Purb is mistaken. If we happen to travel the same way from time to time, I can’t help that.”

Purb, a stout fellow who wore a corporal’s rank on his chest, stepped forward, squatted and slammed his exceedingly large fist into Andover’s groin. “Don’t you never call me a liar, boy!”

Andover would have curled into fetal position had his arms and legs been free. Instead he merely coughed and gasped and tried to think of anything other than the waves of pain and nausea fighting for his attention.

“I warned you twice before.” The offended fiancé shook his head and picked up the hammer he’d brought with him. “I told you if I saw you so much as looking at Tega, I’d take from you.” Andover shook his head, his eyes wide and round as he looked at the hammer’s head. It was a well-worn piece, a smith’s hammer, to be sure. He knew them well enough, having worked the last two months as an apprentice to Burk, the very smith who supplied the City Guard with their weapons. He had, in fact, probably held that very hammer on more than one occasion while contemplating the living he would make when he was done apprenticing. There were different hammers, of course, some for the finer work and some for pounding the hot metal into a shape that was vaguely like what it should eventually become. The heavier hammers did rough work. The smaller, lighter hammers shaped and perfected. The thing being shown to him was for rough work.

There was a part of his mind that knew this had to be a jest. Surely the men who kept the peace and protected the citizens wouldn’t consider striking a man in his privates, breaking him for life with such ease. Just the same, Andover’s breaths hitched in his chest and his throat constricted.

“Please. Please, no.” he wanted to scream, but past experiences had told him that would merely annoy the guards.

“Wreck his hopes of fathering runts, Menock.” Purb’s voice grated and he grinned as he looked at the very area he had recently done his best to shatter with his fist. Andover tried in vain to pull his legs together and protect himself. He was desperate enough that the man holding his ankles had to fight to keep him still.

He looked at Menock, saw the dark look in the man’s eyes, and began to doubt that there was anything of the jesting nature in the City Guard at all. Oh, how he wished he could think it was all just a joke, or another warning.

“I’d never do that to a man. Not unless he’d done more than look at my woman.” Menock shook his head as he spoke. Andover almost sobbed with relief. Almost. He still didn’t quite trust the way this was happening. He was wise that way. Women could make him foolish, but men merely made him cautious.

Menock hefted the hammer high above his head and looked at Andover’s face, an ugly sneer making him seem nearly an animal. There was something in his eyes, something not quite right, but Andover didn’t have time to consider that. He was too busy realizing that the man had just lied to him. The hammer was going to come down, and there was nothing he could do about it save fight to get free. He bucked, he strained, but the guards were simply too strong. Menock shifted as he held the weapon and then he brought the hammer down with a roar, swinging at the hips and causing the guard holding Andover’s hands to scream in shock.

Andover’s scream was not from shock. It was from the pain of having the bones in both of his hands shattered under the hammer blow. The guards holding him let go, screaming out themselves.

“Have you lost your damned brains, Menock? It was supposed to be for a scare!” Purb’s voice broke as he talked, his eyes looking down at Andover then looking away from the wreckage of his hands. Andover could see that the man was stunned. He could not clearly acknowledge that shock, however, as the pain of the first hammer blow overtook him.

He screamed again, his throat hot from the sound, and tried to raise his hands, but Menock was not done with him. The man’s booted foot came down on his wrist and held his right arm down again as the hammer came down and pulped the pinned limb for a second time. After that the world went gray and then black. He heard the other guards fighting back against their friend, stopping him from bringing the hammer down a third time. After that he heard nothing for quite a long time.

For a while the only sensation he knew was pain, intermingled with the fever dreams brought on by the infection that set into his hands. Eventually, however, Andover woke to find himself not in the street but in a bed with sheets that were clean. His hands flared with pain to remind him of what he’d gone through. Foolishly, he raised his hands to look at them and immediately wished that he had not.

The left hand was ruined, that was all there was to it. The fingers were misshapen and swollen and the skin was mottled a dozen shades of blue and black, where it was actually intact. He could feel the pain move through each finger along with the pulse of his heartbeat.

His right hand was worse. It was gone. Missing. Replaced by a bundle of tightly wound wrappings that were surrounding a white-hot pain strong enough to steal his breath away.

Andover closed his eyes again and prayed for the pain to go away. Instead the darkness claimed him and muted the pain to almost tolerable levels. There were voices then, but they were distant, inconsequential things that made no sense to him. He thought he heard Tega’s voice and that was enough to make him force his eyes open.

And lo, there she was, Tega, looking away from him, but he’d know that hair anywhere. What a delicious explosion of curls. “He never did anything to me, that one. He only ever spoke to me politely and then when our paths crossed.” Her voice was weak, strained. The man she was talking to listened intently. He was dressed in the uniform of a City Guard, but not the worn, frayed things he was used to seeing. This man was capable of keeping himself clean, at least. Unlike the swine near Andover’s home.

Andover felt himself blink at that. He’d never thought of any man as a swine before. His hands throbbed as he moved a bit on the bed, and that was enough to brush aside the curiosity of the names he chose to call anyone in the privacy of his own head. They were little more than animals that would ruin his hands the way they had.

An attempt to sit up in his bed ended with a deep moan and little else accomplished, but Tega and the City Guard both looked in his direction. Tega’s eyes grew wide in her face as she saw that he was awake, and she approached him carefully, like he was a wounded beast that might bite at her.

“Andover? I didn’t think you’d ever wake.” She moved closer still and he let himself drown in her for a moment, deep and lost, beyond the pain of his ruined hands as he looked at her. How was it possible for anyone to be so spectacular?

He tried to speak, but nothing came out of his parched throat save a grunt. The City Guard moved past Tega, gently sliding her aside, and poured water into a simple cup. The sound of water running was enough to make him realize how desperately thirsty he was. A moment later the guard’s hand held the cup to his lips and let him drink a maddeningly small dose of the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. The water was cool and soothing and then it was gone.

When he gasped again, his voice was present again.

“Where am I?” He looked from the guard to Tega and the words came out on their own. “I didn’t even know you knew my name.”

The City Guard spoke gently. “I’ll give you a few minutes. Then I need to talk to the lad, yes?”

Tega nodded her thanks and then watched as the man walked away. Then she looked back to Andover and shook her head. “I’m told that Menock did this to you. That he…” She looked to his hand and the bandages that surrounded whatever was left of his other hand.

“He did. While his friends in the City Guard held me in place.” He looked at her without realizing he was looking, lost in the past, in the memory of what it felt like to have his hands destroyed.

“Oh. Oh, Andover, I’m so very sorry.” She looked away from him, face painted with shame as she sought anything at all that could distract her from staring at his hands.

“You didn’t do this.” His eyes stung. Pain came back and chewed on his wrists, gnawed at the bones and muscles, even the ones he could clearly see weren’t there any longer. “You didn’t take from me. He did. Menock.” He was shocked at the venom in his voice, a tone so unfamiliar as to sound like it came from another person’s mouth entirely.

Tega shook her head again and rose from her seat. Before he could ask her what was wrong, she was gone, fleeing, no doubt, from being around the ruin that he’d become.

And he was a ruin. He knew that. He wasn’t a fool. His apprenticeship to Burk was gone, to be sure. All he could do was pump the bellows, and then, only with one hand that felt and looked as if it would never be able to close into a workable grip again.

The City Guard came back a moment later, his face set like stone, his thick mustache well-groomed and as gray as the hair he wore short to his scalp. He was older, to be sure. And likely at least a sergeant. Of course, that bastard Purb had been a corporal…

“I am Libari Welliso. I am the commander of the City Guard where you were attacked.”

Andover nodded his head, unwilling to risk saying anything that would cause the man to strike him. He was furious, yes, and in pain to be sure, but he was also absolutely terrified. Most of that was simply that Welliso had an aura around him that spoke of combat-readiness and strength.

Welliso looked him over from head to toe with an unreadable expression. “I understand that it was members of the guard who did this to you, is that correct?”

Questions had to be answered, especially if you were dealing with someone like Welliso, so he nodded. “Yes.”

“Do you know their names?”

“Only two.” He paused for a moment, nauseated, as the pain grew worse in his hands, his arms. “Menock and Purb.”

Welliso nodded again. “I’d heard as much, but I wanted to be sure.”

His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t deserve this.” Despite the agony, he raised his hands above him, showed them to the man. “I didn’t steal anything, I never touched anyone. I didn’t deserve this.” Anger only went so far. The pain came back and he settled his arms as gently as he could on his chest again.

Pity. The man looked at him and his features softened, and he knew the look, even if he didn’t know the man well enough to be sure. He knew pity from what he felt when he saw the beggars on the street, or the forgotten who were too old to tend to themselves and had no one to aid them.

He hated it.

Pity.

Sometimes it’s all you have.

“I know, son. One of the others reported them. They’ve been locked away.”

“What will happen to them?”

Welliso looked at him for a long moment. “At the very least, they’ll stay locked away.”

“What will happen to me?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Without hands, he was little more than a beggar waiting to happen.

“Well. That’s the rough one, isn’t it? But there might be someone who can help you.”

He grunted. No one could fix hands. It wasn’t possible. “Who?”

“Your friend, the girl, has connections you would not believe.” He shook his head. Tega barely knew him. Owed him nothing. “She should have sent my runner to assist in trying to find a way to help you.”

Andover closed his eyes and drifted again. There was nothing else to be done.

In the darkness of his troubled, fitful half-sleep, his mind wandered, sorted through the memories of his pain and the damage done to him. In his heart he had long known a wistful, fanciful love for Tega, a girl who had a lovely smile and seemed incapable of bad thoughts, regardless of his lowly station. That childish love comforted him, but it also hid a small seed of hatred, a troublesome spot of rage for the bastards who had ruined his hands. The gods taught that anger was a chance for happiness wasted and mostly Andover agreed with that belief.

But deep within him that small seed burned and seethed and festered, hidden by the pain in his ruined hands and the affection he had for a pretty stranger.

And far away in the valley between the Seven Forges, the fertile soil for that particular seed was tilled and prepared.

Four

They travelled through the valley for three days, moving at a steady pace, but one that held less of the urgency that had seen them tearing across the frozen wastes of the Blasted Lands on their way.

Much as he knew he should have a stronger sense of urgency – he was to meet with a king very soon and the most he’d ever managed before that was guarding the house of a rather impoverished duke – Merros couldn’t help but enjoy the scenery. After months of traveling in the perpetual twilight he was enjoying the valley’s lush terrain and warmth to a level he’d have thought almost impossible before the trip started. Not that there weren’t a few sour notes, to be sure. Kallir Lundt, who was still hanging on to his life despite the grave wounds dealt him by the Pra-Moresh, was fading. There was nothing that Merros or any of his team could do about that, and it bothered him deeply.

Wollis rode next to him, and ahead of them rode the men taking them to meet the king of the valley. They were in the light now, and the air was clear of debris and shadows. That meant it was ridiculously easy to see exactly how large each of the strangers was.

Wollis shook his head. “Do you really think this is wise, Captain?”

“Which part? Going to see a king who we’ve never heard of in a land we didn’t know existed? Or traveling with a band of warriors who seem perfectly willing to ignore us now that they have taken us where we needed to go in the first place?”

Wollis stared at him darkly.

“No, Wollis. I don’t think any of this is wise, but it is necessary.”

The road ahead of them was well-tended, but the side of the mountain hid a great deal of what lay ahead until they took one more turn. As they were moving around that curve, Merros continued his argument. “We have an opportunity, with luck mind you, to get an accurate and detailed map of the area we were paid to explore. We are also, whether or not we like it, the first emissaries of the Fellein Empire to meet the people who live here. Depending on who you ask it’s been several hundred to over a thousand years since contact was made with anyone in this area, because no one was supposed to be able to live up this way. And yet, here we are.”

Wollis would normally have argued with him by that point. He’d come to anticipate the man’s responses after the years they’d been together. So when he got no response, he looked toward his second-in-command and frowned when he saw the look of growing surprise on the man’s face.

Wollis said, “Here we are, indeed.”

The sound of the horns drew Merros’ attention to the road ahead, to where Wollis was already looking, and he found himself staring at the vast structure that now stood revealed.

Merros Dulver had spent a good amount of his adult life traveling to different parts of the Empire. He had been to Canhoon, Trecharch and a dozen other cities, and more towns than he could remember. As a rule, the towns were old, the streets long since worn down by time and by thousands of people treading on their cobblestones over the years. The fortress ahead of him spoke of a greater age than any place he had ever been to, but still stood unbowed by the centuries he could sense within the great bricks. The structure was built directly into the side of the mountain, carved, it seemed, from the black stone of the volcanic barrier. The walls were easily eighty or more feet in height, and even though they obscured a great deal, he could see the towering buildings behind those walls, all of them black and gray marble, adorned with almost no colors save whatever natural striations were offered by the stone. Unlike in the pass they had used to reach the valley, there was no glow from the great furnace of the volcano itself. The wall was almost smooth, save where the great doors stood sealed against any possible attack. Though they were still a distance away, the guards spotted them and either heralded their arrival or blew out warning notes. Either way, Merros felt his heart beat faster. They were here.

One of the men in front of him pulled a heavy iron horn from his saddle and blew out a harsh note that echoed and merged with the sounds coming from the great walled structure. A moment later the heavy doors opened, sliding smoothly into the sides of the walls rather than opening outward.

Drask turned in his saddle and looked back toward them. “It is time now.” He pointed a gauntleted hand toward Merros. “Prepare yourself.”

Like there was any possible doubt.

They rode forward again, the long caravan moving in fits and jerks. Merros did not have that luxury. The riders moved faster and a moment later he waved for Wollis to stay behind with their charges.

Apparently he was to meet the King in Iron without the benefit of any retinue. That was just as well. He was only a retired captain at any rate. At least that was what he kept telling himself, as the people who claimed the gods had sent them out into a frozen hell to find him led him to meet their ruler.

They rode hard, moving past the massive gates protecting the city – though for the life of him, Merros had no idea what they might need protection from in a valley that no one in the entire Empire knew existed – and along streets that were paved with more volcanic stones. There was little by way of decoration to be found anywhere, and the people they passed seldom bothered to look up or take any note of them, not that there was time for anyone to notice much beyond the escorts heading for the castle at the center of the walled city.

The path they took led directly to the main structure, a castle within another courtyard, a last bastion of defense against any possible attacks. Several blasts of horns heralded their approach and when the entourage finally stopped, Merros stared at the vast structure ahead of him and did his best to take the entire place in.

The outer wall of the city had been easily eighty feet in height, and the walls of the castle were almost as tall. Hewn again of the black and gray stone, the building was both grandiose and intimidating, with patterns carved directly into the walls that were too large to easily absorb. No less than a hundred men stood along the walls looking down on the courtyard. A small army stood at the one building. How many soldiers did they have here? Merros wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

His guides, Drask among them, moved at a hard pace, and Merros was forced to jog in order to keep up with them. Their cloaks snapped like half-furled wings behind them and the men entered the building without stopping to announce themselves or to check with any of the armed guards around them.

If there was any rhyme or reason to the armor that every single person he’d met wore, it was lost on Merros. None of them seemed to wear symbols of rank, and while they all wore helmets and carried weapons, it seemed that nothing was standard issue for the guard.

Once past the guards, the men slowed down. A great hall spread out before them, and again Merros felt small in his surroundings. Had he ever been in any structure as vast? Not that he could think of. The hall was a long affair, with polished stone walls and floors and columns that rose easily fifteen feet to a dark ceiling. Whatever was lacking by way of decoration outside of the hall, the opposite was true of the inside. Heavy wooden tables were spaced throughout the room with chairs enough to accommodate every guard he’d seen along the wall. All of which was impressive enough, but easily ignored for the throne that waited at the far end of the hall.

The seat of power, no doubt, for the king. The throne was carved from black stone and inlaid with precious metals. The seat was lined with a thick fur that Merros couldn’t identify and on either side of the throne was an array of weapons: swords, knives, axes, and spears, each well-used and well-cared for. Possibly the most unsettling aspect of the weapons was that they were very obviously meant for function and not merely appearance.

Four men in armor stood on either side of the throne. Like the men escorting him they wore armor that was unique to each of them. Some wore chainmail, others heavier plated armor. All of them wore red tunics, which seemed to be the only indication they were associated. The tunics were clean and new enough in appearance that they almost seemed an afterthought.

None of which was nearly as significant as the man who came striding into the room from the left. The first thought Merros had when he met Drask was that the man was a giant – an image partially cemented by the massive creature he rode into battle, but having stood next to him and stared the man in his shoulder, the impression stuck.

Tarag Paedori, Chosen of the Forge and King in Iron, was actually even bigger and he was not riding on a war-beast. Unlike his followers, the man was not dressed in armor. He wore dark leather breeches, a thick black vest, and a cloak that looked decidedly ceremonial in nature. The heavy black material was adorned with gold and silver in a pattern that was lost in the folds of the cloth and kept in place by a heavy gold cord. He wore an iron crown on his head, simple and unadorned with extras, save for a veil that covered most of his face. Only his eyes were easily seen, and the dark hair that fell out of the crown in loose coils. Thick, muscular arms were crossed over a barrel chest. Heavy scars could be seen on the bared arms, across the massive hands, and on the powerful shoulders, and all of the flesh that could be seen bore the odd gray tint that Merros had originally assumed was grit from the cold wastelands outside of the valley when he first met Drask.

All of them had the same gray skin. It looked unhealthy, nearly dead. All of them hid their faces behind veils or masks. All of them had eyes that were a flat gray when seen in light and seemed to issue their own luminescence when seen otherwise.

As one, the men escorting Merros dropped to one knee before their king, and in a fluid move that was unsettling in its efficiency, they drew their swords from the sheaths at their hips – or in a few cases across their backs – and held the weapons out. Their hands held the blades of the weapons with the points to their chests, and the pommels offered to the King in Iron, a sign of fealty and/or an offer to let him take their lives should he feel the need. Whatever the case, the men seemed unified in the offer they made.

Tarag Paedori nodded acknowledgement of the men, but his eyes sought Merros and pinned him with the force of his stare. If his carriage and his confidence were not enough to make his station known, the man’s will, forceful and demanding of attention, would have clarified his position.

The King in Iron spoke softly but his words carried. Like Drask before him, his voice had an odd echo that made the traveler’s skin crawl. “Merros Dulver of the Fellein Empire. We have waited a very long time to meet you.”

Five

Andover Lashk suffered a fever for almost three weeks as the infection from his mangled hands ran through his body. He would very likely have died from the illness, but, as the captain of the city watch had said, the girl he adored, Tega, had interesting connections. He had never met Desh Krohan, but no one in the capital city of the Empire failed to recognize the name when it was whispered. Krohan was supposed to be a powerful sorcerer, and even if he weren’t he was certainly a powerful man. He was advisor to the Emperor, and according to most rumors had been advisor to the last seven emperors at the very least.

Not that Andover cared much. During his weeks of deep fever he had slept for the most part. He remained unconscious save when Krohan came to his room to administer different medications and run his hands over Andover’s body, muttering impossible words even as his fingers pushed and kneaded flesh that burned with fever.

And he dreamed a great deal. Oh, the dreams he had were far removed from his regular life.

He dreamed of fire and metal and great hammers that struck his body again and again, pounding against his rigid form and forcing him to take a new shape even as he cooled. Hammers large and small struck him, shaped him, until his skin gleamed and the delicate symbols carved carefully into his surface were a permanent part of him.

He dreamed that the very earth had a pulse, and that every beat of the planet’s heartbeat moved through him and carried him along the tides of the ocean. In the dream that made perfect sense. When he woke from the dream he was puzzled by the entire affair, especially since he had never seen the ocean in his life. Tyrne was a hundred leagues from the closest ocean, accessible by the sprawling Freeholdt River, but as vast as that stretch of water was, it wasn’t anything like the great oceans he saw in his dream.

He dreamed that he was at the heart of Korwa when the First Empire fell, and he felt the very air around him shatter as the explosions ripped the land into new shapes and drove the remains of the city down into the molten ground beneath him. The shockwaves leveled towns, burned away armies, consumed the air and the forests, and boiled away the truths once known by the world around him along with rivers and lakes.

And when he awoke once more, Tega was there with the man who had loomed over him again and again. Desh Krohan looked to be somewhere in his forties, perhaps, with silver-shot blond hair and a jaw line that needed a good shave. He seemed tall, but Andover was flat on a bed and looking up. Even Tega seemed tall, and she was as short as she was pretty.

And all of the gods, his hands were screaming in agony. He grimaced and did his best not to yelp. Tega’s eyes spoke volumes of pity and said nothing of love, and that too caused him a deep and abiding pain. He looked into those perfect eyes, and for the second time in moments had to resist the urge to let out a pained noise. Really, it was hard to say which was more exquisite, the torture of shattered hands or a broken heart. Poets and physicians each have their own answers.

The wizard put his hand on Tega’s shoulder. “Give us a moment, would you, Tega?”

She nodded and rose, a flash of relief on her face, perhaps, or merely a sign that she had been sitting in one place for far too long.

When she’d left the room Krohan sat where she had been, a weary half-smile on his face. “She’s been here every day, you know. She’d camp here at night if her parents would permit it.”

Andover shook his head. “Why?”

“Why?” The man frowned. “I suppose because she feels responsible.” There must have been something on Andover’s face, perhaps merely that he wasn’t really old enough to hide his feelings as well as he’d like. “No, she hasn’t told anyone that she loves you. Neither has she said that she knows you very well at all.” The man’s face was annoyingly knowing. “She’s a beautiful girl. She’s had numerous suitors. None of them have gotten very far. She’s far more interested in her studies.”

“Studies?”

“Tega is my apprentice, Andover. That’s why I’m here. She asked me to see if I could help with what was done to you.”

“She wants to be a wizard?”

Krohan smiled. “Something like that, I suppose.”

He stared at the man above him and sighed. Apprenticeship meant hard work. To be apprentice to a sorcerer? Hard work and possibly the cost of a soul? That was one of the rumors.

“What Tega studies takes a great deal of time and effort. She’s already gotten behind on her studies as a result of what’s happened to you.” Krohan held up a hand before Andover could protest. “I’m not accusing you of anything or saying that she’s in trouble; I merely want you to understand that she’s been very dedicated to helping you recover.”

And there it was, an instant flash of anger. Pain lashed through Andover’s ruined hands and he held up the bandaged messes. “What’s left of them to help get better?” His voice broke as he spoke.

The man looked at the carefully bandaged bundles for a moment. “You already know the answer to that. There’s not much left to save and not much I can do to help you.” He looked at Andover and studied his face eyes in silence for several moments. “But you are alive, Andover. And I am investigating possibilities.”

“Possibilities?” He shook his head. “What does that mean?”

“It means I have messengers on the road who have… located a possible method for making your hands better. Under most circumstances I would not even bring the matter up, but Tega is a very good student and what happened to you has her worried. If I can learn more of what is needed, I might be able to mend your hands. If I can mend your hands there might be a cost to you.” He once again held up a hand to stop any possible questions or comments. “Not a cost that I would charge you. What I’ve done and will do for you has already been paid. The cost would be to you, yes, but emotional cost, not any other sort that I know of.”

“If you can do it, then do it.” His eyes stung. “What-ever it is, I don’t want to be a beggar in the streets.”

The man stood up, moving with the sort of care normally reserved to the decrepit. “You say that, like being a beggar is the worst that could possibly happen. There’s much worse, believe me.” The mage looked toward the door. “I’ll get Tega for you. If there’s anything to be done, I’ll do it, Andover Lashk. But don’t talk to anyone other than Tega about this. Not yet. First we have to see what we can do.”

The man left the room a moment later and Andover thought about the possibility of getting back his hands. He could feel them even now. He could move them under the swaddled cloth and protection, though he already knew that there was little left to move. If he closed his eyes he could feel his fingers waggling in the air. When he opened them he could see the air where they should have been according to what his mind told him. Right hand completely missing, left hand little more than a lump of meat, but he could feel the fingers. Could damn near feel the slight breeze playing on the hair on the backs of his hands.

Anger blossomed again in his chest, his heart; a deep heat that simmered and spit an occasional cinder. But in that seemingly endless well of hatred there was something else.

Hope.

What would he do to get his hands back? Damned near anything.

Desh Krohan had only just left the boy’s room and nodded to Tega that she could visit him when the storm-crow came through the open window in the Healer’s Hall and flew right at him. A good number of people might have been terrified by the sight of one of the great gray birds, but Desh knew them well and had raised this one from the time it had escaped the confines of its egg.

He raised one arm and winced a little as the bird’s talons scraped through fabric and across the flesh of his forearm. “Gently, Goriah. Tell me what you know.”

The bird cocked its head and looked at him intently with one startlingly blue eye. From a great distance away the communication took place. Goriah’s voice whispered into his head and he listened, nodding.

“I would very much like to meet them. Yes.”

The storm-crow leaned in closer still until he could smell the carrion taint of its breath and its eye nearly touched his own. So much information after so long with little more than reports of ice and dust. The knowledge came so fast that it hurt his skull. There is always a price to pay for knowledge.

“Really?” He opened his eyes and looked back toward the room he had left a few moments earlier. In it the girl he had accepted as an apprentice sat with the young man she had decided needed special help. “No, that’s perfect, really. That’s ideal. What would they like in exchange?”

He almost dropped the bird. It hopped impatiently and reminded him that it was there right before he would have lowered his arm. “Well, that’s… problematic. But no, I think we can make it work. I don’t think it’s impossible at all.” He looked away from the room and nodded his head. “I think I know exactly who to choose.”

Desh Krohan moved away from the door he’d been staring at and then down the hallway where the window opened on the courtyard far below. He held his arm out and the storm-crow bobbed its head several times while looking at him. “Go on then. Tell them that we accept their terms.”

The great bird launched itself from his limb and almost immediately headed for the north and the wastelands beyond the last towns of the Empire. From where he stood, the wizard could see nothing of the Seven Forges, not even the clouds they so constantly generated. But he knew they were there, and now he knew so very much more than he had before.

They rode across the Blasted Lands in the direction of home, this time taking the distances at a far greater speed. Merros Dulver looked around and frowned. A moment later he gestured and Wollis rode forward to keep pace with him. As always the northerner’s expression was glum. It wasn’t that he was in a bad mood, really, it was just the sort of face the man had.

“Are we speaking again, Captain?”

“I wasn’t aware we were giving each other the silent treatment, Wollis.”

“Neither was I, but aside from yelling that it was time to go home you’ve had remarkably little to say since you met up with hizzoner the King of Fancy Pants.” The tone of his voice didn’t change at all, but Wollis sniffed his disapproval.

Merros looked toward the entourage of soldiers who were escorting them on their trek home. “I’m going to suggest very strongly that you not keep that sort of chatter right now.”

“Afraid your new friends might hear?”

“I’ve grown rather fond of you over the last few months, Wollis. I would rather not have to explain to Dretta or Nolan why I had to leave your body here in the frozen wastes.”

“You saying you wouldn’t have the decency to bury me properly?” Wollis was only half-joking.

“I don’t think I’m strong enough to break the ice out here.” The area they were moving over was more than half-submerged under ice. There were rocks, true enough, but they were few and far between.

Wollis nodded his head. “I’ll keep my tongue. But before this is said and done, I want to know why we’re now traveling with an additional fifty men.”

Merros nodded in response. The winds were harsh, but he didn’t trust that the soldiers escorting them wouldn’t find a way to hear the conversation. The Sa’ba Taalor – the People of the Forges was the way his mind immediately translated the words, and though he didn’t think that was completely accurate, it seemed fairly close – had a way of hearing things out in the wind-torn desolation that seemed nearly mystical in nature.

“Here’s why we’re traveling with fifty extra men. Their king asked me politely to offer several gifts to the Emperor on his behalf. Those ten boxes being hauled by those insanely large animals of theirs, those are part of the gifts being offered. The fifty large armored men with many, many weapons? They are his way of making sure that the gifts being offered get to the Emperor intact.” Merros leaned in closer to his second. “Why am I doing this? Because apparently the Gods of the Forges predicted I would be arriving and seem to feel I’ve got a destiny with the Sa’ba Taalor.”

“Is that what this has all been about?”

“No, not really.” Merros looked toward the south, where they were headed. Up ahead of him five men in heavy armor rode their great beasts – they rode them like horses, but surely they were something else entirely – and seemed to look at nothing but the promise of what lay beyond the horizon. “It’s about the maps they gave us, and the monies we were promised by Desh Krohan.” He looked to Wollis again and saw a rider coming toward them from the caravan. “I’m not an ambassador, nor am I a soldier of the Empire. I’m a mercenary same as you and we’ve been promised a solid wage for a map of the Seven Forges and the surrounding lands. Anything else we bring back is a bonus.” He nodded toward the approaching rider and Wollis took the hint.

A moment later the fur-bundled form of one of Krohan’s women rode in closer. Red hair whispered from the hood. Tataya looked up at him with her intoxicating eyes. “I leave you now, Captain.”

“Excuse me?”

“I leave you now,” she repeated. “I am expected in Tyrne.”

“Well, we’re moving as fast as we can.” What else could he say? She’d lost her mind. Pity, what with her mind being wrapped in such a lovely package.

“I suspect we will meet with you when you arrive, but for now Drask Silver Hand comes with me. We are to meet with Desh sooner than the caravan.”

“How the hell are you going to manage that?” They were already moving at a pace he was uncomfortable with, propelled on by the urgency of the fifty soldiers who were “escorting” them home.

The redhead offered him an enigmatic smile that, as with almost every expression the woman wore, smoldered with promises best not considered too carefully. “Be safe on your journeys, Captain.”

She veered away, and as he watched, the great mount of Drask Silver Hand broke from the caravan and came closer, charging forward with unsettling speed. The man’s silvery eyes regarded him from within his horned helmet’s shadows, and the horns nodded a brief greeting before he reached down and grabbed Tataya’s proffered arm. The man lifted her from her saddle with frightening ease and she swung her weight onto the saddle in front of him, nearly swallowed by his bulk.

The woman leaned forward and her gloved hands grabbed at the mane of the creature she straddled. A moment later Drask leaned forward as well, and then the dark mount under him surged forward, nearly tripling its speed as it started to move at a full out run. The damned thing let out a roar that shook the air and a moment later the trio were dwindling into the distance, cutting between two of the soldiers escorting them. The soldiers waved casually as if watching an animal that size move with that sort of speed was perfectly normal, thanks just the same.

“Well that’s depressing.” Wollis’ voice took Merros by surprise.

“What’s that?”

“I rather liked Drask. He seemed so cheerful.”

Merros thought about that for a moment and nodded. In comparison to most of his brethren that was true. “Let you in on something. I know for a fact that Drask is carrying something meant for Desh Krohan.”

“I’d hardly call that comforting.”

“I meant what I said before, Wollis. I’m a mercenary, same as you. We served in the Emperor’s army. We did our job. Then we were hired by the Emperor’s advisor for this job. Either way, we’re getting paid. The difference here is that we’re going to be paid much better than we were before.”

His second looked around them, noticed the men on their odd mounts and nodded his head. “Man brings a plague back with him on a ship, he’s still going to have the plague named after him.”

“Alright, that only ever happened once, and none of us has developed any weeping sores since entering the Blasted Lands. Hell, we’re actually on our way out of the Blasted Lands. That already makes us the exception to the rule here.”

“We also met the Pra-Moresh and the fine gentlemen leading us home. Those are exceptions, too.” Wollis looked around for a moment as if making sure that none of the strangers with them could hear him. “And what about Lundt?”

Merros looked away. “What about him? They said they’d try to save him.”

Wollis stared at him. “So they did. We’ve left him in a strange land with strange people, dying or dead for all we know.”

“Aye. And if we’d brought him back, we’d be hauling nothing but his corpse by now and you know it.” He shook his head and felt his teeth clench. “Gods, Wollis, the poor bastard’s face was half torn away. It’s a wonder he’s alive at all. If they can help mend him then I say we let them.”

“And how will we know of it, Captain? How will we know if he’s mended or if he dies?” Wollis’ voice snapped at last, an angry lash of harsh words.

“What choice, Wollis?” He snapped back. Oh, there was guilt, yes, but what could he do? The King in Iron said they’d save the man’s life. While Merros was hardly nobility, he knew well enough that one didn’t exactly decline the offers of kings without risking a swift death or a life in the dungeons. “What would you have done differently?”

Far in the western distances, the Mounds rose from the frozen wastes, misshapen pillars of darkness that rumbled and shuddered and issued sounds somewhere between monstrous and merely terrifying. Closer in, three of their armored escorts looked toward the distant edifices and their hands slid to the closest weapons. Merros felt his own hand reaching for his sword, seeking the cold comfort of steel.

“I don’t know what I would have done differently, Merros. I have no idea. But I know I’m not comfortable with how this has come down.”

Merros thought about leaving one of his soldiers behind in a place where none of them had ever ventured before, where they might never have a chance to venture again, and resisted the urge to spit the foul taste of failure from his mouth. Failure, or the ruined ashes that fell from the blackened skies above; either way he hated the flavor.

“At the current speeds we’re only fifteen days from home. Twenty days from Tyrne. We’ll have our answers soon enough.”

Wollis nodded his head and looked toward home. “And the pay. Don’t forget that part. We’re mercenaries now. It’s all about the gold.”

Wollis slowed his horse a bit before Merros could comment, leaving the captain alone with his thoughts.

••••

They spoke almost constantly as they rode toward the distant Empire, Drask learning the words of a language he’d have never heard had his gods not blessed him with being the first of his kind to meet with the people of Fellein.

The woman before him was tiny, but she spoke with confidence and seemed comfortable enough with him and with his mount. From time to time she leaned down and spoke directly into Brackka’s ear and the great beast rumbled with pleasure each time. Whatever she said, Brackka approved. That was enough for Drask. Tataya spoke of the customs of her people and Drask listened, knowing that it was important he understand the ways of Fellein.

They rode for three days before finally resting. While Brackka was a sturdy beast and a fine companion, even the greatest of the mounts needed time to recover from a great run and they had covered more than half the distance before they stopped. The air here was calmer, the winds less violent and the taint of ash from above milder than anywhere Drask had been when outside of the valley.

Tataya offered him fresh food and water from her satchel. He took both, moving the flask and then the hearty bread under the layers that covered his face. Even as he chewed on the bread, he opened a sealed package of meat and threw it to Brackka, who grumbled a note of thanks and then tore into the feast. What the Fellein called Pra-Moresh was a musky-tasting meat, to be sure, but it was nourishing and layered with enough fat to make the mount happy. Brackka chattered happily as he ate.

Drask ignored the noises and focused on the woman instead. They were decidedly different peoples. They might have come from the same places once, but the thousand years that divided them as surely as the Blasted Lands separated their people had made changes to one or both species. Her skin was soft and pale, her hair was bright red, and her eyes were a color that seemed impossible.

“You hide your face.” Her words were not a question.

“The Daxar Taalor say your kind are not ready to see us yet.”

She nodded her understanding and said no more of it. He admired that. One did not question the gods. “Tell me of the Daxar Taalor.”

“They saved us. When the Cataclysm happened, they came to us and saved us from the great destruction.”

“How?” Her eyes were unusual, to be sure, but he stared at them and found it hard to look away from her.

“According to the legends the ground was shattered. The air burned. The seas boiled away and left behind oceans of molten glass and rivers of ash. And in this great chaos, we would surely have died, but the Hearts of the Gods rose from the destruction and sheltered us from the great storms, from the burning skies and the winds that peeled flesh from bones.”

“How did your people survive before the mountains rose?”

Drask lowered his head. “That I do not know. The Daxar Taalor have not spoken to me of this.”

“The Daxar Taalor are your gods, yes?”

“Of course.”

“Have you names for them?”

“Of course.” He shrugged. “Durhallem, Ydramil, Wrommish, Paedle, Truska-Pren, Wheklam, and Ordna.”

“Does one god rule all of the gods?”

What bizarre questions she asked. Still, he had been told to answer all questions posed and he saw no reason not to. “We know only what the Daxar Taalor tell us, and they have never spoken of a hierarchy among their kind.”

She reached for his face and he started to pull away. “Drask, you were told you could not show me your face. I do not ask you to show it to me. I merely wish to touch it.” He was hardly a fool. Fingers could see, too, but still, he approved of her unique approach and felt Ydramil would approve as well. For that reason he did not stop her hand from moving under the veil over his face. Her fingers were soft, warm, and perfumed with the faintest scent of exotic flowers. The soft tips felt the contours of his jaw, his nose, his lips, and she stared into his eyes as she touched his face and studied him in ways that none of her kind ever had before. She touched his lips and traced them softly.

“How?” She was not horrified. He had been puzzled when he first saw the strangers; they were… different.

“It is the will of the Daxar Taalor.” He paused while she continued examining and when her fingers moved on, spoke again. “We must speak with their tongues.”

“You are very handsome. You are surely very blessed.”

He removed the gauntlet from his flesh hand and touched her face, her lips, fascinated by the warmth he felt. Her lips kissed the tips of his fingers and she smiled at him with a certain pleasant mischief. The fire was not the only source of warmth that night.

The following morning they rode on, neither speaking of the intimacy they had shared. Instead they spoke of the gift that Drask was bringing for one of the people. “Will it work, do you think?” she asked.

“The Daxar Taalor have willed it. It will work.”

“Will it hurt, do you suppose?”

“Oh yes, a great deal. But the rewards speak for themselves.”

“Your gods are very kind.”

Drask laughed then, the comment catching him off guard.

“That is amusing to you?”

“Lady Tataya, the Daxar Taalor are not kind. They are just. There is a difference.”

“What do you mean?”

“They are gods, Tataya.” His arm slipped around her waist as Brackka started moving faster, running closer to the ground and fairly leaping instead of merely walking. “All gods offer blessings. All gods demand sacrifices. All gods demand a price, yes?”

On the fifth day they left the Blasted Lands, moving through a country that was green and living, the only one he had ever seen outside of the valley. They passed farms and once, in the distance, they passed a city that seemed pale and weak in comparison to the vast cities in the valley. As the air grew warmer, Tataya shed her cloak and after several hours of running time, the heat became great enough for Drask to follow suit. He even removed the helm he normally sported away from home and let the air run through his thick hair.

They stopped that night as well, and rested near a river in the woods. Brackka found his own food to eat in the darkness and the woods around them were silent as the creatures around them sought to adjust to the strangers beneath the canopy of the trees. Tataya offered food again and Drask took it. Brackka did not offer to share and Drask was not foolish enough to ask. The beast was hungry from days of nearly no food and nearly endless running.

Another day of travel and they reached a city that nearly dwarfed the cities of the valley. Drask stared with wide eyes, barely believing that so many could live in one spot.

“This is Tyrne, the capital of Fellein.” Tataya’s voice was a comfort. He had thought himself prepared for almost any sight, but this was altogether a grander scale than Drask had thought possible. Even from a distance he could see the rolling hills of manmade structures, small buildings furthest out, as if they had not yet had a chance to grow to their full height. Closer to the center of the city there were walls and towers and great structures that seemed almost as tall as the Forges themselves.

“Tyrne has been building on itself since before the Cataclysm.” Tataya spoke softly and placed a hand on his forearm. “This is the very heart of the Empire and is much larger than most towns.”

“Where do we go from here?”

“Desh Krohan knows we are coming. He has prepared the way.”

He did not question the fact, but merely accepted it.

“Ride forward and I will tell you where to go.”

Drask nodded and spurred Brackka onward. The mount grunted out a rude noise but obeyed. It was time to offer gifts and forge a new destiny, as ordered by the Daxar Taalor. Drask was many things, but foolish was not among them. When the gods directed, he obeyed. The gods demanded their due and he would pay them as he always had, regardless of what they might cost.

Six

Little known fact: sometimes wizards do things just because it amuses them. At least they do if their name is Desh Krohan. There were many rumors about the sorcerer, quite a few of which were blatant lies he’d created himself, but one rumor that was true was that he’d been around for centuries. Sometimes that meant he had to find ways to drive away boredom.

When he first met Merros Dulver he hid himself in a thick cloak that he’d created years before. The fabric was as tough as steel and, as an added bonus, the material tended to move of its own volition, leading people to wonder exactly what he looked like under the mantle that covered his head and hid his face in dark shadows. He still liked to wear the robes whenever meeting someone for the first time, because he wanted them to be uncertain about him.

He called the robe to him when Tataya whispered in his mind that they were almost upon him. The great cloak obeyed and wrapped itself to him. He’d just drawn the hood over his head when the flame-haired beauty entered the castle.

Desh watched from his window as his assistant moved through the great hall and led her attendee toward his chambers. While most of the officials in the Empire had their own homes – Desh Krohan had several, actually – the wizard was also the formal Advisor to the Emperor and as such had offices within the castle that were his alone. That hadn’t always been the case, but over the centuries the various rulers of Fellein had realized that having a sorcerer in residence had its benefits, especially when the man in question tended to handle a good number of bothersome issues for them.

Rather than wait for them to come to him. Desh moved out of his chambers and into the main hall, standing at his full height as Tataya brought the first of the Sa’ba Taalor into the Emperor’s offices.

There was no fanfare. Not yet, not at this point. This particular meeting was not exactly clandestine, but neither was it meant to be announced to the general populace.

That was just as well. The man she brought with her was a true terror. A few centuries is long enough a time to let a man know how to read the strangers he meets. Perhaps he could not guess a man’s name, or even that man’s intent without careful study, but Desh could normally judge a man’s mettle with ease. The stranger was enormous to begin with. Drask Silver Hand had, per Tataya’s requests, removed his armor, save for the leather vest and thick leather breeches. He sported a heavy traveling cloak and though he did not brandish them, Desh could see that several weapons were sheathed on his body. He carried a satchel over one shoulder that swayed lightly with his steps, though by the way it moved, Desh suspected it was anything but light. The muscles on the man’s body were hard and rippled like those of a great cat as he walked toward the wizard, and his skin, as had been reported to Desh, bore a gray tint and was crosshatched with scars both thick and fine. Though they had traveled a great distance, Tataya must have taken the time to stop to let both of them clean up properly because the man’s thick black hair had been recently washed. The hair fell nearly to his shoulders. His eyes looked everywhere and he studied everything he saw.

Most of the people who first approached the castle were understandably intimidated. The size of the structure, the symbols of office, and the guards who stood throughout the building, all of these things lent an immediate air of authority that cowed most people. That was the purpose, really. In addition to being the seat of the government, the entire structure was designed to hold off armies if it came to that. Nothing about it was meant to be warming so much as it was designed to let all who approached know that the Emperor of all they saw was close by and capable of leading his people. Desh knew all of that because he had helped design the bloody structure.

Drask Silver Hand took it in with a casual glance. Though the stranger’s face was mostly hidden, his eyes showed no sign of being impressed by what he saw. The man’s stance was relaxed, calmer than most who came before Desh or the Emperor. The stranger was about to meet both and didn’t seem the least bit worried about the notion.

And that very fact worried Desh just a little. It went against the norm.

Desh stepped from his office and stood before Tataya and her charge. The man looked at him for a moment and his eyes narrowed a touch as he assessed the potential threat of the man in the shifting cloak. His fingers twitched within their gloves. Desh knew enough to understand that he was checking himself, resisting the urge to reach for a weapon. That was good. The man was properly uncertain of what lay under the dark, heavily shadowed cowl and the fabric that seemed to breathe and shift of its own will. He was not intimidated, no, but he was cautious.

“Desh Krohan, this is Drask Silver Hand of the Sa’ba Taalor, emissary of Tarag Paedori, Chosen of the Forge and King in Iron.” Tataya’s voice was confident and warm and Desh resisted the urge to hug her to him. She was precious, as were all of the women he chose to work with. Instead he stepped back with his left leg and bowed from the waist, holding his arms wide open.

The stranger looked at him for one moment and then returned the gesture.

“Drask Silver Hand, this is Desh Krohan, Advisor to the Empire of Fellein and Emperor Pathra Krous.” She placed one delicate hand on the thickly muscled forearm of the stranger and spoke in a softer voice. “He is also my friend and the reason you are welcomed here.”

When Drask spoke his voice was accented; although there was an odd tone to them that confused the wizard’s ears, his words were easily understood. That was good. He wanted the man to make a good first impression on the Emperor. “It is the hopes of my king that your people and mine can meet in peace and honor.” The words were obviously rehearsed. That too was as it should be.

“That is the hope of our Emperor as well.” Desh nodded his head. “Do you come as formal representative? Or do you come to prepare the way for your people?”

Drask tilted his head the slightest bit and looked around the room again, his eyes tracking two guards who moved into the area and stared for a moment. They knew exactly who Desh was and were wise enough to not interfere. “I come to prepare the way, and I bring with me a show of faith meant for you, Desh Krohan, as promised by Goriah.”

His left hand tapped the satchel he carried.

Desh smiled. “We have a few preparations to make, Drask Silver Hand. When we are done with these small tasks, I shall introduce you to the Emperor and hopefully we will begin a great friendship between our peoples.”

“As the Daxar Taalor will it.” The man bowed again and waited for Desh’s instructions.

Really, there were only a few things that had to be done. Desh wanted to make sure that everything was in proper order. This was to be a monumental occasion and he wanted nothing to go wrong.

How very seldom we get what we most desire.

Andover was in the small garden when they found him. The weather was bright and the air was warm, and if he had stayed in the room for a moment longer he was sure he would go mad. Also, no matter that the sorcerer had done wonders for keeping his muscles conditioned while Andover slept, his legs felt restless. All of him felt restless. The anger inside him had grown, had bloomed when he wasn’t paying attention. While Tega still occupied his mind a great deal, so did his rage for what had been done to him. It had been long enough that his mind had, mercifully, hidden away most of his recollections of the pain of having his hands destroyed, but while the actual pain was a thing of the past – give or take the ghosts that still ran through his arms and told him his hands were still there and still shattered – the memory of the look on Menock’s face as he brought the hammer down was still burned into his eyelids. He couldn’t even close his eyes to escape the look on the bastard’s face as he ruined Andover’s world.

Tega came out into the garden, a flower brighter than the rest around them, and offered him a nervous smile. That was the only sort of smile she could offer him, really. He scared her or shamed her. Andover was never quite sure which.

Despite the feelings she always inspired in him, he could barely muster a return smile for the girl. Still he tried. She was not at fault, not for his hands and not for the fact that she did not feel the same way toward him. That much he knew in his mind, even if his heart did not always agree.

Tega’s eyes shone with excitement. “Andover! Come quickly! Desh Krohan wants to see you!”

Her excitement cut through the clouds of his sullen mood and he looked toward her with renewed interest. “Does he then?” He nodded and moved toward her. It was unusual to see her enthusiastic about much of anything, at least in his presence. He’d seen her talking to others, seen her smile more times than he could easily count, just not around him. It was refreshing.

He allowed her to lead him, her delicate hands gripping his arm at the elbow. “Calmly, Tega. My legs aren’t as strong as they used to be. Too much time spent in that bed.”

“Never mind that! Come on, come on!” She half pulled him through the corridors, past the Healer’s Hall and further still. Tega knew her way around the palace but Andover had never been beyond the chambers where he slept and the small garden down one corridor. His eyes widened at the sheer size of the place. It was one thing to know he was in the Emperor’s Palace and another to actually comprehend what that knowledge meant.

Before he could truly adjust to the size of the palace, he was hauled by the girl he adored into another chamber, this one substantially larger than even the garden he’d been walking in. The ceiling had to be at least three times his height, and though there were no windows within the room, there was light aplenty from several torches and a blazing pit.

He recognized the wizard immediately. Most of him was hidden but his hands were now familiar to Andover, as were the rings he sometimes wore. And even under the mantle of his cloak the man carried a certain authority that made him recognizable. If anything, the odd cerements he wore made him even more intimidating than he usually was. It was true that Andover felt a certain level of familiarity with the mage, had even spoken his mind to the man, but he had never forgot exactly who he was dealing with. Three others stood with the sorcerer: a striking woman with red hair, a very large man with who hid his face behind a veil, and–

The Emperor himself!

Andover froze as surely as if he were staring a Pra-Moresh in the face. The Emperor! One thing to see the man at a distance – though Andover himself had not done so in over five years – another to see the man who ruled over all of them in the flesh.

Tega recovered faster. Either she had expected to see the man or she was merely more familiar with protocol. She lowered her gaze, stepped back on her left leg and bent at the waist. The pressure of her grip on his arm urged him to follow her lead and he did so gratefully.

Pathra Krous’ voice was warm and deep. “Thank you. Please, rise, this is not a formal affair. We have much to discuss, young master Lashk.”

The Emperor knew his name. The very notion made his ears ring.

Still, the Emperor asked and he listened. He rose and looked at the gathering again. The voice that spoke the next time was not his ruler’s but that of the wizard. “Andover, a stranger has come to us. His name is Drask Silver Hand and he believes that he can replace your ruined hands. He cannot heal them, but he can give you new hands.”

He gestured to the large man with the oddly tinted skin, as if looking at the strangely dressed brute would somehow clarify the matter.

“New hands?” His voice cracked as he spoke.

The stranger looked at him and then at Tega, his eyes giving away nothing of his feelings. In response the man nodded his head. He gripped the leather glove over his right hand and held the hand out for Andover to examine.

He walked closer, staring at the marvel of metal and flesh, not believing what he was staring at. A sculpted limb. Before he could scoff at the notion of useless metal attachments, the metallic fingers moved, the hand twitched.

Shock didn’t begin to cover his reaction.

Andover stepped back and tripped over his own feet. He pinwheeled his arms in an effort to catch himself, but could not. The sculpture moved!

And before he could fall on his backside, the man with the silver hand was in front of him, grabbing his tunic and righting him until he could find his balance. Andover stared at the metallic hand, unable to so much as utter thanks.

“It moves!”

“It is my hand now. It moves, it feels, it is strong.” The man spoke directly but the ringing in Andover’s ears made the sounds seem distorted.

“How did you do this?”

“The Daxar Taalor did this. The gods of my people.”

“You have your own gods?” He felt numb. His fingers reached out, touched the metal of the man’s hand and marveled at the warmth, the strange texture. Metal, yes, no denying it, but there was almost a hint of something else.

“Don’t you?”

The Emperor laughed, the sounds a bit forced to Andover’s ears. “Don’t we all have our gods?”

Drask turned his head to look at the Emperor, his eyes narrowing for the briefest moment before he nodded. He carefully removed his hand from Andover’s grasp.

Then the stranger spoke to him. “If you do this, there will be great pain, far worse than you felt when your hands were taken. The gods tells us that life always hurts more than death. That would be the first sacrifice you have to make. Would you accept pain in order to have your hands again?”

Andover nodded without true consideration. What was pain in exchange for being able to work again, to avoid a life as a beggar? There was no question at all.

Drask looked at him for a moment and he realized the man didn’t understand the gesture. “Yes. I would accept pain for hands.”

Drask stared for a moment longer and then nodded, as if trying the gesture out for the first time in his life. “Good. That is good. There is more. The Daxar Taalor would ask that you visit them in their places of worship, where I come from. The trip is a long one, but you would learn much from your travels. Would this be acceptable?”

Before he could answer, Desh Krohan spoke up, the wizard’s words carrying with ease. “You would serve as a sort of ambassador for the Empire, Andover. You would represent the Emperor if you did this. Think carefully before you answer.”

“How long would I be gone?”

His eyes moved of their own volition, his head turned without his choosing, and he found himself looking at Tega, drinking in her beauty. To be something other than a beggar, to serve the Emperor in that sort of way, would that not be an important thing? Would that not make her notice him?

“Most of a year, I suspect. The travel time there is months as it is, unless Drask decides to lead you through the worst of the Blasted Lands.

“You come from the Blasted Lands?” His eyes moved to Drask again.

“Beyond the Blasted Lands.” The man moved back a few steps and Andover realized for the first time how fast the man must have responded when he tripped himself to clear the distance between them. “Your people and mine are not the same. The Daxar Taalor would have to see you, to understand you in order to make certain that their gift to you works properly.”

“You mean I would meet your gods?”

Drask waved a hand in a gesture that seemed to indicate a negative. His words confirmed. “No. You would not meet them. They do not show themselves to any who are not kings. But they would meet you.”

“Only your king gets to see the gods?” The Emperor took note of that, his eyes seemed particularly alert.

“Only our kings,” Drask corrected. “There are seven kings. One for each mountain. One for each god.”

Enough. The Emperor was very important, yes, but Andover wanted his hands.

“I accept! I will go with you. I will be an ambassador for the Empire. I accept.” His face flushed red with embarrassment. He had interrupted a conversation between the Emperor and a man from another land. His mother would have been horrified.

The wizard, the stranger, the Emperor all looked at him for a moment in silence so complete he could hear his own breaths.

Then Emperor stood and walked toward him. “Excellent! You are a brave lad, and you do the Empire proud.” The older man’s hand rested on his shoulder for one moment. “You make me proud.”

Andover’s knees shook. Despite being very nearly overwhelmed by the praise, it was the thought that he might have hands again that mattered most to him.

Hands.

The ability to once again be seen as something more than an object of pity.

He looked toward Tega and dared a smile.

And the girl he adored smiled back.

The boy did not understand. And he was a boy; there was no denying that. He was soft and untried. Drask looked at the thin lad and took a deep breath. This was not his choice, nor his place to question. The gods did not want his wisdom, only his service and he did not question the Daxar Taalor.

Without another word he moved to the satchel he’d carried with him to this place. Tataya watched him, her eyes glittering in the firelight, and her lips settled into a half-smile he found pleasantly distracting.

Andover Lashk watched him, too. All of them did, even the Emperor of the realm. He had heard stories of Fellein, of course, but had he ever really expected to be here in person? No. The gods had honored him again and again of late, though he did not allow that fact to swell his heart with pride.

He removed the dark iron box from his satchel and set it on a carved marble table. The weight of the thing was substantial, more than he suspected the strangers around him realized. There was the box itself, of course, and then there was the metal within it. An image of a face, a mask of iron with a harsh features and a cruel mouth stared at him. Aside from the face of Truska-Pren – His Might Be Unchanging – on the top of the box, it was unremarkable, unadorned save for two circular openings, one on either side.

He looked to Andover and gestured the boy closer. “This is a gift of Truska-Pren, whose heart is forged in iron, whose face adorns the blessing box. Each god offers a different form of gift. Your hands will not be like mine. They will have a different appearance, but they will be yours and they will never fail you.”

The boy looked at him with wide, nervous eyes.

“Do you accept this gift, Andover Lashk of Fellein?”

“I…” He nodded. “Yes, I do.”

“Place your arms within the blessing box. Do not move them, no matter how great the pain, no matter how tempting. Life is pain, and if you would have hands that live, you must accept that pain. Do you understand?”

The boy swallowed several times, his throat making a clicking noise each time. The Emperor, the hooded wizard, and both of the women in the room moved closer, drawn by curiosity to see a miracle occur. Who would not be tempted, really? Hundreds had watched when Drask’s hand was gifted to him.

Drask prepared himself. The boy thought he was strong enough. Drask did not agree.

Andover Lashk reached into the openings of the blessing box, his face pale and his lips trembling. He pushed forward, his forearms sliding in a bit at a time until the ruined stump and the shattered remnants of his hand were gone, pushed beyond the point where his wrists disappeared into the device as well.

“I don’t feel anything.”

“Be patient. Truska-Pren must reach a long way to offer his blessings to you.”

The wizard moved a step closer.

“Wait. There. I feel something. It tingles. It–” The boy bucked and screamed, his eyes flying wide. He started to yank his hands from the blessing box and Drask responded, grabbing the boy’s thin arms at the elbows and holding him in place.

Andover’s face grew first pale and then extremely red and he shrieked, his entire body thrashing as he tried to escape.

“No! Stay where you are!” The words were called out to the girl who’d arrived with Andover, who reached out as if to help him. Andover kicked him in the foot, then in the shin, trying to break free. Pain drove civility from the lad and he leaned down and attempted to bite Drask, and rather than fight him, Drask let the boy sink his teeth into the skin of his bicep. The skin broke and the boy worried the wound, did his best to savage the flesh. Drask gritted his teeth and did not move. Life is pain. The boy had to learn that. The gods make their gifts and they make their demands and sometimes the two were intertwined.

Drask shifted his body instinctively and the boy’s knee crashed into his leg rather than slamming into his privates. Under most circumstances he’d kill the man who tried that, but not now. He understood the pain all too well.

The blessing box grew hot, the image of Truska-Pren’s face glowed white and the smell of burning iron filled the air. The sounds that came from Andover Lashk failed, but to take their place his skin hissed and sizzled within the metallic confines.

When Andover fainted away, his eyes rolling into his head and his mouth falling slack as his body fell, Drask held the boy’s hands in place, supporting the added weight and shuddering at the strain. Still he held the boy and when the wizard reached for him – perhaps to help, who could say what sorcerers contemplated? – Drask turned to him quickly. “If you move, if you interfere, I will kill you.” The words were spoken softly enough, but the man listened and stepped back two paces.

Finally the hissing stopped and the glow of Truska-Pren’s visage faded in an instant. Drask very carefully lowered the boy, keeping his hands within the blessing box as he settled him to the marble floor.

“Let him rest. He will need time to recover.” Drask stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest. He saw the wizard staring at him from beneath his hood, but made no gesture, did nothing to apologize. He had done as the Daxar Taalor commanded and held the boy still. Their blessings had been granted. Time alone would tell what form those blessings took.

Seven

Desh Krohan paced around the dining hall with his arms behind him and the hood of his cloak thrown back. “Well, that was unexpected.”

Emperor Pathra Krous looked at him with one raised eyebrow. “I should hope so. What in the name of the gods were you thinking? Introducing me to the first stranger to see the Empire in a hundred years that way?”

“Well how was I supposed to introduce him? Wait for the entire bloody entourage to show up and then ask you to join the whole merry lot for a picnic?”

Pathra shook his head. His hair moved in a nearly solid wave around his face. “Alright, seriously, Pathra, you have got to talk to that girl. Your hair could almost be a helmet.”

The man waved away the annoying words, not willing to be distracted from the matters at hand.

“One of my citizens just fell down screaming in the middle of my throne room. He’s unconscious and his arms smell like they’ve been dropped in a smithy.”

“Well, your citizen agreed to the chance to have new hands – replacing hands destroyed by the City Guard, I might add. You really have to decide what to do with those guards and soon, too. I’d wager a few tongues in the city are still wagging over the fact that they’ve not been properly punished. Also, as he worked as a smith’s apprentice, maybe he always smells that way.”

“That’s a weak excuse even for you, Desh. I’m not foolish enough to think the smell of molten metal stays on skin for several weeks.”

“It was a bad attempt at a jest. I’m a little stressed at the moment.” He paced some more, trying to come up with a proper plan of action. “We can’t very well arrest this Drask Silver Hand. He’s come as an emissary of a king from another land. We don’t know a damned thing about them. All I can say for sure is he’s a very large man and he looks remarkably capable of eating half the City Guard if they were to try anything foolish with him.”

“Well that seems a little…” The Emperor paused and contemplated the man who’d come before him. “Yes, alright. Good point. But sheer size doesn’t mean he’s a capable warrior.”

“There are fifty more of his people coming here to meet with you formally. If you don’t handle this the right way, you could very well have a war on your hands.”

“Don’t be absurd. Who would dare attack the Fellein Empire?”

Desh rounded on the Emperor and jabbed a finger in his direction. Most people wouldn’t have dared. The wizard was not most people, but he was also wise enough not to act so casually when there were others around. “We’ve discussed that. Yes, you have soldiers, but when was the last time you had an actual war on your hands, Pathra? Not in your lifetime is when. It’s been close to a hundred years. The Empire is getting along just fine and that’s a wonderful thing, but only because we’ve not had more than a few scuffles with the Guntha since your father built the walls separating their land from ours.”

“The Guntha are hardly an issue.” Which was true enough, since the Guntha had given up all attempts to attack the Empire, save in occasional skirmishes along the waterfronts of the southlands.

“The Guntha aren’t currently the problem.” He pointed to the throne room beyond the closed doors of the small dining hall. “He is. He and his people are. We don’t know anything about them.”

“We know their so called gifts aren’t very impressive.”

“We know no such thing. Drask said the process wasn’t finished.”

“Then let’s go out there and see what happens when it is finished, shall we?”

“Just be prepared, that’s all I ask, Pathra. We have to be prepared for if things go poorly. We also have to be prepared if things go well.”

“I am the Emperor, Desh. I’ve been trained in etiquette.”

“Yes, you were trained by me. That’s why I’m reminding you to be cautious. I always hated having to follow the rules.”

“Well, I’ve always been less temperamental than you, too, old man.”

“Good point.”

Desh sighed and pulled his hood back in place. He was still working on looking mysterious for the brute in the next room. “So did you hear about the mount they rode here on?”

“No.” Pathra frowned.

“Big as a house. It also ate a horse roughly two hours ago.”

“A horse?”

“One of the white chargers you’re so fond of.”

“Well, that’s certainly an awkward step in the wrong direction.” The Emperor sounded just a bit pouty about the horse.

“Possibilities of war, Pathra. Just remember that part.”

“Stupid rules.”

“Yes they are. Perhaps you should change them. Just do it later, yes?”

Pathra opened the door and moved back into his throne room. Soon they’d know how badly things were going.

The entourage continued on, moving across the wasted landscape at a pace that exhausted riders and mounts alike. Human riders and horses at least. The people from the valley seemed just fine and their beasts looked almost as fresh as when they’d left.

Merros and Wollis rode side by side again, both of them sharing a certain anticipation now that they could see the steppes ahead of them. They would be out of the gods-forsaken Blasted Lands soon, and as far as Merros was concerned if he never saw them again he would live a fulfilled existence.

A few things they had learned about the Sa’ba Taalor: first, they were not much for idle chatter. Though Merros had spoken on repeated occasions with all of the retinue traveling with them, they had spent most of those conversations doing their best to learn the language of the Empire. Second, they were very, very determined to learn. Though none of them could be called fluent in the tongue, they had learned enough to now have conversations with the rest of the group. They were formal, they were inquisitive, and they seldom volunteered anything about themselves. Maybe it was difficult to open up to strangers when they had never seen strangers before.

While almost all of the riders wore armor, he also now knew that easily a dozen or more of them were women under their gear. It was almost impossible to tell from a distance, but in speaking with them he’d noticed the differences in tone – sometimes a challenge as all of the people from the valley had the same unusual distortions to their voices – and as the weather warmed a bit and they came closer to the Empire, layers of cloth were removed and more flesh was exposed. The females had smaller arms. They were still muscular, and a few of the women had the sort of muscle tone that made Merros realize he should get more practice time with his weapons. The time out in the fields had robbed him of some of his shape.

Third, there wasn’t a single one of them that wasn’t covered with scars. When the curiosity got too much for him he decided to approach a rider named Tusk who was more curious than a lot of his peers. Tusk sported a scar around one wrist that wrapped itself over his forearm twice. The scar was a thick, serpentine mess and it seemed almost a wonder that the sort of wound that would leave that scar didn’t require the loss of a limb.

Tusk – he wasn’t sure if that was a name or a nickname as the man’s skull-shaped helmet was adorned with large teeth from some sort of animal, possibly a Pra-Moresh by the sheer size of the fangs – explained without hesitation. “We are trained to defend ourselves from a young age.”

“From whom?”

“The Blasted Lands have many threats.”

“You mean the Pra-Moresh?”

“They are only one. There are others.” The man shrugged his shoulders, sending a rattling effect across all of his armor. “We are also taught to make our own armor and weapons. That often leaves scars.”

“You forge your own weapons?”

“You cannot be connected with your weapons if you do not make your weapons. They should be as the claws of a beast, a part of you.” The way he said it made Merros suspect he was quoting an age-old adage.

“You forged your own sword?” The notion was damned near ludicrous. It took years to learn how to work a forge and pound metal into something other than a shapeless lump.

Tusk drew his sword, a thick bladed affair with surprisingly delicate inscriptions across the center of the blade. He offered it hilt-first to Merros. Merros took the blade carefully, not only because it was a weapon and should be respected, but also because he suspected he was being given a great honor when he was offered the piece in the first place. The craftsmanship was damned fine, and the balance was perfect. The metal was lighter than he expected, but he could see how well-sharpened the blade’s edge was and he had no doubt it was as fine a sword as he’d ever held.

“You do not forge your own weapons?” Tusk’s turn. His tone was hard to read. It was hard to tell much of what the man thought under the helm he wore. One tended to get distracted by the amazing array of sharp teeth leering in one’s direction.

“Well, no. Not really. We have people who bake bread, we have people who tend animals, we have people who build houses, and we have people who forge weapons. Each is a skill that is learned over years.”

Tusk stared at him in silence for a moment as if trying to absorb a piece of vital information. No, as if he were genuinely surprised by the response he’d received.

“Then how do you know your weapon is well-made?”

“You test it, of course. Before you make a purchase. Or if you are in the army, you are issued a weapon.”

“May I see your sword?” Tusk’s voice was unusually formal.

“Of course.” Merros had little choice, really. The man had just offered his own weapon. He first handed Tusk back the sword the man had proffered and then extended his own. Tusk’s movements were nearly a blur. He held the weapon, ran a finger along the blade, eyed the edge carefully and then swung the blade several times in arcs above his head and to his side. Merros was unsettled by how little effort the man seemed to extend in the process.

He then handed it back. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Merros pointed to Tusk’s arm and the thick scars. “May I ask how you came by that one?”

“I was hit with a chain.”

“A chain?”

Merros leaned in closer, looking at the scar. He could imagine the sort of chain that had links thick enough to break skin in that way, but he didn’t really want to.

“Why in the name of the gods would anyone hit you with a chain?”

“As I said, we are all trained in defense.”

“Against a chain?”

Tusk chuckled, a deep sound that came from low in his chest. “If you do not think a chain can be used as a weapon, you have obviously never been hit with a chain.” He patted his side and Merros looked at the spot where a length of chain had been coiled several times before being secured to his belt.

“Good point.” Merros thanked him for his time and slowed down a bit until he and Wollis were once again riding next to each other.

Wollis looked a question at him.

Merros shook his head. “I’m beginning to understand how Drask killed four Pra-Moresh.”

“How is that?”

Merros looked at one of the riders off in the distance. He could see the muscles on her arms and though he could not see her face, he was astonished by the attraction he felt for her. Like Tusk, she had several serious scars on her exposed flesh.

“These are not a people to be underestimated, Wollis. Let’s leave it at that for now.”

Wollis, ever one to conserve his energies for things more interesting than speech, merely nodded his head and kept riding.

Andover woke up in a different room this time. The ceiling was higher and there were furs on the bed beneath him. Also, he was clothed differently.

Also, his hands weren’t screaming at him. For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, his hands weren’t shrieking their tortured agonies into his arms and then through the rest of him. He lifted his arms without thinking and looked at his hands.

And froze in wonder.

They were hands. There was simply no doubting that. The fingers were as long as he remembered, and he stared at them as he moved them. His lips trembled and tears threatened to break from his wide eyes.

His hands were metal. He’d known they would be, if those of the stranger, Drask were any indication, but knowing in your mind is different from knowing in your heart. In color they looked as if they’d been freshly forged from good iron, free from impurities. The “flesh” had a polished, buffed look and was smooth, save where the joints met. That area was a bit rougher, more textured but still impossibly flawless. The real skin of his wrists was heavily scarred, and he could see where metal and flesh were married if he looked, but he did not want to look too closely, not yet. He might think too much, and then he might well start screaming and never stop. A miracle these hands, yes, but many were the people who had said that to look upon the blessings of the gods was to know their flaws and their pettiness. He would not consider the flaws of the deity that had offered this amazing blessing. There were markings along each finger, across the tips, the palms. Everywhere. They made no sense to him, but the marks were there, a language he had never seen, perhaps, or merely decoration. He did not know.

When he flexed the fingers moved exactly as they should, smoothly, without hesitation.

More importantly, oh, so much more importantly, he could feel through his hands. Not the ghost pains that had insisted his hands were still there even after they’d been taken, but real sensations. He closed his eyes and ran his hands across his face. The flesh of his jaw line felt warm metal, not hot, merely warm, caressing the angles of his face. His fingers felt those same angles, read them as well as his fingers had ever read any surface.

Impossible! But there it was. He opened his eyes and sat up on the bed and for the first time was aware of the people around him, looking at him with expectant faces. Tega was there, and the wizard and the Emperor and the stranger, the man with the silver hand. The only person who did not seem surprised by the use of his hands was the man who had a similar limb.

“How do they feel?” That was Desh Krohan.

“Like flesh. Like real hands.”

“They are real. The gods do not offer trinkets.” Drask spoke softly and in the semi-dark room his eyes offered a faint silvery glow that reminded Andover of the odd way cats’ eyes could reflect light.

“How can I thank you?” Andover’s voice shook and he closed his eyes for a moment, overwhelmed with a wave of gratitude. Later, perhaps, he would allow himself to feel dread at the sight of his new hands. But he hoped not. Let them look odd. Let others see them as strange. He could accept that. He had hands again, and that was an amazing, spectacular thing.

Drask shook his head. “To me you owe nothing. I am merely a messenger. If you would offer your thanks, offer them to Truska-Pren, God of the Iron Forge.”

“When I am at his altar, I shall surely do so.”

Drask nodded without saying another word.

Really, there wasn’t much to say. Not then. The emissary from the Seven Forges merely crossed his arms and waited patiently while the rest of the group asked their questions. Andover answered them all, and as he did so his smile grew a little at a time.

He had hands!

No one was more surprised than he was when Tega placed her hands upon his and ran her fingers over the metal, surprised and curious.

He had feared that she would be repulsed.

Instead she seemed fascinated. He did his best not to read anything into that, but as is often the case with young men who think they are in love, he was not completely successful.

The steppes were close enough that the air felt almost warm again. Merros couldn’t quite keep himself from getting jumpy about it. He’d been away from the world he knew for just a little too long.

Not far away from him the remaining two women who served as the wizard’s eyes and ears – and at times as his mouth – had actually left their wagon and were walking alongside the supply wagon. The wind occasionally caught their cloaks and threw the hoods back far enough to let him see the startlingly blonde hair or the midnight black. Without the redhead they didn’t seem complete; beautiful, yes, but not complete.

To make up for the difference, they spoke with two of the women from the valley. Although they were also female, they were not quite cut from the same fabric: two ladies who looked like they should be dining with royalty, and two women who looked like they’d spent their lives working the fields.

Wollis noticed him looking and chuckled. “Hard to decide which you prefer?”

“Not at all. After months of dealing with you and sleeping in a tent, I’d gleefully bed your mother.”

Wollis frowned. “I have told you about my mother, yes?”

Merros smiled. “And yet I would still bed her.”

“Gods, Captain, you are beyond desperate.”

“So you can see why staring at four fit women would be a nice distraction?”

Before Wollis could respond, one of their escorts blew three sharp notes on his horn. He was a decent distance away and the winds were still bad enough that all the bellowing in the world might not be heard.

And as fast as the wind, the Sa’ba Taalor were in motion. They looked toward the sound of the horn and then they moved, not so much heading in the direction of potential trouble as stalking it. The two women he’d been admiring a moment before spun away from the wizard’s servants and crouched, sliding their bows from their backs and communicating with each other with quick hand gestures between motions. Bows removed, arrows pulled and notched in place all in seconds.

Goriah looked toward him, her eyes startlingly blue. She cupped her hands to her mouth and called out “Pra-Moresh!” Merros nodded and looked toward the horn blower.

It was almost over before it started, really. There were only two of the beasts this time, not seven like they had encountered before. The Sa’ba Taalor devastated the damned things in a matter of moments. The two women who’d started in that direction both fired arrows at the same one and they surely must have spoken to each other, because each of them fired exactly one arrow and each of them planted an arrow in a different eye. The great, screeching beast fell backward amid a thunderous roar of voices, and bucked and thrashed for several seconds before dying.

The horn blower was none other than Tusk, who took the other animal by himself. He did not throw an axe. He did not fire an arrow. Instead he charged on his war beast and drew a great sword unlike any Merros had ever seen before. The blade was well over four feet in length, very thick in the center and with a heavy curve. Merros was still trying to identify exactly what the weapon was when Tusk climbed from his saddle, balanced himself on the back of his moving beast, and then leaped at the Pra-Moresh. One hand held the hilt of the sword. The other was braced along the blade’s length, and as Tusk came downward, so too did his hands.

Hard to say who was more surprised, really; Merros or the monster that Tusk jumped toward.

“What is that madman doing?” Wollis’ voice cracked as he watched the man from the valley bring the sword down and cleave the blade through the neck and shoulder of the monstrous wall of flesh. He did not completely decapitate the Pra-Moresh, but it was close. The impact ran through hunter and hunted alike and Tusk rolled past the falling creature sliding across the frozen ground as he brought himself to a halt.

Merros was far too busy staring at the dead monster’s carcass to answer Wollis’ question. The damned things had hides thick enough to slow a crossbow bolt. They had bone plates under the skin in a dozen different places. He wasn’t completely sure, but he was fairly certain that the cut Tusk made carved through at least one of the bones.

Tusk stood up and raised his massive sword over his head, roaring to the heavens. “Durhallem!” The war cry was nearly as loud as the roar of the monsters he and his brethren had just slaughtered.

Wollis led his horse in a wide circle. The animal was well-trained and had been steady through the entire time they’d been on the expedition, but now it was edgy and seemed ready to bolt.

Merros could fully understand that. The smell of the Pra-Moresh was potent, made stronger here because the air was cleaner. Leagues away, closer to the Seven Forges, the air was thick with soot all the time, heavy with dust and ash. Here, closer to home, it was almost like his senses were coming back for the first time.

The hunters made quick work of their kills. While Merros watched and Wollis worked on calming his animal – a task he handled expertly – Tusk swept the massive sword clean with a heavy piece of his prey’s fur and slid it back into the sheath. Then he took a different blade, smaller but decidedly sharp and sturdy, and began cleaning the carcass. Within ten minutes he’d cut away a good portion of the meat from the Pra-Moresh. He called to two of his brethren who moved over and helped pack the meat into several cloth sacks. While they worked, the mounts they’d been riding stared at the dead beast and shifted from paw to paw. Not one of the creatures moved from where it stood.

The two women were just as fast as their male counterparts, and had cleaned a good amount of the meat away from the carcass in short order. When they were done, they stepped back and one of the women called out with a harsh, barking command. A moment later the great predatory animals they rode on pounced on the bodies. Not all of the Sa’ba Taalor rode the animals, just as not every person on the expedition had a horse. It simply wasn’t practical. Still there were a dozen of the beasts, and they tore hard meat and gristle away from the bodies and feasted on the entrails and several dubious looking organs their masters had set aside for them.

Tusk walked around the circle of feeding animals and held two more massive teeth out to show a few of his friends. He spoke in his own tongue, laughing, and Wollis, who had finally calmed his horse down, rode close to Merros. “What is he saying?”

“He’s just having fun. He’s being a hunter.” Merros pointed to the teeth. “He’s planning on adding those to his helmet. He’s just cracking wise because he can’t decide if he wants to merely add them or replace a couple of teeth that have broken in previous combats.”

“So he’s bragging?”

Merros shook his head. “No. He’s just having a good time. He may as well be a woman discussing what sort of fur to line her cloak with.”

“I’m thinking referring to him as a woman might be a mistake.”

The voice that responded came from Goriah. The blonde woman had crept closer while both of them were busy conversing. “No. I don’t think they care. Male, female. It’s all the same.”

“How so?”

She looked from one man to the other, her eyes drawing both of them. She was, as always, extremely distracting. “They have been learning from you. We have been learning from them. The only thing that matters seems to be how well they obey their gods. If you were to call Tusk a woman, he would probably think you were confused. He wouldn’t be insulted. He’d just possibly think you had been hit in the head too many times to think clearly.”

“Really?” Wollis’ voice was a skeptical.

“You wonder how that could be? Why he wouldn’t be offended?”

“Well, yes. No disrespect, Goriah, but most of the soldiers I’ve met would beat a man into the mud for calling him a woman.”

Goriah smiled. Even her teeth were perfect. “That’s because most of the soldiers you’ve dealt with would consider that an insult to their manhood and to their ability to fight.”

Wollis squinted at her. He was thinking it through. “Well, yes.”

She nodded her chin to the two women who were cleaning their blades and sliding them back into the sheaths on their bodies. Their cloaks were opened to the elements and the numerous straps that held knives, axes and even swords in place were revealed. Once again, Merros found himself watching the smooth play of muscles moving under their scarred skin. Once again, he found himself oddly drawn to their forms. Too damned long away from civilized women. He’d have to fix that and soon. “Answer me this, Wollis. Do either of those women strike you as the sort who would be considered too delicate to fight?”

Wollis shook his head. “Gods no. I don’t think I’d want to cross either of them.” His tone clearly revealed his admiration.

“Then why would a fighter be offended to be compared to them?”

“Your point is well made, Goriah.”

One of the women called out to Goriah and she in turn called back with a fast response. When she was done she looked at Wollis again. “We are apparently in for a treat.”

“How’s that?”

“Ehnole over there is going to make us a stew from the hearts, eyes and tongue of the Pra-Moresh.” The woman looked at Wollis with a certain humor. “Apparently it is a treat.”

“I doubt that.”

Goriah waved a dismissive hand and started toward the woman in question. “Should I tell her you wish to decline her generous offer? Keep in mind that if she takes offense she might decide you’ve insulted her honor.”

Wollis blanched.

Merros smiled. “I think we’ll both be delighted to try whatever dish she offers.” His second did not disagree.

They gathered together at the dining hall where Pathra Krous and Desh Krohan often had their conversations in private, joined by a dozen others who simply had to know what was happening.

The Emperor had numerous advisors, most of whom were not present. Some had other engagements, some had families to attend to, some were not invited because at that particular moment Pathra did not wish to see them. To the very last of them the newcomers stared at Drask Silver Hand with the sort of fascination normally reserved for a new and particularly unsettling looking bug. It either said a lot for him that he didn’t seem to care, or it spoke volumes about his ignorance of what was going on around him. Desh Krohan reached the same conclusion Merros had earlier: the stranger was not foolish enough not to notice that he was being observed, and carefully. He simply found nothing to be concerned over.

Among the people in the room was an exotic beauty from the far south of the Empire, whose flawless skin was darker by a few shades – in much the same way that Drask’s skin was grayer – and whose hair fell in a straight wave down past her shoulders. She had trouble taking her eyes off of Drask, and when she did, it was only to stare at Andover’s new hands. For his part, the young man was staring around the room with the same sort of fascination, save when even he found himself drawn back to his hands. The woman had come to the seat of the Empire to seek a solution to a growing problem with the Guntha. Once again the closest kingdom of any size was feeling the need to stretch their legs into the Empire’s territories, in this case a tropical zone called Roathes, the domain the young woman’s family ruled. Roathes was allegedly beautiful. Desh had not been there in a very long time and no longer remembered it clearly. What he did know, however, was that the girl was one of Marsfel the King of Roathes’ daughters, and that she would be staying in the area and making multiple requests for aid until the situation either grew bad enough to require action, calmed down on its own, or her presence offended Pathra. The reason so staggering a beauty had been sent along? To ensure that she did not quickly get on the Emperor’s nerves.

“Well, the Guntha are a persistent problem, Lanaie. We aren’t ignoring them, but we also have to make sure that the borders throughout the Empire hold against our enemies.” That was Pathra, who was currently trying to explain why he wasn’t sending troops to help the girl’s father. He was talking to her chest as much as he was talking to her face. That was to be expected, as her assets were considerable. The advantage of being the Emperor was that no one would say a word to him about his boorish behavior. Except for Desh, of course, but he would wait until after the meal.

“How many troops do the Guntha employ against your father?” Desh had been about ask that very question. Drask beat him to it.

The dark eyes of the girl grew wider as Drask spoke to her. She looked at him with slightly parted lips and drank in his words, fascinated by him. His face still remained behind the veil he found so important. Tataya had seen him, of course. Well, she had felt his face so she understood what was going on behind that cloth. So too did Desh. What his associates knew soon became his knowledge as well.

“My father says the Guntha have gathered almost two thousand in preparation.”

Desh held his breath. That was the last thing Fellein needed at the present time.

“Does your father not have an army of his own?” Drask again.

“Well, of course, but we were hoping for additional forces.”

“How many soldiers does your father have?” Drask again. The girl listened to every word he said and answered quickly each time he spoke. When Pathra talked to her she seemed to take forever to get around to answering. Her father had not chosen wisely when it came to a good representative. She was too easily distracted.

“Our numbers are good, but we hope for additional assistance to end the assault before it can become substantial.”

Drask turned to the Emperor. “And do you plan to offer assistance, Your Majesty?” He had learned quickly the proper form for addressing the Emperor. Tataya was teaching him.

“Well. It’s something I have to consider, of course.”

“May I offer a solution, Your Majesty?” Drask stared hard, his face unreadable above the veil.

“Of course.” Pathra’s expression said he was curious about what the solution might be. So was Desh.

“I could send ten of my fellows to see to the situation. They would like the opportunity to explore Roathes, and to meet these Guntha face to face.”

Pathra Krous stared at Drask for several heartbeats, his face frozen at the edge of a smile. He managed to behave himself, but Desh knew him well enough to know that the Emperor was tempted to laugh.

“Ten men?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

A quick look. A question shot toward Desh with a single expression. They had known each other so long that they needed nothing else for the communication. Pathra asked What do you think?

And Desh responded with Why not see what Drask thinks ten men can do?

Pathra smiled and lowered his head in a small bow of concession. “I appreciate the offer, Drask. Why don’t you send your men?”

Lanaie frowned. She did so very fetchingly. “That is all the help you can offer?”

Pathra said, “Merely as a consultation, another group to offer an impartial consideration.”

And at the same time, without any hesitation, Drask answered, “You shall see, Princess, what ten of the Sa’ba Taalor can do.”

The look Pathra shot was both amused and shocked. He had the good graces to hide his face from the eyes of both strangers before he stared at Desh.

Desh gave a small wave of his hands in dismissal and hid it behind the act of reaching for his wine. This would be enlightening at the very least, and if the Sa’ba Taalor managed to make a miserable situation more manageable while simultaneously telling something about themselves, all the better.

Of course he’d have to make sure he knew what was going on down there. And he’d have to get the strangers there in one piece. The good news was he already knew how to handle that.

Tataya looked in his direction and he nodded. She knew the way he thought. That was a good thing. It made life much easier when it came to certain things.

The sun broke through the thinning cloud cover and Merros sighed. What a beautiful sight. He’d been granted a teasing glimpse of the sun when he was in the valley of the Seven Forges, but that had been through the perpetual haze that covered the entire region. When one considered the misery of the Blasted Lands in general, the fact that any place within the depths of the frozen hell they were leaving ever saw sunlight could almost be considered a miracle.

The ground was no longer frozen. Spring was coming to Fellein, though it was hard to tell this far north. The air was warmer, sweeter and had the first scent of green, fertile plants that he could remember in forever it seemed. Even in the valley the air had a taint of soot.

Wollis was involved in a serious discussion with Tusk about the benefits of marinating wild meats. For reasons Merros didn’t begin to understand, the two had struck a mutual respect for each other. He didn’t quite want to risk calling it a friendship.

Pella called his name, and he turned to the sound of her voice. Without the winds half-deafening him he realized again that even her voice had an air of sensuality to it. How the hell was that even possible? Too long without companionship, that was how. He tried not to think about it.

The wizard’s servant moved closer and walked with a woman who either had the name Swech or the name Soot Hair. Possibly both. He still hadn’t quite grasped all the nicknames versus titles versus actual names of the people they traveled with. The differences were once again instantly obvious. Swech was almost as tall as he was, and she dressed for easy function in her motions instead of for any semblance of fashion. In other words, she dressed like a man. She had longish hair that did, indeed, carry the same color as the ash from a campfire. Her hair was tied back at the present moment, and fell in a tail halfway down her back. She also had a body that was as delightfully feminine as he could recall, just in a very well-muscled way he wasn’t at all used to. Pella was far thinner, seemed more like a proper lady, but both of them were distracting.

The weather was warm enough that both had discarded their cloaks and were happy to wear shirts instead of thick layers of cloth. That didn’t help with the distraction at all, but he still decided to enjoy the show rather than be annoyed. Pella was wearing a long skirt of dark cloth that shimmered around her. Swech was wearing leather breeches that fit almost as well as her skin. Oh yes, she had a feminine shape to her.

She also sported one sword, two daggers and at least one axe that he could see. Judging by the way they were carried, she’d long since adjusted to their shape and weight against her. She was still wearing a damned veil, too. His desire to see what she looked like under that cloth cover was even more distracting than the very shapely curves her outfit revealed.

“What can I do for you, Pella?” He made himself speak to avoid looking like he was staring as much as he wanted to. He also looked away from both of the women and let his attention soften until he was aware of everything around him instead of focusing on any specific details.

“Desh has been in contact with me.”

“Of course he has.”

She ignored his tone. “He requires additional work from you.”

“I believe our contract is fulfilled within the next two days, barring unforeseen occurrences.” There was a rather large fortune waiting for him and he intended to get around to spending it. He also intended to spend at least a full day soaking in hot, scented waters.

“Yes.” She nodded and he looked at her face. Damn if she wasn’t stunning.

“Then what could he possibly require from me?”

“That you lead ten of the Sa’ba Taalor to the southern edge of the Empire, the better to examine the border between Fellein and Guntha. The Guntha seem to want another war.”

“And why would I be at all interested?” He was interested, of course. He hadn’t been to the southern part of the continent in a very long time, and he was curious about what the Guntha were up to since he and a few thousand others had helped repel them in the past. That was how Wollis got his leg wrecked as he recalled. A spear hurled by a particularly angry Guntha had gone completely through his thigh, bone and meat alike. He had recovered but never completely.

“Double the money you have already earned.”

By all the gods, the man had gone mad. With that sort of money a man could buy himself a title and the castle to go with it.

“Yes, you could. But if you keep on Desh Krohan’s good side, he might well arrange for the title himself.” Pella’s voice was soft and amused.

Merros pulled back, not at all aware that he had been speaking aloud. A moment later he realized he hadn’t been.

“You need to not do that.” He made his voice hard.

“Do what?” Swech’s voice was naturally husky.

Merros chose to ignore the innocent question. “Fine, I’ll accept the commission, but I’ll need to go to the capital at any rate to finish this commission and draw the papers for the next. There’s also the matter of supplies and getting a fresh horse.”

“There’s no time for that. I was discussing the matter with Swech and she’s agreed to let you ride along with her.”

“Excuse me?” Was he blushing? Gods, he hoped not.

Swech struck him with a companionable cuff across the shoulder. “This horse of yours is slow. My Saa’thaa is faster and can easily carry two. If you are nice, I might even let you take the reins.” Oh yes, there was a bit of blushing going on now. He coughed into his hand in an effort to mask that fact.

Both of the women kept their quiet, but he suspected they exchanged an amused look while he wasn’t looking.

“So when do we leave then?”

“Immediately. Take what you need from your horse. Wollis will take over the leadership of the expedition.”

Wollis would take the maps to Desh Krohan. Wollis would handle the exchange of goods between the Sa’ba Taalor and the Emperor’s people. Fair enough. Wollis was his right hand and had certainly earned a bit of credit.

Merros nodded his head and called to Wollis. A few moments later he was removing his bedroll and a satchel of clothes from the saddle. Food, too, though he wasn’t sure he’d need it.

Pella came closer as he was gathering the last of his needs from his horse. His sword tapped against his hip as he settled it. Unlike his new friends, he didn’t carry the bloody thing around all the time. “Wollis is prepared to make the trip without you?”

“He’s probably delighted.” He snorted. “He and I are friends, but we have very different opinions on how an expedition should be led. He’ll enjoy himself a great deal more now that he’s in charge.”

Pella reached out a hand and offered him a pouch. He took it and felt the weight of the coins inside. “Expenditures. You’re back in the realm now, and the need to eat and sleep can be better accommodated with a few silvers than by pitching a tent.”

He nodded his head. “Like as not we’ll ride hard. That seems to be the only way these folks like to ride.” Pella’s ornery smile made him look away and cough into his hand a second time. He hadn’t meant it that way, of course.

Swech came up next to Pella as if summoned to make him even more uncomfortable. “The day is half done. If we’re to make good distance we should go.”

Wollis limped over and stood next to Merros as if for moral support. “We’ll be waiting for you when you return.” He took the horse’s reins and nodded a brisk farewell.

“Go home to your wife instead.”

“By the gods, man, why would I do that?” His second walked away without looking back.

Swech started toward her mount, and Merros gathered his belongings.

“Ride fast, Captain. Be safe on your journeys.”

“So are we going there merely to observe?”

Pella stared at him long enough to make him uncomfortable. “You are. You are going to observe. The Sa’ba Taalor will follow their own instructions.”

“And where are they getting their instructions from?”

Pella pointed to where Swech was standing. “Drask delivered a message to them at the same time as Desh contacted me.”

“How?”

“You are endlessly full of questions.” She waved a careless hand toward the wagon where she stayed. “Tataya rests in the wagon now, recovering from her journey here.”

He frowned. No riders had come toward them. They were in the steppes now and the land was fertile enough in comparison to the Blasted Lands, but there wasn’t a tree or even a shrub that could have hidden the approach of a rider or even a wanderer walking under her own power.

Instead of making a comment, he headed for the woman giving him a ride to their next destination. They’d be riding together for a while. During that time he intended to learn more about the Sa’ba Taalor. He’d have time. There was very little else to do while riding.

When Pella laughed behind him he felt himself blush again and wished desperately that if she were indeed reading his thoughts she would do a better job of hiding that fact from him.

Eight

“It occurs to me that I have almost no clothes.” Andover looked at the room he’d been staying in and shook his head. What meager belongings he owned had been brought to him when Tega stopped by Burk’s smithy to let him know Andover had been assaulted. That had been a while back now and looking at his spare clothes – one pair of trews and two tunics – he shook his head. “Does it get as cold as I’ve heard in the Blasted Lands?”

Drask stood in the corner of his small room and looked at him. The man seldom spoke to Andover, but he was almost always nearby. “Yes. The cold will sink into your bones.”

“Do you suppose I’ll freeze on my way to your valley?”

“You are to serve as ambassador for your Emperor. Even if he were not planning on clothing you, I would find something you could use to stay warm.”

“I’m fairly sure whatever you might offer me would be too damned big. You’re really quite large.”

He could not see the man’s smile behind his veil, but he could sense it. “Adjustments can be made.”

“Do you really suppose the Emperor plans on clothing me?”

“From what I have seen clothes are very important to your people. You would no sooner be asked to represent your Emperor without the proper clothing than I would be asked to come here naked.”

Andover looked down at his new hands again and felt the same shiver of excitement. He had hands, which was amazing. They were real and they could feel things. And they were metallic. He shook his head in wonder.

Drask stepped closer. “Do they hurt you? Your hands?”

“What? No. I just. It’s hard to get used to them.” He looked to the other man. “I can’t thank you enough.”

Drask shook his head. “Not me. Truska-Pren.”

“Then I can’t thank Truska-Pren enough.”

“You will have your chance to thank him.” Drask put his right hand on Andover’s shoulder. “I will teach you how to offer your thanks when we travel back to the valley.”

“When do we leave?”

“Three days from now. First we wait for the rest of my people to arrive. There are offerings that must be made to your Emperor.”

Andover shook his head. “I don’t understand this. How have we never heard of your people before now?”

Drask shrugged his thick shoulders awkwardly, mimicking the gesture he’d likely seen from a few soldiers. “Your people have never reached the Seven Forges before now.”

Andover stared at his hands again, at a loss for what he wanted to say.

Drask spoke up. “The men who did this to you. The ones who ruined your hands. What happened to them?”

An instant anger swelled in Andover. “Nothing. They sit in a cell and await a decision. They are to be punished, but no one seems to know what their punishment should be.”

“They attacked you? They broke your hands because you looked at the girl Tega, yes?”

He hadn’t discussed the situation with Drask at all, but obviously someone had. What was there to say?

“Yes. A man named Menock claimed to be her fiancé and broke my hands because he saw me looking at her.”

“We have a name for such men where I am from.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

Drask stared into Andover’s eyes. For the first time he noticed the faint glow inside the stranger’s own eyes. It was hard to see until you noticed it and after that it was hard not to see.

“Dead. We call them dead.”

“I am not a fighter, Drask. You are a fighter. I am a weapon smith. And I’m only an apprentice.”

Drask reached out suddenly and grabbed Andover’s hands. He held them fast and raised them until Andover was forced to look at them, to see the fine workmanship, the amazing finesse with which they had been crafted.

“These are a warrior’s hands. They are the hands of a weapon smith and a warrior and a man. You are not given these hands without purpose, Andover Lashk. You are given these hands because Truska-Pren, the God of Iron, the God of Armed Combat, has given them to you. He does not grant his blessings without a reason and he does not offer his blessings to cowards. Do you understand me?”

He nodded. He would have nodded just as vigorously if the man had asked him if he wanted to weave butterfly wings from silk and then fly to the Great Star. Drask exuded a confidence that was nearly contagious.

“Your Emperor asks that you serve as his ambassador. That you go to my country and speak to my kings. That you learn to understand our ways and better create an alliance between our people. You understand this, yes?”

“Yes, of course.”

Drask nodded. He squeezed Andover’s hands and Andover marveled that he could feel the pressure exerted on the artificial extremities. “Then know this. My people, my gods, are not always kind. They do not respect weakness. They respect strength. If you would be respected, you will have to demand satisfaction.”

“What do you mean?”

“The guards who hurt you. You must fight them. You must punish them for what they did to you.”

“I don’t know.” Andover shook his head.

Drask shook his head right back. “You do know. I am telling you. If you do not fight them, if you do not restore your honor in this fashion, you will fail your Emperor. You will dishonor yourself in the eyes of my people and the eyes of my gods. You will lose face before Truska-Pren.”

“How–?”

Before he could finish his question Drask interrupted him. “If you lose face before Truska-Pren you could well lose the very gift he has granted you.”

Andover pulled away from the stranger’s grip. “What?”

“You understand already.” Drask pointed. “Your hands come at a price. You must now pay it. Demand satisfaction from the men who took your hands. Do this thing, Andover Lashk, or risk losing the hands you have been given.”

Andover stared at his hands for a very long time. While he stared, the stranger who had granted him those hands slipped away as silently as a bad dream.

The night found Merros Dulver sleeping in his own country for the first time in months. It did not, however, find him sleeping in a room. They were in the middle of the plains to the south of the Wellish Steppes. Aside from wild grasses and the occasional tree there was little to see as far as the horizon. Two days of traveling had moved them a great distance, leagues farther than he’d expected. The damned things the Sa’ba Taalor rode on were fast and had the endurance of a dozen horses. They also moved differently from horses, which meant that his hips, thighs and buttocks were sore in places he had not been prepared for because he had no idea how to ride comfortably on the beasts.

All of which meant that when sleep finally came for him it came hard and fast. When he awoke he found that several of his fellow travelers were down at the river bathing. Because he desperately wanted to wash the stench of the Blasted Lands from his body he joined them.

Males and females alike washed themselves in the waters of a tributary that ran down from the steppes. The water was as clear as the sky and almost as cold as the Blasted Lands themselves. Just the same, Merros followed the lead of the people around him and stripped down and moved into the stream. To the last, the people with him were covered in scars, except for their faces, which remained hidden behind veils.

Merros shook his head and looked down, moderately embarrassed by both the shape of his body and oddly enough by the lack of scars. If the people with him judged him, their veils hid whatever decisions they had come to.

Within an hour they were on the move again, heading toward the south. Swech sat before him on the saddle and he rode, his hands resting on two runners that seemed designed specifically to allow a second rider. The beasts – he still could not decide if they were feline in nature, but he was leaning in that direction – were larger than horses by at least half again and capable of pulling the carcasses of several heavy animals. He supposed it was possible that they often carried more than one rider with ease.

Swech looked at him over her shoulder and for a moment her veil shifted, showing more of her face than he had seen before. Her nose was straight and slightly shorter than he would have expected; he could not see her mouth. He found the glimpse oddly intoxicating.

“Tell me about the place where we go. What is it like?”

“Very warm.” He thought back. It had been a few years since the last skirmish he’d been engaged in. “The land is flat, and the ocean is nearby. The winds are almost always blowing, but not like they do in the Blasted Lands.”

“Will there be so much… green?” She waved her arms and he looked around them. He hadn’t thought about it, but he could only imagine how different this was for her and her people.

“No.” He thought for a moment longer. “Have you ever been away from the valley or the Blasted Lands?”

“No. Never.” She looked away from him and he could sense that she was, if not embarrassed, at least uncomfortable with her lack of knowledge.

“Before I traveled there, I had never seen a place like your valley. You will see a lot of things you have never seen before.” He pointed. “This, this is just an unsettled area. There are many. But there are a lot of towns between here and Roathes.”

She shook her head but made no other response.

Just to keep the conversation going, he asked, “Did you make all of your weapons? Tusk said he did.”

“We all do.”

The notion still shook him. “Why?”

“That is what the gods demand. The Daxar Taalor say we must learn to forge our own ways, and that means we must make our own weapons, hunt for our own food and till the land if we would have crops.”

“Everyone?”

“Yes, of course.”

“What about children?”

“Children too. We learn to make weapons when we are small, so that when we are old enough to train we already understand the weapons.”

“How old were you when you made your sword?”

“Which one?”

Seriously?

“The first.”

Swech laughed. “Seven. It was not a very good sword.”

He thought about what he’d seen at the last smithy he’d been to, watching the man hammering away at a length of blazing hot metal, watching the sparks that danced away with each blow. He tried to imagine a seven year-old girl using the same hammer to shape the rough metal, or even the smaller hammers to work on the nearly finished product and shook his head. “I can’t be surprised.”

“Have you ever made your own weapons?”

“No. I haven’t even shoed a horse.”

“What did you do when you were growing up?”

“Honestly?” Merros thought about that. “Not really very much. My father was off handling life as a soldier, and my mother stayed busy. She’d find a few odd jobs about the house for me, but mostly just to make sure I wasn’t underfoot. When I was old enough I joined the army. Before that, I just did what my parents told me to do.”

“What about your gods?”

“What about them?” He shrugged. “I have never been a very devout follower.”

Swech turned her entire body to look at him, her eyes surprisingly wide above the veil. “And have your gods had nothing to say about this?”

“I don’t think my gods are quite as concerned as yours.” He felt his face flush red. “Drask told me that your gods told him where to find me. That your gods spoke directly to him. None of the gods of my people have ever spoken directly to me. Or to anyone that I know for that matter.”

Swech turned away from him, shaking her head. “They do not speak to us every day. They speak when there is something that must be said. There were many who were called to look for the travelers. For you.” She was silent for a few moments and he looked around them at the other riders, checking for landmarks or signs of a town anywhere in the distance. “Your gods confuse me.”

Merros nodded. “That’s alright, they confuse most of us.” He stared at her back for a moment, mesmerized by the play of solid muscles under skin that varied between nearly flawless and heavily scarred. “So tell me about your gods, Swech. Tell me what makes you so obedient to them.”

Swech nodded her head and looked around. The beast under them let out a grunt and then a noise that could have been a roar waiting to happen or possibly just gas.

“The lands were not always as they are now. You know this.” Merros nodded his agreement. “When the land was shattered, when the war of sorcerers took place and the city of Korwa was destroyed, everything along with it was ruined too. The lakes were boiled away, the ocean was pushed aside. The great fields of battle were burned to dust along with armies so vast that they spanned the horizons.” Her words were passionate, but bore the metered tone of tales recited again and again. “All destroyed by the men who thought they were gods. All that was left was what you call the Blasted Lands. All that remained was dust and ash and smoke. The ground was so hot that it boiled. That is why there are so many uneven places there. Even a thousand years later, the Ta-Wren, the cutting winds, have not smoothed away the waves of earth.”

Merros found himself drawn to the story. Possibly it was her passion for the tale, possibly merely boredom. It could have been a bit of both.

“Do you know that not everyone died?” She spoke with a reverent awe. “A thousand years ago the Ta-Wren were harsh enough to polish stone in a few days, but not everyone who was in the fields of battle died. The ones who lived were broken, though. They broke and they bled and they suffered first in the great heat of Korwa’s death and then in the biting cold that came afterward. The Daxar Taalor call that the First Forging. The spirits of the people were hammered and leveled until the impurities could be driven from their flesh and bones and then they were allowed to cool off, the better to prepare them for what happened next.”

“What was that?” Damned if he wasn’t being drawn along. She shot him a look and he apologized before allowing her to continue.

“There was nothing left but wreckage. Dust, ash, the charred remains of too many people to count, and the glass spires of the Mounds. The people who survived tried to go to the Mounds first, seeking shelter in the hidden tunnels where the earth still moves and the air screams. But there were things in the Mounds that could not be challenged. They killed anything that came too close and so the people were forced to move on.

“After they had walked a great distance and traveled through the clouds for too many days to count, the people began to die off. There was no water. There was no food. And finally seven of the survivors got together and decided to move on while the rest fell to exhaustion. They meant to go on, to find a place of shelter for those too tired to move any further. But because they were warriors and because they were human they did what all people do when they are angry. Those seven argued as they walked. They debated what could be done. Finally they all agreed that it was better to die as warriors than to live as victims. When they could no longer move forward they found whatever weapons they could scrounge – mostly melted remains of weapons or the bones of the dead – and they prepared to attack each other.

“The Daxar Taalor saw as they fought in the Cutting Winds and stopped the air from moving long enough to watch. The seven battled until all were broken and bloodied, but so great was their spirit that they would not die. And the gods looked upon them and asked what it was they wanted.

“Two of the people could still speak and they answered. ‘We want to live,’ said Wheklam. ‘We want to grow strong again,’ said Ordna.

“And Durhallem, who was the first of the gods to speak to them, asked what they would do if they were granted their lives and the chance to grow strong. What they would offer in exchange for the help of the gods.

“And Wheklam and Ordna spoke together: ‘All that you would have of us would be yours.’

“The Daxar Taalor granted their favor to the seven. They were so impressed with them that they chose to take the names of the warriors as their own. They offered their help. They created the valley by forming the Taalor, what you call the Seven Forges. The Hearts of the Gods were bared to the world, and the shelter they offered was mighty enough to stop even the great waves of fire and ash, the Cutting Winds and the things that came from the Mounds.

“The gods reached out with their hands and carried the people from where they had fallen, laying them within the valley. They gave the people water and clean air. They offered food and protection and most importantly, the offered wisdom and a chance to grow strong again.”

“So your gods provided food and shelter?”

Swech nodded. “Yes. For the broken and healing. When they were healed, the remaining people were told to find their own way. This they did but always under the watchful eyes of the Daxar Taalor.”

“And then they stopped? They just stopped helping?”

She nodded again.

“Why?”

Swech chuckled and shook her head at the same time. Her shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. “Why did your mother let you go into the army?”

“Because I needed to grow up and be out from under her feet, I suppose.”

“And did she stop being your mother when you left? Or did she still offer advice? How about your father? Did he ignore you?”

“No.” He sighed. “I see your point, I suppose.”

“The gods are not there to make our lives easy. They are there to aid us when they must and to guide us through the worst of times.” She patted the hilt of the weapon at her side. “The Daxar Taalor tell us to make our own way. They also show us how to make our way. When we were at our weakest, they gave us comfort and shelter and food. Now we are stronger because of what they have taught us.”

Considering that he’d supped on the flesh of the monster she and her sister had slaughtered without ever breaking a sweat, he had a hard time arguing with her words.

“So what will you do when you meet the Guntha?”

Swech remained silent for a while and he found himself watching the gentle sway of her hips, the play of muscles. When finally she spoke he had to force himself to listen. “We will do as the gods suggest. We will make ourselves known.”

“Yes, but how?” Swech did not answer. It wasn’t long before he forgot the question and once again let himself contemplate the shape of the woman in front of him.

Pathra Krous looked at the man who had been his advisor since he was born. “And where is this coming from?”

Desh looked back and shrugged. How it was that the man could manage a boyish aw, shucks expression with such ease would likely always remain a mystery. “I’m just the messenger. The kid says he needs to confront the men who broke his hands, and I can’t blame him.”

“I can. What if the damned fool gets himself killed? How will that look?”

Desh leaned halfway across the table and carved a slice from the breast of the bird in front of them. The meat was roasted to perfection and despite the conversation the Emperor reached for the meat when it was offered. A chunk of bread torn from the loaf worked perfectly to hold the hot roast, and a moment later he was chewing contentedly while Desh contemplated his next words.

“The thing is, I’m almost certain that Drask put him up to this.” Desh looked at the various dipping sauces and finally settled on a spicy brown concoction. He dipped bread and meat alike and then chewed.

“Almost certain?” Pathra rolled the food around with his tongue, trying to speak and simultaneously avoid burning the inside of his mouth.

“It might have come up in conversation before Drask actually arrived here.”

“Why am I only hearing about this now?”

“So as to avoid you being part of any possible incidents that arise from this.”

“I rather like being informed of potential disasters before the fact, not after, Desh.”

“Granted. But in this case it was a rush decision. I really had no time to consult with you.”

Lies. All lies. He had no doubt the damned sorcerer was playing him like a harp. “Fine. I’ll accept that. But no more of this, Desh. I have a great fondness for you. I would rather not lock you in a tomb.”

“That trick didn’t work the last time. It won’t work the next.”

“I’ll make it a better tomb than the last Emperor who tried.”

Threats never worked against Desh Krohan. Very few of the royal family wanted to imagine a life without him there to lean on. He’d been a part of the Empire’s council for almost as long as there had been an Empire.

The sorcerer sighed. “Either way the facts remain the same. Andover Lashk wishes to conclude his business with the guards who wrecked his hands in combat.”

“Well, I don’t want him to.”

“According to the laws which have not been changed despite numerous suggestions to the contrary, the right to trial by blood is still on the books. Also, as you have already pointed out, you want the boy on your side in this argument because fate has chosen him to be your ambassador.”

“Fate had nothing to do with that. I seem to recall your hand being involved.”

Desh waved the comment away. “I’m sure I had perfectly valid reasons.”

“Oh, don’t you always.”

“I’m an advisor. No one said you had to take my advice.”

Pathra shook his head. “What are we going to do here, Desh? Do I allow the boy to get himself killed in an effort to seek justice?”

“Well, you could hang the damned fools for misuse of authority.”

“I’d have to kill over half the Guard,” he snorted the words.

“We’ve had this discussion before, too, Pathra. They need to be put right.”

“So fine then. Let this serve as an example to anyone who wants to misuse their position.”

Desh cut another slice from the bird for himself and one for the Emperor. “I wonder how long it will take to teach the boy to use a sword.”

“Don’t you have a spell for that?”

“Probably. Doubt I’ll use it though. That would be cheating.”

“I thought you said it would be justice.”

“No. I said the justice he seeks is still allowed by your rules. I also said you should have changed the laws a long time ago.”

“I could order you to fix the fight.”

Desh looked at him as he slopped more of the spicy sauce across his food. “That would end poorly.”

“Why?”

“Because that sort of sorcery demands a price.”

“And who pays the price?”

Desh offered a thin and genuinely unpleasant smile. “That’s where it gets complicated.”

“Then let them fight. Arrange it for the dawn if that’s what he wants.”

“Maybe if he doesn’t choose a sword?” Desh was staring at his hair again. He could tell that the wizard was going to make a comment. It was something he had to deal with, he supposed, especially if he was going to continue seeing the same girl to do his hair.

“They always choose a sword. It’s tradition.”

“My good Emperor, have you seen anything at all about Andover Lashk that struck you as traditional?”

Pathra reached for a green fruit the delightful Princess Lanaie had brought with her from her father’s kingdom. “There is that, I suppose.”

Nine

They didn’t look the same as when they were ruining his hands. The clothes they wore were simple cloth pants and jerkins, and none too clean. Menock had a look on his face, a pinched expression that made him appear both older and more like a rodent. And Purb, who was always somehow larger than life when he was strutting around in his Guardsman attire, seemed substantially smaller.

Or maybe it was just the rage.

The gathering took place at the Emperor’s Palace. The arena was small, only twenty feet across, which barely even seemed like enough room to pace, but there would only be three of them inside the area when the time came, and that would be enough, he supposed. A deep-set pit, the arena was surrounded by perhaps a hundred seats though Andover doubted most of them would be filled. The entire affair was in an area that had been hastily cleaned and prepared. Andover knew that only because he had heard the activities during the night and Tega told him about it as she paced around, working her lower lip with her teeth.

“You can’t do this, Andover.”

He looked at her and shook his head. “I have to. If I don’t…” He looked down at his hands. Tega looked too, with that same morbid fascination. She kept touching his hands, always asking permission first, as if he could possibly deny her, but when she touched them it was with a clinical detachment. Her eyes examined the metal of his new replacements, moved along the odd patterns that had been built into them, but never seemed to want more than to examine them as instruments. She asked questions, of course, and was always surprised when he explained that he could feel everything he touched.

But she did not like touching them. She didn’t understand how much it meant to have hands again, even if they were different.

Even if they made him a freak.

Andover was wearing gloves. He intended to wear them a lot.

Twenty feet away Drask stood looking at his opponents. There was also a very large assortment of weapons laid out next to the man, which he was completely ignoring. Andover would have preferred that the man instead point to the best of the tools available to him.

Tega shook her head. “I don’t know if I can watch this.” Her voice shook.

He looked toward her, once again a frown forming on his face. “Tega? If I don’t at least try, I could lose my hands. Do you understand that?”

She nodded her head. “I just don’t like this, Andover. I don’t want to see…”

She didn’t say “you get hurt” but he understood what the silence meant.

And her doubt in him only increased the anger he felt. “There’s a difference this time, Tega.”

“What difference?” Her eyes searched his. How was it possible that every time he looked into her eyes seemed like the first time? How could she mean so much when they barely knew each other? No. No time for that. He had to focus. He couldn’t take solace in her or in anything. Not now.

“I’m not being held down.”

“Not yet. But you said you wanted to fight them together.”

Well, alright, that had been a horrid notion.

“I know.” It was his voice that shook this time.

Drask waved him over. He cast one last look at the girl who always made him feel like he could do almost anything, and then he walked over.

Drask’s eyes looked him over from top to bottom and the man nodded. “You seem fit.”

“I feel like pissing myself.”

Drask chuckled. “That’s natural. You’re about to fight to the death with two men.”

“That would seem to be the problem, yes.”

Drask grabbed his shoulder. “Why are you here?”

“To fight those two men.” He had no idea what else he should say.

“No. You are here to kill them. Why do you want to kill them?”

“Because they…” Andover looked at the two again, looked hard. He remembered the pain when Purb half-ruined his testicles. The screaming, hellish agonies that Menock brought about when he brought down the hammer on his hands. In that moment the rage grew hotter again and his hands, his new hands, the ones that Drask and his god had given him, clenched into fists. “Because they tried to kill me.”

“Pick your weapon.”

“I thought you were going to choose?”

The man stared into his eyes, and that odd light burned as he stared. “It is not my fight, Andover Lashk. It is yours. What feels right to me is not what will feel right to you.”

Andover looked carefully. There was a good assortment of decent tools, three different swords, and a dozen knives. He cast his eyes toward the other two men who were looking at a similar array.

“None of this.”

Drask looked at him and crossed his beefy arms. “You would use your hands alone?”

Andover shook his head. “No. I know what I want.”

“It is almost time. If there is a different weapon you should get it now.”

Andover nodded his head. A moment later he was jogging away as Drask walked over to the officials discussing the situation. A couple of them were staring after Andover’s retreating form.

“Does he forfeit his challenge?” The man who spoke was the Arbiter, the judge of the combat. His sole purpose as far as Drask could understand it, was to declare a winner when the combat was finished.

“No.” Drask looked the man up and down. He was soft and heavyset, with clean and perfumed skin. He doubted the man had been in combat in many a year. “He said he had a different weapon in mind.”

The Arbiter shook his head, a petulant scowl on his flabby face. “There are no ranged weapons permitted. He can’t go off and get himself a crossbow and expect a proper judgment.”

Drask felt a smile pull at his face. “I don’t think that’s what he intends.”

Desh Krohan was there again, wearing his impossible robes and staring from the shadows that hid his face away. “Let’s just see what the boy is up to shall we?”

Drask nodded his agreement, and the Arbiter apparently decided that debating with sorcerers was a bad idea and reluctantly agreed.

Ten minutes passed before Andover reappeared. When Drask saw what he was carrying he allowed himself a small laugh and nodded his agreement.

Andover looked at the courtyard and the deep retaining wall designed to keep anyone from escaping judgment.

The Arbiter looked toward him and stared at the farrier’s hammer he carried. “That is the weapon you prefer?”

Andover’s fingers held the sturdy handle with the ease of long familiarity. He looked at the two men across the small area where each was holding a sword and nodded. “Oh, yes.”

“I suppose it’s acceptable,” he said finally, sniffing the air as if something foul had just occurred. Andover resisted the urge to hit him with the hammer.

The Emperor came into the room and everyone stood at attention, facing him. He waved away the start of a formal bow and settled himself near the pit. Without another word Desh went to sit next to him. Drask walked over and looked at the scarred, heavily used head of the hammer. One side was broader and square, the other side tapered down to a heavy chiseled point that was deeply scarred and scratched. “This is a weapon you know?”

“I’ve used it many times.”

“Have you ever used it to fight?”

“No.” Andover’s eyes looked to the men across the pit from him. Both of them seemed a little more confident now that he was holding the hammer instead of a sword or axe. “But it’s tasted blood before.”

Drask patted his shoulder. “That seems a proper justice.”

The Arbiter cleared his throat and spoke loudly. “Purb Larfsen and Menock Westerly, you stand accused of betraying your position and attacking Andover Lashk unjustly, causing the ruination of his hands and great suffering.” Both of the accused stood and faced the man. “By the traditions established in the time of Emperor Aurent Krous, Andover Lashk has chosen trial by combat to decide your fate. Do you accept this judgment as fair and final?”

Menock nodded and coughed into his hand. “Aye, ho.”

Purb sneered in Andover’s direction. “Aye. Ho!”

The Arbiter looked to Andover. “Do you accept the fate of these men as fair and final judgment in your case against them?”

“Aye.” He looked from one to the other and then finally at the Arbiter. “Ho.”

Drask leaned in close and whispered in his ear. “Take the big one first.”

The Arbiter ignored the breach of protocol. “Then let the combat begin and may the gods be just.”

Two guardsmen stood at each entrance to the pit. Menock and Purb entered on one side of the small battlefield and Andover entered across from them. The sand was soft under their feet and yielded with each step taken. Andover would have preferred a solid footing. Whatever they were thinking as they stepped down those stairs, all three men seemed solemn enough.

Both of the accused held their swords at the ready, taking proper stances. Drask eyed them carefully, studied their positions, the way they held their weapons. Andover did the same as he held the hammer in his hand then carefully stepped to the left.

Purb did not wait to be approached. He charged toward Andover with a roar coming from his throat. The guard was a large man, heavily muscled and capable. He hefted the sword and prepared to cleave Andover in half.

Andover let out a much smaller sound as he scrambled to the left a second time.

Purb took a chance and swung the sword in a wide arc aimed at Andover’s chest. Andover dropped to his knee, ducking under the hard swing, and as Purb was drawing the sword back a second time, he brought the heavy hammer down across the man’s leg. Hard metal met meat and bone with a mild slapping noise. The sound that came from Purb’s mouth was much, much louder as his kneecap exploded and slid sideways under the flesh.

Purb staggered and dropped his sword, gasping at the pain. Before he could attempt to right himself, Andover brought the weapon backward in a hard arc, growling and nearly spitting. The tapered side of the hammer’s head caught his enemy across his face and tore skin before shattering teeth and the bone of his lower jaw.

Andover stood back up, shaking the hair that had fallen into his face away from his eyes. He hefted the hammer with practiced ease and then yelped as Menock came for him, moving with far greater stealth than Purb had managed.

Menock swung a blade with even better skill than he did a hammer. Andover dodged as best he could and hissed as the sword’s tip slashed across his ribs. Had Menock scored a better swing that would have been the end of the fight. Instead the apprentice blacksmith bared his teeth in pain and stepped back as his side started bleeding.

All around him the people he’d come to know stared intently, many with worried expressions. Not Drask. Drask simply watched the action, his eyes moving from one opponent to the other, seldom staying on Andover.

Purb was down on the ground trying to recover, trying to stand up again, his ruined leg buckled under him and his face a bloodied ruin. He reached for his sword again, not finished with yet. How could he be? The fight was to the death.

Menock was eyeing Andover cautiously and weaving the tip of his sword a little to the left, a little to the right. Not quite feinting, but not standing still either.

Most of Andover was in a panic. He was bleeding! Gods only knew how badly he was cut, and he didn’t have the time to examine the wound, despite the warmth he felt running between his fingers. But part of him was unsettlingly calm. That was the part that held the hammer. His hands worked. His new hands, the ones given to him by a god called Truska-Pren. His hands worked. The hands that replaced the flesh and bone that Menock had taken from him because he dared look at a girl. That small part, the voice in his head that kept speaking of the insane actions of the man facing him across a sword’s distance, did not speak softly. It bellowed inside his skull, outraged that the bastard was alive and infuriated that he had drawn blood.

His side hurt? In comparison to the agonies he’d suffered since his hands were ruined the scratch was nothing. He remembered that pain and the cut faded away to a minor inconvenience.

His hand on the hammer shifted and he hefted the comfortable, familiar weight. His hair fell in front of his eyes and this time Andover let it, looking past it at the face of his enemy.

The man who took from him without reason.

The panic fell away, brushed aside by a strange calm that felt alien to him. He would not die today. He would have his retribution.

Andover stepped forward and grinned.

Menock’s face twisted into an ugly expression that was half sneer of contempt and half a wince of panic. The sword drew back a bit and then lashed forward.

Andover’s left hand reached out to block the blade. The edge of the weapon carved through his glove and then screamed across the metal palm and fingers of his hand. He clenched a fist around the piece and pushed it aside as he stepped closer to Menock.

Menock’s eyes flew wide open in shock. The sword was wrenched sideways, half pulled from his grasp as he struggled to right his grip. Andover stepped closer still and brought the hammer up between his straining arms and drove the head into the guardsman’s stomach with all the force he could muster.

The hammer struck him in his sternum. Metal met cartilage and muscle with bruising force and Menock grunted. He did not let go of the sword, but Andover pushed in closer still and wrenched the blade free of his hands.

Menock looked at his weapon as it fell and lunged, determined to take back his prize.

Andover brought his knee into the man’s exposed side and sent him sprawling. While Menock tried to collect himself, Andover stepped in again and this time brought the hammer’s broad side down on his enemy’s left shoulder. The bones of the joint separated and Menock fell on his face, grunting, gasping, overwhelmed by the pain. He retched, his stomach revolting against the unexpected damage to his body.

Andover did not stop. The fury grew larger inside him, exploded into a full rage, and he swept the hammer down on Menock’s arm, breaking the bone between elbow and shoulder. Without pausing, he lifted the hammer and dropped it again, this time smashing in his enemy’s ribs.

Menock screamed, but could do little else.

Andover paused and looked down at his foe.

And while he was staring at Menock, Purb stabbed him in the side of his thigh. He might have been aiming higher, but it was the best he could manage. The pain was immediate, and Andover gasped as the blade cut deeply.

He hopped backward, felt the blade pull free of his muscles, and a second after that felt warm heat running down to his calf.

Purb scrambled toward him, crawling forward with one hand and one leg, holding his sword carefully, and looking up at Andover. His face was a swollen, broken mess and his leg apparently wasn’t working. Andover considered that fact carefully as he looked at the man.

And then he limped as quickly as he could to take advantage of the situation. Purb was a big man, physically much stronger than he was, but the guardsman was also wounded. Andover’s leg threatened betrayal but held its own as he moved around the man. Purb tried to move as quickly and failed. He was still trying to adjust himself to a new position when Andover stomped down on his bad leg and then dropped forward.

The guardsman screeched and tried to swing his sword from an impossible angle. Andover landed on his back and brought the hammer down again, again and then a third time on his enemy’s skull. After that Purb no longer tried fighting him.

Andover stood back up and looked down at his opponents where they lay broken on the ground. His body shook with adrenaline and exhaustion, his leg throbbed and he shifted most of his weight to the uninjured partner.

The Arbiter cleared his throat and Andover looked toward the man who was considerably paler than he had been before.

“This battle is not yet finished, Andover Lashk. You have won the justice you sought but you must decide if the accused have been punished enough.”

They were alive, the both of them. Broken, yes, crippled, to be sure, but alive. Would they ever recover completely? Doubtful. Would they ever serve as guardsmen again? Not possible. Would they suffer? Oh, yes.

“Let them live.” Andover didn’t bother looking at either man again. Instead he walked away from the arena and headed back to the smithy. He had a weapon to return to its rightful owner.

He managed five yards from the arena before he collapsed. Tega ran to his side a moment later, followed by Desh Krohan. The visitor did not move. He merely stared at the downed men.

The Emperor sent out twenty men with full regalia to meet the travelers and guide them through the city. Those twenty men rode out in polished armor, carrying the Imperial banner and riding proudly on white chargers. As it wasn’t very often people saw that sort of thing going on in the capital city, quite a few people watched the procession and spoke of it.

They came back two days later with a caravan. There were more horses, of course, and a few wagons. But there were also the people who quickly got dubbed the Outsiders by the citizens of Tyrne.

They rode great beasts; monstrous things that were decidedly not horses. Those creatures were covered in armor and saddled as if they were somehow tamed, though a good number of the things turned their heads and let out warning growls to the people who gathered on the streets to watch them pass.

The dust of the Blasted Lands still fell from riders and mounts alike, and the air around them seemed to carry a cloud of its own as they moved past. To the last, none of the Outsiders looked at the people on the streets. They kept their eyes on the riders ahead of them, or occasionally eyed the buildings around them, but the people seemed of no consequence.

And those riders? At first there were some who claimed they had no faces; later it was decided that they hid themselves behind cloth veils and sported helmets that hid still more of their features. And all of them wore armor, carried an array of weapons, and did not seem like the sort who should be approached for any reason.

Though several of the Outsiders rode on their great beasts, still more of them marched, moving with steady precision and once again ignoring anyone nearby, save those foolish enough to try touching them. There was some confusion as to exactly how many of the Outsiders there were. A small but vocal crowd insisted that there were enough to invade. Calmer voices actually took the time to count and revealed that there were exactly forty Outsiders and twenty beasts.

They did not dawdle.

Though a great number of people were curious to see where the strangers might go, what they might look like, and what they might have to say, the guards at the palace had different ideas, and the masses were stopped at the gates.

Once beyond those walls, the procession finally wound to a stop. The escort climbed down from their horses and presented a man named Wollis to the Captain of the Guard. Wollis in turn nodded his head to the wizard Desh Krohan.

Krohan nodded back and gestured for the three women who had ridden along to join him. When they had done so, he gestured for Wollis to approach him.

“You have done well, Wollis March. I appreciate your services. Can you introduce me to the leader of this band?”

Even as he spoke Drask Silver Hand stepped out into the courtyard and placed his hands on his hips as he looked at the group. Wollis stared at the man for a moment and then nodded to the wizard.

A moment after that an enormous man came toward them both. He was wearing less armor than most, primarily because he had a beast he could leave the armor with. He left behind his great helmet, but wore a veil covered with small metal rings and sported a necklace covered with an intimidating variety of long, pointy teeth.

“Tusk, this is Desh Krohan, the man who hired us to examine the Seven Forges. Desh, this is Tusk, the leader of this particular expedition.”

Tusk nodded his head and very carefully followed the bowing method that he’d learned from Wollis. Step back on one foot, bow at the waist, spread the arms to the sides.

The wizard returned the gesture.

“I know that you and your people must be tired. You’ve ridden a great distance. We’ve prepared rooms for you and an area for your mounts. Can you possibly tell me what they like to eat?”

Tusk looked around, the veil over his face tinkling softly. “Mostly meat, but if they are hungry enough they’ve been known to eat almost anything.”

The wizard was hidden away within his robes, but he nodded his head. “So best to feed them well before they get any ideas. Duly noted.”

Tusk contemplated the words for a moment and then laughed, nodding. His hand reached out and swatted at the man’s shoulder good-naturedly. The sorcerer staggered a bit but did not fall. A moment later he was leading all of them into a courtyard and a wing of the palace that had been set aside for the use of the visitors.

Wollis shook his head and grinned. He was exhausted, no way around that, but he was also excited. They had traveled a great distance to reach this point. He was ready to celebrate.

That was to happen later, as he soon found out. First there was rest and a chance to clean up. The meeting with the Emperor was delayed by several hours. That notion didn’t hurt his feelings in the least.

The blonde woman who had been with them from the beginning of the quest was in the chambers they’d arranged for him when he stepped through the threshold.

“Goriah?”

She smiled at him; it was a curious expression, neither promising nor friendly. Polite. That was the word. She did not want to be there. “I know you are tired. There will be time to sleep soon.”

“What is it you need from me?” He wasn’t much in the mood for her or her riddles. Merros found her enchanting. Merros found most women enchanting, but mostly Wollis just thought she was trouble. She and her sisters, too.

“We’re not your enemies.” Her voice held just the finest hint of reproach.

Wollis shrugged. “Neither are you my friends. You are merely women who serve my employer.”

“I’m here to warn you, Wollis. There will be a great number of noblemen at this dinner. It’s a formal affair, and very significant. The people you have traveled with will be scrutinized very carefully and the people who will be looking them over so carefully will be looking you over as well. Comport yourself appropriately and your future is made. Act the wrong way with this lot and you might well wind up swinging by the neck, or more likely poisoned when you turn your head.”

“Who is supposed to be there?”

“The Emperor, or course, but also his closest advisors and his family. The Emperor is not the problem. His closest advisor is your employer. He is not the problem.”

“So you want me to watch my back?”

“Be smart. Observe.” Her voice was distant. “Do not offer answers unless you are asked. To do otherwise would be ill advised.” Without another word she swept past him and moved into the corridor beyond his room. He let her go.

But he was wise enough to listen.

They came into the city of Larnsport without fanfare. That was the way Merros wanted it. This was really the first chance that the Sa’ba Taalor had to meet up with the people of Fellein and he wanted the situation to be uneventful. We seldom get what we want from the world. They were low on supplies and while the people with him believed in hunting for their food, they were not in an area that made that easy. There were cattle around, to be sure, but they were owned by the people raising them. Since he rather liked the idea of avoiding an incident, they went into Larnsport, and because the notion of a bed appealed to him, they stayed at one of the larger inns. He had the good sense at least to make sure that Saa’thaa and the rest of the mounts were placed in a stable that was cleared of other animals. And because he’d been given money he arranged for a local butcher to deliver a lot of raw meat. A lot. The beasts were sated – or at least he hoped they were.

After that, it should have been easy enough to handle matters. He and Swech and a lean, hard man named Blane went shopping for supplies.

Perhaps he’d grown too accustomed to being with the Sa’ba Taalor. Perhaps he was simply tired, or perhaps it was a combination of the two. Whatever the case, Merros failed to give enough warnings. The people with him stared at everything as much as he had surely stared at the great keep where he met the King in Iron. There was little about Fellein that resembled their valley, their world. While they were purchasing supplies and Merros was haggling with a very determined baker regarding the need for at least two dozen loaves of bread – he had a passionate need for freshly baked bread after the last couple of months – Swech wandered off.

He looked for the woman who had become his new right hand for this trip and, when he couldn’t find her, he asked Blane where she had gone.

Blane was looking at an assortment of cheeses as if they were a complete mystery. He turned to Merros and pointed to his right in a vague way. “She went there.”

“Where?”

“In that direction.”

The baker looked in the same direction with a frown on his face. “Your friend is a woman? That is not the right place for a lady.”

Before Merros could ask what the man meant, there was a loud scream. It did not sound like Swech and that was a good thing, but it most decidedly sounded like trouble.

The second scream? That one sounded like Swech. Merros was moving a moment later, and without even thinking about it, he drew his sword. The blade felt comfortable in his hand, as it always did after the years he’d been carrying it. Later, after everything was done, he would remember what Tusk had said when they talked about how the weapons he had forged himself felt like a part of him. For now he concentrated on Swech and protecting her from whatever might try to hurt her. She was a stranger here, and he felt like a fool for letting her wander off.

The pathways between buildings grew narrower in the area off the market square. There were additional vendors to be found, of course, but they were the ones who could not afford shops or who sold merchandise of more dubious natures. Like as not the reason the baker had warned him was because someone was selling women. Or possibly there was a gang who felt they had the right to take what they wanted from women by force. Either way, Merros would make them pay dearly for hurting Swech if they managed.

He came around a sharp corner just in time to watch Swech drive her elbow into a thin man’s throat hard enough to crush his trachea into a new shape. The man fell back, clutching at his ruined neck and rapidly reddening in the face. His eyes were wild and rolled desperately. He fell back against the wall and fought for his balance and his breath alike, with no success.

While that man was choking on his own internal injuries, Swech caught another man with a swipe of opened fingers across his face that made him scream in pain. While he was trying to recover from the assault, Swech moved against him a second time, her arm moving fast enough for Merros to just make out the way she caught the stranger’s arm with hers and then brought her free arm in to shatter the bone between his elbow and his shoulder.

While the first man was collapsing on the ground and turning redder still, on his way to a dark purple, the second man was shrieking while she bent his arm into a shape it was never meant to take. Bone fragments punched through muscles and the gods granted the man the mercy of unconsciousness.

Three more men were in the area. One of them was dead on the ground, his head canted at an unnatural angle from his neck. The other two were staring at the woman who had just destroyed their friends with wide, terrified eyes.

Merros knew exactly how they felt.

For a second he’d forgotten himself, forgotten the people he was traveling with. In a fit of madness he’d let himself think that Swech was anything like the women he’d been raised with. Had he not seen the weapons she carried? Her proficiency with a bow?

Swech dropped into a crouch and stared in the general direction of the two remaining men. They did not stand still. They ran for dear life. Really the sort of vermin that would team with four others to tackle one woman would hardly be expected to stay around.

Swech looked like she was thinking about chasing after them but changed her mind at the last moment.

Merros looked at her – marveled at her, really.

Swech turned to look in his direction and when she saw who was staring at her, she relaxed. The way her body moved was quickly becoming a second language for him. Merros seldom realized how much he depended on facial expressions until he dealt with the Sa’ba Taalor. With only their eyes to go by, he was beginning to understand how much the way a person stood or even sat could convey a great deal.

“You are angry with me?” Her words were curiously soft.

“What?” He looked at her. “No. Not at all. You were defending yourself, obviously. I’m angry at myself for not warning you.”

The man whose throat she had crushed thrashed and shuddered behind her, and a moment later was as still as the death that had come to claim him.

“Do the men in your land always try to mount women they do not know?”

“No.” He spat. “No but some of the men think they have that right.”

“They are wrong.” She shook her head and then moved toward him. She dismissed the dead and dying as if they did not matter. In truth they didn’t, not really. There would possibly be trouble if they lingered and less if they moved on, so he moved with her, back toward the bakery.

“What made you come this way?”

Swech looked at the small carts where vendors were suddenly reappearing. They had been gone as soon as the trouble started and now they were back as if they had remembered it was rude to watch a woman get raped. Now that the possibility was gone they were glad to once more hawk their wares.

“That one.” She pointed to a flat cart where a withered crone of a woman crouched over a collection of baubles and tokens. There were medallions and rings and an assortment of well-crafted leather works, all meant for decoration rather than any practical use.

Merros smiled. Of course a woman would find the jewelry. He shook that thought away. The woman in question had just killed three men with frightening ease. Best not to underestimate her. “You see something you like?”

“What does it do?” She pointed to a bronze medallion with a feathered serpent adorning it. The craftsmanship was exemplary. Like as not the lady in question had either stolen a few of the pieces or she was dealing with someone from the Guntha. The winged snake was one of their symbols.

“The items she sells? Nothing. They are meant to be pleasant to look at and to wear. That is all.”

Swech stared at him for a moment, her eyes wide with wonder. “They mean nothing?”

“Well, I suppose they mean something to someone.” He pointed to the medallion she’d been looking at a moment ago. “This is a symbol to the people we’re going to observe. Here? In this area? It is just a pretty piece to wear around the neck.”

The old woman tending the cart looked from Swech to Merros and back again and then snatched the medallion that had struck Swech’s fancy and held it out to her. She chattered in the local tongue – same language but a sharp, fast dialect that even Merros had to listen to carefully – offering the prize up as a reward for having stopped the group of men from hurting anyone else.

Swech stared hard at the woman for a moment while Merros translated and then waved the offer away. “Tell her I did not do this for her, but because they offended me. I would no more take her offering than I would steal from her.”

Merros conveyed the message and though she seemed puzzled, the woman nodded her head in understanding.

As they walked the short distance back to the bakery Merros kept his eyes peeled for signs that the two who got away might want to come back with reinforcements, but he saw nothing.

“She merely wanted to say thank you.”

“No.” Swech shook her head. “She wanted to feel better about not stopping the men or reporting them. I am not here to make her feel less guilt.”

Merros chose not to argue the point. Instead he asked, “Where did you learn to fight that way? Without weapons?”

“Wrommish tells us that we must never forget the body and mind are weapons before the tools are weapons.”

“Wrommish is one of your gods?”

“Of course.” He resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“But who taught you?”

Swech stopped just before they reached the bakery. “We are taught. From the time we can stand we are taught all the ways of the Daxar Taalor. We are always taught. We are always learning.” She patted the blade on her belt, and gestured to the short sword he knew was strapped to her side. “Before we can forge a blade we are taught. When we walk we are taught. When we hunt, when we grow crops. We are always taught.”

He nodded and smiled. This was one of the differences he was trying to understand. The Sa’ba Taalor seemed to take for granted that everything they did was about learning the ways of their gods. Everything. From the way they walked to the way they trained their mounts, everything seemed directly connected to their deities. He wasn’t sure if he envied them their connection to their gods or pitied them their delusions. Time would tell, he supposed.

The baker called to him. There were negotiations to finish.

Blane nodded. He seemed indifferent to the events that had unfolded. As far as the man was concerned it was simply another day and Swech had never been in danger. Then again, considering what she had done to three men, Blane seemed to have the right mentality.

Ten

Desh Krohan stood next to the Emperor and looked out at the sea of people. There were five great tables, each capable of seating twenty people, and every last one of them was seated to capacity. The only exception was the table where he and Pathra would be sitting soon.

“What have you learned about our guests?” Pathra gazed past the simple spell Desh had placed on the wall. The men could look upon the dining hall and see all that needed to be seen. The people on the other side of the wall could only see the tapestry that covered the stone. The spell was permanent and had been set by Desh before Pathra Krous was born. People without the right jewelry could not use the scrying portal. There were exactly three pieces of jewelry that had been ensorcelled at the same time. Two of them were on Desh’s person. The third was the ring that bore the Emperor’s seal.

“Which ones? The Sa’ba Taalor? Or your family?”

“My family I know all too well.” The Emperor’s voice was dry and bitter. “Tell me about the strangers.”

“I’ve only just met them myself. They’re not like us, I can certainly tell you that much. They are more direct, for one. From what I’ve seen so far they tell a soul exactly what they think and what they feel.”

“That alone should make this an interesting feast.”

“True enough, Pathra.” The Emperor’s kin were a very large assembly of liars and collaborators. The path to the throne was murky at the present time and everyone knew it. There were no heirs as yet. The Emperor was a widower and his wife had passed while delivering a stillborn child. To date he had not successfully sired an heir and that was a pressing matter. In reality, in comparison to other issues it was hardly urgent, but it was a consideration in almost every discussion. Thus the young princess from Roathes, Lanaie, was meant as a messenger, true enough, but she was also offered as a consideration for a bride. No one was openly saying anything, but everyone knew that was the situation.

There were many women at the Emperor’s table. Most of them were guests from the Valley of Seven Forges – Taalor, Desh reminded himself, was the proper name as far as anyone could tell – but there were a few exceptions. Lanaie was sitting to the Emperor’s left. To his right his cousin Nachia was already seated and waiting. She had changed since last Desh had seen her. She was always a beautiful girl but now she had grown to full womanhood. Her red-blonde hair was falling in curls around her face; the difference between her and her cousin was that her curls were natural, and her cousin’s were the product of rare oils and a hairdresser he desperately wanted to bed. Her eyes were clear and her skin was flawless. Most of the men in the area looked at her with open admiration, but they did so most often when she was not looking at them. Nachia was not a woman known for keeping her tongue.

Desh rather liked the idea of keeping the woman company. Nachia’s claim to the throne was the most legitimate. If anything happened to Pathra before he sired an heir she would likely take the throne. She was not overly concerned about it one way or the other, and that made her the exception. As far as Desh Krohan could tell, Nachia genuinely liked her cousin, despite the decades of difference in their ages. She had been raised at the Emperor’s side for several years before heading off to her own place on the other side of the great city. Her parents had rudely decided to die at a fairly early age, and left her in Pathra’s care.

Certainly she would have Desh’s backing if something happened. But that didn’t mean there weren’t a dozen others who felt they had claim as well. That was the problem with the Krous family: there were a lot of them and it seemed most believed they should be in charge of the Empire. Pathra didn’t take the threat seriously enough for Desh’s liking. Towdra Krous, a bilious waste of breath as far as Desh was concerned, was even now wandering around and leering at the various members of his family. He didn’t much seem to care if they were male or female. He just leered and pretended to know what everyone was talking about.

Aside from Towdra, most everyone else in the family was at least pretending to behave. Pathra had made clear that this was a very serious situation. He had no intention of letting his family cause an incident. Desh looked at them just the same: Nachia, the heir apparent; her brother Brolley; a few withered men who had once been important and now were merely decorations. The men in question dressed in finery and smiled and nodded at all the right times, but they knew the situation well enough. They were there mostly to show their support for the throne.

Further away from the head of the table a very heavy man – portly, but also muscular – sat scowling at his plate. His hair was also dredged in fine oils and formed into tight curls. Desh scowled. He hated the latest fashion. There had been a time when Laister Krous had been considered a possible heir to the throne, and there were still a few who believed he should be on the throne right at the moment, but his backers lacked the power to place him there when Pathra was younger and the Emperor had done an excellent job of making sure that fact didn’t change.

There were other members of the family there, but mostly they preened and did their best to look at everyone around them without being seen to show any curiosity.

Desh spoke softly as he looked away from the family members. “You’ve met Drask. He seems to be a rather tolerant example of his people.”

Pathra looked at him. “Seriously?”

“Oh, yes.” Desh nodded. “The Sisters assure me that the Sa’ba Taalor are a very direct people and from what they have gleaned, the people as a whole do not appreciate anything but direct answers and brutal honesty.”

Pathra stared at the visitors again. Almost half the seats were occupied by them. There were forty-one in total in the town and they were all present. All of them came offering gifts, and all of them came wearing clothes that seemed positively barren. To be sure, a few sported jewelry, but most wore only simple outfits and even the women wore outfits better suited for farming or riding than for the palace. In comparison the Krous family was wearing insane finery at the very height of fashion. The only exception was Nachia, who wore comfortable clothes that were well-crafted but bordered on being scandalously out of fashion. She liked to walk her own path, and as one of Pathra’s favored relatives she could get away with a great deal.

“Are we sure about this?” The Emperor of the Fellein Empire gestured down the length of his body, which was currently sporting a nice pair of leather breeches and a tunic of blue silk. He did not wear his crown, nor did he cover himself with robes, as was the tradition. The wizard sported his robes as he always did, but they both understood that was for show.

“We discussed this. You want to make these people feel welcome, then you should dress as they do. To do otherwise might well prove insulting to them.”

“And you wear your robes because…?”

“Because half of your family remains in the dark about me and that’s for the best. They don’t need to know more about me than they already do.”

“And I don’t need to wear a veil before these people? Because I would rather not.”

“No. The veil is because their gods have decided we don’t need to know their faces for some reason. It’s not an insult, it’s just the way of their people.”

“It still feels like an insult.”

“They’re a very direct people. If they wanted to insult you, I suspect they would have spit at you or just possibly sent one of those great slavering mounts of theirs to piss on your leg.”

Pathra chuckled. “They are outrageously large things, aren’t they?”

“Do you know they feed on the Pra-Moresh?”

“That’s a terrifying notion by itself.”

“Let’s go, Pathra. It’s time to eat and to meet your new neighbors.”

The Emperor shook his head. “Why do I think I’m going to regret this?”

“You say that whenever your cousins are around.”

“Yes. And I’m normally right.”

“You’re the one that decided not to have them all executed on general principles.”

“You know, I am never quite certain if you’re joking when you say that.”

“You know, neither am I.”

They entered the room and dealt with formalities for nearly twenty minutes. Pathra nodded and listened to half of his family making speeches and praising him, and while that went on, Desh settled himself at his normal location to the right of the Emperor and flirted shamelessly with Nachia. Shamelessly, but subtly, because there are only so many ways you can misbehave in front of the royal family.

He paid better attention when the visitors came forward and introduced themselves. The surprise came from the first man he’d met aside from Drask, the fellow who’d been introduced to him as Tusk. The man was dressed in black breeches and a black tunic. He sported no finery. His presence was enough. Everyone looked at the man as he rose from his seat.

The stranger stood, took four paces toward the throne and bowed formally to the Emperor, his pose flawless, the scars on his body made more prominent as a result of his lack of accessories. There was nothing to hide every wound he’d suffered, except of course for the veil that covered his face below the eyes.

“I am Tuskandru, Chosen of the Forge of Durhallem and Obsidian King.” Well, that was a surprise. “I come to you with my brethren, the Sa’ba Taalor. We bear gifts from the Seven Kings in your honor and a hope for a long and lasting friendship.”

He nodded and the first two of his people came forward bearing a metal box of apparently impressive weight. Neither of the men carrying it was small, but they strained with the burden. Once the box was set down the men raised the lid. Inside the crate was a small fortune in gold, presented as a gift from N’Heelis, Chosen of the Forge of Wrommish and King in Gold.

Next the Emperor was offered a shield made of what seemed to be pure silver. The craftsmanship was as brilliant as the metal itself and sported an image of an oak tree planted on a mountain top. A gift from Ganem, Chosen of the forge of Ydramil and King in Silver.

There were more offerings, different metals and different designs. It was the last offering from Tuskandru that stuck out the most. Four of the Sa’ba Taalor brought forth the offering, the skull of a beast, a truly terrifying thing by any account. The head was as long as a man and nearly as tall. The entire thing had been cleaned and preserved, and was adorned with gold and gems. Every surface had been meticulously carved, and even from a distance Desh could see the loving detail that had gone into the work.

Several of the Emperor’s kin looked upon the offering with contempt, but not Pathra. He rose from his seat and walked a slow circuit of the great skull, marveling. Pathra had always loved the idea of traveling, had longed to explore his realm and well beyond it, but had never been given the opportunity.

“What sort of beast is this from, friend Tuskandru?”

Tuskandru – “Tusk” as he corrected – called it a Mound Crawler. “They are glorious enemies. We have only seen two in my lifetime, and they always bring with them great carnage and bloodshed.” Tusk walked to the head and rested one scarred hand on the largest of the canines. There were rows of the things. “This Crawler came from the Mounds and found entrance into Taalor through the Gate of Durhallem, my kingdom. Once there it killed my father, my uncle, my mother, my brothers, and seventeen of my people.”

Pathra Krous looked at the man with horrified eyes. “I am so very sorry. Your sorrow is mine.”

Tusk nodded brusquely. “Their names and their stories adorn the skull of my enemy. This Mound Crawler earned the name Kingmaker and Kinslayer. Its actions brought it to my attention and so I was forced to kill it. That was when I was made king of my people. I offer this to you as a gift. It is my greatest prize and my greatest sorrow. It is the cause of my pain and my ascension. I ask that you do me the honor of caring for it.”

Pathra Krous looked at Desh Krohan and remembered their earlier conversation. “It is I who am honored by your request, Chosen of the Forge of Durhallem. It is my hope that we will long remain friends and allies.” He offered a formal bow to the king who had come before him and after a moment the king returned the gesture.

And after that there was feasting.

The meal was excellent, some of the finest food that Andover had ever consumed, but he was far more interested in the people he would be joining on their journey back home. All of them had the same odd tint to their skin, though the amount varied. Drask had a strong shade of gray. But Tusk looked to have been rolled in ash in comparison.

Tega sat at the same table during the meal and though she was friendly enough there was a distance between them now. Maybe it was his imagination but it seemed she frowned upon his dubious mercy when it came to his enemies.

That was hardly important. His hands were his now, and Drask assured him that Truska-Pren was satisfied that he had paid the price to keep them.

Blood, yes, but not necessarily lives. He would remember that.

When the meal was done the groups moved around and celebrated, conversing about their different lands and about every subject under the sun. Several of the men in the room stared at the Sa’ba Taalor women with open curiosity. Many of the women did the same regarding their men. Their cultures were different down to the way they dressed and no one missed the fact that every last member of the visiting people was heavily scarred.

The pain in Andover’s thigh reminded him that he would soon be sporting a severe scar himself. The wound had been cleaned and tended to by the women who studied under Desh Krohan, and while the wound was severe, it was well on its way to healing. Not because Andover was a special case, but because the circumstances demanded that he be in relatively healthy shape for his coming travels. He had looked at the wound before the meal started and even though not a full day had passed, he could see that the damage was substantially healed.

He shadowed Drask Silver Hand around the event. Drask introduced him to Tusk – The man did not stand on formalities – who heard the story of how he lost his hands and how he fought for the right to keep them and then nodded his satisfaction. Then in the language of their people the king rattled a series of words at Drask and congratulated Andover on his victory. He felt rather like a simpleton being congratulated by a scholar: the man had killed the sort of beast that had a head large enough to sleep in and his praise seemed directed at making Andover feel more comfortable with his own inadequacies. Still, he supposed that was courtly manners. He honestly didn’t understand half of what went on around him when it came to the matters of the aristocrats.

And he was supposed to be an ambassador. The very notion made him more nervous than fighting his attackers had.

Drask tapped his arm. “The forge where you got your hammer earlier, it’s near here?”

Andover frowned and nodded. “Yes, of course. Burk’s smithy is on the premises. Well, just off them, really. He’s the smith to the City Guard.”

Drask looked past him and nodded. “We should go there.”

“Why?”

“You know how to use a blacksmith’s hammer, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then you must use it now. It is time to forge your first weapon.”

“My what?”

“Tuskandru is a king. He says you will travel with us, but you will do so as an equal, not as a burden. For that you must have a weapon. Now you must forge that weapon.”

“Burk will not be pleased.”

Drask looked directly at him. “Burk will under-stand. You must do this thing, Andover Lashk. You must.”

Andover looked around the dining hall and nodded his head. There was little he wanted that was in this area anyway, except of course, for Tega. But he wasn’t foolish enough to think that anything would happen with her. Dream yes, expect, no.

The Emperor himself had asked that he go with the strangers and they had gifted him with new hands. He would do as Drask asked for now, if only to ensure that all who expected from him were happy with their decisions.

An hour later the forges were burning brightly and Burk was watching him with the shrewd eye of a master smith. He was also watching with several small gold coins in his pocket, which had done wonders for stopping the man from being upset about being disturbed.

At first Andover had no idea what he was going to do, what he was going to make for his weapon of choice, but eventually the answer came to him as he stared at the raw materials around him. What else would he use but what he had used earlier to win his combat?

Of course he would use a hammer. But there would be modifications, oh, yes. There would be changes a-plenty.

Both Drask and Burk watched as he first gathered the materials and then began the work of making his weapon. He looked to Drask and asked three questions. First, “Why do I have to make my own weapon?”

“Because a weapon should be as much a part of you as your arm.” The brute pointed. “Or your hands.”

“I am to choose the materials that are used in forging my weapon?”

“Yes. Of course.” The man’s expressive eyes showed little comprehension.

Andover nodded. “If I am to have a connection with the weapon, and the weapon is to be a part of me, then I want the weapon to actually be a part of me. May I have the metal from the blessing box?”

“Of course. It is only metal. Why?”

Andover smiled. “If I am to have a weapon that is as much a part of me as my hands, than let it be the very same metal that forged my hands.”

Drask went back to his room and brought the box with him. They waited together while the metal slowly melted into the crucible where the blacksmith did his work.

There were three people present, but to Andover it seemed like a great number more watched him as he worked. His new hands got a great deal of exercise and his arms strained as he worked the metal after casting it. The weapon had a good number of metallic parts and he worked on each one, seldom letting himself think as he brought down the very hammer he’d used earlier to mete out his justice. The metal had tasted the blood of his enemies and that seemed to him a very important thing. Before he was finished the sun was nearly ready to rise and his leg ached from standing on the wounded limb for so long. His shoulders and arms burned with the hard work, and the small stings of a dozen sparks burning his skin remained to annoy aggravated nerve endings.

And he felt content, as if he had finally accomplished something worthwhile.

He had one day to recover and part of that was spent being fitted for his new clothes. A small army of tailors went to work making sure he was prepared for the trip, supervised in part by the Sisters who served with Desh Krohan.

And while he was allegedly recovering from the work of creating his new weapon, Drask examined the device and then began schooling him in the best way to use the bloody thing. The man seemed to understand instinctively how Andover meant to employ it, and he expanded on those ideas.

Despite the discomfort in his arms and the exhaustion he felt, Andover reveled in the new weapon and learning its potential.

It felt as if the weapon had been waiting all along for him to make it and then wield it.

It felt right in his hands, as surely as his hands felt natural and right attached to his wrists.

They traveled for days before they finally reached Roathes and days more before they made their way to the great stone keep of King Marsfel. It seemed at least half the time that the people with him were mesmerized by the ocean. Considering where they’d come from it must have seemed an impossibility. Merros could still remember the first time he’d stared at the vast expanse of choppy waters. He’d been nearly overwhelmed and he’d at least known of the ocean’s existence. Swech kept looking it over and shaking her head as if, even after days, she had trouble accepting the reality.

Though Merros hadn’t been in the area in a very long time little had changed, really. The people in the area lived a fairly routine life and aside from a few structures like the castle and the town center outside its walls there was little aside from well-designed huts to run across. Very elaborate huts, granted, but built from materials that seldom seemed like they’d hold up in a strong wind, despite the evidence to the contrary.

King Marsfel received them with a dubious expression. Reading the note that was passed over by Merros didn’t seem to help much, really. On the other hand, no one threatened to execute them. You take your victories where you can find them.

Within an hour they were settled at an inn not far from the palace. The rooms were small, the air was hot and humid, and it was still a welcome change of pace from sleeping on a bedroll. One wing of the rather large affair was set aside for them. The cost seemed prohibitive at first, but then there was the feeding of the mounts to consider. They did not eat grass or hay, and as they’d learned in the last village, sometimes the damned things went off hunting if they were not fed in advance. On the bright side, the money was provided by the Emperor.

He would let kings and emperors work out the bills.

When they had all settled in Merros called the Sa’ba Taalor to join him and laid out a map of the area that the king had finally provided after a bit of haggling. There were limits and a map of the affected area didn’t seem too much to ask.

The map was clear enough. There was a large stretch of ocean; on one side of it there was Fellein, on the other was nothing. Somewhere in the middle of that vast ocean there was a long stretch of islands that had been unified under the Guntha flag. The problem seemed to come from the notion that the islands the Guntha called home were sinking. Seemed they wanted to live on dry land. In the defense of the Guntha, he could understand their dilemma. King Marsfel on the other hand seemed to find the notion of giving up his lands to accommodate their desires reprehensible. His father before him had felt the same way.

So he had to explain the situation to Swech and her friends. And once he started, the group immediately began expressing opinions.

Swech said, “They cannot come and simply take the land?”

Merros countered with, “Well, we’re here to assess that situation, to see if the Emperor has enough forces here already to repel the invasion or if he needs to send more troops.”

Swech shook her head. “No. We are here to stop them.”

“I don’t think so. We’re here to examine the situation.”

Swech shook her head again. “We are here to show your Emperor what ten Sa’ba Taalor can do. That is what Drask Silver Hand said.”

He pointed to the map. According to Marsfel, the Guntha had already claimed an area to his south, less than a day’s travel away. The land was considered inhospitable and it was hard to actually do anything there but settle a few hundred tents. However, that was where they were amassing a fighting force.

“Why does he not send his soldiers there to stop them?” Swech asked.

“Well, Roathes doesn’t really have an army. They have soldiers, yes, but more as a force to guard against possible attacks from the land. They don’t really have enough men to have an army and to tend to the villages as well as they should. They have many ships, and they’re certainly very good at sailing, but they don’t have an army. They depend on Fellein to handle issues where they might need an army.” He could see the way they looked at each other. They weren’t getting it, so he clarified. “As part of the Empire they’ve made negotiations in the past to guarantee assistance. They provide ships for transport of goods to different areas, and in turn the Empire is supposed to offer defense in situations like this.”

“Then why does your Emperor not offer soldiers?” That was Blane.

“We’re here to assess the situation. To see if soldiers are necessary.”

“How many of the Guntha have already settled here?” Swech pointed to the area on the map called the Blade of Trellia. The jutting finger of land was a harsh area, covered with rough terrain and a good number of easily defended rock outcroppings. Oddly enough, the Guntha almost always chose that spot. Apparently somewhere back in time it was sacred to their people. He had long since given up trying to understand why as he found it genuinely unattractive and uninhabitable.

“According to King Marsfel, the Guntha have over a thousand people there right now.”

“A thousand?” Swech looked at her friends.

“Over a thousand and more showing up daily.”

“We should go there. We should investigate.”

“Well, yes, that’s the idea. We just had to present ourselves to the King first.”

Swech nodded her head and slapped him on the shoulder. “Good! Then let’s go see these Guntha.”

“Well there’s more to it than that.”

The whole lot of them were already standing up and getting ready to move. Swech looked at him again. “What more is there? They are here.” She jabbed a finger at the map. “We are here.” Another jab. “We need to be there.”

“And that’s true, but no one here has ever been to the Guntha homeland and that includes me.”

“And?” Blane leaned in closer, his eyes watching every expression, every motion of Merros’ face to the point where Merros was nearly made uncomfortable.

“We know that there are people resting on the shoals, here.” Jab at map. “We do not know how many for certain, and we do not know if that is all the people they can spare, or if it is an advanced scouting party, or if this is a carefully laid trap to make sure the Guntha have good reason for declaring war. No one has been attacked yet. They have merely posted themselves on an inhospitable piece of land.”

“Did the king’s people not ask for help?”

“Yes, they did. But they are not the Emperor. He must know what forces are against his people before he decides to commit himself to an act of war.” They were a direct people, the Sa’ba Taalor. They didn’t really seem capable of understanding duplicity. That was a good thing when it came to relationships, but a bad thing when it came to understanding the fine art of backstabbing, also known as politics. Years in the military had taught Merros that much.

“No one has ever been to the islands of the Guntha?”

“No. Anyone coming close is normally not heard from again. The Guntha are not a gentle people.”

The people with him looked at each other and then back to him if trying to assess why, exactly, he was addled. There comes a point where you simply can’t make your point any clearer. Tomorrow, they would see.

Merros sighed. “Yes, well a good night’s rest would be the right point for starting this.”

“Come. We have a long ways to travel.”

That effectively ended the debate. The Sa’ba Taalor wanted to head on and he was supposed to be their intermediary. That meant he had to move along as well.

Within the hour they were well away from the castle and the town and moving along the shoreline. They rode through most of the day and stopped only well after the sun had set.

The weather was delightfully warm, even with the sun down and the breeze coming off the ocean. Tents went up quickly, more as defense against the sand and the breeze than because they needed any real shelter. The mounts were sent out to find their own food. Merros hoped they didn’t find anything that would cause problems later, like a herd of cattle or possibly a small village. There seemed to be sign of neither around the area; that would have to do.

Ludicrous. He was riding with strangers and heading into a strange situation. He’d have packed his bags and walked away from the situation, but the money was simply too damned good. He was still contemplating the money situation when he drifted off to sleep.

His sleep was interrupted sometime later when Swech entered his tent and climbed on top of him. He looked up at her sleepily and she looked down at him. Her fingers found his mouth and she shushed him before he could protest.

“We come closer to battle, Merros Dulver. Tonight I feel restless.” She leaned down closer, her words spoken softly. “Make me tired and satisfied.” Her hands, strong and callused but still feminine, ran across his chest and shoulders as she spoke, feeling the texture of him through the shirt he wore. His hands reached out as well and soon they were exploring each other more thoroughly. They did not make love; they rutted, neither pretending that what they did was meant to have a greater meaning.

When he woke in the morning, pleasantly sore, Swech was still beside him, but dressing herself. Some communications do not require words. They dressed in silence and worked together to break down the tent they’d shared. If anyone with them failed to notice what had occurred, it was simply because they were all just as busy breaking camp. If anyone did notice, they chose discretion when it came to making comment.

They rode for a good portion of the next day, moving across the land without fear of being seen by much aside from the occasional fisherman. Neither Swech nor Merros spoke of what had occurred the night before though there were many opportunities to do so. They did not avoid the subject either. It was simply something that did not need discussing, not now at least. Perhaps after they had dealt with what was coming when they made camp.

“What do you intend to do when you see the Guntha?”

“Drask Silver Hand wants us to work on behalf of your Emperor. To handle the matter. We will handle the matter.”

Frustrating. The woman was frustrating. “Yes, fine, but how?”

Swech shrugged. “I will know after we have seen these Guntha and assessed what they are capable of.”

The conversation continued along those lines until they finally stopped at the Blade of Trellia. The land was mostly dark rock, black sand, and thick patches of grass that often stood as tall as a man. Occasionally, to break the monotony, there were trees laden with a thick gray moss that was almost the same color as Swech’s hair. Merros had thought there would be no proper places to hide the great mounts or the group as a whole, but he was wrong. There were enough hills and enough patches of the thick saw grass to allow a substantial gathering to hide. As they were almost a mile distant from the camp of the Guntha it was easy enough to conceal their location.

The great mounts did not roam or wander off as they sometimes did when they were finished for the day. Instead they lay down and slumbered, but Merros could tell they were not asleep so much as they were waiting. Blane and another of the group left the area, heading toward the beachfront where the Guntha were supposed to be camped. They came back when the sun was setting and nodded. “They are there. There are many.”

“Are they armed? Do they prepare for battle?” Swech spoke softly, but it was easy to hear her. None of the Sa’ba Taalor spoke out of turn and most barely moved as they listened to the discussion.

For the first time Merros realized on a conscious level what he’d noticed and acknowledged silently before: Swech was the leader of this group. It wasn’t unheard of for a woman to be a fighter, not even a solder, but it was rare. Never had he run across a female who was in charge of any sized group of soldiers before.

Still, considering her talents, he could not exactly blame them for choosing her. Her skills as an archer alone would have made her a just choice.

He had been gifted with the ability to understand their language. For that reason he was genuinely surprised when Swech spoke again and not a single word she said made any sense to his ears.

After several minutes of the group conversing they broke apart, each moving back to their mount and quickly undressing, gathering different clothes and then different weapons.

“What’s going on, Swech?”

Swech spoke as she stripped out of her clothes and changed into darker fabrics. “We are going to investigate the camp. And then we are going to handle the matter of the Guntha for King Marsfel.”

“What do you need me to do?”

Swech shook her head and took off her shirt. He looked away out of old habit, despite their recent intimacy. “You are here to observe for your Emperor. You are not here to be a part of this. We are here to handle the matter as Drask has requested.”

“I am to do nothing?”

“You are to wait here.” She patted the face of her mount. “And you should avoid getting eaten.” The beast made a rude noise. Sometimes he was certain the things understood every word said around them.

“Why are you changing your clothes?”

Swech looked at him as she pulled on a dark gray blouse that fell loosely around her. “We do not need armor for what we are about.”

“And what is that?”

“There are times when a warrior needs shields and swords, Merros Dulver, and there are times when silence and a short blade are better suited. Now is a time for silence and fast actions.”

“What?” He shook his head. They couldn’t actually mean to attack, could they?

“Do not think about this. Simply know that when we return it will be time to leave.”

Within moments Swech had gathered a small collection of weapons and was on her way. The others moved with her, slipping into the night and running along the beach where the sounds of the tide quickly washed away any noises they might have made.

Merros waited exactly long enough for them to move out of sight before he followed. He prayed very hard that the great beasts had not been told by their masters to keep him there. Apparently the gods listened, because he was not torn apart for his insolence.

Eleven

Swech moved quickly, her feet barely touching the ground before lifting again, her body crouched low and when necessary falling to hands and feet alike to maintain her balance and speed.

Behind her and around her, nine others moved much the same way, all of them following her subtle orders.

There was no speech. None was necessary. The language they used was the one every Sa’ba Taalor learned as soon as they were walking, the language of the body. Wrommish and Paedle moved with them, of course, guiding them in their time of need. The gods always watched. That was what Merros Dulver could not understand.

Swech pushed thoughts of the stranger from her mind. He was a pleasant distraction, but now was not the time to be distracted. Now was the time to move with the speed of the Cutting Winds and to move just as effectively.

They crested the last small hill between the ocean and the shoreline and saw the tents spread across the beach for what seemed an impossible distance. Apparently a thousand souls required a great deal of cover. The notion would have been amusing if it weren’t being used to the advantage of the Sa’ba Taalor. The leather hides and canvas that made the tents offered excellent cover. Swech and her charges took full advantage of that fact and spread out.

Most of the camp was sleeping, but there were exceptions. They would handle the ones who moved around as they came to them.

The wind from the ocean was blowing harshly, whipping the hides and making them thrum with their own music. She liked the noises. They were pleasant to the ears and they also provided cover for the sounds of her feet moving over the ground. The breeze itself provided cover should the Guntha have guard animals that might smell their approach.

She found no guard animals.

She found few guards and those she did locate were easily avoided if that was her choice.

It was not.

The first guard she encountered was staring at the distant waves with a bored expression on his tanned face. He never had a chance to grow excited. One hand covered his mouth. The other jammed the long, thin needle blade of her dagger through the base of his neck and into his skull. He stiffened for only a moment and then fell. She helped him to the ground with the care of a mother tending to a child, and then moved on. He would eventually be discovered, she knew that, but before then they had much work to do.

To her left she saw Jost lock her arms around a guard’s throat and drop the man in a quiet slump as her hands cut off the flow of blood to his brain. She had Jost staying close to her because this was the first time that Jost had ever been taken for a group expedition. The young girl was doing brilliantly. One more move and the man’s lifeblood was puddling on the ground around him, a crimson shadow to match the shape of his prone form. Jost moved on without seeking approval, a sign that she had earned this privilege.

Beyond Jost she saw another guard fall quickly and knew that Ehnole was moving with her usual efficiency. Ehnole was first and foremost a follower of Paedle. She could have run through a room full of wind chimes and trinkets and no one would have heard her.

Around her the other Sa’ba Taalor moved quickly and efficiently. There would be no room for error. The odds against them were grave.

There would be no mercy for the exact same reason.

Once the guards had been dispatched the group began the serious work. Swech opened the first tent and slipped in as quietly as she could. Four people rested within the cramped space.

She struck four times.

The sleepers did not awaken.

Far away from her yet with her in her soul, the Daxar Taalor watched on. She felt them in her mind, in her heart, and knew that they approved.

Merros followed from a distance and kept it that way. There were ten very dangerous people moving ahead of him and while he had every intention of watching what they did, he had no desire at all to get them annoyed.

The Great Star was rising and that helped a little with following their tracks, but despite the fact that there were ten Sa’ba Taalor, he had trouble finding tracks to follow. Their footprints were deceptively light and as often as not they ran where the waves came to wash away evidence of their passing. He had been worried that they would leave an obvious trail back to the camp, but the worry was wasted.

He kept himself from running into them by being as careful as he ever had been. In time he followed their ghostly trail to the last of the small hills above the vast camp of the Guntha, and there he waited.

The Guntha were an interesting people. They seemed perfectly content to live on their islands, but for the fact that those islands were sinking. That did not mean that they were easy targets, as he’d learned when the Empire had demanded they be driven back previously. They were hard, violent fighters and they were not to be taken lightly.

That said, the camp was almost silent now. To be sure there must be lookouts and guards stationed around the area, but he saw none of them and they did not see him. Instead he saw their people gathered around fires or moving to the tents they’d pitched, or in a few cases preparing for whatever their next day was supposed to bring. They had not attacked the Roathians that he’d heard of, but they were in the kingdom and they were not welcome. There was something to be said for their current dilemma. There was also something to be said for his personal theory that they were waiting for the Roathians to make the first move.

But for now, there was this odd silence and the calm of the air, the gentle sighs of the surf and a cool, clear night. Were it not for the sure belief that he would soon be hearing screams he would have possibly gone to sleep.

Merros waited, moving just enough to keep himself alert. Above him the Great Star rose and reached its zenith, then began to slide toward where it would eventually rest for the night.

He stared at the camp without looking at any one thing, the better to see any possible changes. He was rewarded with small motions, subtle hints that something was going on. Far in the distance he saw one of the Guntha moving back away from the fires. He also saw the shadow that rose from the darkness and seemed to swallow him whole. Moments after that the shadow moved again, but the Guntha did not. It could have only been his imagination, but he didn’t think so.

He almost missed the guard that came for him. Almost.

The man came up from the surf and moved toward him from behind. He would have never heard a thing, would never have noticed him at all, if the Great Star’s light hadn’t cast a shadow for warning. The man was crouched low, one hand holding onto a knife designed for cutting and filleting fish. It would do a fine job on a fool’s throat and that was exactly what the man must have intended because he was creeping up from behind and almost standing atop Merros before he was noticed.

Merros grabbed a handful of sand and rolled. The man had been very careful and he was probably firmly of the belief that his target was as good as dead. Instead of cutting a throat he got sand in his eyes and his face, enough to blind him and to leave him spluttering. And as he tried to recover, Merros kicked a heel into his knee. There was a cracking noise and then a bark of pain. That could not be avoided. Merros reached for him and felt the man’s knife cut across his forearm. The strike was more luck than anything else and the line of blood it drew was annoying but not fatal. He aimed to hit the man in the face and missed, instead punching his knuckles into his attacker’s throat. Sometimes the gods are kind to fools. The blow was enough to leave his enemy gagging.

The Guntha fell forward and Merros rolled from under his weight. He had feared a second strike but the man continued to struggle for air.

And while he was struggling, Merros drew the dagger from his boot and carved a hole in the man’s neck. There was nothing clean about the kill. The man grunted and fought and Merros held him down, felt him thrash and fight to live. It was one thing to defend himself against a great beast like the Pra-Moresh and another entirely to kill a man. He did not regret his actions. He knew that either he would live or the Guntha would, but he’d been a soldier long enough to understand the consequences of his actions. Somewhere, possibly in the camp below, that man had a family. They would mourn the loss and curse his existence. If they were determined enough, they might even come looking for him. It wouldn’t be the first time in his life.

Blood stuck to his hands, coated his arms, soaked his shirt and pants. He dared not move just yet. The Guntha had made a good deal of noise and someone down below or another guard might have heard something. He had no choice but to wait a few moments and listen for sounds that an alarm might have been issued.

Stupid. His actions could well have endangered the Sa’ba Taalor. He was up here on a hill. They were in the campsite doing the gods alone knew what.

But he had suspicions, didn’t he? Shadows moved and people vanished down below. Yes, he had suspicions.

After almost three minutes had passed, after the blood on his body began to cool, Merros finally allowed himself to rise from the sand and look at the camp again. Nothing seemed to have changed. The man under him had dark skin and hair that the sun had bleached nearly white. Several tattoos covered his arms, his chest. He was a fisherman according to the marks on his body. And a warrior. Though Merros didn’t understand all of the markings, he knew enough to know that the man left behind a wife and two children. Their names were marked on his chest.

He dragged the Guntha away from the camp. The sand was loose enough. Though it took a few minutes he managed to hide the body in a new sand dune.

By the time he was done burying the body, the screams started to come from the encampment.

At first he thought he’d been discovered, but then the fires bloomed below. He dared a look and saw that the tents on the far side of the camp were burning, the canvas flaring in great sheets of flame that let him clearly see the dead bodies lying around them. The boats of the Guntha burned as well, not one or two, but seemingly all of them. Impossible that any of what he was seeing was an accident.

The tents that were closer to him bled shadows as people moved to investigate the screams, the blazes. Some of them moved toward the fires. Others fell to the ground without warning and occasionally twitched a time or two before growing still.

He didn’t mean to stare. He meant to move, but the sight froze him. He watched as the Guntha died, some dropping without apparent reason, others swallowed briefly by shadows or merely touched by them before they grew still. Some had time to draw weapons before they were felled, but fall they did.

Not enough of them. There were a great many tents, but not many of them showed life or movement. He shook his head and worried. The Sa’ba Taalor were fighting down below and they were apparently doing very well, but there were too many tents and sooner or later the people in those tents would come out, and when they did the ten who were with him on this journey would die. There was no other way around it.

Even as he contemplated that, however, another dozen tents caught aflame. The blaze ran like water from one to the next and they burned furiously, fairly exploding into brilliance.

From some of those tents he finally heard screams, and saw movement. Oh, how they moved as they burned.

Merros wanted nothing more than to look away, but he did not dare. The gods sometimes demand witnesses, and he had been ordered here for the purpose of witnessing exactly this, hadn’t he? He had been bought and paid for that he might witness exactly this.

And so he watched as the Guntha died, and as he watched he remembered Swech’s words from the day before. We are here to show your Emperor what ten Sa’ba Taalor can do. That is what Drask Silver Hand said.

Eventually Merros rose and walked to the water’s edge. Once there he washed the blood of the dead man from his clothes and from his skin, and then he headed back for the camp where he was supposed to be waiting for the Sa’ba Taalor. He made no attempt to hide his tracks. He doubted there would be anyone left to follow him, at least not any of the Guntha.

The great beasts watched him as he entered the camp and not one of them made a noise of warning or a threatening move.

It would be untrue to say he slept when he got to the camp. But he closed his eyes and managed something like rest. When he opened his eyes again, Swech was moving into his tent. She was freshly scrubbed, well cleaned and dressed in different clothes. She looked at him without speaking for several seconds. He looked back, uncertain what he should say, what he should do.

“You watched us.” It wasn’t an accusation, but a statement of fact. He nodded his agreement.

“You understand now? We did what we were sent to do.”

He looked at her more closely and saw the bandages on her left arm and on both legs, as well as across her neck. She had received several injuries to his one scratch. Then again, he had only killed one man. Who knew exactly how many she was responsible for?

“Will they go back to their people and say they were attacked?”

“There are none to go anywhere.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are no survivors.” Her words were calm. Merros felt a deep chill creep through him.

“All of them?”

She reached out and touched the wound on his arm. “You should tend to that. There is always a risk of infection.”

“You killed all of them?” He had to ask a second time, had to make sure that he had heard what he thought he’d heard. Madness, it had to be.

“They cannot go home and claim they were attacked by King Marsfel and his people. They cannot go home and report anything to anyone.” Her logic was flawless, of course.

Oh, and terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

Desh Krohan ate breakfast surrounded by four beautiful women. Three of them worked with him. The last was his apprentice. They ate together because they could and because it was likely to be the last time they were together for some time to come.

Tega picked nervously at the fare, though all of the foods presented were excellent.

“You should eat, Tega.”

“I know.” She nodded and looked at the table, not meeting his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” He reached out and caught her chin with his fingers, making her look up at him. One thing he did not tolerate from his apprentice was a sudden need to be shy. Shyness and sorcery of any sort did not mix well. That was a lesson he had learned the hard way and one he insisted that his students learn.

“I’m not ready for this.”

“Of course you are,” he countered. “If I had any doubts I wouldn’t be sending you.”

“My parents–”

“Will miss you horribly while you are gone, but you are an adult, and you chose to be my apprentice, and that means you have offered yourself to my guidance, yes?”

“Yes, Desh.”

“Then look forward to this. It’s an amazing adventure you’re going on. You’re one of the first people to ever see the land where the Seven Forges join together. How could that not be an amazing thing?”

She fidgeted and pulled her face from his hand.

“Ah. It’s the boy, isn’t it?” It was hardly a difficult guess to make. That was one of the reasons he’d decided to send her along to the Taalor Valley. The boy. Andover Lashk was an interesting lad, with an unusual situation. “You know that I need someone to watch over him, Tega. You also know that you’re about the perfect choice for that task.”

“I feel like I’m spying on him.”

“That’s because you are spying on him, my dear. Among other things, granted, but that’s one of your tasks.” There were other things, of course. She was there to be his eyes and ears when he couldn’t be there and if the Sooth weren’t lying, he’d be a very busy man in the near future, far too busy to go running off through frozen wastelands for the next few months, much as he might like the notion.

“But the Sisters–”

“Will also be far too busy. Also, they’ve just come back from spending over two months traveling. They deserve the chance to rest as well, yes?”

Oh, how she wanted to argue the point, but really, what could she say?

“I’m scared.” She looked at him with wide eyes, and trembling lips and Desh had no doubt that Andover Lashk would have killed for her in that moment.

He shook his head. “I’ve seen you handle worse situations and you know that if you have to, you can summon me.” He did not need to add that doing so would be meant strictly as a last possible option scenario. She knew that. They all knew that. Those that didn’t understand how much he preferred his privacy learned very quickly.

She wanted to say more, but one look at his face and the young girl knew better.

“You have time before you leave, Tega. Go, see your family again and prepare yourself.” His voice was not unkind as he sent her on her way. There would be no ignoring his orders, not if she truly wished to learn from him. He had taught her some things already, but she knew there was much, much more that he could teach her, would teach her if she obeyed.

She nodded her head and managed a smile before leaving them. The Sisters watched her go, but said not a word. Desh stood from the breakfast table and stretched.

“I suppose I should go have a chat with the Emperor.” He smiled as he looked at the Sisters.

“How long will you be, Desh?” Tataya pouted playfully. “We’re already getting bored.”

“I doubt that. You have new toys to play with.” He chuckled as he spoke.

Goriah shook her head and reached for one of the soft cheeses and the knife Desh had left impaling it. “Hurry. We don’t get to see you enough these days.”

“As much as I can, sweet.”

“Bring us back presents.” Pella’s voice was teasing. There were many, many rumors about Desh Krohan and the Sisters. None of them much cared what the rumors were, but from time to time they found them as amusing as they were inaccurate. Their relationship was… complex.

He waved and snickered as he pulled on his robe and headed for the door. There were too many strangers around, and too many familiar faces, in addition.

He walked quickly through the corridors and kept his silence. Really, a loud and boisterous magician held remarkably little air of mystery about him. Though a good deal of the staff and the servants knew that he could be bit sarcastic, and yes, even loud from time to time, they also knew better than to wag their tongues.

Pathra Krous was in his offices, behind the main area where he received guests and handled business. This was not one of his days scheduled for handling affairs of state, which meant that he was entertaining himself with paperwork and looking over the maps that had been delivered by the expedition.

That was good. The maps were exactly what Desh wanted to talk to him about. He came into the room without announcing himself and Pathra gave a half smile as he leaned back in his chair. “I was wondering how long I’d have to look these over before you came along.”

“I was nice. I let you play with them for a whole day.” He dropped his ceremonial robe across the back of the wooden chair where he settled and leaned over to look at the map facing the Emperor. The writing and images were upside down, but that was hardly an issue. He had been reading upside down since he could remember.

He touched the map at the entrance of the mountain range, at the base of what the Sa’ba Taalor called Durhallem. His mind tried correcting his casual nature and reminded him that the proper title was the Heart of Durhallem, but he waved the thought away like so much white noise. Really, he tended to fend off a lot of his own thoughts these days and found himself wondering if that was a sign of senility, or merely too damned many years walking the planet. Either way, he waved that thought aside as well.

Back to the maps.

“If these measurements are correct, we have grossly underestimated the size of the Forges. We have also never begun to consider that there might be a fertile valley here, or that it would be large enough to accommodate seven separate kingdoms.”

Pathra snorted. “They could be very small kingdoms, couldn’t they?”

“They could indeed, but from what we’ve seen, they have wealth and they have soldiers.”

“We’ve seen a few burly folks in armor. That hardly makes for an army.”

“By all the gods, Pathra, you’ve been hanging around me far too much. You’re getting positively snide.”

“I’m trying to be a realist. You said there might be people and we’ve seen that there are. You said they could be dangerous. That’s likely a given. They came offering gifts, and that’s a positive sign, yes?”

“Hopefully. Again, we don’t know much about them. By the way, what have you prepared as gifts for their return?”

The Emperor frowned. “I have no idea what to offer them? I mean, I hardly have any great trophies that I’ve earned in combat…”

“May I suggest an offering of emeralds from the mines of Canhoon? Perhaps a dozen of the Alacar eggs?”

“A dozen?” The man’s voice cracked as if he were an adolescent.

“Then make it seven, one for each of their kings.” Desh waved away the regret in the Emperor’s tone. Yes, the eggs were a rarity, but they were hardly impossible to get. “Honestly, Pathra, what the hell are you going to do with all of the eggs you’re already stocking up in your larders?”

“But they’re…” The Emperor sighed. “Fine.”

“Don’t be that way. Each of the seven kings offered you a treasure. You have to do the same in return.”

“A fruit basket isn’t enough?”

“They’re kings, not your relatives. You have to treat them with the proper respect. Maybe if you’re lucky they’ll let you have one of those great, hairy brutes they ride around on.”

“Gods! Wouldn’t that be lovely?” His eyes grew wide at the prospect.

“And if you establish a proper relationship it’s always possible that you could wind up visiting their kingdoms. So make sure you get a good friendship working here.”

That was really all it took. Pathra’s fascination with the Blasted Lands made him putty when it came to working out a proper accord with the inhabitants. Even if he wasn’t much of a statesman when he was in a mood, he was almost guaranteed not to get too moody if he was thinking about the unknown wonders from another land.

Desh looked at the maps again. Really, the area was much larger than he would have expected possible. At least assuming that the map was an accurate representation. There was little doubt in his mind. The craftsmanship and the attention to detail made him think that the map had been around for a while. There was no reason to assume that the people living in that valley would have time to draw a fake map, or for that matter good cause.

He studied the lay out, his fingers running over the multiple rivers that seemed most likely run off from the mountains themselves, and then working toward not one but five separate lakes within the massive valley.

“There’s nothing they couldn’t do here, Pathra. Do you see that?”

“What do you mean?” The Emperor leaned in closer, the oils in his recently restyled hair threatening to rain down on the map. Happily they didn’t quite saturate his tresses to that level.

“I mean they have forests, they have farmlands, they have clean water, and apparently they have food aplenty. There is no need for them to ever leave their valley. It’s small wonder we never knew they were there.”

“We’ve never been able to get to them. How could they get to us?”

“We never knew for certain that they were there, Pathra. There’s a difference. They either knew of us or at least suspected we existed, as best I can determine.”

The emperor rose from his seat and walked to his window, looking toward the Blasted Lands as if there were any possibility that he could see them from where he was. On particularly clear nights it was possible to see the glow from the Seven Forges on the horizon, but that was a rarity.

“Do you know I never really thought you’d find anything out there, Desh.”

“I didn’t spend my money on the sure bet that there was nothing, my friend.”

“True enough.”

Desh returned to the map again, looking even further to the north. The land seemed to continue on well beyond the valley of the Daxar Taalor, but the map itself ended. It was his curse that he was already wondering what was on the other side of that map and how long it would take him to arrange an expedition.

Pathra laughed, “You really need to work on one goal at a time, old man. First we establish a good relationship and then you use the valley as a starting point for the next expedition.”

“That obvious?”

“To me? Of course.” The Emperor looked at the map, leaning over the surface of the desk to study. “Do you suppose the scale is accurate?”

“I see no reason for it not to be. The details between where we are and where they are seem to follow a consistent scale.” Still he frowned as he spoke and looked carefully at the map. Even allowing for the violent storms and horrid environment, it seemed that more of the expeditions he’d sent over the years should have reached their destination.

But, again, sometimes the lands between the Forges and Fellein seemed to change. The distances seemed smaller now than they had. And there was a rather large icon on the map that, according to Wollis March was an affair called the Mounds. The man said the Sa’ba Taalor were forbidden to go there.

He’d have to look into both situations properly instead of merely considering them as possible causes of trouble. Mysterious ruins and shrinking distances were not the sort of notions he found at all comforting.

“What are the plans for today, Pathra?”

“I’m supposed to meet with Tuskandru and his retinue for a meal. I assume you’ll be joining me?”

“Of course.” He waved the very idea that he would be elsewhere aside. There were some things that were simply too important to overlook. “Have you ever known me to turn down food?”

“Not in my lifetime.”

Andover Lashk looked at the brutes around him and swallowed hard. Drask was a giant of a man, no two ways about it. The one next to him Tusk, was even larger. They were the biggest, to be sure, but none of the people facing him were small, and that included the women.

They were standing in the courtyard that had been set aside for the Sa’ba Taalor, and a dozen of the strangers were looking at Andover and his weapon, giving both a long and nearly silent scrutiny. He had not changed. The weapon was what they were examining most closely. The handle was a little over three feet in length, and on one end was a heavy barb for stabbing. On the other was the hammer head he had fashioned. One end was a heavy, blunt head. The other was a blade, more properly fitted to an axe. The challenge had been to make the two sides of the head balance out, as well as making the entire weapon balance out. He’d done it by adding iron rings along the base where the barb rested. When he was completely finished he would be able to balance the weapon in the palm of his hand without having to worry about it tipping one way or the other. The metal bands were also studded, allowing them to cause extra damage should they strike flesh. He’d made the bloody thing and now they were staring at it like it might be a lump of carrion he was holding instead of hours of intense labor and the cause of several small burns on his forearms from working the forge.

Tusk reached forward and plucked the weapon from his hands without asking, without warning and so quickly that Andover could not respond.

Drask looked at him with knitted brows above his veil. His expression said that Andover had just lost respect in the eyes of the newcomers by so easily forfeiting his weapon. There was nothing he could do. The man who had taken the weapon would snap him as easily as a twig.

Tusk whipped the weapon around between his hands, moving in fluid motions that seemed nearly impossible. The hammer head alone weighed enough to make wielding it a challenge to Andover, but to the man holding the weapon it seemed as light as air.

Drask stepped closer. He leaned down just a bit as the monarch from the Taalor Valley continued testing out the hammer’s balance and weight.

And then Tuskandru called to two of the surrounding Sa’ba Taalor. They nodded, came forward, and drew their weapons. The one on the left of him, a smaller man – which meant he was only enormous – swung a one-handed axe. The other was sporting a well-used and weathered sword.

“What are you…?”

Tuskandru ignored him and brought the hammer around in a savage arc, swinging at the swordsman’s head. The man deflected the blow, grunting with the effort, and immediately countered. Even as Tusk was knocking the attack aside – and continuing to swing the long hammer as if it weighed nothing – the axe-wielder swept his blade toward the monarch’s head.

Tuskandru ducked down low and brought the hammer in close to his chest before striking out with the barbed end, knocking the axe away from the wielder’s hands with a loud clatter. The axe man immediately stepped back, his arms held wide apart.

Two steps and a spinning motion that Andover could barely follow and the swordsman was on the ground, his weapon a few feet away and Tusk’s boot planted on his chest. The hammer came down and stopped inches from where it would surely have splattered the man’s skull.

All around them the horde of Sa’ba Taalor roared their approval.

“He seems pleased with the work you put into the weapon.” Drask’s voice was low, just barely audible. “That is good. Likely he will throw the weapon to you. Do not let it fall to the ground.”

Andover began to look toward the foreigner who had become his advisor, but stopped himself when, exactly as Drask had predicted, Tuskandru hurled the weapon in his direction. He did not throw it in an attack, but instead threw it with the head pointed toward the skies.

Andover moved forward and caught the weapon. The weight was almost enough to stagger him, but he braced himself and managed to keep his feet.

And found Tusk staring at him with scrutinizing eyes.

The giant bellowed out five words in the language of his people. His eyes were smiling behind the veil he sported.

Drask put a hand on Andover’s shoulder. “He likes your workmanship. He approves. Now he wants you trained with it.”

“Trained?”

The man nodded his head and looked around the courtyard. He seemed incapable of not looking around constantly. “Oh yes. You will be learning to fight with the hammer you forged. It is to be a part of you and you have… limitations.”

“What limitations?” He wasn’t sure, but suspected he should be offended by the comment.

“You do not know how to fight. You do not have years of practice. You must be readied for the journey to Taalor.”

“What do you mean ‘readied’?” He didn’t much like the sound of that, or where any of this seemed to be going. When he heard the term readied, he immediately thought of the rare occasions when his mother would make roasts and spent hours seasoning the meats and preparing them. It was not a comforting notion.

“You are meant to be an ambassador for your people.”

“Yeah?”

“That means you will need to know how to fight.”

“But, why?”

Drask sighed and pointed toward Tusk. The king was looking from one person to the next, talking softly and moving with the easy confidence that seemed afforded only the finest warriors. “Would you willingly risk a fight with him?”

“By the gods, no. He’d kill me.”

“Yes, he would.” Drask looked at him closely. “He would kill you with one blow. And that is the problem. Tuskandru, Chosen of the Forge of Durhallem and King in Obsidian does not negotiate with weaklings and those who cannot defend themselves in simple combat.” He paused to let that sink in. “Neither do the other six kings. Nor do their emissaries. If you would deal with these people on behalf of your Emperor and your Empire, you must be able to fight and defend yourself.”

“Are you saying I’ll have to fight the kings?”

Drask laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Not at all. They would not fight you. But their appointed representatives almost certainly will.”

“But how?” Andover couldn’t find the words to finish his question. “I mean, what, exactly is my job going to be?”

“We have never had ambassadors before. Almost certainly you will make arguments on behalf of your Empire.”

“Alright…” Andover worked that over in his head. “How does that lead to me fighting anyone?”

“You handled your dispute with the men who attacked you, yes?”

“Yes, of course. You made me do that. You told me I had to do that to keep my hands.”

Drask nodded his head. “That is how disputes are settled where we come from.”

“All disputes?”

“Yes. Though sometimes the fights are to the death.”

Drask called out to three of his people. Two women and one man came forward. All of them looked at him expectantly.

“Delil.” He pointed to the first of the women. She was younger, and carried herself with more swagger than half of the City Guard. Next was the male, a brick wall of a man, with scars that looked like one of the great monsters they rode in on had tried to chew him to pieces covering one arm and half of his neck. “Bromt.” The last of the three was a woman whose helmet bore great horns that curved down toward her shoulders. “And this is Stastha. They will be your instructors today.”

“My instructors?” He hated the way his voice broke when he looked toward Drask.

“Yes. They’ve been instructed to beat on you until you learn to defend yourself.” Drask stepped back and clapped his hands together. Delil came forward, dropping into a crouch as she started circling Andover. She carried no weapons. “Delil will go first.”

“Wait!” Andover stepped back, gripping his hammer fiercely and looking at Drask when he wasn’t keeping a wary eye on the unarmed woman facing him and moving slowly around him, assessing his movements.

“Yes?” Drask already sounded bored.

“Am I supposed to go up against an unarmed enemy?”

“She is not unarmed. Her body is her weapon.”

A moment later the female slid forward and punched Andover in the side of his head. He staggered back and almost lost his grip on the hammer. Before he could recover properly she came at him again and boxed him on the other side of his face. After that, Andover started defending himself very vigorously. Every time he thought he was ready for whatever the woman might do, she came from another direction. Within five minutes she had disarmed him and handed him back his hammer no less than four times.

The girl was kind to him. She didn’t hit him very hard. At least not at first.

By request of the Emperor himself, Wollis March was in attendance at the dinner with the Sa’ba Taalor. He sat at the same table as Drask Silver Hand and a few others, including the boy with the new metal hands, Andover Lashk. Currently the young man was looking a bit like he’d been dragged behind a runaway carriage for a few leagues. His skin was marked with scratches and bruises, but he was clean. Wollis stared at the gloves covering his new limbs for all of a minute and then decided the hands beneath them didn’t much matter. The same could not be said for the boy, who kept fidgeting and fussing with the supple leather.

They were all sitting and the Emperor was not yet in attendance. Neither was the sorcerer, who it turned out was a rather nice fellow, all things considered. He was grateful for the maps and offered a handsome bonus to Wollis. Being a fairly decent sort himself, Wollis divided the money between the rest of the expedition. Well, not all of it, but a decent portion. Some he set aside for himself, some for Merros, and because he knew it would be what Merros wanted, he even set some aside for the families of the men who had died on the journey. Merros was a good man. That was one of the reasons that Wollis continued to serve with him even after they left the service.

The hall where they took their meal was another large affair, with marble walls, a few statues of previous emperors in the corners, and a dozen different sigils from various kingdoms of the Empire scattered along the walls almost as an afterthought. All in all it was a bit overwhelming, and so Wollis concentrated on the other people dining instead.

And there were a lot of them. One of the Sisters sat at the table as well: Pella, she of the midnight hair and hypnotically dark eyes, sat to his left. From time to time she pointed out the names and positions of some of the other people in the room to him and Drask alike. She was probably talking to Andover as well, but the boy barely seemed to notice.

The largest of the tables was set aside for Tusk – who the hell would have guessed he was a king? – and four of his retinue, as well as the Emperor, the wizard and a few of Pathra Krous’ cousins. The king, the Emperor and the sorcerer were conspicuously absent but the rest of the table was occupied by a group that appeared to have more money than common sense. One or two of them seemed to have been raised to understand the sort of manners that even Wollis was raised with – one does not deliberately outshine a guest in the house, and if these were truly members of the royal family, they seemed determined to show as many jewels as they could in an effort to prove that they were worthy of being noticed – but the ones dressed in more casual clothing were the exceptions, not the rule.

Pella leaned in close to him and did that thing where she seemed to read his mind. “You are not wrong. They seek only to impress the Emperor, and as a result, fail to follow proper decorum.”

Rather than taking offense from the possible ability to hear his thoughts – she was an associate of a sorcerer and Wollis understood the implications, even if Merros did not – he was pleased to hear that his beliefs were being confirmed.

“So they are failing in the eyes of the Emperor?”

“Oh yes. But they do not see it. They see only that they have a chance to get his attention.”

Wollis chuckled and Drask looked his way. “It is one thing to get the attention of an authority, my friend, and another entirely to get the attention you desire.”

Andover laughed bitterly at that. The boy’s eyes looked toward him and he wagged his fingers. “On this you and I agree.” Then the lad went back to looking at his hands. He was almost the same age as Nolan, and Wollis felt a twinge at the thought. It had been a long while since he’d seen his son. It might be a very long time indeed, as Nolan was now of age and likely already off to serve in the army.

Laughter erupted at the table to their left and the royals looked over with surprised expressions. Pella smiled indulgently and, at that table, Tataya laughed along with several of the Sa’ba Taalor, who were apparently exchanging anecdotes about fighting. It seemed that almost everything the people from the valley did involved fighting. Wollis remembered watching them when they were heading toward Fellein, still dressed in their weapons and armor, and had little trouble understanding that the people around him were warriors. The noblemen seemed less likely to ever fully understand that notion.

They were not soldiers. He doubted most of them would properly understand which end of a sword should be pointed at an enemy. Oh, to be sure they had been taught the ways of weapons, had likely been taught by the finest swordsmen around, but having a good teacher did not guarantee that a person was among the finest students.

The Sa’ba Taalor did not carry any weapons on them. They were unarmed. A few of the royals were sporting daggers or other small bejeweled pieces that were supposed to be weapons. In any situation that involved bloodshed Wollis would have banked his entire newly acquired fortune on the visitors from the Seven Forges. That included the slightest of the females, who, sadly, had gone off with Merros on his merry little adventure in the south. Jost. That was her name. Young enough to be his daughter, but oddly sexy, even with her face hidden away.

He looked toward Drask and wondered what, exactly, was hidden behind that veil. His curiosity was mild enough to avoid him risking life and limb to find out.

Of course Wollis would have been the first to say he had a great deal of common sense and a powerful sense of self-preservation. He wouldn’t have been wrong on either account.

Sadly, the same could not be said of the nobles.

A young buck at the main dining table was sitting to the left of a stunning beauty who had the common sense to dress appropriately for the guests of the Empire. She had the sense. The young buck was a dandy, dressed in finery and actually sporting a thin sword that, while likely quite deadly, didn’t look like it could take a blow from an axe without being reshaped. His hair was over-oiled and curled in the latest dubious fashion, his clothes were of shiny silks, and his face was still round with the last of his baby fat. He would likely be handsome enough someday, but like Andover Lashk, he was barely of age to be called a man.

He spoke exactly loudly enough to be heard by everyone. “What sort of swine come to an affair like this and bray like broken mules?” The four members of the Sa’ba Taalor at the same table looked toward him with wide, shocked eyes.

Wollis bit his lip. It was bad enough that the young fool was speaking that way. It was worse that he spoke that way during one of those sublime moments when it seemed that everyone in the room stopped speaking at the exact same time. All of the background murmurs faded away just as he posed his deliberately rude question.

The beauty next to the buck looked shocked. “Brolley! What has possessed you?” Her voice was soft, her chastisement meant only for the offender’s ears.

Drask’s voice, on the other hand, was sharp and loud enough to answer the challenge that had been thrown. His accent in that moment was thick, and the distortion that all of his people spoke with was particularly loud. “What sort of whelp barks when he should keep his mouth shut and save himself sorrow?”

Wollis reached out a hand. “I’m sure he did not mean–”

Drask brushed the staying hand aside gently. His eyes locked on the younger dandy. “He knew exactly what he said. Didn’t you, boy?”

Oh, yes, this was going poorly indeed. Wollis looked to Pella, and she in turn looked at her sisters, possibly trying to find the best way to calm the tempestuous situation.

The young noble bristled. “How dare you?” His face reddened.

The beauty next to him called out sharply this time. “Brolley! Think carefully before you speak!”

“Enough, Nachia! I’ll not have a dirt farmer like this speak to me with that tone!” Brolley stood up and faced Drask where he sat. “I’ll not be called a boy by a savage!”

Wollis started to stand up. He would, by the gods, not stand by and allow a foolhardy boy to start a war between nations. “That’s enough! Hold your tongue, lad!”

Drask stood up. And up. And up. And for the first time the boy with the fine clothes and the fancy sword realized that he might have made a mistake. It was one thing to see Drask when he was settled comfortably at a dining table and another entirely to see the man when he was ready to handle a situation.

“You offend me. You offend my people. You disgrace your Emperor, your family, and yourself.” Drask spoke softly, but every last soul in the room heard him clearly.

“Apologize, Brolley, immediately.” The woman, Nachia, spoke with frosty warning in her tone. The whole group of them knew better than to let this go on any longer. Their faces spoke volumes of how well they understood the situation.

Wollis could see it on the boy’s face. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to make the situation go away, but he also couldn’t stand the idea of losing face in front of his family, his peers. He was humiliated. He’d been chastised by a man he certainly considered a savage and he’d been called out by none other than Wollis himself, a lowly peasant and soldier. The sting of the situation was worse than a slap across the face.

One sentence and the entire affair could likely have been forgiven. One simple apology and the incident would go away. But youthful pride is always a stone in the boot of an arrogant boy.

“I don’t apologize for speaking the truth. And I don’t apologize to pigs.”

It was then that the Emperor, the sorcerer, and the King walked into the room. They were just in time to hear the boy’s words.

Nachia shook her head. “Brolley, no!”

Drask looked at the boy and took three steps forward. The first stride seemed to cover half the room. The second had him in front of the dandy. The third had the boy driven against the table, pinned in place by Drask’s hands.

The boy tried to draw his sword. He had it halfway out of the scabbard before Drask slapped his hand aside and then threw the weapon to the ground with a clatter.

“Drask!” Tuskandru’s voice was thunderous.

Drask lifted Brolley from the table and shook him. Brolley’s eyes were wide in his round face and he yelped as surely as a dog that has been beaten. It was obvious even from where Wollis stood that Drask was doing all he could to restrain his rage.

“I demand satisfaction from this cur!” Drask roared the words. His veil shuddered with the force of his angered breaths.

Emperor Pathra Krous looked to his cousin, and then to the king beside him and finally to Drask.

Desh Krohan spoke softly, but the words carried far enough to let Wollis hear them. “I told you to change that stupid law.”

The Emperor of Fellein looked at the warrior holding his cousin off the ground by the front of his shirt. His cousin looked at him with wide, worried eyes.

Tuskandru looked at the Emperor. Pathra Krous looked at the king and then at Drask. “You shall have your satisfaction. You shall have your blood trial.”

Nachia looked at her Emperor in horror. Wollis knew just how she felt.

Twelve

King Marsfel’s demeanor changed radically when Merros Dulver came back to his throne room and explained that the Guntha had been taken care of for him.

The man was not exactly arrogant the first time round, so much as he was bored with the notion of dealing with political nonsense. That was the impression Merros had when he met him at the beginning of the journey. When the King heard that there were ten observers attending on behalf of the Emperor, he grew cold and distant, and offered remarkably little by way of assistance.

When Merros and the ten Sa’ba Taalor came back to him, and Swech and her companions reported that the Guntha had been taken care of, the man positively fell over himself with gratitude, which, Merros observed, really was most of what he was supposed to do. Merros also translated a few phrases when Swech and company didn’t quite catch the nuances of the language. There were only a few incidents and none of them would have been trouble so much as they would have been awkward. All told, the travelers had done an incredible job of learning a new language, but time and context limited what they absorbed.

Marsfel looked at the ten from the Valley of the Forges and smiled. He stood and strutted around them. He clapped his hands and did everything he could to make them know he thought they were amazing. He insisted on a feast on their behalf, and when they tried to refuse, Merros stepped in and accepted for them, then begged a moment with Swech.

She was not angry, but she was decidedly formal when he pulled her to the side. “Why do you make us eat with this man?”

“It’s his way of offering thanks.”

She shook her head and her eyes half pinned him in place. “He is like the old woman at the cart. He wishes to thank us for his weakness.”

Merros nodded. “I thought you might see it that way and that’s why I wanted to speak with you.” He paused and tried to decide the best way to answer without getting his head separated from his neck. “He offers you a feast because this buys him time to see if you are telling him the truth.”

Her eyes flared behind the veil and her hands twitched as if preparing to seek the comfort of her weapons.

Merros stepped in closer, until they were as close as lovers. “It’s not what you think.”

“I think he insults my honor.”

“It’s not that at all. That is why he offers the feast, to avoid offending you. But your claim is very unusual for him. Ten of his soldiers could not have done what you and the others did. They are not as skilled as you. For that reason he must send someone he trusts to confirm what you have said.”

“And if we lied?”

“The feast would be your last.” Some truths are simpler to state than others. She could understand the idea of being punished for lying, it seemed, with more ease than she could understand the concept of being accused of lying.

“And if we have told the truth?”

“Then you have earned his gratitude, and made the Emperor look good and your own people look good. You might even have earned an ally in King Marsfel.”

That stopped her. Her eyes locked on him again, this time trying to read any possible secrets he might be hiding from her. There were none. He had come initially to observe, but had amended his reasons for being there to include making whatever this task of theirs was as amenable as possible for all parties.

“Very well then. We will allow this feast.”

“And I’m sure the king and Drask appreciate your tolerance.” He sighed. “Now let’s go back to being congratulated and then we can get back to Tyrne.”

“Are you so tired of us already?” Her voice was teasing. He knew she was jesting. Or at least he suspected strongly at that. It was sometimes difficult to know what anyone was thinking when half of her face was constantly hidden.

“Not hardly. But I have earned a great deal of money and I would like to go about the business of spending it.”

Her fist cuffed him lightly in the arm. “Wise answer. There’s hope for you yet.”

She headed back for the main group and he watched her go. He knew her to be a passionate lover. He also knew she could kill without remorse. His eyes tracked the sway of her hips and the play of muscles along the part of her back that was bared by her tunic. Scars and smooth flesh, muscles and just the right amount of softness to remind him that she was decidedly a woman.

He shook his head. No. He would not allow himself to fall for a woman from a country where everyone carried enough weapons for five soldiers. The first argument they had would surely be the death of him.

Within a few hours of their arrival with their news, the feast was under way and Marsfel seated them with his immediate family, including three daughters who were, to be kind, stunning. Each was lovelier than the last. It might well be true that Roathes had little to offer by way of military might, but if all the women were as striking as his daughters, the man should seriously consider hiring a few extra armies for their protection.

Merros hardly had time to get to know any of the ladies in question. The king had many questions for his guests and Merros had to be ready to provide translation at all times. Mostly, however, he simply listened and took in what there was to hear.

And he worried. Much as he wanted to believe that all was well, his mind refused to accept the notion. He looked around almost constantly and could find no source for his unease, and that too worried him.

As he contemplated what might be wrong, he saw a man who had left earlier, immediately after the king announced the feast, come back and speak softly in Marsfel’s ear. The monarch’s eyes grew wide for the briefest moment and then he nodded and relaxed a bit. It seemed the news that the Guntha were well and truly finished with their attempt at an invasion had reached his ears.

No, Merros did not think it would be that simple. He thought it far more likely that the Guntha would retaliate, or, worse, start planning a proper invasion instead of merely landing on a strip of shoreline. But Marsfel seemed quite pleased with what he found out, and that had to count for something.

It seemed there was something amiss. Now all he had to do was figure out what it was. Beside him Swech was talking to Ehnole, their voices clear enough to hear if he wanted to, but instead he focused on Marsfel. There was no reason that he could see to be worried. Still, he couldn’t help but think that the king of the region was up to something.

“What are you thinking?” Swech’s voice broke his contemplations.

He looked at her and thought carefully before answering. “I think we might need to be cautious.”

“About?” He had her undivided attention.

“I’m not sure yet. But something is not right here.”

Swech nodded and her hand tapped the table three times, a casual enough gesture, but not a nervous habit that she normally used. Merros had been around the woman for weeks and had observed her when she was eating, when she was speaking, even when she was sleeping. Her gesture wasn’t exactly out of character, but it wasn’t casual, either.

Around him the other Sa’ba Taalor continued doing what they were doing, eating or conversing with one of the locals, but all of them responded in small ways. Hands patted the table or made gestures that would have meant nothing at all to most people, including Merros himself had he not been watching for it. Still, he had no doubt at all that the people were communicating with each other. Tataya had used her sorcery to allow him to speak the language of the Sa’ba Taalor, but only one of the languages. As near as he could figure, they had at least three separate languages. He could only guess that she had alerted the others to be aware and that they, in turn, were reporting back.

Swech leaned in closer to him and her hand ran suggestively across his forearm. Her eyes did not show affection. When she spoke it was in her native tongue, almost ensuring that no one else would understand outside of their party. “No one is certain what is wrong, but a few of the others have sensed there might be trouble brewing. We are alerted. We will keep a close watch.” Her voice was low and the tone light, as if she were merely making a suggestion between two lovers.

He smiled and nodded and leaned in closer himself. “We should not stay here.”

“You suggest we leave during the feast in our honor?”

“I think it would be best if we leave as soon as the feast is done.”

She nodded her head, keeping her tone light. “We will do so. We will also expect troubles.”

Marsfel stood up and cleared his throat. Immediately the people under him quieted and with moments everyone was looking toward the monarch. His voice was clean and deep when he spoke – actually a good deal deeper than when he talked normally. “We have asked Emperor Krous for a solution to our troubles with the Guntha, and he has responded by sending us the very people with whom we now dine.” The king bowed formally. “I can but offer our thanks for the generosity of the Sa’ba Taalor, who have taken care of the threat to our kingdom.”

Swech stood up in response, and carefully repeated his bow. “We are grateful for the feast you have offered in our honor. We welcome the chance to call the people of Roathes our friends.” Her words were met with a small round of applause from people who looked uncertain as to exactly what was going on. Merros found himself wondering if most of the locals knew of the troubles with the Guntha or if that trouble had been kept from the general populace. He’d been with the royal army long enough to know that not every ruler felt the need to share news of potential problems with their people.

Marsfel smiled and excused himself a few moments later as the celebration continued. Merros watched on as the people around them consumed food and drink alike.

“We are leaving now.” He spoke a command without even thinking about it. He had no authority over the Sa’ba Taalor and he knew it, but his sense of urgency was growing, not dwindling.

Swech did that trick with her hand again and nodded her head. Within moments all of them were ready to leave.

There was no subtlety to it. They rose and they left. If their host took offense, Merros intended to be well away before he could do anything to make his dissatisfaction known.

“Explain to me again why we are running away from the man we just helped.” Swech’s voice was tense, annoyed. Merros couldn’t really blame her, but they had to do it this way. The wind was cutting across them as they moved, and Merros had to lean in very close to hear her and to be heard. Their bodies were pressed half together and he did his best to ignore the situation. Among the Sa’ba Taalor there was no apparent awkwardness about the way his body responded. At home he would likely have been hearing about the inappropriate and discourteous actions he took for weeks. Then again, he would not have been riding behind a woman on the same animal at home. At least not without extreme circumstances.

“Because if he decides to do something to us, we are vastly outnumbered and it could lead to problems between your people and mine.”

“What sort of problems?”

“Well, if the king of Roathes decides that we should all be executed for killing the Guntha on his beach, we all die. That’s rather a problem for me. I don’t much care to die. I’ll do it if I have to, of course, but I prefer to keep living.” Swech looked over her shoulder at him her eyes narrowed a bit as she contemplated what he’d just said. He smiled to show he was jesting. “There’s also the problem of your people taking offense to having you killed by strangers. We have no idea how they would respond to that.”

“Of course we do.”

“Really? And how would that be?”

“They would take it as a challenge against the honor of our people and our kings.”

“Meaning they would send more people down here to deal with the king and the executions.”

“Of course.” Her voice was casual as she answered. There was no doubt in her mind.

“So why wait around in a situation we know is not going to end well?”

“Because there is never a good reason to run from a fight.” Her voice was strong with conviction.

“I don’t agree. If there are four thousand people ready to hang you for a crime you did not commit, it’s a good time to run.”

“That is not a fight. That is a mob.”

“Semantics. There are people who would use this situation as an excuse to cause troubles between your people and mine and I wanted to avoid that.”

Swech nodded, satisfied. “Then I can accept your wisdom in this.”

He resisted the urge to respond with sarcasm and instead enjoyed the view of their surroundings and the speed of the animal moving under them. The great beasts were in a running mood apparently, and were charging across the land at a hard run.

They were almost to Tyrne, and would likely not stop until they got there. That suited him just fine. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy the company. It was that he wanted to be home, sleeping in a decent bed and not worried about whether or not he was going to be killed for any possible slight.

“You understand that I am not upset with you. I simply do not like running from a fight.” Swech’s tone was conversational.

“I did what I felt was necessary. I wanted to keep you safe.”

“I would have been safe.” She shook her head. “It is not my time.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.” Her voice was teasing. He wished he had that sort of confidence.

“Not to worry. I didn’t think I’d offended you. I would apologize if I had.”

She tilted her head. “Why?”

“I do not mind offending my enemies, Swech, but I don’t consider you an enemy.”

“That is good.” She nodded her head and said no more.

Twenty minutes later, as the ride was beginning to lull Merros into a semi-doze, a horn sounded three short, sharp blasts. He woke right up.

“What the hell?”

“We are followed.” Swech’s voice was calm. No, it was more than that. She sounded almost happy about it.

Merros turned his body and looked back. In the distance a fair way down the king’s highway, he could see horsemen. A good number of them.

He called out to Swech, “Do you plan to stop?”

“Not yet. We will slow down and give them the opportunity to make themselves known to us.”

“I don’t think that’s wise.”

“I know this about you.” Her voice was positively amused.

Swech raised her left arm above her head and waved it slowly back and forth. Behind and around them the other riders slowed. Blane rode closer, his long hair free-flowing for the moment, but even as he pulled alongside them he drew the hair back and quickly tied it down with a thick band of leather. “We wait on them?”

Swech nodded her head. “Merros is hesitant of starting a war.”

Blane looked toward him and shook his head. “You are worried that they should strike the first blow if this is to be an attack?”

“We don’t know what they want. I merely think we should find out.”

Blane shook his head a second time and the great beast under him mirrored the gesture. “Then we should stop. I grow impatient.”

Swech looked toward Merros. “Blane grows impatient.” She raised her hand again and this time made a fist. At the same time Saa’thaa slowed and then stopped. Blane’s great beast did likewise. In a moment all ten animals had come to a rest, many of them panting lightly, barely giving credence to the notion that they had been running for hours. His admiration for their stamina went up a few notches.

Blane dropped from his mount and immediately the others did the same. Merros watched Swech nimbly shift her body until she was sitting sideways and looking at him. “You will join us?”

“Of course.”

He hastily slipped from the saddle on Saa’thaa’s back and the animal grumbled a small sound of relief. Aside from that noise you’d never have noticed a change in the animal’s demeanor.

As he watched, the Sa’ba Taalor gathered their weapons of choice. Few of them were the same from individual to individual. There were several devices that he could barely recognize as particular weapons, though there was little doubt that each and every device was designed for combat.

The girl Jost carefully tested a length of chain between her hands. At each end of the chain was a weight with several spikes and Merros was reminded of what Tusk had said about how deadly a weapon a chain could be. He also remembered the long line of scars on the man’s arm from a similar weapon. He resisted the urge to shiver, even as adrenaline began kicking into his system.

The riders came closer and Merros tried counting. He lost the exact number but it was greater than twenty. They rode their horses with the sort of posture that came from working on horseback a great deal. They wore armor and carried weapons of their own. What they did not do was wear any particular colors. Every regiment in the Empire sported indicia, but not this group. And while they were wearing military issue armor, in most cases they most decidedly were not soldiers. Not anymore at least.

Mercenaries then. He understood all too well. He was a mercenary himself these days.

“And a good day to you.” The head of the riders pulled up slowly, his eyes staring almost exclusively at Merros. His accent was clipped, sharp. He was not from Marsfel’s kingdom. At a guess he was from much further to the west, and just possibly from as far away as Morwhen, much farther west than Merros had ever travelled. Morwhen was best known as a land of savages. The soldiers out there earned their pay. As he stopped, the rest fanned out with careful deliberation. The road was wide here – it was the king’s highway after all – but even so a few of the riders left the road proper and moved around to the sides until they had better access to Merros and the Sa’ba Taalor.

“And to you. What can we do for you on this day?” Merros kept his hand on his sword hilt. The gesture was obvious and the intent clear. The head of the mercenaries noticed it, too. His lip twitched upward in a half-smile for only a moment. He was very, very confident.

“King Marsfel feels that you left rather abruptly. He wished to extend his offer of hospitality.” The man had a lean, hard face. He was weathered and he was scarred. He was, in short, a military man. There was little doubt that he and his knew how to use their weapons. All of the men held their hands in their laps. They were armed and prepared to use those arms immediately.

“And while we would hardly wish to offend His Majesty, we are on business for the Emperor himself and must return home to make our reports.”

Swech listened intently, her eyes moving from one man to the next. Around her the rest of her people were similarly alert.

The head of the mercenaries nodded his head. “Marsfel seemed quite insistent.”

“Emperor Krous will be certain to explain the urgency of the situation when the time is right.”

Swech stepped closer to Merros, her hand resting on the hilt of a rather heavy looking bladed weapon. He couldn’t really call it a sword. More like an axe with a very long blade. “King Marsfel has been assisted. We are done. We are leaving.” That pretty much put an end to the argument as far as she was concerned. The way she spoke left no room for debate.

“No, lady. He was really very insistent.” The mercenary smiled. Behind him the rest of his men lifted the crossbows that rested across their laps and took aim at the individuals around them.

“Why don’t we settle this as gentlemen?” Merros looked at the man intently. He was still trying his best to end this as bloodlessly as possible. “Just you and me.”

“I am flattered, of course, that you would consider me a gentleman. But alas, no. I have been told to bring you back. If I fail to bring you back, I am not paid.”

He was still considering the remaining coin he’d been offered to cover expenses when Blane answered for him. His arm slid almost casually toward the closest bowman and a moment later the man screamed as his crossbow fell from a useless arm. A blade vibrated in the man’s wrist and a streamer of blood fell freely from the wound.

And the rest of the Sa’ba Taalor responded as well.

There are times when the world moves too quickly. Merros dropped down and to the side, praying to the gods he claimed to seldom follow that no bolts would enter his body. His prayers were rewarded but barely. A bolt cut across his ear, taking a small divot of flesh when it passed.

He hissed and drew his sword and then he charged the leader of the mercenaries. The man had a distinct advantage. He was on horseback. His enemy drew a sword as well and while he was preparing to hack away at Merros with the long blade, Merros came in closer, close enough to feel the heat of the horse, and jammed his dagger into the rider’s inner thigh.

The rider let out a roar and swept the blade of his sword at Merros, who barely managed to block.

And then he stepped back as the blood from the man’s severed artery fountained freely. The rider looked down and realized he was dead around the same time that Merros got clear of his weapon.

There are a few places where, when a man is cut, he simply cannot be saved. The open wound in the man’s femoral artery guaranteed a quick death. Still, he dropped his sword and tried to staunch the flow and Merros left him to it. There were others to deal with.

There was both good and bad news by the time he’d finished his simple exchange. The good news was that the riders around them had finished with their crossbows. The bad was that several of them were good shots. Blane moved past him, a bolt stuck in his chest. He roared as he pulled a rider from his horse. The man looked understandably terrified by the unexpected move. Blane was not nearly the biggest of the Sa’ba Taalor that Merros had seen, but he had strength enough to haul the rider from his seated position and drag him to the ground. That was all the time that Merros had to look around before another rider was coming for him, charging forward, his horse knocking aside one of the people from the valley. Whoever it was cursed as he fell under the animal and an instant later the horse let out a scream and staggered to the side. The rider tried to compensate for the sudden change in direction and was thrown for his trouble. He fell and rolled to his feet quickly, holding a short sword in a tight grip, his eyes wide and his mouth drawn down in a rictus scowl.

Merros covered the distance between them and brought his own sword up from below. The man blocked and did his best to strike in return, and then they were both swinging, blocking and doing their best to kill their new enemy.

And damned if it didn’t feel good. Merros wanted to deny it, but it felt good to be fighting instead of merely existing.

And the Sa’ba Taalor seemed to feel the same way. Jost moved in a near blur, her body half-dancing as she swept her chain around a man’s arm and pulled hard. He screamed, fought to free himself and was unhorsed in the process. He did not recover quickly enough and the other end of the chain struck him a hard blow to the face, which tore his mouth into a bloody shred and shattered teeth besides.

Blane rose from the body of his enemy, his hands both covered in gore, with no apparent weapon in sight.

Swech brought her odd looking weapon down in a blow that shattered her enemy’s sword and drove the deadly tip into his collarbone. Before he could finish falling she hauled the weapon forward and split his skull sideways.

Merros felt his enemy’s sword tip cut into his forearm and hissed. He pushed the man back as their swords scraped each other and then stepped in closer, until the swords were useless. The dagger swept in again leaving a trail of red across the man’s chin. Before he could move in again his enemy stepped back and took a defensive stance. Once was all he was going to get with that particular trick.

The roar of voices, the clash of steel and the screams of a dying horse came together in a cacophony of bloodshed. Merros drove forward, slashing again and again at his opponent, not letting the man take the offense. He felt himself grinning despite the situation and watched as his enemy’s eyes grew wider. Merros was a captain in the royal army. He’d earned that rank by training constantly and by fighting well enough and long enough to live to achieve it. The mercenary was a good swordsman, but Merros was better. The fight ended when the point of his sword punched through the man’s throat.

And by the time that fight was done, the battle was finished as well.

Merros stood still, his sword held at the ready and looked around, breathing through his nose in harsh gusts. Swech leaned against her weapon, panting. The point of the odd blade was still buried in a man’s stomach and his body twitched as he died. She looked toward Merros, her expression hidden by that damnable veil. Jost looked at the horses around them as she cleaned her chain with an oiled cloth. She eyed the animals with curiosity and it occurred to him that she might well have never seen one up close before. Even the ones from the expedition had been kept mostly away from the beasts that the Sa’ba Taalor rode.

Blane called out and one of the others came to him, immediately inspecting the bolt stuck in his chest. It looked to be buried deep, but judging by his stance Blane had not been hit crucially.

Another of the people was not looking quite as well off. Unlike Blane he was another wall of flesh and this time someone had done their very best to knock that wall over. Merros realized he was the one that had been trampled by the horse and had apparently managed to gut the horse in the process. He bore several bleeding wounds that looked like indents from the beast’s hooves. He stood but shook, and blood came from his left arm in a heavy flow. Merros moved toward him but another of the group beat him there. And then another still. Within moments they had the man on his back and were removing a crossbow bolt from his side.

Merros looked around and realized that all of them were bloodied. It was nearly impossible to imagine how they could have come out of the combat unscathed. For every one of them there had been two of the enemy, and the assault had started with crossbows from the opposing side.

On the ground, one of the mercenaries started to rise, doing his best not to be noticed. He was not fast enough or careful enough. Swech lifted her weapon and brought it around in a hard arc that cleaved his torso nearly in half. She did so without hesitation, and looked down at her enemy with eyes burning as she used his tunic to wipe the blade clean.

“Well. That didn’t go as I’d hoped.” Merros spoke mostly to himself.

Blane heard him and laughed. “Liar.”

“What do you mean?” Merros scowled as he stared at the other man. Wounded or not, comrade or not, he didn’t much take kindly to being called a liar.

Blane stepped closer and Merros could see the laugh lines around the man’s eyes. “Your heart is beating hard, your face is smiling and you’ve grown hard in your pants.” The man looked closely at him. Studied him. Dared him to disagree. “You are a warrior. You act the part of being soft, but everyone here can see how much you enjoyed that fight.” Completely ignoring the wound on his side, he slapped Merros in the arm with affection. “It’s why we respect you. You know how to fight.”

Ehnole called out to Blane. “Yes, he can fight. Now get over here and let me patch you up, you damned fool. You’ll bleed all over yourself again.”

Blane laughed and headed back to her. On the ground the one who’d been injured the most grunted as the others held him down.

“We need to fix him.” Swech looked over at the fallen warrior. “Does he need metal?”

“Of course I need metal! I’m bleeding like a drunk man pisses!” The words were hissed out as one of the two pulled the crossbow bolt from his side. The bolt did not come out cleanly, but took a piece of meat with it. “Damn but that hurts!”

Swech shook her head. “You cry like a newborn, Lorroth.” Her voice held surprising humor as she walked over to Saa’thaa and rummaged in the various saddlebags.

“Just hurry! I have no desire to die in these lands.” His protests were weaker.

Swech merely nodded and then pulled a metallic bar from her bags. The rod of metal was oddly shaped, with markings along the sides that Merros couldn’t see clearly from his distance. It looked to be pure gold. He moved a bit closer and saw several of the others were now watching Lorroth intently.

Swech crouched next to the man and gestured to the others around her. “Hold him.”

Rather than argue the point, Lorroth went limp and allowed his fellows to grab his arms and his legs. Merros could see the depth of the gash in the man’s arm. He could see sinew and severed muscle and bone clearly through the open wound. He was surprised that the man was conscious at all. Blood loss alone should have sent him into a deep sleep.

“Wrommish, bless this man for his service.” Swech held the bar up before her face as she spoke, and then moved quickly, one hand grabbing the wound on Lorroth’s arm and pinching at the flesh. She was not gentle and as she grabbed, the man tried to fight against the pain. The ones holding him in place did their part, pinning him properly as Swech pushed the metal against his arm.

Merros had no idea what they were planning on doing, aside from apparently angering a wounded man. Lorroth bucked harder and screamed, roared as the metal touched him, and then the dual scents of burning metal and burning flesh reached Merros’ nose.

Where the gold touched the man it glowed and liquefied, spilling into the wound. The metal hissed as it mingled with flesh and blood, cooking, cauterizing as it bubbled and pooled into the cut. Lorroth did his very best to break the grips of the ones holding him, and they fought harder still to keep him still as he rocked his body and his limbs, screaming.

“Hold still! I’d like to keep my fingers!” Swech hissed the words as the white-hot metal dribbled from the melting rod, narrowly avoiding taking her fingers along with it.

Merros stared, horrified. It was impossible, of course. It couldn’t be happening. He was watching it and couldn’t begin to look away, but it couldn’t be happening. Still it continued until the last of the gold had fallen from Swech’s fingers and puddled into the grievous wound, sealing it shut. The skin around the metal was nearly blackened from the heat, and yet as he watched, the discoloration faded down, and the gold cooled and seemed to mix with the flesh.

He thought of Drask’s hand and wondered if the same sort of sorcery was responsible.

He’d heard tales of people using gold as a slow poison, heard that it could kill and cause endless misery in the process. But here the people of the valley were using it to seal a wound that surely would have killed Lorroth.

And it seemed that Lorroth was feeling better almost as soon as Swech finished. He lay back for almost a minute, during which time Merros continued to stare at his wound site and the scar that rapidly formed where before there had been a deadly cut. By all rights the man should have been as dead as the mercenary whose leg he hacked open. Instead after that short span of time the man was sitting up, rolling his shoulder and testing the area that had been roasting a few moments earlier.

Merros looked around at the dead around them. He was still contemplating what he had just seen when Swech tapped his arm. He looked at her for a long moment, still half lost in thoughts. All around him the Sa’ba Taalor acted as if nothing miraculous had occurred.

“Patch me up?” She pointed to a cut along her hip. “I can’t quite reach.”

“Yes, of course.” He forced a smile for her. While he worked, she stood perfectly still and then made quick orders for several of the others when they were stitched and mended as best they could be.

“Well, I’ll be letting the proper authorities know about this.”

“Good.” She nodded her head. “We’ll leave soon. After.”

“After what?”

“Saa’thaa!” The great beast turned its head to regard her, the eyes glowing within the metallic mask it wore. “Feast!” Without another word the animals rose and did just that. Horses and dead mercenaries alike were torn apart by the great animals.

Merros did not protest. He just did his best not to think about what was happening instead.

There were differences between the races, he knew that. Still, it was unsettling to see how little regard the Sa’ba Taalor held for their fallen enemies.

Thirteen

Pathra Krous stared toward the distant Seven Forges. Really, it seemed to be about his favorite thing to do.

Desh Krohan watched him in silence for a while and finally shrugged. “Listen you can stare out that damned window for a dozen years and it won’t change a bloody thing. Why don’t we discuss what you want to do here?”

“I want this to go away. That’s what I want.” His voice was waspish.

Desh stood and stretched then looked around the Emperor’s private offices. “Much as we might want that to happen, it won’t.”

“Then what do you suggest, Advisor?” His Majesty’s voice positively dripped with sarcasm on the title.

“I suggested a good time ago that you change the damned laws. You should have.” Desh’s voice dripped nothing but frost and Pathra stared at him for a moment, shocked by the tone. He was not used to anyone taking that tone with him and for just one brief moment he forgot himself. He opened his mouth to say something he would likely have immediately taken back, but instead he looked at the expression on the sorcerer’s face and remembered that the man before him had been advisor to generations of emperors, and had powers great enough to do him grievous harm without ever lifting a finger.

“You’re right of course, Desh. But it’s too late for that now.” He looked at Desh with wide, fearful eyes. “It is, isn’t it?”

“You could change the law this instant if you so desired; you’re the Emperor. But you would regret it. You would lose face before your kings, your people, and your new acquaintances.”

“Brolley is a damned fool!”

“Yes, we both acknowledge that. That’s one of the reasons he was never much of a consideration as your replacement. His sister is far wiser than he is and also a good deal more level headed.”

“Nachia is not happy about this.”

“I can’t say as I blame her for that, Pathra. You agreed to a duel between her brother and a man who looks like he could wrestle a mountain. A man, I might add, who has made sport of hunting down and killing Pra-Moresh.”

“What have I done?”

“Doomed your younger cousin, unless you can find a way to placate Drask Silver Hand that doesn’t involve him bathing in the boy’s entrails.”

Pathra blanched. “That seems rather vivid, don’t you think?”

“I like to make clear exactly how grave the circumstances are here. You risk offending seven kingdoms with one gesture, Pathra. Seven. An Empire’s worth of enemies if you handle this the wrong way.”

“Perhaps you could reason with Drask?”

“It’s not my place to reason with anyone, Your Majesty. That falls to you and your finest diplomats.”

“You trained my finest diplomats, old man.”

“Then you are well and truly roasting over a fire pit. I am hardly a diplomat.” He sighed. “I’ll have Tataya look into what might or might not placate Drask, but I have doubts it will go the way you want it to.”

Before Pathra could answer, the doors to his office opened and in came Nachia, her face set in a rather fearsome expression of anger.

The Emperor looked to Desh. “Any help at all would be appreciated.”

“Of course.”

“That gigantic bear will eat my brother alive!”

“Very likely he will, Nachia, but what am I to do about it?” Pathra looked to his cousin and immediately there was a scowl on his face. There had always been an interesting relationship between them, one that Desh knew more about than either of them understood.

“Nachia, we’re trying to work out a way to avoid your brother’s unfortunate circumstances.” Desh tried to placate the young woman, but she fired a look his way that was pure venom. He crossed his arms and shut his mouth. She would have her say.

Pathra held his hands up. “I did not ask your brother to offend the visiting dignitaries. Nor did you. I believe, in fact, that you were telling him to shut his foolish mouth when we came into the room.”

“How could you let that beast challenge Brolley?”

“How could you let Brolley offend the guests of the Empire?” Pathra stood his ground and stared hard into his cousin’s eyes.

“Damn your logic!”

“I didn’t invite this. Brolley has done this to himself. I’m investigating how to avoid his error becoming fatal without starting an incident between nations, Nachia, but at the end of the day if I have to choose between your brother and my Empire there is very little choice.”

Nachia looked away first.

“I don’t want my stupid brother gutted by that man.” Nachia looked at the desk.

“Neither do I.” Pathra put his hands on her shoulders. “Neither does anyone.”

Desh slipped from the room as quietly as he could, which was very quietly indeed.

Drask Silver Hand stared into the fire as his hands moved, carefully sharpening the edge on his axe. The weapon had seen a great deal of combat over the years, and if he could be said to have a favorite, the great double bladed axe was it.

Tataya knocked and slipped into his room. He caught the scent of her musky perfume and allowed himself a small smile.

“You are here to plead for the boy’s life?”

“No. Not exactly.” She slipped closer to him, but did not touch. The whetstone sang softly as it scraped along the edge of the axe’s blade.

“Then what is it I can do for you, Tataya?”

“Desh Krohan asks that I see what will satisfy your honor, short of killing a foolish boy.”

“Should the boy prostrate himself before me tomorrow, I will allow him his life.” He examined the blade and then turned the axe around. The whetstone met with a dab of oil and then again began its soft song along the edge of the weapon.

“That is all?” Her voice was mild, but he sensed the reproach. “All you ask is that a man of royal lineage fall to his knees before you and beg forgiveness?”

“He offended me. He offended my people. He offended the Seven Kings I serve.” He watched the stone caress the blade. “What else would you have me do?”

“How would you handle the situation in your homeland?”

“I would have killed him where he stood.” Drask looked up at her, stared into her eyes. They were an odd color, like her skin, like her hair. She had the colors of autumn locked within her flesh and that puzzled him a bit, as all of his people held the color of stone and steel and ashes.

“Are your people that unforgiving?”

“My people are direct. The boy spoke of me and mine as if we were not supposed to hear him but he did it with deliberate volume. He did it to offend as much as he could, to gain face while causing me to lose face. He called me to combat with his words.” He chuckled. “It was for the sake of diplomacy that I did not gut the child where he stood.”

“And yet you have said it yourself. He is a child.”

“Then why did he dine with warriors?”

“The only warriors at that table were your kin.”

“Has this Brolley ever been in real combat? Has he even been forged once?”

“What do you mean? What do you mean has he been forged?”

“Every life is forged. We start as raw materials and we are made stronger by the forgings of life. Like the tempering of steel. Andover Lashk is not the boy he was before his hands were shattered. That was his first forging.”

“Brolley Krous is not Andover Lashk. He has lived a sheltered life.”

“Then his family has done him a great disservice.”

“Will you consider his inexperience when you deal with him?”

“He has but to apologize. He need only bow before me and withdraw his words and I will let him live.”

“And if he does not?”

Drask sighed and set his axe aside. The blade was so sharp that he could shave with it should he so desire.

“If he does not apologize, I still demand satisfaction. Perhaps I will kill him. Perhaps I will break his bones. Perhaps I will cut out his tongue to remind him that only a fool wags an appendage if he wishes to keep it.”

“You understand that he is cousin to the Emperor?”

Drask stared at her for several long moments. “I did not know this.”

“Does it change anything?”

“I will speak with Tuskandru. I will seek his wisdom on this matter.”

“It’s late. Will you need time to discuss this?”

Drask shook his head and smiled behind the veil. “You and yours are a subtle people. Had you wished more time for the boy and his family to prepare, you simply could have asked.”

Tataya smiled and her hand touched his shoulder, her fingers unconsciously tracing the scars that crisscrossed the flesh there. “Would you have granted it?”

“Possibly. We will never know.” He stared into her eyes for a moment. “Two days. I will take two days to consult. At the end of that time, if the boy prostrates himself and apologizes I will spare him. Should my king make other demands I will change my mind.”

“You are kind, Drask.”

“No, Tataya. I am sensible to the political winds. Nothing more.”

She slid in closer to him and her lips pressed against the scars on his shoulder. Her lips were warm and soft and soothing.

He allowed himself to be soothed.

Pella came to him in his room. She knocked and waited for him to answer, then stepped into room. Wollis March looked at her for a long moment, puzzled that she would be there.

The room was large and airy, and yet as soon as she entered he felt the area suddenly cramped and the atmosphere stifling. She was distracting him from his plans to do as little as possible.

“What can I do for you, Pella?”

“You tried to prevent the disastrous events from happening.” Her dark eyes regarded him carefully, staring into his.

“Well, yes. I would rather not see a war.” He stood up, unsettled by her scrutiny. He didn’t like that the woman could stare at him and make him the least bit uncomfortable. It made him feel like he was being unfaithful to Dretta, though he’d done absolutely nothing wrong.

“It might happen anyway.”

Wollis shrugged. “I can hardly stop a foolish boy from getting himself killed.” Why in the name of the gods was he blushing now? He could feel the color creeping up his face.

“Do you think you could teach him to defend himself?”

“In two days’ time?” It hadn’t taken long to hear about the delay. “Against Drask Silver Hand? Not the least bit of a chance.”

“Enough to let him save face in front of his uncle, the Emperor?”

“I’m not a teacher, Pella. I’m a mercenary.”

“Desh Krohan wants someone to teach the boy.”

“He carried a sword. Surely he’s had better teachers than me already.”

“He has never been in a fight.”

“There are soldiers aplenty here, Pella.”

“They cannot be seen teaching him. It would be embarrassing for Brolley.”

“I think I embarrassed the lad enough when I called on him to still his tongue.” He shook his head. The last thing he needed was to involve himself in the work of nobles and dignitaries. He was a soldier, a mercenary and a bit too old to get embroiled in the politics of the Empire.

“We need your help, Wollis. You know how to fight. You’ve seen Drask in combat.”

“I have, which is why this would be foolish. Drask will kill the boy. That’s all there is to it.”

The woman stepped closer to him her dark eyes searching through him as if observing his very soul. For all he knew she was.

“Do this small thing, Wollis March. Do this, and help the boy save face.”

“It’s not saving face if Drask carves his face away. And the man can do it, Pella. You saw him, too. You were there when he took on the Pra-Moresh.”

Damn, but he couldn’t look away from her eyes. She stepped closer still and he felt himself flush again. She made him feel young and foolish.

“Fine. I’ll do my best for the boy.”

“That is all that anyone could ask, Wollis.” She stepped back and her lips and her eyes united in a smile. “You have my gratitude.”

A moment later she was gone without another word.

Wollis sat at the edge of his bed and closed his eyes and reminded himself that he was a married man, faithful to his wife, and not the least bit interested in other women. That was Merros’ specialty.

With Pella gone from the room he could almost believe his own words.

Of course, now he had to train a boy to fight like a man. Or at least die with dignity.

Nachia and Pathra looked at Brolley with barely veiled anger. Desh stared indifferently. The boy had never been much of anything in his eyes. He lacked common sense, maturity, skill of any sort… oh, and longevity. He most decidedly lacked longevity. Unless something could be done to avert disaster.

“It was the wine.” Brolley’s voice was very small. He was a strapping lad, really, solidly built if a little on the heavy side. And he knew his way around a practice arena well enough. Now, however, he was supposed to fight a trained soldier, who in turn was supposed to prepare him for a death match.

“Perhaps if you consume enough spirits in advance you’ll find it easier to grovel for your life?” Nachia’s voice was winter-cold.

“Nachia, don’t be that way.”

Pathra Krous looked down his nose at his cousin and shook his head. “You have no idea of the situation you’ve put us in, you damned fool.” Brolley flinched. Pathra seldom spoke in a harsh tone to his relatives. He was a man who genuinely loved his family despite the politics of running an Empire. And in his entire life, Brolley had never heard the man sound angry. Brolley was young; he was only newly considered an adult.

“Please, Pathra.” Brolley blinked his eyes.

“You’ve offended visiting dignitaries!” Pathra rose from his seat, his face reddening with anger. “Your little flapping mouth has caused me no end of humiliation! And in order to placate the visitors, who, believe me, I want to have placated, I have no choice but to either order you to fight to the death, order you to grovel for mercy, or go back on my word as the Emperor and lose face before an entire nation!”

Even Nachia, who usually was the first to defend her little brother, looked at Pathra with wide eyes and silence.

“What would you have me do, Brolley? You called them a race of pigs in front of their king! What choice does he have? What choice do I have?”

“I will fight if you want me to.” Brolley blinked his eyes fighting against tears that threatened to fall. Desh felt a small amount of pity for the boy, but it was very small. “I’ll fight. Or I’ll beg for mercy. Whatever you decide, my Lord.”

He was getting it. He was beginning to truly understand the gravity of the situation.

Desh cleared his throat. All three looked his way. “I have done what I can. I’ve asked that Drask consider the politics involved here and speak directly to King Tuskandru before deciding anything.” He held up a hand before anyone could speak – all three wanted to – and continued. “As near as I can tell, we’re dealing with a people who solve most of their problems with the sword. They came here making good faith gestures, and they’ve been deeply offended.” He looked at Brolley and the boy stood his ground but his lower lip trembled again. “Deeply. This might not end without bloodshed. To that end I have asked one of the mercenaries who went on the expedition to train you, Brolley. You have a two-day reprieve. During that time you’re going to have to either learn to fight or prepare to die.” He sighed and shook his head. “Or crawl on your hands and knees in the arena and beg for forgiveness for the insult you cast. It’s exactly that simple. All we managed was to buy you time to decide.”

Brolley shook his head. “No. My Emperor decides.”

Nachia’s eyes were dry, but her face spoke of wanting to shed tears.

Pathra stared at his younger cousin for a long moment. “Prepare for your fight. While you do that, I’ll decide what I expect of you.”

Without another word the Emperor left the room. Nachia stared after him and then looked at her younger brother. A moment later she left the room, too.

There was only the boy, and Desh Krohan, the advisor to the Empire. The sorcerer who could, according to many, perform miracles.

“Can’t you do something, Desh?” The boy spoke softly.

“Possibly. If the Emperor demands it.” He left a chill in his voice, expressing his disapproval for the situation.

“I’ve heard that you… that you can make me a better fighter?” The boy’s eyes expressed his desperation.

“It’s possible, but that sort of magic requires sacrifices.”

“What sort of sacrifices?” Was that a glimmer of hope in the boy’s eyes? Of course it was.

“Nothing comes for free, Brolley.” He could see the boy practically reaching for his coin pouch. “No. Not that sort of cost. I mean the skills have to come from somewhere. I can’t manufacture knowledge and years of practice. If I were to offer you that sort of skill, it has to come from another.”

“So I could borrow someone else’s talents?”

“No.” Desh shook his head. “No. It doesn’t work that way. I can’t simply ask someone to loan me their knowledge and then give it back. It has to come from somewhere and it can’t be given back when you’re done with it.”

“Can you do it? Can you make me a warrior?”

Desh stood up. “You’re not understanding me. Someone would have to die for you to have their skill, their knowledge.”

“But you could do it?” Ah, desperation. The boy was desperate. The boy wanted an easy way out of his predicament. Desh Krohan was disgusted.

“Could I? Yes.” He looked down at the boy. “Will I? No.” And then he left the room.

And wondered exactly how long he would have to wait before he was summoned by another member of the royal family, and which member it would be.

He did not have to wait for long.

He was not surprised by who, exactly, summoned him.

Merros Dulver looked at the palace and felt an odd thrill. He had never been past the gates, but as soon as he and the Sa’ba Taalor reached the edge of Tyrne they found an entourage of men in armor waiting to escort them the rest of the way. He felt every grain of sand and dust that stuck to him as he rode, and around him the people of the valley sat up straighter in their saddles, the great beasts below them eyeing the crowds lining the street with wariness.

And through the elation, exhaustion crept along the edges of his being. They’d ridden hard to get back, stopping only once for a few hours’ rest. Now that the ride was over, even the thrill of entering the great palace was only small, hardly enough to keep him from wanting to sleep.

Desh Krohan was waiting for him as he slipped down the back of Saa’thaa. The wizard was impossible to miss. His robes shimmered and moved, and his face was lost in shadows darker than sin. All around him the Sa’ba Taalor looked at the sorcerer and eyed him with the same sort of wariness their mounts had displayed on the street. He was an unknown quality.

Tusk and Drask waited nearby and welcomed their brethren. And before Merros could say or do much of anything, the Emperor himself stood in the courtyard, his lean face smiling warmly. The smile did not reach his eyes, which looked worried. Very worried.

Merros had planned on sleep.

His plans fell apart very quickly.

Fourteen

Formalities were gotten out of the way quickly and after that Merros was called into consult with the leaders of his nation, people he had never thought to meet in his lifetime.

It was not a comfortable meeting.

“First, Captain Dulver, we need you to speak frankly. We need you to tell us all that you can about the Sa’ba Taalor.” Merros stared at the Emperor and tried to figure out where to start. It must have shown on his face.

Desh Krohan sighed. “Let’s go about this a bit differently. There’s going to be a duel. It’s not going to go well, unless we know how to handle it.”

“A duel?” He looked at the man for a long moment. “Between who and who?”

“A member of the royal family offended Drask Silver Hand.”

“I can’t see that ending well at all.”

“Yes, well, that would seem to be the general consensus.” Pathra Krous mumbled the words.

“I… I’m sorry, your Highness, I truly am, but if a member of your family has challenged Drask Silver Hand–”

“Actually, Silver Hand challenged him.”

“Why?”

“Well, my cousin was a bit–”

Desh Krohan spoke up. “Let us get to the point. Listen, Merros. May I call you Merros?”

“Of course.”

“Merros. Let’s put aside rank and everything else. We’re going to speak frankly, as men. We need to make the best of a bad situation. No matter what happens, I don’t see this going well, but we need to make the best of it. For that reason we’re bringing you in and talking straight about this, no politics. No rank. You’re a well-seasoned soldier and we need that. More importantly, you’ve spent more time with the Sa’ba Taalor than anyone else and they seem to think you’re very important.” He saw the look on Merros’ face and quickly corrected himself. “I’m not saying you’re not important, understand, but their gods apparently asked to see you. That puts you fairly high on their list right now, yes?”

“Yes, of course. That is, as you say.”

“Excellent. So let’s get this taken care of. Pathra’s cousin is a spoiled brat. It’s just that simple. He acted like a clown and he offended Drask and all of his people. And he did it in front of Tuskandru, who’s one of their kings.”

“Which king?”

“Excuse me?”

Merros looked at him and shrugged. “Which king? I’m not exactly sure how all of this breaks down, but there seem to be different rules for each of their gods and each of their kings. Near as I can figure from my discussions with the Sa’ba Taalor, each king follows the dictates of a god. So, that might help us to understand exactly how to react.”

Desh Krohan looked at the Emperor and smiled. “You see, Pathra? Just like that, we’ve already learned something important. Something that might make this work out better.” He looked back at Merros. “We have absolutely no idea which king. No, wait, that’s not true. His full title is ‘Tuskandru, Chosen of the Forge of Durhallem and Obsidian King.’”

“Well. I would have to ask one of the others.”

“Are there any members of the group you think will give you an honest answer?”

“All of them. But I think the best one for this might be Swech. She’s the one who led the expedition on your behalf. Well, for Drask. Also, I think we need to discuss that particular situation as soon as you feel comfortable with it.”

“Soon.”

“Good, because, honestly, I don’t think this situation is quite resolved as yet.”

“First, why don’t we meet up with this friend of yours, Swech, and discuss matters?”

“She’s going to expect acknowledgement of what she and the rest of her people did on your behalf.”

Pathra Krous spoke up. “Did they settle the affair with the Guntha for King Marsfel?”

“They eliminated the Guntha.”

“They convinced them to leave?” Krous looked at him, frowning. He was starting to get it.

“No, Highness. They killed them all.”

“The Guntha? But I thought there was a small army.”

“Near as I can figure there were over one thousand Guntha in the camp.”

The Emperor stared at him, his mouth open, and his eyes unblinking.

Desh Krohan cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, did you say over a thousand?”

“According to King Marsfel there might have been as many as two thousand, but I feel that must have been an exaggeration. That said, yes, I believe it was over a thousand.”

Krohan’s voice rose. “Over a thousand soldiers?”

“Well, to be fair, I can’t say with any certainty that they were soldiers. Only that there were guards, and that, according to Swech, they left no survivors.”

“None?”

“None.” Looking at their faces Merros had to bite his tongue. There was nothing at all funny about the situation, but seeing their reaction he felt laughter bubbling inside of him, a sort of frothing hilarity that he suspected came close to madness. He’d seen his share of madmen in his time and he couldn’t help but wonder if any of the lunatics he’d met on the battlefield got that way as a result of seeing something deeply impossible take place before their eyes. His teeth chomped down harder and he felt a sharp pain and a taste of blood. Yes, that did it. That was just enough to stop him from starting to cackle.

“How many came back with you?”

“Ten. Ten came back with me.”

“And how many left with you originally?” The Emperor was squinting. The math was hurting him. Oh, damn, but the look on the man’s face was making it hard not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

“That would be ten, Your Highness.”

“Were they particularly large soldiers?” Desh Krohan’s hooded face turned in his direction. “The Sa’ba Taalor, I mean?”

“Well, no. I believe four of them were women. And one of those was a girl. I think she just had her seventeenth birthday not long ago.” Both stared at him in complete silence for so long that he felt compelled to add, “If it helps, I think they snuck into the camp when most of the Guntha were sleeping.”

Desh Krohan lowered his head to the table. The hood covering his face nearly pushed against the polished surface and his entire body shook. It was only when the wizard’s hand slapped the surface that he realized the man was laughing.

And really, that was all it took. Merros started laughing himself, laughing at the sheer absurdity of ten people executing a thousand, at the thought that the ten walked away from the killing with little more than scratches on their bodies, and at the thought that those ten were likely not even the finest soldiers that were along on the expedition to Fellein.

The wizard looked up, his face turning toward Pathra Krous, who was now staring at his advisor as if to check whether or not the man had lost his mind completely.

“So, was Marsfel happy with the results?” The Emperor’s question seemed innocent enough, but thinking of the mercenaries and their fate only added to fuel to the fire.

Merros laughed so hard he fell out of his seat. The thought that his actions might well cost him his head if he wasn’t careful couldn’t stop the hysterical fit.

Fifteen minutes later, after all three of them had gone through their moments of laughter, the Emperor included, he brought Swech back to the room to discuss the matters that were going to most decidedly have to be handled soon.

Swech entered the room and bowed as Tusk had bowed the first time, her arms swept out, and every new wound and fresh scar showing.

Pathra Krous rose from his seat and returned the bow. “Captain Merros Dulver tells me that you and your associates have done me a great service. You have ended a potential problem with the Guntha. I am in your debt.”

She bowed a second time, carefully considering her words. “There is no debt owed. What we did was merely a demonstration, as asked by Drask Silver Hand.”

“Just the same you have done me a great service. If I can return the favor, you have but to ask and if it is within my power to grant your request I shall do so.” She nodded her head in acknowledgment and sat where indicated. “Now I must ask a few questions if I may, Swech. We need to understand your people better, in order to avoid causing offense in a delicate matter.”

Swech listened as the details were laid out and nodded her head a few times.

Finally, she asked a few questions and weighed the answers carefully.

“Who is the boy to you?” she asked the Emperor.

“He’s my cousin. He is blood.”

“Is his father alive?”

“Alas, no. Both his father and his mother died a few years ago, taken by fever and plague.”

“He is an adult then? Or is he raised by another?”

“He is an adult now. He celebrated his birthday recently.”

“He is aware that he caused insult with his words?” She spoke stiffly and it was clear to all three men that she considered the words insulting herself.

“Oh, yes. He has been made very aware of that, you may rest assured.” Desh Krohan spoke. He sighed and waved a hand lightly. “Even now he is practicing his combat skills in an effort to make him understand exactly how grave his insult was.”

“Does your culture permit a substitute? A…” She looked around for a moment and struggled to find the right word. Merros was taken again by how quickly she had learned the language. “A champion?”

Pathra Krous looked toward Desh Krohan. The wizard looked back. “I don’t recall any rules dispelling the notion…”

Swech tapped the table. “Let me explain my people. Let me explain how they believe all matters should be handled. If I were to offend you, Desh Krohan, your recourse is simple. You attempt to punish me. If you succeed, you have made clear your stance on my actions.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. That’s it. You attempt to administer your punishment. I attempt to defend myself against your punishment.”

“What if I steal from you?”

Swech stared him in the eyes. “Then I kill you.”

“You have no courts? No judges who decide these things?”

“We do not need these things. If you wrong me, I take back what is mine. If you offend me, I take back my honor myself.”

“Well,” Merros cleared his throat. “The arena where this is to happen is a similar idea. The difference is it is in front of witnesses.”

Swech held one hand up and tilted it side to side, imitating the movements of a snake. He knew the gesture likely had meaning to her people, but it meant nothing to him or the other men at the table as far as he could tell. “You say this as if it is unusual. If people are there to see a fight, they are there. If they are not there, then they are not there. This does not change the outcome of the fight.”

“Yes, but Brolley apparently offended all of your people.” Pathra was doing his best to explain the problem.

Swech stared at him. “This I know. I am offended by his words and I was not even there. But Drask Silver Hand has chosen to defend the honor of all of our people with his actions and we will respect that. If we did not, most of my people in Tyrne would have welcomed the chance to punish your cousin.”

“So, regardless of how this ends, once Drask and Brolley have had their fight, the situation is resolved?”

“Yes.” She spread her hands apart and then settled them on the table. “There is no longer a situation to resolve. Drask has taken the affair into his hands.”

“If Brolley apologizes, what happens?”

“That depends on the dictates of the Daxar Taalor.”

“Could you explain that, please?”

“There are seven Daxar Taalor. Seven gods of the forges. One for each mountain, yes?”

All three nodded their understanding.

“Each of us follows all of the gods through the course of our lives. Sometimes we follow different gods for different circumstances. That is our way.” She was struggling again, but the men waited patiently. “I follow Wheklam. I follow Paedle. They are the gods I choose to follow. They are the gods who want me to follow them. That is the way of my life. Drask follows Ydramil, his king is Ganem. Ydramil gifted him with the silver hand that is a part of him. For that reason, he will always follow the dictates of Ydramil. But he also obeys the other Daxar Taalor. He merely chooses to favor Ydramil. Ydramil understands the concept of mercy. That is a good thing for your Brolley.”

“What do you mean?” Merros frowned.

“Well, Tuskandru is the King of the Forge of Durhallem. Durhallem is also called ‘The Wounder.’ He is unforgiving. He does not accept mercy as an option. To offend Durhallem or his followers is to invite your death. Had your Brolley faced Tusk and made the comments that he made, Tusk would have killed him on the spot.”

The three men looked at each other and ruminated on that.

Swech’s voice grew lighter. “So you see, Drask did your cousin a favor. He was being aware of what you called a delicate situation. He has a chance to survive, depending on what he does.”

“If he apologizes?”

“Drask will probably forgive him. And punish him.”

“And if he fights?”

“Drask will probably kill him, but the offense ends with him.”

“And if he fails to show?”

Swech stared at the Emperor and contemplated the question very carefully. “Then the offense continues. Should Brolley not show, he is marked as a coward. The next member of his bloodline would be allowed to stand in for him, and that would pay the debt of honor, but Brolley would always be marked as a coward.”

Pathra Krous rose and walked over to Swech. He bowed before her one more time, a formal gesture, not a sign of obeisance and no one would have mistaken it for anything else. “Thank you for your time, Swech. You have enlightened us.”

She rose and bowed again, obviously uncomfortable with the formality. A few minutes later Merros led her from the room and thanked her separately.

And then he moved back into the room.

Desk Krohan shook his head. “He apologizes, he loses face, and he lives. He fights, he loses his life. There’s really no other way around that.”

“He has a right to a champion. I could pay one of the finer swordsmen to be his champion.”

Merros cleared his throat. “If I may?”

Both men looked at him and he made himself speak. It went against a simple tenet that he had lived with his entire life: do your job and avoid getting noticed too often. Still, the situation was delicate.

“Make your cousin face this.”

“He’s just a boy!” Pathra’s voice was stressed, loud and worried.

“Yes. He is. He’s just a boy. Take a chance on that fact. Accept that there’s no special honor for Drask in schooling the boy. I don’t believe he intends to kill your cousin. I think he intends to give him a lesson in manners.”

“They’re monsters on the battlefield, Merros! You said so yourself!”

“Your Majesty, if Drask Silver Hand wanted to go to extremes, he’d have killed me and he’d have killed Wollis March before we ever reached the Seven Forges. Both of us interfered with him, and Wollis, may the gods always watch over him, actually challenged the man. Instead of killing Wollis, he gave him a warning.” He closed his eyes remembering the look on Wollis’ face as the bullwhip snapped the spear from his hands. “Believe me, he could well have killed us both with ease.”

“He’s my cousin, Merros.”

Merros thought hard for all of a second and finally nodded. “Then let him take this lesson. Let him learn that there is a price for lacking diplomacy. If he’s to be a man and possibly a leader of men, you must do this, Majesty. You must.”

Desh Krohan nodded under his hood. “Agreed.”

The Emperor looked from one man to the other.

Merros played a card he would rather have avoided. “I stake my life on this, Emperor Pathra Krous. I stake my life on Drask Silver Hand doing the honorable thing here. I think he will mete out a punishment, but I do not believe he will kill your cousin.”

Krous looked at him for a very long time. “So be it.”

Merros let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding.

Andover Lashk watched as Wollis March schooled Brolley Krous. The area where the boy was training was the exact same spot where, ten minutes earlier, Andover had been practicing with his hammer. His muscles were shaking from the exertion and his hands ached. But today he had fewer scrapes on his face and less areas of his body were sporting new bruises.

Tega stood near him, looking on as Brolley’s sword was knocked aside and sent skittering across the stone floor.

Wollis March shook his head. “Hold the damned thing like your life depends on it.”

“I am!” Gods, the boy was already whining.

Wollis pointed toward Andover. “He’s had less than a week of training with that new weapon of his. You’ve had years of training with a sword. Even a novice knows the sword does you no good if it’s halfway across the field from where your hand is!” The older man limped over and grabbed the sword by the hilt. He hurled it toward the young man, who flinched but scrambled to catch it just the same.

“Why are you yelling at me?”

“I haven’t begun to yell, boy!” The man came toward him and drew his sword. “You want to fight Drask Silver Hand? I saw that man kill a Pra-Moresh with one blow! And then he killed two more!” He swung his sword and the boy attempted to block and flinched as the sword he carried flew from his hands again. Rather than stopping, Wollis slapped the teenager in the arm with the flat of his sword and roared, “Pick it up, boy!”

On the verge of tears, Brolley ran to his sword, flinching as the instructor slapped him again and again.

When Andover looked away, trying to gather the nerve to speak to Tega, the girl was gone. In her place, another of the Sa’ba Taalor was standing. A younger woman, one he had not met yet. His disappointment must have shown on his face, because the girl chuckled. “I am not here to fight you. I am merely here to watch.”

“Oh, it’s all right. They have the field.” He waved and the girl looked at his hands. He was wearing his gloves, but they didn’t hide the spots where metal and flesh merged.

“You’re the one blessed by Truska-Pren.” She stepped closer and looked at his hands. He looked too, seeing them for the first time all day, really. He would have never expected that staring at his new limbs would lose its marvel but it had.

To the side, the boy had finally regained his sword and was swinging madly. Both the girl and Andover shook their heads. Wild swings were a waste of energy. Energy was a precious commodity in combat. Andover was just learning that, but it was a lesson he took to heart.

The girl’s hands on his wrist caught his attention. Her fingers were strong and callused. “Do they hurt?”

“No. They did. Before Truska-Pren gave me the new ones my hands were in constant pain.”

Her eyes regarded him levelly and she spoke softly. “May I see them?”

He shrugged and held his hands out. She peeled the gloves off and he watched her, stared at her eyes as she in turn stared at his artificial hands. They gleamed dully in the daylight, and he could see the rough skin where they fused to him. He could also see that the skin where the hands were bonded to him was changing color.

That was something new.

Andover leaned in closer himself, staring at the flesh that had taken on a grayish hue. And he looked at the exposed brow of the girl across from him and realized that her flesh was almost identical in color.

Her fingers traced along the band of coloration and she looked at him. Her eyes smiled behind the veil. “We are not so different a people, after all.”

Part of him was horrified, but it was a small part. Miniscule, really. He looked at the discoloration and saw that it was not even. It rippled.

A small price to pay, surely, for having working hands.

In the small arena the Emperor’s cousin was panting, red faced and on the verge of tears, but he had a death grip on his sword.

One step at a time.

The girl stepped back and nodded her head. “So. I am to instruct you on how to use your weapon.”

“Excuse me?”

“I am to teach you.” She shook her head. “Your hammer is not unlike my axe. I will instruct you.”

“I thought I was finished for the day.” He frowned.

“No. You are merely allowed to rest for a few moments. Drask Silver Hand says you are not ready to travel yet, and that you must be instructed.”

“But the arena.” He gestured toward where Wollis was commending his young charge, even as he struck the boy across the thigh.

“We can learn right here.” She laughed at him and shook her head. “Why does everyone here think you can only fight in special places?”

The girl walked away from him and moved to a collection of different weapons. She found a long handled axe that was, in fact, fairly close in size and shape to his hammer. The head of the hammer was substantially heavier – a fact he was learning to live with despite the protests of his muscles – but close enough that he could see where she would be able to show him a thing or two.

She spun the long staff around her hips and tested the weight for a moment.

“Grab your weapon, Andover Lashk of the Iron Hands.” She spoke in a harsher tone of voice.

He listened. Just in time to parry the blow she aimed for his skull. Unlike Wollis March, she didn’t use the flat of the blade when she aimed for him. The good news for Andover was that he was a fast learner. The bad news was that Jost was an aggressive instructor.

“Have you thought over my request, Desh?” Nachia’s voice was soft, barely a whisper. The wizard paused and tilted his head. Normally one or more of the Sisters would have been in his quarters, but they all had their own tasks to handle, tasks that he had asked them to take care of.

Now and then a man needs to be alone.

“I have. My answer is not changed, Nachia.”

“Please. He’s my little brother.”

“I know that.” He shook his head. Nachia stepped from the shadows of the heavy curtain closest to the door. She was dressed in the height of fashion and the silks fell in ways that accentuated her assets while showing nothing. She knew and understood the use of fashion to tantalize. Being a man, despite his many years on the planet, Desh took note.

“I don’t want to see him dead.” She stepped closer and looked into his eyes. Her gaze was direct. She was not attempting seduction. She’d tried that a few times in the past and found that the sorcerer had the good sense to say no to her advances. One did not stay advisor to the leaders of the Empire by having foolish reactions to the advances of youth.

“I have it on good authority that he’ll be fine. He might have his pride bruised, but he certainly won’t end up dead.”

“Then why is he being trained so diligently?”

“Because he needs to take the situation he’s in very seriously, my dear.” He smiled, and took a step closer, taking her hands in his. “Your brother has led a very pampered life. I’d wager most of his instructors in combat have willingly let him win, merely to keep him happy over the years.”

Nachia looked away, a flush of guilt coloring her cheeks.

“Yes, I rather thought so. It’s fine to protect your brother, but he’s of an age where he might be called to war. As a Krous he might well be called to lead an army someday. What happens if he can’t understand the simplest strategies?”

“You could use your sorceries.”

He turned on her, and shook his head. “I told you, I can grant your brother the skills of any man, but that man dies in the process. I’m not willing to do that.”

“But you could.” Her voice took on an edge. “If I become Empress and make that demand of you, you could do it.”

“Anything is possible, Nachia. But there is always a cost. In this case a man’s life. I do not take that consideration lightly.”

“Neither do I, but–”

“No. I think you do. You are saying that the life of your brother, the dignity of your brother is worth more than another person’s life. That’s not the sort of decision that should be made and if it is made it must never be made without consideration of the sacrifices.”

She stared at him and said nothing. She knew better. That was what this came down to. Still, there was a very real chance that she would rule the Empire someday.

“If I were to do this, who would you recommend I use? General Hradi is getting up in years, true, but he spent thirty years practicing with a sword almost every day of his life. Surely his skills would be formidable. Of course, that leaves us without a skilled commander to lead the armies should anything happen. Perhaps Captain Merros, who has so diligently served me of late. Surely his value as a mercenary is less than the value of your younger brother, who tried to start a war with his careless words.” Desh shrugged his shoulders and then sighed. “Listen. Nachia. I will be there and I will be watching. I can assure you that your brother will not die. What he should do, what you know he should do, is apologize. It’s not a sign of weakness to admit that you acted foolishly. I have certainly apologized many times in my life.”

She turned away from him, offering silence as her answer.

“If there’s nothing else then, Nachia, I grow tired. I’ve had a busy day of politics and ensuring that your brother lives through the next few days.”

He out-waited her. She left two minutes later without speaking another word.

Desh made a note to locate and seal any hidden passages leading to his chambers. It didn’t do to have the family feel they could come in unannounced whenever it struck their fancy.

Wollis stared at Merros over a mug of ale that was, to be sure, the finest he had ever tasted. He was feeling a pleasant warmth from the drink and his muscles ached from a hard day of instructing the pampered royal in the fine art of not dying too quickly.

“Did one of the Sa’ba Taalor strike you with a hammer while you were traveling?” He squinted a bit as he looked at Merros.

Merros looked back and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “No.”

“Have you been smoking in the Sin Dens?”

“What? No, of course not. I wouldn’t and never have. You know that.”

“Did a Plague Wind sneak from the Blasted Lands and give you a great fever when no one was looking? That no one noticed?”

“Now you’re just being an ass.”

“No, Merros. I’m trying to understand why you would wager your life on a man you don’t know not killing a boy who, frankly, could use a good killing.”

“You only say that because he busted your knuckles.” Merros nodded his head at the damp cloth wrapped around Wollis’ left hand.

“No, I blame myself for that one. I got cocky. Not so cocky that I have thrown away my life, granted, but still, careless enough.”

“It seemed the thing to do at the moment.”

“Have you written instructions for the placement of your possessions? I shouldn’t mind at all having your share from the expeditions.”

“You’re plenty rich enough.”

“One can never have too much gold.”

“I have no intention of getting myself killed, Wollis.”

“Have you even spoken to Drask about this?”

“Well, no. I didn’t feel that was appropriate.”

“You just wagered your life on his actions. It’s very damned appropriate.”

“And how does one bring up the subject without sounding like a whining babe left to fend for himself?” Merros reached for his own ale and took down a deep gulp.

“One doesn’t. Just let the man know where you stand with this.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.” Merros shook his head and looked around the tavern. There were several other tables that were occupied, but no one was paying them much mind.

“Did they really kill over a thousand…?” Wollis’ voice trailed off in wonder.

“Oh. Oh yes.” The other man shook his head.

Wollis mirrored the gesture. “Here’s hoping we avoid a war.”

Merros chuckled. “We’ll avoid it.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“No one wants a war.”

Wollis stared past Merros’ head and looked at the wall of the tavern. The place was well enough lit, the walls regularly cleaned, but lacking in decoration of any sort, they were rather uninteresting to stare at.

“I don’t know if you’re right about that.”

“What do you mean?” Merros set down his now empty mug and gestured for the woman serving them to bring another. She nodded from across the room and vanished into the area where the kegs were kept.

“I mean have you noticed that there isn’t a single person from among our new friends who doesn’t have more weapons than a squadron of soldiers?”

“They do seem to have a strong affection for their knives and bows.”

“No, Merros. They have a strong affection for everything. If it was just bows and knives I would think they liked hunting. Even if the Pra-Moresh is the animal they like to hunt, a lot of those weapons are not designed for going after dinner. They’re designed for killing enemies in armed combat.” He snorted. “Hell, man, they have weapons that I’ve never seen before and I’m rather proficient at my trade.”

“They make their own weapons. Maybe they just make whatever comes to their minds.”

“Then they have damned scary minds. You saw that bloody cleaver Tusk used on the Pra-Moresh. I asked him about that. He made it just for situations when he runs across something that needs to be whittled down to a manageable size. Those are his words, not mine.”

“Well, to be fair, he was dealing with a Pra-Moresh.”

“Ever hear of a Mound Crawler?”

“No.” Merros shook his head.

“No one else has, either. But they brought the skull of one for Emperor Krous. Tusk said something about it killing about half his village before he took it down.” Wollis thought about the size of that skull and shivered. “That sort of nightmare might well feed on Pra-Moresh. Like a bear feeds on rabbits.”

“Hardly a pleasant notion.”

“It isn’t meant to be a pleasant notion. It’s meant to make a point. We don’t begin to know these people, Merros. We don’t have a hope of knowing them as more than deadly soldiers. You should not risk your life on one of them doing what you would do in the same situation.”

“We have people who hunt down whales. That doesn’t make them the greatest warriors alive. Hell, most of the whalers I’ve met have never held a sword.”

“Tusk has held a sword. Hell, he carries two of them regularly and has a few more on the saddle of his ride.”

“Well, yes, alright. I can see your point on this.”

“And Drask?” Wollis waved his arms around the room. “You saw him. I saw him. Big doesn’t begin to cover it. And armed? He makes his own bloody hunting bows and those little spears he uses to hook his latest kills.”

“I get it, Wollis. I have possibly made a horrid mistake.”

“Did you notice that Tusk’s biceps are actually wider than my thighs? I did. I looked at his arms and then I did a little measuring. The man could probably bend a sword around his arm. Hell, he probably pounded that bloody great helmet of his with his bare hands.”

“Now you’re just being preposterous.”

“Only a little.”

Merros nodded his thanks as the server brought his ale. He smiled at her before she left and then looked back at Wollis. Wollis knew from the look on his face, the look that lacked that long lingering and silent desire he’d seen in the man’s face for months, that Merros had recently had sex. Under some circumstances he might well have made a crass comment about it, but it was neither the time nor the place for that. Instead he merely acknowledged that something had happened on the road and wondered if it had happened with one of the gray-skinned women from the valley.

Not that it mattered.

Merros held up his ale in salute. “Here’s hoping our new friends don’t get me killed.”

“That I will drink to.”

The two men settled back in their seats and into a comfortable silence. After a few moments Wollis looked over at his captain again. “Over a thousand? Honestly?”

“I swear it on my father’s name.”

Wollis stared at the distant wall again and repressed a shiver.

••••

The sun would be up soon enough. Drask had spent a day in silent contemplation of what was to happen and then a night in conversation with Tuskandru.

There were contemplations to make. His actions were justified, yes, but not necessarily the best for the Sa’ba Taalor.

Time would tell.

Drask Silver Hand spent the next day practicing. He used each of his weapons as he maneuvered around the courtyard that the Fellein had set aside for them, often working alone and occasionally sparring against another of his people.

He saved the final fight for Tusk, who looked as restless as he felt. They grappled, no weapons wanted or needed. Neither of them tended to much like the idea of facing the other with a blade. They had done so before and possibly would again, but it never ended without them both bloodied. Tusk beat him. It was not a contest, really.

Tusk looked at him when they were done and shook his head. “You are distracted.”

“Yes.” He nodded.

“Don’t worry. I am sure the boy will show you mercy.” Tusk’s voice was teasing.

“I suspect I will survive the encounter.”

“They are a strange people, Drask.” Tuskandru’s voice was low.

“Mmm. I have not yet decided if they are soft.”

“They are soft. But I am not sure if they are weak.”

Drask contemplated the meaning of the words and nodded his agreement. The people they spoke of ruled most of the world, if their maps were accurate. He had looked at several of the maps and Desh Krohan had offered him a set of maps showing the Empire. He took them, of course. He was not a fool.

“What will you do?” Tusk meant regarding the duel, or course.

Drask looked at the man for a long moment. Were they friends? He wasn’t sure. Friendship was not an easy thing for any of the Sa’ba Taalor. The Daxar Taalor did not consider friendship when they gave their orders and none of his people disobeyed their gods.

Drask grinned. “I will do as the gods demand.”

Tusk nodded his head. “Probably that is wisest.”

The monarch rose from his seated position in the courtyard and stretched. “We will leave soon. That’s for the best.”

“As you say.” Drask lowered his head in acknowledgement and then stood as well. There were mere hours left before the fight and he wished to be presentable for the occasion.

Tusk left without another word. None were necessary.

The arena was the same one where Andover Lashk had fought for his justice. He looked at the ground and saw that the blood had been washed away. That was just as well, though he felt no remorse for what he had done to either Purb or Menock. They had deserved their fates.

Around him the seats were filled. That was the biggest difference. There had been plenty of empty spaces when he sought his justice. There were people standing behind the last row of seats now, doing their best to get a good view of the small battlefield.

Emperor Pathra Krous sat in a reserved box along with his cousin. Andover stared several times. The woman was beautiful. For the first time since meeting the man Andover saw guards positioned around him. There were four men in armor that glittered with fresh cleanings, all of them sporting spears and with swords strapped to their hips. Their helmets bore crests of black and red feathers and they looked intimidating.

Across from the Emperor and his retinue, the Sa’ba Taalor sat, none of them wearing armor or carrying weapons. They did not appear the least bit intimidated, but it was hard to say as they continued to wear their veils.

Tega sat with Desh Krohan, her face as pretty as ever, but she looked away from Andover and seemed determined not to notice him. He set his face as neutrally as he could manage and did his best to return the favor. The Sisters took seats near the sorcerer as well, and though everyone seemed impatient, no one seemed in a hurry to commence the fight.

Well, slaughter would be a better word. Brolley Krous was standing in one corner, his hands locked behind his back in an effort to hide the fact that he was terrified. His skin was pale, his brow covered with sweat, his eyes were wide and seemed incapable of looking at any one thing for more than a second. Except when he focused on Drask Silver Hand across from him.

Brolley was wearing a formal dueling outfit. Snug leather pants, boots and a dark leather vest over a long sleeved shirt.

Drask was wearing leather pants and boots. And his veil. Otherwise he was bare. His upper body showed the numerous battles he’d been in, scars overlaid by fresher scars, many small, some of significant size to show a serious past trauma. Unlike other times, he had taken off his gloves and the silver hand flexed as he moved, pacing slowly back and forth, looking not at his opponent, but at the other members of his people. From time to time one of them spoke to him and he answered, but the incidental sounds of the crowd kept Andover from hearing the words.

The heavyset arbiter that had judged the trial for Andover was present again. He stood at the edge of the round arena and looked around. His pinched features spoke more of how good an impression he wished to make in front of the nobles and others than of how important the battle itself was to him. His lips moved as he practiced his lines.

Andover shook his head. Not that he suspected he’d be less worried in the same situation. He just felt more concern for Brolley Krous than for much of anything else. He’d seen the man trying to fight. It had not gone well.

Wollis March walked to the circle, nodding as he passed Drask. Drask nodded in return as Wollis walked over to his student and patted his shoulder.

Tuskandru sat with his people, leaning forward in his seat, his elbows rested on his knees as he studied the young man in the arena and the man offering last-minute advice. Andover wondered if the king was as curious as he was to know exactly what was said.

Finally, the portly arbiter waved his arms and the people around them began to collect themselves and grow quieter. Just as he was about to make his announcements, Drask walked forward and called out clearly, “No. You are not needed here. He knows what he did. He knows why I have called for a challenge.”

“But–” The arbiter started to speak and Drask cut him off.

“No. My King and your Emperor are here. They know why this battle takes place. They do not need a judge or an announcer. Leave before you offend me as well.”

The arbiter looked toward Pathra Krous, who in turn shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands. The arbiter stepped back, looking very much like a child deprived of his after-meal treats.

Drask turned to the man he’d challenged. “Brolley Krous! You have called my people swine who bray like broken mules. You have called me both a savage and a pig. You have offended me, my people, my kings. What say you to these charges?” He gestured to the weapons lined along the stone wall behind the boy. “Answer with words or weapon, but answer me now.”

Brolley looked at Drask for a moment and stepped forward. He licked his trembling lips and bowed from the waist. Holding his hands out to his sides. “I have done you an injustice, Drask Silver Hand. I have offended you a… and your people and, and your kings. I regret my foolish words and place myself before you to face your judgment.” The words were stuttered, but spoken with enough volume for all to hear.

Drask stepped forward and grabbed Brolley by his shoulder, not unkindly, and made him stand. When he spoke it was for the boy alone, but Andover was close enough to hear. “Ask me how I lost my hand.”

The boy looked around, uncertain how to respond. And finally nodded. “H… How did you lose your hand?”

“I insulted a man’s daughter. He cut my hand off to remind me to watch my tongue.” Drask stared hard. “When I got back up, I cut his throat for his troubles.”

Brolley stared at him with eyes that were even wider than before.

“This one time, we will call this a lesson learned. Is that acceptable, Brolley Krous?”

Brolley nodded very, very vigorously.

“Should you open your mouth to insult me or mine again, should I even think you have considered the notion, I will take more than your hand. I will carve you apart very slowly and dye my boots with your blood.”

Drask patted the boy on the shoulder hard enough to stagger him and walked away from him. He stopped exactly long enough to bow formally to the Emperor and his retinue before leaving the arena.

Brolley Krous stared after him, shaken to his core. Andover doubted it was a lesson he would forget anytime soon.

Fifteen

Lanaie of Roathes dropped to one knee before the Emperor, more in keeping with the ways of her people than the current fashions of the Empire, but still an acceptable showing of loyalty.

“My Emperor, may I speak on behalf of my father?”

“Yes, of course, child.” Pathra smiled and the girl rose. Desh looked on, hidden behind his hood. They had spoken briefly of exactly how well Drask had handled the situation with young Brolley. He’d have been in his rights to beat the boy or even to kill him if the boy had decided to attack. Instead he had offered a warning against further insults and accepted the boy’s apology. Even Nachia was pleased, and that was a challenge at the best of times.

“King Marsfel of Roathes wishes to thank you for the assistance you offered, Majesty.”

Pathra Krous smiled. He and Desh had spoken of this very matter. “I merely offered witnesses to assess the situation. Any actions taken were done so free of my command.”

That got her. She was looking puzzled. “But did you not send the Sa’ba Taalor to aid my father?”

“You were here, Lanaie. Drask Silver Hand made the offer to assist your father as a demonstration. You agreed to it.”

Sometimes it was good to have ears everywhere. Marsfel had indeed been grateful for the assistance, but instead of sending a note of thanks he’d attempted to take the visitors into captivity. His reasoning, according to all Desh could learn, was to have someone to blame for the deaths of over a thousand soldiers on his beachfront. It seemed there was some issue as to whether or not the Guntha had been invited to the area by the king in an effort to gain additional funds for handling the military in his area.

Pathra had been amused. Desh was a bit more worried. Either way, if the Guntha decided to take offense, it might well come down to a war.

“I thought they were sent on your behalf, Majesty.”

“No. They were sent as a demonstration of what ten Sa’ba Taalor could do. They were sent by Drask as assistance to your father. If your father would like to thank anyone, he should thank Drask Silver Hand, and perhaps King Tuskandru, the dignitaries who were gracious enough to offer your father assistance in his hour of need.”

He held up his hand and Desh moved forward handing him a small sheaf of papers. Pathra gave them a cursory glance, signed his name at the bottom of each page, and then sealed the entire affair with a wax mark. After waiting for a moment, while fanning the seal, he offered the bundle to Lanaie. “These papers offer the formal explanation to your father. I am glad that the matter has been resolved to his satisfaction.”

“But, sire, the Guntha are very angry.”

“As they should be. Over a thousand invading soldiers were killed on your father’s behest. I suspect they are very angry indeed, but now they must surely know better than to offend your father with foolish attempts at invasion.”

“Can you not offer assistance at this time, Pathra Krous?”

“If there were a need, of course, but the invading forces have been repelled. Your father’s right to rule has been made extremely clear to the invaders and he has time to redistribute his forces before any more attacks can be considered, surely.”

The girl was lovely, and her brow was troubled. She considered the Emperor’s words carefully and then bowed before leaving his presence.

“That went better than I expected.” Pathra spoke softly to Desh. There was no one else in the room, but one could never be too careful.

“All in all, this week has gone remarkably well.”

“I suspect you are to blame for most of that, Desh.”

The sorcerer shook his head. “I do what I can. Nothing more.”

“I understand you might have let a bit of information fall to Drask’s hands regarding the life offered on his behalf.”

“Nonsense. I merely let Tataya know that the good captain had placed a small wager on the decency of Silver Hand.”

“Mmm. Well, at any rate, I suspect I owe you thanks.”

“What you should consider, Pathra, is why the offer by the good captain would make any difference at all to the Sa’ba Taalor.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why is he important to them? What is so very special about Merros Dulver that he could change their minds about anything at all? Why did they seek him out in the Blasted Lands? Why did one of their kings meet with him and another come back with him as an escort?”

“You ask too damned many questions.” Pathra’s brow knitted in concentration.

“I ask the questions you choose to ignore.”

“Precisely my point.”

“That’s why I’m your advisor.”

“You came with the crown. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Have you stricken that damned law yet?”

“Oh yes! No more duels to answer insults. No more duels to handle charges of assault. No more duels.”

“Good. Excellent. Now if you can change the rules regarding nephews of the Emperor drinking to excess at formal affairs…”

“The boy learned his lesson. He’s still dealing with multiple bruises from the beating Wollis March gave him.”

“You should promote that man. Him and Dulver both.”

“They’re no longer with the military.”

“You’re the damned Emperor. Pull them back into service and then promote them.”

“I wish I thought you were joking.”

Desh looked around the empty throne room. The Sa’ba Taalor would be leaving soon. They had plans to head for their distant homelands. The great skull from the thing called a Mound Crawler gleamed in the western corner of the room. Pathra was smitten with the thing and looked at it almost constantly. It fed his desire to travel. “I don’t joke about that sort of thing. It comes back to the fact that Dulver is respected by the valley folk for whatever reason. And the fact that March just spent two days showing your upstart nephew how easily he could be bested in combat. A much needed lesson in humility, I might add.”

Pathra Krous rose from his throne and stretched his back. He hated the throne. Not being the Emperor, but the throne itself. No matter how he sat or what sort of cushions he used, he always rose with a sore back. That was one of the finer and subtler magicks Desh had ever employed. No one sat there without feeling a bit of the weight of their authority. He felt it left the crown-bearers properly humbled. He had no idea if that was an accurate feeling or not, but he wasn’t about to go and change a spell that had worked for the last four hundred years. “What else is on your mind?”

“That’s it, really. I think if they have brought us allies they should be rewarded. If they have earned the attention of potential enemies – and I’m not saying they have, but we never know, do we – then we should make sure they are in positions to keep the attention of said enemies.”

“Write up the papers. I’ll sign them.” Pathra looked askance at him and moved over to the skull again. His fingers touched the gold-plated surface, skimmed over rough gems of differing values. Even without adornment, the value of the skull to the academics in Canhoon would surely have been enough to feed the army for a few months. The Sa’ba Taalor had offered a phenomenal amount as their way of saying hello. “But Desh? Make sure that’s what the men want, please. I have no desire to reward anyone with consignment into the military.”

“I’ll make sure, Pathra.” He watched the Emperor’s hand play around the eye socket of the great skull and then move down to touch a tooth larger than the blade of most swords. “I’ve asked that artist you’re so fond of, the one who handled your portrait, to render images of the Mound Crawler based on notes from Tuskandru. The work should be done soon. Tusk was very generous with the details.”

Pathra’s face lit up in a broad smile. “I can’t wait to see it.”

Sadly, that would never happen. The Emperor of the Fellein Empire would be dead before the work was completed.

Sometimes the world moves smoothly. Other times the world trembles.

Sixteen

The morning after Drask Silver Hand spared a young man his life, he and several other members of the Sa’ba Taalor stood on the Western Field, a large area not surprisingly to the west of the Emperor’s Palace, and watched an impressive gathering of soldiers going through exercises. They watched avidly, seldom speaking, as over a hundred soldiers went through basic maneuvers with sword, shield and bow. The men were dressed in standard uniforms, not wearing armor, and all of them were on their very best behavior when they realized they had unexpected observers.

There were none among the soldiers who failed to recognize the travelers, and though none of the observers had said a word, rumors had already begun to circulate about what had happened to the Guntha in Roathes.

After noticing that several of his people were spending as much time looking at the people watching them as they were actually practicing, the sergeant in charge of the maneuvers walked over to the group, feeling remarkably self-conscious.

The man, Morton Darnaven, was a long-timer, having spent over fifteen years in the military and a good portion of that along the borders handling skirmishes before being recently brought in to train some of the newer recruits. There was a real chance that he might have been absolutely pissy about the entire situation, but he recognized Wollis March and spoke to him instead of getting into an argument with the visitors.

Wollis was there because he had been asked, again, by one of the Sisters. He was beginning to think Pella liked using him as a buffering agent between civilians and the Sa’ba Taalor. He was not wrong in his assumptions. That did not make him the least bit happier about the situation.

On the other hand, the wizard was still paying him handsomely, and he definitely liked making money.

Wollis and Morton spoke the same language; both were grunts, had seen their share of combat and understood that now and then you just plain had to follow orders. Wollis was also smart enough to introduce him to Tuskandru, who was watching the entire operation with crossed arms and the air of a man who was not the least bit in a hurry to go anywhere.

Morton took Tusk’s measure with one glance. Tusk did the same back. Five minutes after that, Morton had invited the strangers out on the field to practice with the troops if they were so inclined. Starving children offered the finest meals could not have responded with more enthusiasm.

The Sa’ba Taalor were among the soldiers in short order, except for Drask and Tusk, who walked with Morton and Wollis for a while.

“Do your people have a formal military?” Morton was looking at the king, craning his head just a bit to meet the man’s eyes.

Tuskandru shook his head. “No. We don’t have armies.”

“How do you defend yourselves from enemies?”

Tusk grinned under his veil, the crow’s feet around his eyes immediately becoming laugh lines. “We are isolated. Mostly we don’t have friends or enemies outside of the valley.”

Wollis explained exactly where the visitors were from, and both of the strangers were amused by the reaction. Somewhere along the way the rumors had started that the strangers were actually from the far south, well beyond where the Guntha lived on their islands, and where Roathes ended and Brellar began. No one had ever been that far south. It was one thing to know that there was a place called Brellar and another entirely to have been there. The people were said to have strange skin and to cover themselves with scars. The confusion was understandable.

Drask shook his head when the mistake was clarified. “So the people in Brellar scar themselves on purpose?”

Morton nodded. “They are said to tell stories with the scars. That each one has a meaning.”

Drask laughed. “Ours do too.”

“How so?”

He ran his gloved finger across a thick scar on the left side of his chest. “Here I survived my first encounter with the Pra-Moresh.” He stroked a deep indentation on the ribcage on the same side. “This is where Tenna hit me with a spear.”

“What did you to this man, Tenna, that made him try to kill you?”

Tusk laughed at that and slapped Drask hard enough on the back to earn him a withering stare. When he was properly balanced again, Drask responded, “Tenna is a woman. We had a disagreement about whether or not she was going to be with me as a life mate.”

Wollis stared at him for a long moment before he started laughing. Morton took a while longer. “Wait. Are you saying she tried to kill you because you wouldn’t move in with her?”

“To be fair, she was my first. I was the one trying to make something more serious of the relationship.” Wollis laughed so hard he couldn’t stand for several moments. Whatever, exactly, Tusk said in response was in his home tongue and neither of the local men had the vaguest clue, but Drask roared a challenge and rather than fight him, the king merely laughed harder.

When they had finally calmed down, Morton continued his questions. “So, no one in your valley is in an army?”

Tusk contemplated that before answering. “We have seven kings. I am a king. If I tell my people it is time to fight, I expect them to take up arms for me.”

“Has anyone ever said no?”

“No.”

“No one?”

“Why would they?”

“Well, I think if I went down the streets outside of this palace and told people to take up swords and prepare to fight, most of them would tell me to sit on the tip of my sword.” Morton scratched the back of his neck as he spoke, and shrugged.

“If the people of Roathes came today with swords and spears and attacked the palace, the people outside of the palace would not fight?”

“Well, to be sure a few would, I suppose, but most would expect the army to do the fighting for them.”

Tusk shook his head. “How many soldiers are in this army of yours?”

Wollis coughed into his hand. “I don’t really know. Thousands and thousands, I mean if you add all the soldiers from the different kingdoms of the Empire together, of course.”

“How many soldiers do you have here, in Tyrne?”

“Well, there’s the City Guard, the Imperial Guard, and I think close to a thousand if you added in the reserve soldiers.”

“Reserve soldiers?”

“Aye. Citizens who are trained with sword and shield and can be called on to support the Guard.”

Tusk nodded. “I suppose that is what we have instead of an army. We have many reserve soldiers.”

“You would expect a lot of your people to come to arms if you called?”

Tusk shook his head and stared hard at Wollis as he answered. “No, Wollis March. I would expect all of my people to come to arms if I called.”

“All of them?” Wollis shook his head. “The women, the children?”

Tusk gestured to the field where the Sa’ba Taalor were currently testing their archery skills against a good number of the soldiers of the Guard. The locals used crossbows. The visitors used mostly long bows though a few seemed content to merely try their luck with the weapons that the soldiers showed them how to use. Crossbows seemed a fairly novel idea to the lot of them.

Tusk said, “There you see the women and men of my people. Some from my kingdom and some from others.”

“All of your people know how to use weapons?” Morton sounded perplexed.

Tusk looked long and hard at Morton and sounded just as puzzled when he responded. “Don’t all of yours?”

From that moment on, Morton paid much closer attention to the people working alongside his soldiers during his practices that day.

Andover looked at his belongings and sighed. There really weren’t that many of them, aside from his clothes, which were really quite nice, he supposed.

It was almost time to go. In the morning they would be heading out and in the meantime he was packing his belongings into proper bundles. There were wagons, of course, two of them with supplies, and those supplies would include his possessions and the gifts that were being offered to the Sa’ba Taalor by the Emperor.

He almost went to visit his parents. He almost went to tell them that he would be going away, would be headed to a foreign land to serve as ambassador for the Empire, but in the end he decided against it. He hadn’t told them when his hands were ruined, hadn’t told them when he made his apprenticeship, hadn’t spoken to them since they had kicked him out from their home and told him never to come back. Did he miss them? Of course, but they had made their point clearly enough, hadn’t they?

Servants had been sent in to pack his belongings. He’d sent them on their way. He could pack all by himself and he had done so before. Also, Tuskandru was a king and he packed his own things and took care of his own animal. He would probably frown on anyone who couldn’t manage that sort of stuff by himself.

The bundles were deceptively heavy, so he made two trips down to the wagons and packed away everything that needed to be packed.

And as he was feeling the butterflies gathering together in his stomach to swarm again, he saw Tega heading toward the wagons.

She faltered when she saw him, but managed to force a quick smile.

“I did not expect to see you, Andover.”

“I just wanted to finish packing my things. What brings you down here? Did Desh Krohan ask you to check over the arrangements?”

“No. Not exactly.” She looked down at the ground, once again carefully avoiding looking at him. “I am to make the journey to Taalor on his behalf.”

“What? When was that decided?” His voice cracked and he felt himself blush just the slightest amount. He sounded like he was excited by the prospect of traveling with her and that wasn’t what he wanted. He was excited, of course, but he didn’t want to be and he didn’t want her to know it, either. Being near her was a wonderful drug, but it was like the wine his uncle Brann consumed. It was deceptive. It felt so good you didn’t know it was doing you harm. Being around Tega was distracting and he thought he’d need his wits when dealing with the Sa’ba Taalor.

Tega looked at him for a moment and looked away again. “It was not my choice. Desh and the Emperor decided for me.” Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I’ll try not to be in your way.” She quickly shoved her belongings into the wagon and turned away.

“Tega. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just, the Blasted Lands are dangerous.” As if the explanation was any less foolish than his initial reaction.

She waved off his explanation as easily as he might wave aside a persistent insect, and headed away from him.

Andover did not follow her. He wanted to, but what would he possibly say?

It was annoying, really: he could fight two men in combat, beat them both to pulps, receive wounds in the process and keep fighting, but the idea of talking to a woman almost a head shorter than him was enough to make him quake inside.

He continued packing away his belongings, unsettled by the fact that Tega coming along on the trip was putting him in better spirits and simultaneously making him miserable.

“You want to reinstate my commission in the Imperial Army?” Merros stared at the wizard. For a change of pace the man’s hood was down and he could see the rather unremarkable face, which normally hid in a darkness that seemed more than mere shadows. The eyes that looked at him did so with a certain amusement.

“That’s correct. With a promotion, of course.”

“By the gods, man, why would you want to do a thing like that?”

“Well, Emperor Krous would like to thank you for all of your loyal service.” He could smell the lie coming off of the man.

“Mmm. Hmm. Perhaps you might try telling me the actual reason?”

Desh Krohan sighed. “Fine. You have more experience with the Sa’ba Taalor than anyone else.”

“By a fortnight. It’s hardly like I’ve studied them for years.”

“No, but you have studied them.” The wizard leaned in closer and pinned him with a stare. Unremarkable? Hardly. The man just did a very good job of hiding his personality behind a veil of average. “You can deny that if you’d like, Merros, but I know it. I can see it on your face when you look around any place where you are standing, that you see everything. It’s an excellent trait and one that few people have.”

“There are plenty who do. Most any career soldier.”

“Not true. Most career soldiers merely manage to get through their routines without consideration for what goes on around them. If they did otherwise they’d demand substantially more pay for what they face.”

Merros shook his head in response. “Look, I’m really very flattered, but you’ve just paid me enough money to let me retire in comfort. Why would I want to go back to work?”

“Because you aren’t designed to sit on your backside and relax, not any more than I am.”

“I would hardly compare what I do with what you do.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re a sorcerer! You’re advisor to the Emperor.”

“You’d be advisor to me.”

“No, I’d be a captain. You’d have me telling troops what to do and planning out budgets and doing all of the things I’ve so carefully avoided since I retired.”

“Not a captain. A major. And really? Didn’t you have to budget out that entire expedition before you hired men to go with you?”

“Not really, no. You offered an obscene amount of money.”

“Which I then doubled when you had to do additional work.”

“Which is why I no longer feel much of a need to work as a soldier any more. We’ve just discussed that very fact.”

“You’re really very good at this negotiation business, aren’t you?” The wizard stared at him for a long moment. “Very well then. Colonel. And all of the requisite increases in salary.”

“I’ve just explained that I don’t need the money. I don’t want…” He blinked. “Did you just say ‘colonel?’”

“I might be able to arrange for general as a rank, but really, I think that’s a bit excessive.”

“Now you’re just playing with me.” Merros crossed his arms. “I don’t really much appreciate being toyed with. I know you’ve been very generous as an employer, but there’s no reason to tease a man.”

Krohan leaned in closer and smiled a thin, cold smile, “I can arrange general. For that matter I can also arrange a royal title. I have that sort of clout you know. I have friends in very high places.”

“I don’t really think you need friends in high places. That is to say I’m fairly certain you’re doing just fine in that arena by yourself.”

“True, but I hate to brag.” That one earned him an arch expression from the retired military man. “Look, I want you nearby and in a position where you can do some good. That means around here, and with enough rank to make waves if I need you to.”

“You could use anyone at all for that.”

“I already know you and what you’re capable of handling.”

“I’ll consider the notion very carefully.” Merros leaned back in his seat and stared hard at the sorcerer.

“What more can I ask?” The smile said it all, really. The smile on the man’s face said he knew Merros would eventually agree, if only to stop his life from standing too still. Some people simply aren’t meant to have stationary lives and Merros couldn’t very well abide the notion of settling down.

He hated that the man was right.

There was one last meal for the visitors on the night before they left. The great banquet hall was opened and well over four hundred people were in attendance, many of them officials within the government, many others merely people of influence who wished to see the strangers before they were on their way. The latter group was wide-eyed with excitement, and smart enough, to the last, to know better than to cause troubles.

Noticeably absent was the younger brother of Nachia Krous. It would likely be a while before he was invited to any official encounters. That was also to ensure that there would be no troubles started. Most of the people at the feast were there to enjoy the food and see the strangers before they left to go back into the most inhospitable place anyone could imagine.

That is not always the case with visiting dignitaries and family members.

The Sa’ba Taalor had prepared as best they could for their long trip back. They’d been offered extra supplies, which they accepted, and even a military escort, which they politely declined, and come the sunrise the following day they would be heading back into the Blasted Lands and the valley that nestled in the heart of the Seven Forges.

Pathra Krous made clear that he would do his best to visit them sometime soon, circumstances permitting.

Nachia Krous stared at her cousin with an expression of tolerant indulgence, and then promptly told her assistant to plan to stay in town for a while. More often than not she’d have already headed to the family palace in Canhoon, but if her cousin was feeling the need to explore, she might well be asked to stand in for him.

Three times in the past she’d changed her plans to accommodate the Emperor’s whims. Three times she had wasted her efforts. She did not mind in the least. Her life was relatively placid in comparison and the change of pace was hardly a bad thing in her eyes.

Pathra was in his element. He seemed fully a decade younger as a result of it, too. His face was constantly smiling and his wit was sharp, but pleasant. He could be cutting with his words when it suited him, but at the moment he was, instead, a perfect host, even to that little wench from the south, Lanaie.

Nachia did not like Princess Lanaie and had, for Pathra’s sake, held her opinion in, but she was glad to see the young girl preparing to go back to her father in Roathes. As an added bonus, the girl seemed positively puzzled by everything around her and the expression on her face was quizzical enough to make her cousin stop looking at the girl like she was a prize flower reading for plucking. That, or the hairdresser had finally slipped into his bedchambers and satisfied him. Either way, the enchantment the princess had been casting seemed greatly weakened.

Desh Krohan looked at her with that damnable smirk of his in place, the one that said he knew exactly what she was thinking and that she should likely be ashamed of herself. Part of her remained convinced that the man was a charlatan, but not enough of her to ever test that theory. Really, it was rather like dealing with the gods as far as she was concerned: Likely they did not exist, but she said her prayers and offered her tithings, just in case. The difference was, at the very least she knew Desh Krohan had substance and enough money hidden away to buy most small kingdoms.

Speaking of which, the princess came and settled next to her as the desserts were passed around. There were several choices of exotic fruits – mostly what the Sa’ba Taalor seemed interested in trying – and easily a dozen different forms of cake and pastry. Nachia plucked a round pink pastry from a tray and sampled it with small bites. It was as delicious as it looked.

Lanaie looked at her and gnawed on her lower lip. Like as not Pathra would have found the gesture intoxicating, but Nachia just acknowledged that the girl was too young to know better.

“May I bring to you a delicate matter, Nachia Krous?”

“Of course,” she smiled. It was her duty to her cousin and to the Empire to behave herself. Unlike her little brother, she performed her duties faithfully.

Lanaie looked around carefully and leaned in close enough to have have kissed the heir apparent’s cheek. “There have been… untruths between my father and the Emperor.”

Oh and didn’t that sound appropriately juicy? She kept her face carefully neutral and nodded. “Tell me.”

“My father has claimed that the Guntha came to him and said that their lands were sinking.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with the stories.” She had to be familiar with the stories. As with her cousin she had been raised to understand the machinations of the Empire.

“There are other stories, tales that have not been told because, well, because my father sought financial assistance and to handle the rest himself.”

And wasn’t that often the case? That was why so many requests for assistance were investigated before any resources were put at risk. “What tales, Lanaie?”

The girl actually leaned in closer. Pathra would have been beside himself as the girl’s lips brushed her ear lobe lightly. Knowing Pathra, he’d have been delighted just to watch. He was a bit of pervert, truth be told, but as the Emperor he was also wise enough to be discrete about his unusual habits and tastes. Besides, in comparison to a few other members of the courts her cousin was practically an innocent. He might like watching, but he would never instigate.

“There are stories that the Guntha came seeking help against a fleet of ships, raiders who come from time to time and slaughter anyone who gets in their way.”

“A fleet of ships?” Nachia had to close her eyes for a moment and orient on a mental map of the world. To the south was Roathes, and beyond that the waters of the vast Corinta Ocean and the islands of the Guntha. In the waters to the west of the Guntha? No one could say for certain, because the Guntha had always been a bit on the aggressive side and tended to destroy anything that came too close to their lands.

Corinta to the south, to be sure, but to the north? She had to think for a moment. To the north would be land, yes, but the only land north of the Guntha would be the Blasted Lands and the great frozen wasteland was not exactly an area that had been carefully examined.

“The ships, my lady, are supposedly vast ships, warships of a size not seen anywhere else. They are said to be nearly indestructible.”

“The Guntha make these claims?”

“Yes, my lady.”

Pathra was laughing not a dozen feet away. Something that one of the visitors had said had him first chuckling with delight and then actually laughing out loud. The sounds were welcome and unexpected.

“You say that the islands aren’t sinking? That they’ve been under attack for all of these years and your father has kept these alleged invasions as his secret?” Pathra was laughing. That would change as soon as he heard that accusation.

“Yes, my lady.” The girl nodded her head and looked down at the ground below her feet. “It was wrong, of course, but the claims the Guntha made were preposterous.”

“What sort of claims?”

“The great ships, of course. I mean, of course they could be true stories but they always said the invaders came from the north, and there is nothing to the north but the Blasted Lands.” The girl looked around and then once more leaned closer still. “The claim that my father refused to believe was simple, however.”

“Yes?”

“The Guntha said the invaders had gray skin. Skin like slate. Skin like ashes. And eyes that glowed in the darkness.” She moistened her lips. “And the faces of demons.”

Nachia listened to the words and considered them carefully as she looked toward the Sa’ba Taalor. Finally she nodded her head. “I will mention this to my cousin. He will decide whether or not the words are truthful. He might wish to speak with you before you leave.” The girl nodded her head and looked oddly relieved though Nachia certainly had given her no reason to relax. “Why do you tell me this now? Why would my cousin believe your words are true where your father’s were lies?”

Lanaie looked surprised by the very notion. “Why would I lie?”

Nachia shrugged and picked up a wedge of pabba fruit that has been sprinkled with honey. “Why did your father lie before if what you say now is truth?”

“He thought the Guntha were making up ghosts to convince him to let them have a place to stay.”

“So he decided to make up a lie about the islands of the Guntha sinking?”

“Yes.”

“My cousin will want to speak to you.”

The girl nodded her head and looked around the room.

Nachia managed not to roll her eyes. Like as not she would have let the matter go, but the fact was simple: as far as she could tell, Lanaie was too stupid to make up a lie, but exactly smart enough not to tell the truth without good reason.

From across the room Nachia saw the one called Drask looking at her. His face was hidden, his eyes were half buried in shadows, and the pupils seemed almost to glow, much like the cats she kept in her room.

She contemplated those eyes as she thought about the princess’ words. And like many people before her, she wondered what was hidden by the veils the visitors wore.

••••

Merros and Wollis leaned against the wall of the courtyard and watched in silence while the Sa’ba Taalor gathered their belongings and placed them in the appropriate spots.

After several minutes of observing the insane efficiency of the group, Wollis spit. “I’ve never seen anyone who could pack that much nonsense onto a riding animal and still find a place to ride.”

“Fair enough, but when was the last time you saw anyone who rode a monster the size of those things?”

The closest of the mounts, Swech’s great beast Saa’thaa, cast its eyes toward them and snorted. Merros stared at the face of the thing, hidden though it was behind the skull-like metal and leather mask it wore, and smiled. “I shall miss you, too, you great lumbering thing.” He meant the words only for himself, but damned if the animal didn’t seem to smile in response. At the very least it bared those massive fangs that could make the average dagger feel inadequate.

Swech sauntered around the animal’s flank and slapped it affectionately. The tail of the beast swished and slapped at the back of her legs.

The woman looked toward Merros and nodded. “You came to see us off?”

Merros looked into her eyes and shrugged. Wollis looked away but not before Merros caught the start of a smile on his aide’s face. The bastard knew more than he should. He normally did.

“Well, I could hardly let you leave without wishing you a safe journey.” He deliberately kept his voice casual. It was best not to show too much affection in his experience. Women tended to expect it after a while. Then again, Swech was hardly like most of the women he’d met. And also, his personal experience with long-term relationships was dubious at best. Most times he tended to be the one to call off anything that might seem like a romance.

Swech regarded him and stepped closer, her hand resting on his chest. He felt the heat of her fingers over his heart and she leaned in until the veil over her mouth was close enough to tickle his ear when she spoke in her native tongue. “I shall miss you too. You are an inventive lover.”

She stepped back and nodded a quick farewell before moving to step onto the saddle on Saa’thaa’s broad back. Even as she prepared to mount, Tusk was bellowing his orders. “We head for home! It is time!” Without so much as a glance around, the Obsidian King started forward. The rest of his people were quick to take his actions for their own.

The great animals and the people started off, only a small number waiting until the wagons had moved out of the courtyard before they left.

Wollis watched with Merros for several heartbeats in silence, and then his voice broke that blissful void. “So you’re imaginative now? I shall tell my mother she should expect nothing less than satisfaction when the two of you finally satisfy your carnal lusts.”

Merros laughed. “She said ‘inventive,’ and you’re a jealous bastard.”

“Maybe.” He shook his head. “You may rest assured it’s been a while since Dretta called me ‘inventive.’” He tilted his head. “Actually, it’s just plain been a while.”

“Will you go back home then?”

“No.” Wollis shook his head. “Apparently I’m deserving of a promotion and a commission within the Imperial Army.”

“Krohan?”

His second nodded. “According to the wizard it was the Emperor’s idea.”

“So you’ll be staying here?”

“Messengers have been sent to gather Dretta and my belongings. She’ll positively have a fit. She’s always wanted to see Tyrne.”

“Where will you stay?”

“There’s a nice little villa in the northern quadrant, not far from the cavalry barracks. You know it. The one with the red brick wall around the entire affair.”

“Indeed I do.” Merros looked to his friend. “You’ll be saying there?”

“I should say. I just bought the damned place.”

“My mind acknowledges that both of us have that sort of money these days, but my heart is still having trouble accepting the notion.” Merros shook his head. “Maybe I should look into finding a place of my own.”

“You? Owning property?” Wollis snorted.

“What?”

“I just thought you’d rent a room at the local brothel and work out a deal. You know, work as bouncer and sample the wares whenever you like.”

“If I didn’t know you were joking, I might have to take offense to that, you northern savage.”

“I’d call you rude, but that would hardly be anything unusual.” Wollis looked away and grinned again. “Planning on settling down with Swech, are you? Going to call her back from her homeland and make an honest woman of her?”

“Gods! I can only imagine.” He spoke with a laugh in his voice that he didn’t completely feel. For the moment at least, he would actually miss her. Perhaps it wouldn’t last, but the woman was interesting enough to keep him alert and exactly mysterious enough to make him want to know her better. That was a rare combination for him.

“Just think, you could have a dozen babies and raise your own little army.”

“Is it just me, Wollis? Or are they possibly the scariest fighters you’ve ever met?”

“No. Their women are the scariest fighters I’ve ever met. Their men are just the biggest fighters I’ve ever met.” He looked at Merros and carefully slid a step away before he continued. “I mean, did Swech even notice you were in there? Because if she was with the likes of Tusk first I’m surprised she’d notice.”

“You’re a swine.”

“I’ve seen you naked. I’m not saying you’re inadequate in that department, but be fair, Tusk is, well, Tusk is just plain large everywhere.”

“I didn’t look.”

“The man had no shame. Saw fresh water and stripped down in front of everyone. I had trouble not looking.”

“You really have been away from Dretta for too long.”

“You have no idea. Those great beasts of theirs were beginning to look appetizing.”

“You have very strange appetites, Wollis.”

“Like I said, it’s been a very long time.”

Merros slapped his arm. “Dretta will be with you soon.”

“Not soon enough.”

“There are always the brothels.”

“Dretta would wear my manhood as a necklace.”

“She doesn’t already?”

“You should talk. Was Swech wearing something around her neck as she left?”

“That was just the veil.” He sighed and looked along the path the Sa’ba Taalor had taken. Swech was gone and suddenly he found he was quite tired.

Wollis stared at him for a moment and put a hand on his shoulder without saying a word. That was one of the things he liked about the man. He knew when to quit cracking wise and when to just stay silent.

“Well, no, Nachia. The islands of the Guntha are sinking. I’ve checked on that myself. It’s a slow process, but they are falling back into the sea and nothing can prevent that from happening.” Desh Krohan shrugged. “Well, magic, I suppose, but I haven’t really looked into the matter.”

Nachia rolled her eyes and looked out the window to her suite. The sorcerer was there by her request and she could feel his eyes examining her form. In his defense she was dressed to be noticed. It irked her quite a bit that the man was barely reacting at all.

The sun was rising behind the walls of the palace and the shadows stretched out long fingers that pointed toward the distant Seven Forges.

“So what do you think of the claims that the Sa’ba Taalor have been attacking the Guntha?”

“It seems rather a stretch, doesn’t it?” He paused. “You’ve seen the same maps that I have. I suppose it’s possible that the Taalor have access to the sea, but they certainly don’t have the supplies to build ships of any size, or if they do, they’d have to haul the raw materials for a great distance.”

“The stone that built this castle came from the Wellish Steppes and was carried here by horses and many, many wagons.”

“True enough, but there was a great deal of expense and effort involved.”

“Yes, but how much effort to carry wood to build ships, even if the ships are very large?”

Desh sighed behind her. She turned and saw him staring directly at her face.

“What? Say what’s on your mind, wizard.”

“Even if the Sa’ba Taalor are off and running around on ships, what has that to do with us?”

“The princess spoke as if the Guntha made claims of a vast navy.”

“Secondhand innuendo and suppositions from a girl who has just confessed that her father has been lying to the Emperor.” He shook his head. “Even if it’s true, the Guntha have never been our allies.”

“This isn’t about alliances. This is about not knowing what they are capable of, or what their intentions are.”

“I can see your point, Nachia, but, really, we’ve only just met these people.” He stepped closer and she held her breath. It bothered her, too, that as much as he seemed indifferent to her, she found herself drawn to the sorcerer. She’d have thought the man was using an enchantment on her, but knew better. He had always held a fascination for her, even when she was a child. His hand pointed out the open window to the courtyard below. “It’s almost irrelevant, really. There they go.”

Off to the left the long line of animals – horses and stranger things – were in motion, the great beasts of the Sa’ba Taalor were heading for the distant Seven Forges. A trip that would take weeks at the very least according to what she knew.

“I think I’m relieved.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about them yet.” The man’s voice drifted lazily as he looked toward the caravan. “They’re a fascinating people.”

“They are different.”

“Well, yes, that’s rather what makes them fascinating.”

“Why didn’t you go along?”

“For the same reason that your cousin is still here instead of traveling along with them. I have far too much to do around here.”

“Like what?”

“At the very least I have to advise the Emperor on the changes those people have just brought around.”

“What changes?”

“Weren’t you paying attention?” His voice was teasing. His voice almost always seemed to be teasing. She hated him just a little for that. “Our new neighbors have apparently been killing off our other neighbors to the south.”

“They aren’t new.” She watched them as they moved away, none of the small figures seemed the least bit interested in looking back toward the palace and that suited her just fine. “We just weren’t aware that they were there.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Oh yes.” Her voice was very soft. “We were unaware of them. We should not for a moment think they were unaware of us.”

Desh Krohan nodded his head slowly, never looking away from the winding line of animals and riders. “Congratulations, Nachia. I do believe you’re learning.”

“You said it yourself, Desh. One should never stop learning. Or studying the world.”

She closed her eyes as she felt his hand pat her back softly for a moment. Oh, how she hated that the contact felt so damned good. “I stand corrected. I know you’re learning. That’s what I like to see.”

In the very far distance there was a flare of light and both of them looked. For just a moment the illumination from the Seven Forges was bright enough to be seen on the horizon. Neither of them was looking when the faintest vibration from the same location reached the palace.

Seventeen

The first night they traveled until they reached the edge of civilization. Andover looked around in awe. He had never been outside of Tyrne in his life, and though he knew the world was large, he had no idea just how immense it truly was. The wilderness, the darkness of the sky and the vastness of the same were intimidating.

Tega rode in a separate wagon, one that was marked with odd symbols that meant nothing to Andover, despite the fact that he could read a little.

She did not leave her wagon on the first night, but instead locked herself away. There were more wagons than he had initially assumed, four in total: three of them carried supplies and one of those had a bunk for Andover. The others carried the larder and gifts for the kings of the Seven Forges.

When the group made camp, Drask found Andover and called him over. In the open spaces and near complete darkness, the eyes of the Sa’ba Taalor and their mounts seemed to burn. It was an unsettling image, as if they carried a bit of the fire of their homeland within them.

Drask had made a fire and he and two others settled near it, the deeply scarred Bromt and the girl, Delil. Bromt had been hunting earlier and the meat of three rabbits roasted over the fire.

“Join us.” Andover nodded. Really, when Drask said to do something the idea of disagreeing seldom came up. The warriors settled around the fire and mostly sat in silence, but it was a comfortable quiet, something that Andover was not really accustomed to.

Bromt peeled one of the rabbits from the spit where he’d been cooking them and used a knife as large as the animal itself to cut it into quarters. Without speaking he offered the meat to each of his companions and Andover nodded his thanks when the offering was made. His stomach rumbled and he realized that he was ravenous.

As he ate, Drask picked the meat from his piece of the animal and tore it into small pieces that he slipped under his veil. All three of them did that.

And when they were done eating Drask looked toward Andover and sighed. “When we wake in the morning, we will be walking.”

“Where are we walking to?” Andover gnawed the last of the meat from a leg bone and licked his fingers.

“Home.”

Andover stared for a long moment. “All the way to the Seven Forges?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” It was all he could think to say.

“Because Tuskandru demands it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Tuskandru believes that you must be… tempered.”

“What do you mean?”

Drask sighed. “You have been healed. You have been broken and you have been healed, and that is the First Forging for you.” Drask leaned in closer. “By the beliefs of my people there are many stages to becoming what you should eventually become. The First Forging is…” He waved his hands around and squinted into the fire. “The First Forging is the first step into adulthood. I know that for you, for your people, you are an adult. But to the Sa’ba Taalor, you are still a child. It is time to be tempered. It is time for your mind and body to be strengthened.”

“The Seven Forges are a great ways off, Drask.” He stared at the man for a long moment. “You’re from there. Even riding your mounts it took you weeks to reach Tyrne. It would take months to reach your home.”

“This I know. You will walk the entire distance.”

Andover shook his head. It was madness, of course.

Drask placed his heavy hands on his knees and leaned in closer. “Allow me to explain this. You will walk. There is no question of this.”

“But why?”

“Because Tuskandru speaks for all of the Kings. And none of the Kings will acknowledge you until you have proven yourself worthy. You will walk. And while you are walking, we will train you with your weapon and with a bow. I have a spare and you may use it. You will learn to hunt for yourself. You will learn to feed yourself. You will learn to fight and to defend yourself.”

Andover closed his eyes and thought hard about the situation. “If I say no, what happens?”

“You will stay here.”

“What? You mean I won’t be allowed to come to the Seven Forges?”

“Yes. You will not be allowed.”

He looked back over his shoulder, back toward Tyrne, so far removed now that not even the glow from the city could be seen.

“You will not be allowed to walk to your home, Andover Lashk.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you will either walk to the valley of the Seven Forges or you will stay here.” Drask stomped his foot into the ground. “Right here. You will walk, you will obey the orders of Tuskandru, or I will kill you myself.”

“You’re serious.”

“Truska-Pren has given you new hands. You proved yourself worthy of the gift of those hands when you fought your enemies. That was your First Forging. You must be seen as an equal by my people, or you will not be accepted.”

“I’ll never find my way!” He waved his arms around. “I’ve no damned idea where we are now! How do you expect me to find the Seven Forges!”

Drask leaned back. “I said ‘we’ are walking. The four of us. We will show you the way to the Seven Forges and we will teach you what you need to know if you will be an ambassador to the Sa’ba Taalor.”

The silence between them grew. Bromt cut apart another rabbit and despite his lack of appetite – a very sudden change indeed – Andover had the good sense to eat. If he was going to be hunting for the food he’d be eating, he wanted to build up whatever stores he could in advance.

Desh Krohan lay in his bed for a long while and stared at the ceiling. The world was moving on again; he could feel it and it was not a sensation he was very fond of.

His skin shivered and the sorcerer rolled into a sitting position as his flesh goosepimpled. “What in all the worlds?” He looked around and tried to orient himself as his vision blurred. The Sooth often told him of potential calamities, but this, whatever exactly was happening, was coming out of the darkness.

“Tataya! I need you!” Tataya was close by, the others, even Tega, were all gone, sent off by him on different tasks that needed to be tended to as surely as he needed to watch over the Empire.

Tataya flowed into the room, her robes fluttering around her form as she came to him. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“I am not sure, but something is wrong.” His head throbbed. His vision would not focus. For a moment he felt every year of his existence and the weight of those years dropped him to his hands and knees on the cold marble floor of his suite. Tataya’s hands caught him before he could fall completely, and her strength helped him regain his feet.

Around the room, around the palace and the entire capital city, glass rattled, small items shook and still waters rippled with fish scale waves.

Tataya spoke under her breath, quickly weaving protection for the both of them and for the room. As she cast her words into the world the air around them calmed and the delicate glass and crystal items around the area steadied themselves.

And then it was merely a matter of minutes before Desh could stand on his own again, could think again as the pain that held him eased its violent grip.

He tried wiping at his flesh but his hand came away stained with a thin patina of blood-sweat. Tataya grabbed a soft cloth and pulled his robes open, wiping the reddish stains from his body with careful strokes.

Desh stood still for it, mostly because he was not yet convinced that the worst of the seizure was over.

“Desh, what did you do?”

He shook his head. “This wasn’t me, Tataya. Not this time. This was… I don’t know what. But something has happened. Something I need to investigate.”

She nodded her head, her red hair falling loosely around her face. “I will prepare the chamber.”

“Thank you.” Desh moved carefully. His strength was recovering nicely but his hands still shook. He made his way to the end table near his bed and poured clear, cold water from the pitcher there. He drank four full glasses before he felt more himself again.

By the time he’d dressed himself Tataya returned, carrying his shimmering robes and four black stones that Desh had carved himself, each covered in delicate markings that were etched deeply into the spheres.

He stared at the stones for several seconds. Each was the size of a small apple. “Do you think four? Really?” he grimaced at the notion. The effort to make them had not been expended lightly.

“You were just sweating blood, Desh.”

He nodded and instead took three from her after he’d put on his robes. Then he slipped one of the round stones into the pockets of his robe.

“Two for now. A third if I need it.”

“You know best.” Her voice said otherwise. He ignored the tone. He was used to it from the Sisters. Part of their mission in life was to keep him humble and they did an excellent job. That did not mean he always listened to their suggestions.

“Let’s just finish this.” He mumbled the words for himself, really, to bolster his sense of self-confidence. Dealing with the spirits was never an easy thing, and the odds were good that they would be very agitated by whatever had just happened.

“Have a care, Desh. I’ve grown rather fond of you.”

“I always do, Tataya. Watch over us please.”

He moved into the small room that she had prepared for him. The walls were unadorned iron. The floor was cold silver, polished to a mirrored finish. The ceiling above him was red and wet and rippled as he looked at it.

Desh set two stones on the floor before him and sat cross-legged.

Deep inside, hidden well away from the faces of the people he knew, Desh allowed himself a small shiver.

The Sooth could be very demanding when they wanted to and he suspected there would be a cost for whatever questions he asked. He just hoped the stones were enough of a payment.

The tide of red that came down from the ceiling covered him in a matter of moments and he resisted the instinct that told him to breathe.

The answers would come soon enough.

First, however, was the pain.

Desh Krohan managed not to scream. At least on the outside. In his mind he howled with agonies few would have believed possible to endure.

Goriah walked along the beach and looked at the ruin-ation. There was little that had not been picked over by seagulls, crabs and other creatures, but there was enough. Skeletons remained half buried in sand, scoured by the wind and rain and cleaned by the vermin. Some of the remains still had jewelry and weapons alike.

The Guntha had come to do battle. They never had the chance.

Far off across the waters the islands of the Guntha were slowly sinking into the depths of the ocean. In another hundred years there would be little left of them, but for now they were still inhabitable. She would be heading over to the islands soon enough.

Even now, she knew, the Guntha were planning on coming to Roathes. They were angry. They were confused and they were scared. All she had to do was look at the remains of their camp to know why.

“All true. None of them survived. Not a single one.”

She closed her eyes and felt the echoes of the dead. They were not ghosts, exactly, though to be sure there were a few of those around. No, these were merely afterimages of the carnage. Reflections of the pain that ran through the Guntha as they died.

Most of them never even knew what happened. They slept through their deaths. She supposed that was a blessing.

Goriah opened her eyes when she heard the men coming her way. She did not bother looking toward them. She knew what they wanted. They wanted to know who she was and why she stood among the ruins of well over a thousand corpses.

Really, she cared very little what they wanted, but she had to play by the rules that Desh Krohan offered her.

When she finally looked toward the small gathering of men, they stared at her with open surprise. She was as pale as snow in comparison to them. Her skin was pale, her hair was nearly white and there were likely none among them that had ever seen anyone as far removed from their own body types.

They were dressed in pants and shirts, not in the more casual skirt-like outfits that so many of the Roathians preferred. Like as not that meant they worked for the king, who was trying, slowly and without much success, to make his people more like the rulers of the Empire.

Pants did not make sense in the heat and humidity, nor did the heavy cloaks and greatcoats favored by Tyrne at the present time.

One of them finally came closer to her, his eyes wide. He was not scared, exactly, but he sensed that she was not quite what she appeared.

“No one is supposed to be here. This area has been declared unclean by King Marsfel.”

“And yet here you are and here I am.”

“Well, but we are here because you are here.”

“I have been summoned here to examine this very place. By order of Emperor Pathra Krous.” She held up the golden seal of office that he presented to his managers.

The man stepped back and bowed down quickly. “If we may assist, you have but to ask.” His voice did not agree with his words. Like so many, he disliked being made to help strangers to Roathes. The king wanted the Empire. The king wanted the prestige and wealth of Fellein. The Roathians seemed to prefer the idea of fishing and farming. She could see the appeal.

“Your offer is kind, but I am merely here to examine this and then I will leave you in peace.”

He opened his mouth to respond but stopped when a peal of thunder hammered the horizon. The sound was not expected, certainly not normal. Goriah turned to the water and stared as a column of flames flashed in the distance. Leagues of water separated the Guntha from the shoreline, enough distance to make sure that most of the time the two peoples never met by accident. The sound came from a great distance away, just possibly as far away as the Gunthas’ islands.

The man closest to her stared at the burning pillar in the distance. Like the stem of a flower it began to grow petals, but these were made of smoke, of flame, and touched the ceiling of the world as nearly as Goriah could see.

She turned to the man and pointed. “Has this ever happened before?”

He shook his head even as he was backing up. He might have been saying no. He might simply have been denying the impossibility of that great fire roaring toward the sun. Either way he turned and ran a moment later.

The winds from off the ocean grew stronger, and even from where she stood, Goriah could see the way the waters were dancing. There would be great waves in the near future, the sort that leveled whatever stood in their way and washed aside all but the greatest structures. She had once walked where the castle of Queen Harper had fallen to such waves and no one had ever thought that great structure capable of being damaged by man or the elements.

Goriah knew better.

With one last look around, she surrendered her investigation. She had other places she needed to be, other sites to examine. And truly, what she stared at now would be gone when the waves came ashore. Somewhere between the fiery fountain and the shoreline great waves were swelling and bucking, growing in size and fury.

And exactly that quickly the problems between the Roathians and the Guntha were solved.

And the questions about the gray men were swept aside just as easily as the corpses from the massacre were cast into the waves.

Goriah moved on.

••••

Pella looked upon the Blasted Lands from the highest point along the Wellish Steppes. That was the large collection of flat gray stones that marked where the Wellish Overlords had met their end fully a hundred years before the Great Cataclysm. Though the steppes were flat, they still looked down on the great crater that marked the Blasted Lands. The pitted, scarred rock walls that rose from the devastated area were a natural barrier against the raging storms that used to come from the Blasted Lands and carried Plague Winds and worse. As cold and bitter as the Steppes could be, they were home to many a thriving township.

From her position she could see into the vast area of ruination for quite a distance before the perpetual storms hid away the secrets that had remained lost for almost a thousand years.

Though she stood at the very edge of the area, she could see the distant light of the Seven Forges. Even from the final resting place of the Overlords, the skies to the west were ablaze with their glow. And at the moment that glow seemed brighter than usual.

She was not here to enter the damnable area again and she was fine with that. Though Pella found no particular dread of the Blasted Lands within her heart, neither was she fascinated by their unrevealed enigmas.

Somewhere out there, Andover Lashk was walking. She knew that. She could sense it. He had been marked by her, by order of Desh Krohan, and so she watched over him from a distance, with no intention of helping him in any way.

She was not his custodian, merely an observer.

Far more importantly, she had to take care of delivering a message to Dretta Marsh from her husband. That was a task she looked forward to. The village he came from, where his wife still waited for him, was only a few hours away. For the moment she rested, tired from her constant motion.

In the distance, closer than she would have expected under any circumstances, she heard the mournful cries and maddened giggles of Pra-Moresh. Pra-Moresh... in the old tongue their name translated to the Crying Death. The name fit. The noises came from the Blasted Lands, of course, but it was rare that the damned things ever came this close to civilized lands. She would have to warn the Imperial Watch when she reached Stonehaven.

Trecharch was to the north. The great forests of that area could be seen in the far distance as a dark line on the horizon, a frozen wave that seemed forever ready to run toward the steppes. There were stories that the Pra-Moresh sometimes roved those ancient woods. She hoped against the idea.

The ground trembled beneath her feet. Pella looked down at the vast stone she stood on, noting as she often did that not even lichen grew on the wind-polished surface. Sometimes, according to local legends, the Overlords still moved within their tomb. She didn’t think that the case, not now at least. No, the vibration was distant. She called out to her Sisters and both responded. In moments each knew what their Sisters knew and she understood that something powerful was happening in the distant ocean.

Something that seemed to mirror almost exactly the pulse and flickering, shimmering lights of the Seven Forges which painted the underbelly of the sky to the west.

“Interesting.” She gnawed lightly at her lower lip as the Pra-Moresh wailed their mad sorrows to the skies. It sounded like a lot of the beasts, enough to make her know it was time to move on.

Would they climb the almost sheer walls of the Steppes? Perhaps. They had done so in the past. It could well happen again.

Either way, she had no intention of being there when the time came.

The wind caught her cloak and Pella spread her arms wide and dreamt that she was a storm-crow, comfortable with the knowledge that sometimes dreams really do come true.

The Emperor looked at the princess and smiled. She was a lovely girl, of course, and most decidedly a temptation. Her body was young and firm and she would likely produce beautiful children, and those were all things he was supposed to care about, but, sadly, she was also a bit stupid. Oh, he could have accepted naïve and possibly even found a certain appeal in that aspect of a woman’s personality, but she was just plain dumb, and the thought of being wed to a woman he could not hold a conversation with was worse to him than not being wed.

That was part of the problem, really. There were few women who held his attention for long.

He stopped thinking about possible wedding ceremonies and focused instead on the girl’s words.

“What you’re saying to me is that your father lied to me in an effort to gain money.”

She nodded without actually speaking. Her deep dark eyes were moist with unshed tears. She was terrified. She should have been. It was well within his power to either punish her or her father or punish the country her father ruled over if he thought the actions necessary. Battles had been fought based on lies. Resources used and soldiers laid to rest for the claims of King Marsfel.

Unless, of course, she was lying now. There was the rub. That was the problem. He had to decide if her new claims were legitimate or not, or even if the entire situation was worth the effort of a proper examination.

“Why not simply ask for assistance? Why claim the Guntha invaded if they did not?”

“They did invade, majesty. But they invaded after they were attacked as well. Attacked by people who sound much like the Sa’ba Taalor.”

He nodded his head. “And what would your father have me do about this now?”

“He fears that if they are the same people, they might well attack Roathes. The stories of the Guntha claim that the gray people are merciless.”

Pathra Krous looked at the girl and sighed. Nachia sat nearby, observing without speaking. That was exactly what he wanted from her at the moment. She had been gone too long and he wanted his cousin nearby, the better to observe and learn, because the more he thought about it, the more he rather liked the idea of journeying to the Seven Forges to see the lands that almost no one had ever seen before.

Pathra leaned across the table and stared at Lanaie, his eyes locked on hers instead of on her warm and welcoming form. It was one thing to flirt with a visitor, and another to let his personal desires get in the way of running an empire. He knew better than to mix the two and even if he had not, Desh would have cleared that issue up a long time back.

“I do not believe you or your father need be worried in this circumstance. I will overlook the issues of why he called for assistance and accept that when he called for aid he felt it was the best action he could make.” The girl let out a breath and offered a tentative smile. Before she could open her mouth to offer thanks, however, he held up a hand for silence. “And as luck would have it, your kingdom has an excellent recourse to possible attack.”

“We do?”

“Oh yes. You can call on the Guntha and make peace with them. That way, if there is an attack, you already have a naval force to back up your father’s navy.”

“I…” Oh, she wanted so much to protest. He could see it in the expression on her lovely face, and the way her body was positioned, but she knew better. One did not argue with the Emperor. That was one of the rare benefits of being in charge. When you made a decree, you seldom had to justify it to the people around you.

Unless Desh Krohan was in the room, of course. Happily the mage was elsewhere. He would have likely agreed anyway.

“You are very welcome, Lanaie. I know you are eager to return to your father’s side and bring him the good news. I suspect that after their recent setbacks the Guntha will be delighted to come to a peaceful accord.”

The princess left a few moments later, the puzzled pout not quite leaving her face.

Nachia smiled. “That was harsh.”

“Do you think so? I thought I was being rather diplomatic. I’m not sending the army in to take Roathes from that fat buffoon.”

Nachia stared at him for a moment, a smile playing around her lips but not quite manifesting. “I sense hostility.”

“I don’t like being lied to. It makes me look foolish, especially if I don’t punish the liars.”

“I think it makes you wise and just.”

“You haven’t ruled yet.”

“I’ve had a bit of experience.” She spoke without rancor, just as he did. They were not only relatives but friends. It helped.

“True enough, Nachia, but believe me, there are differences.”

“You’ll understand if I’m in no hurry to find out, I hope.” He nodded.

“So what you call harsh, I call just. I sent her on her way with instructions for her father to make peace. I’ve committed enough troops in the last four years to his needs. He lied about the reason for the attacks, if actual attacks truly happened.”

“Assuming she is not lying?”

“Always a possibility, but in this case, if she is lying, she merely heads home with no changes in her position and no extra commitments from the Empire. Once again a simple message to handle the matters on his own goes to King Marsfel.”

“And if the Guntha attack Roathes in force?”

“Then he has only himself to blame for putting himself in this position in the first place. He should have attempted to make a peaceful truce with the Guntha.”

“What if the gray people are actually the Sa’ba Taalor?”

“Even if they are, they have not attacked the Empire. They have had a skirmish or two with the Guntha.” He shrugged. “And I don’t believe the Sa’ba Taalor have any sort of navy. They live in the Blasted Lands. Where the hell would they harbor their ships?” He pointed to the duplicate map that Desh had given him. “Do you so much as see a river outside of the Seven Forges?”

“I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m pretending to be Desh Krohan for the sake of argument.”

“Please,” he sighed. “One Desh is enough.”

“True.” She rose and moved closer. “What do you make of these ‘gray men?’”

“Probably old wives tales from the Guntha. Half the seafaring people claim they’ve seen specters on the ocean. Why should the Guntha be any different?”

“Well, I believe I’ll get in a little rest before it’s time for dinner. Is this to be another large affair or merely a few family members sharing a meal?”

Pathra smiled. “For a change of pace it will be a small meal. You can even bring Brolley if he promises not to act out.”

“Brolley remains very humbled.”

“Humility has its charms.”

Nachia laughed and touched his arm briefly before she headed for the archway leaving his offices. “I shall see you when the meal is called, Pathra.”

“I look forward to it.” He rose from his seat and walked to where he kept the bottle of sweet wine hidden behind a suit of armor that had never once been worn into combat. He seldom indulged but it was nice to have a small sip when he was done handling tasks he did not enjoy. He always disliked having to say no to a beautiful woman, especially one who so obviously wanted him to say yes.

His fingers had just closed on the bottle when the blade slid though his neck as quietly as a whisper. The Emperor was dead before he hit the floor.

••••

The Emperor Pathra Krous was not a small man. He was quite a bit larger than she was, in fact, but that did not change the plans for him in any way.

He was to be an example. He was to be a warning. She had very little time to make that warning clear, but she would make the best of the time she could spare.

The knives slashed deeply. The symbols took shape on his chest, on his face. And when she finished the grisly message, she looked around the room very quickly and then caught the dead man’s wrists and pulled him toward the window, straining with his size. Dead weight, indeed.

There are plenty of people who would argue that a woman is naturally weaker than a man. It might be true but there were ways around that problem. Sometimes it wasn’t merely the weight of an object that mattered, but also how that weight was approached.

She used her arms to balance his mass. She used her legs to propel his corpse through the open window. He fell almost forty feet to the pavement below and landed with an audible slap. A moment later the screams began.

And then she slipped back into her hiding place to wait out the chaos that would be coming her way.

The military leaders of Tyrne were not amused.

Newly appointed General Merros Dulver did not much care. Rather than dealing with the crusty old bastards who were waiting to speak to the Emperor or his First Advisor, Merros called the troops to assemble on the Western Field where they often practiced. With Wollis at his side, he began a complete inspection of the troops. By most standards they were in fine form. By the standards of the Imperial Guard they were sloppy and unkempt. He made note of that fact to Wollis and knew that his second would see the matter attended to immediately.

The day was close to ending, the sun would set soon enough. That did not mean that Merros intended to make life easier for the troops. They had been living a bit too easily as far as he was concerned, and that included him. Thinking back on the Sa’ba Taalor was enough to bring that point home.

It was time for a change. There would be more serious practice sessions. He might well instigate proper war games. The weapons he inspected were functional, yes, but some of the edges were not what they should have been, and a good number of shields and breastplates were in need of repair. There was a smithy on the premises for the love of all the gods. It was time to make the blacksmith there earn his keep.

And again, he trusted Wollis to make note of all he said and he trusted that his second would make it happen.

Several of the soldiers looked too young to shave.

“Wollis?”

“Yes, General?”

“Make a note. Find out where Nolan March is stationed and have him transferred to the capital.”

He turned to stare at his second and smiled at the shock on the man’s face. “What are you doing? I mean, can you do that? I’m grateful of course, but–”

“I can do that. I can order that. I’m a general. Make it happen. I think I rather like the idea of him being a part of the Imperial Guard.”

“Aye! Ho, sir!” Merros’ smile grew broader. His friend had more than earned the right to see his family again, all of them.

When the inspections were done, he prepared to make a short speech to the troops. There were going to be a good number of changes and he wanted them to understand why those changes were taking place. He wanted them to understand that though the Sa’ba Taalor seemed inclined to be allies, they could not be ignored as a potential problem and they were, hands down, far superior fighters to most of the soldiers he’d been with over the years. And that could not be tolerated. It was time for the soldiers to become everything they should have been all along, especially the soldiers who guarded the crown city and the Emperor himself.

He planned to make a speech. Instead he turned with almost everyone else when the alarm bells sounded from the palace.

The great bells were sounded only rarely, and normally with a great deal of warning. There was no warning this time, however, and the sound shocked the regulars and the newcomers alike. Merros had heard of the palatial bells, but had never before heard them. They were indeed incredibly loud notes and the sound rang across the field and echoed off the closest buildings without losing much of their initial volume.

To the last, every soldier on the field grabbed their arms and headed for the palace at a run. He was gratified to see that response and horrified by the lack of organization involved in the same.

Finding out that the Emperor had been murdered, however, made his previous dread seem incon-sequential.

Eighteen

To say the death of the Emperor came as a surprise is to say that the wind will blow or the sun will rise: It is a simple statement of fact.

The impact, however, was immediate and on a few occasions violent.

Pathra Krous was dead. By rights his successor had to be chosen and Pathra Krous had already made accommodations to that end. He had carefully groomed his cousin, Nachia, to take over upon his death. Heartbroken though she was, she knew that she would have to assume the mantle of Empress.

There were matters that had to be taken care of, naturally. The death of an emperor is as serious an affair as a coronation. Messengers had to be sent out, officials throughout Fellein had to be prepared for the changes that would be coming their way, and regardless of all of the paperwork, all of the endless details, life had to continue on and daily events had to be handled.

Desh Krohan knew all about that sort of thing. He was extremely helpful in making arrangements. There were letters of instruction from Pathra Krous himself, details about the funeral services he wished taken care of, and details on how to handle the transition from his reign as Emperor to Nachia’s ascension to the throne. A great deal of the work that Nachia had ahead of her had already been mapped out, not only by the sorcerer but by her deceased cousin.

It should have made her life easier, but it did not.

First, there was the disaster that had come about almost at the same moment that her cousin was murdered. The Guntha were gone. Decimated by a volcanic eruption. The seas to the west of Roathes were raging with storms and the kingdom was beset by disaster after catastrophe. Great clouds of ash were coming from where the Guntha had once been and drifting across the shoreline of Roathes, coating everything in gray waste. The people were falling ill to the toxic air that carried those ashes, and while not everyone was affected, enough were to make the matter urgent. Whatever falsehood may have existed in previous claims, the fact of the matter was simply that the small kingdom now needed the assistance of the Empire and that assistance could not be ignored.

The stories of exactly what had happened to the Emperor were uncontrollable and made worse simply because no one knew much, aside from the fact that he had been murdered. That could not be denied, really. And the rumors were growing by the day.

And then there was Laister Krous. Laister, another cousin, who was even now making noises about exactly who should be ascending to the throne in the immediate future.

Desh Krohan was not amused by the man’s presence.

That did not change the fact that the man demanded to be heard. Laister and several of his family members gathered together and glowered as menacingly as they could manage at the sorcerer. Despite their best efforts, he remained unintimidated.

“My claim is legitimate.” Laister sucked in his gut and squared his shoulders, perhaps in an effort to somehow look even larger. It didn’t change much of his physical appearance. Laister was a large man, and in his time he’d been an accomplished swordsman. Likely he was as skilled as ever, but not quite as fast. Too many years of rich foods and sweet wines had taken their toll on his physique.

“Indeed it is. Your claim is quite legitimate. You have a right to state your case and I have listened very carefully. And I have considered your words. And now that I have, the decision remains unchanged. Pathra Krous made very clear that Nachia Krous, your cousin, was the rightful claimant to the throne. He wrote it down, he signed his declarations. He told me personally on a dozen different occasions. I have borne witness to his desires and I have agreed to follow them.”

“Well, yes, but I don’t agree with them.” Laister crossed his arms and scowled some more. Really, it was likely a very good tactic for him in most circumstances. Just not now.

“Yes, you made that clear, as did your mother, your father, your sister, and your most recent consort. However, as Regent, as First Advisor to the Throne of Fellein, as Council to the Emperor for the last few hundred years, I am afraid that I have just a bit more authority than you do in this situation, and I have to respectfully decline your desires to be the new Emperor.”

Laister looked at the gathering of people who had come with him to show their support and leaned in closer to his sister. Danieca was a bloated lump, but she carried a surprising amount of support. Also, though he wasn’t present, there was Towdra Krous to consider. Towdra had his hands in everything and he could, potentially, cause troubles.

Of course, Desh could, potentially, wipe out every last one of them. That was the sort of fact that made most of them behave to a very real extent.

When they had finished whispering among themselves, Laister looked at Desh with a nearly desperate hope. “I don’t suppose the right to challenge is still on the books?”

“Blood duel? No. I had that particular law stricken three generations back.” He waved a hand. “Really, it would hardly matter. Even if Nachia couldn’t fight you herself, she’d just choose a champion.”

“Really.” Laister planted his broad hands on his hips. “And who do you suppose she’d choose? Brolley?”

“Probably she’d choose me.” Desh crossed his arms and stared past the shadows of his hood.

“Oh.” That seemed to take a bit of the arrogance from the man’s stature.

“Your cousin Nachia will ascend to the throne within the week. First we take care of the funeral. I know it isn’t to your liking, but it will happen, Laister.”

The group made more noises, but ultimately left the offices that Pathra had occupied.

Desh shook his head and leaned back in the chair where he had often sat across from the man. He would not, at any point, willingly sit on the throne. That was not a position he wanted.

Tataya slipped closer to him. “Do you think they will be trouble?”

“Of course they will.” He sighed. “It’s what Laister likes to do. Without Pathra around, he will likely do everything he can to cause issues.”

“Why do you allow it?”

“I don’t allow anything. I’m nothing but an advisor.”

Tataya snorted.

He ignored the derisive noise.

There was still a lot to be done.

There was always a lot to be done.

Desh would have denied how much he enjoyed the troubling times, but those few who knew him best understood that his protests were hollow.

Some people thrive on chaos, even when they choose not to generate it.

Merros shook his head and looked at the ranks of soldiers. “We’re missing a few hundred people aren’t we, Wollis?”

“Well, not really. No. They were sent out.”

“Who were sent out and exactly who sent them? Also, where were they sent?”

Wollis looked around the Western Field and gestured. “General Hradi sent the First Imperials to bring the Sa’ba Taalor back to Tyrne.” He spoke very softly, as if, perhaps, by keeping a level head he could will Merros to do the same.

“He did what?”

“I’m not repeating myself, Merros.”

“Hradi did that?” Merros had met the older man for the first time the day he was promoted. The meeting had not gone well. Apparently the general did not agree with retired captains being promoted to the rank of general without any warning. Really, Merros could hardly blame the man. He was having trouble with it himself and he was the one who’d been promoted.

“He is the actual head of the army, you know. He has that authority.”

“Well, yes, but still.” Merros looked around the field and shook his head. “What was he thinking?”

“I should suppose he was thinking that the strangers might be responsible for the murder of the Emperor. Someone has to check on these things.”

“Well that’s just fine, but I suppose there are procedures that should be followed for this sort of thing.”

“I’m not sure about any of that.” The tone of voice Wollis used added a silent subtext about merely being a soldier. Merros understood the sentiment automatically, but, of course, these days that wasn’t exactly true for him.

He looked over the troops and continued to speak softly, not wanting to cause any undue alarm. “Has anyone told Krohan about this?”

“I have no bloody idea. Maybe Hradi did.”

Merros looked at his second. “Do you suppose I could get that lucky?”

“Not remotely.”

“How do you think the Regent of the Empire will react to the news?”

Wollis stared his way for a moment and then looked at the ranks of troops that had gathered for inspection. They were looking a bit better, what with the uniforms being worn properly and the inclusion of proper armor. They were looking a bit more like an army, really. “You’ve heard about the situation in Roathes?”

“The volcano? Of course.”

Wollis kept his face calm and expressionless and Merros had to wonder if the man was joking when he spoke. “I’ve heard a few people say that the eruption occurred at exactly the moment he heard about the Emperor’s assassination.”

“Is that so?”

“Well, that’s what I’ve heard. If it’s true, he might not react well to a few hundred soldiers being sent off to drag back the Sa’ba Taalor and accuse them of murdering the Emperor.”

“Yes, well, I suppose I should go have a chat with our employer.”

“What about the troops?”

“Have them practice some more. I suspect they’re going to need it if Hradi causes an incident.”

“If?”

“I’m trying to be optimistic, Wollis. Let me have my delusions.”

“I always do.”

Four days out, the cold became a vicious, living thing, and the air grew bitter and chalky. The first part of the journey had been comfortable, but this? This was a special little assortment of discomforts. Every part of his body ached. Not just his legs, which he would have expected with the amount of walking he was doing, but everything. Andover Lashk moved forward, one step at a time, his eyes squinted against the wind and the grit and the endless damned dust.

The bad part? They weren’t even in the Blasted Lands proper as yet. Merely on the outskirts. The temperature had been rising when he left Tyrne, but here where the ruined lands met up with the Empire, the temperatures were colder and the sky was already constantly dark. And he was beginning to understand the veils that the people he traveled with wore. He’d taken to doing the exact same thing.

The caravan was gone. They’d already moved on into the Blasted Lands proper and now there was only him, Drask, Delil, and Bromt. None of the great beasts were with them at the moment, though he suspected that could change with as little as a call out from Drask, who sent the great animal of his off without a rider when they left the main group. Exactly how intelligent the creatures were he had not yet determined, but he had suspicions.

They carried everything they needed as far as Drask was concerned, and apparently that was the end of the discussion. The others listened to the man without question, and Andover suspected that if he wanted to live to see the Seven Forges he would do well to follow their lead.

Their days were already starting to take on a certain routine. They rose when the meager light of the sun punched through the clouds, then broke down their camp, and began walking. When they had walked for a while, Drask or one of the others, under his command, would begin the instructions for the day. Most of the time the practice with his hammer or with the bow was done while they were walking, because, in the words of Drask, “The world does not wait for you to be ready to engage in combat and therefore you must simply always be ready.”

The Sa’ba Taalor were always ready, it seemed. How did he know? One had merely to look at them. The three that were traveling with him had changed as they moved toward the Blasted Lands, seemingly growing layers of fur and armor as they walked. All three sported helmets now, and armor and cloaks of fur and hide that hid most of their bodies away and simultaneously sheltered them from the worst of the constant winds. Each bore easily thirty or more pounds of additional garb plus their weapons and supplies and carried the weight without noticeable effort. In comparison he barely seemed to carry anything. Andover had thought the clothes being selected for him were excessive when he started the trek, but now he knew better. Drask had made him take the heavy fur-lined cloak that had been provided and now he was grateful for the extra weight.

The hammer was a different beast. He had adjusted to carrying the excess weight strapped to his back by a thick leather brace Delil had helped him put together on their second night, when they were done setting camp. Now it rested comfortably enough against him, and with practice he’d learned how to unsling it in a hurry. Once again Delil helped with that. She kept coming at him until he got very good at defending himself.

He was also damned hungry. That was almost a constant thing. They carried a few provisions, but mostly they intended to hunt for game out in the Blasted Lands. That seemed impossible, of course. As far as Andover could tell, there was nothing to eat in the entire area, nothing to eat and nothing to hunt, unless one decided to hunt the shifting clouds of dust that filled the air, or the ice that pelted them from time to time.

Delil stepped closer to him and tapped his shoulder. She seemed nearly alien with the helmet over her face, shielding her head. Little but her eyes could be clearly distinguished in the semidarkness. He looked her way and she pointed. “There are riders coming this way. Do they wear the markings of your people?”

He scanned the horizon and after a moment saw the shadowed forms coming through the haze of dust and sleet. He couldn’t make out any standards and told her so.

She nodded and jogged forward to speak to Drask, who looked even less human than Delil did in the perpetual twilight. The horns on his helmet and the heavy cloak that swam around his shoulders brought to mind a few of Andover’s least favorite childhood nightmares.

Drask stared at the column of horsemen and considered them carefully, not speaking for a long while. Finally he shook his head. “We will not meet with them.”

Andover was surprised by the decision. “Why not?”

Drask turned to face him. “You are not ready yet.”

“You think I’ll run to them and ask for aid? Ask for safety?”

“You are not ready yet. That is enough.” Drask pointed at the group moving past them. “They follow the caravan’s path. They are interested in Tuskandru and the rest.”

“Then shouldn’t you see what they want?”

Drask shook his head. “No. We are here to help you learn. That is all.”

Andover sighed and then turned away from Drask. One foot forward and then the other. One step after the next. More than that was more than he wanted to think.

A short time later, after the riders had vanished from sight, Bromt approached him and distracted him from his walking. “You and me, we go hunting now.”

“Hunting for what?”

“Dinner.”

“I mean, hunting for what? What is there to eat out here but dust?”

Bromt laughed as if hearing a delightful joke, and punched him lightly in the arm. “Come on then! Let’s go find out.”

Andover turned to see what the others were up to, but they were gone.

“Where are they? How will we find the others when we’re done?”

“We will find them. I’ll show you how.”

There was nothing else to say, really. Andover learned his first lessons about hunting in the Blasted Lands. There was bloodshed long before the hunt was finished.

Tuskandru watched the riders coming and finally decided that they would wait for the soldiers who seemed so determined to catch up with them. While they waited, he checked the wagons that were being drawn along and most importantly, he met up with the sorcerer’s apprentice. The girl, Tega, looked at him for a long moment after answering his knock.

“Yes?” Her eyes were very wide in her face. She stared up at him as if he might suddenly lean down at take a bite from her face, but still she stood her ground. He liked that. The boy, Andover, was easier to startle. The walking trip would either make him a fighter or it would kill him. Until the Daxar Taalor decided, he was no longer the king’s concern.

The approaching army was.

And to that end, he spoke to the girl with the frightened eyes. “There are soldiers from Fellein coming. I would ask that you stand with me and translate. I do not wish to cause an incident.”

She looked back the way they had come and stared at the dark forms moving closer. They rode in close ranks, four horses deep, a good number of them carrying horseman’s pikes. Though the likelihood of being attacked by the Pra-Moresh was small, the soldiers seemed as prepared as they could be. That or, just as likely, they were expecting troubles from the Sa’ba Taalor.

“Yes, of course. I will assist gladly.”

The Sisters had opened a language door between Merros Dulver and Drask Silver Hand. The apprentice and the king did not share that luxury. While Tega could manage to speak the Old Tongue derivative of the people she traveled with, her limited abilities didn’t allow her the same sort of skill that the Sisters had used. She could merely translate, not fix the situation.

The riders came closer and Tusk stood his ground next to her wagon. As the column came closer, he called out in a language she was not familiar with – the same one the Sa’ba Taalor used to speak to their animals – and his people responded. Several of them moved closer. The rest stayed where they were, but Tega could see them reacting, some checking their weapons, others actively preparing arrows and settling their bows across the broad shoulders of their mounts. Had she not been looking she would have missed many of the actions.

The first riders were directed to Tusk by one of the Sa’ba Taalor; Tega had no idea what the man’s name was, but she could barely recognize any of the people she rode with. Somewhere along the way they had begun sporting their armor and that completely changed their appearance. They had seemed odd but friendly enough in the palace. Now they seemed different, far more dangerous – even the ones who had made no actions to worry anyone.

She recognized the man at the front of the column, not by his name but by his face. He was one of General Hradi’s men, a lifer with high hopes of moving up to replace the old man in a few years.

Tuskandru stood with his arms crossed and waited, not bothering to speak first. The man climbed down from his horse and looked at the king for a moment. Tusk stood easily a head taller, not including the great fanged helmet that covered his head. The man was lean and weathered, with dark hair cut short, and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. His face was not unkind, but his eyes were hard. He was either a man expecting trouble or a man who sought it. She could not quite decide which.

“You are King Tuskandru?”

Tusk nodded.

Tega cleared her throat. “This is King Tuskandru. I am Tega. I work with Desh Krohan.”

That caught the man’s attention. He’d already dismissed her, was barely even listening to her speak until she said that. No matter how some might find her attractive, or find the possibilities of her having sorcerous skills impressive, none of them gave those thoughts a second consideration when they heard who she worked for.

“There has been…” The man struggled for a moment, trying to decide what to say. Finally he started again. “Emperor Pathra Krous is dead.”

“What?” Tega had trouble believing what she had just heard.

“Pathra Krous was murdered. He was thrown from his private offices a few hours after the Sa’ba Taalor left Tyrne.”

She translated quickly for Tuskandru, who seemed little affected by the knowledge.

The man looked to Tusk. “My name is Colonel Wallford. I am tasked with bringing you back to the courts to answer questions.”

“What sort of questions?” Tega’s voice was sharp and even as she spoke her hands slipped together. Desh had to be told of this if he did not already know and that meant she would have to call for him. This situation was exactly the sort of thing the wizard did not want. Though she would never claim to know her mentor’s every desire, of that much she was certain.

The colonel looked at her for a moment, his eyes half-lidded as he contemplated whether or not she was worth the trouble of answering. Then he remembered whom she worked for.

“There is some concern as to whether or not the Sa’ba Taalor had any part in the Emperor’s death.”

Direct and to the point. She could understand that and knew by the change in Tusk’s stance that he understood every word the colonel was speaking.

“You would accuse a king of murdering the Emperor?” She made sure her voice was a challenge. He needed to know that he was treading on dangerous territory.

“I accuse no one of anything. I am merely following orders. I have been tasked with bringing the Sa’ba Taalor back to Tyrne.”

“By whom?” Oh how her heart was thundering in her chest. Madness! Desh would surely be outraged. He had worked hard to make the first meeting between the two lands a peaceful, fruitful encounter.

“By General Hradi.”

“Who is General Hradi to order King Tuskandru to come to him in this manner?”

Tusk looked from her to the colonel and back again as they spoke, but did not answer or respond otherwise.

“General Hradi is in charge of the Imperial Army.”

“General Hradi is not in charge of the Empire.”

“No, but the army is his to command and he has ordered us to bring King Tuskandru and his retinue back to Fellein.”

“And if the king should refuse?”

And there it was: the question that would change everything, depending on the colonel’s answer. The Sa’ba Taalor stood ready, though apparently the colonel did not understand that fact. Tega did not know the ways of the people she was with very well, but she knew that they had been willing to fight a young man to the death for an insult. Accusing them of murder? How would that go for Colonel Wallford? For the troops with him? For her or the people she was with for that matter?

She desperately wished that Desh Krohan was there with her.

He was not and that left her with only one option. The blade she slid along her palm drew a hot line of blood in her flesh. She clenched her fist tightly on the small offering and reached out with her mind. For the briefest moment she felt nothing and then, thank all the gods, she felt Desh’s attention turn to her and her offered blood from leagues away.

“If His Majesty is not prepared to come back willingly, I am to bring him in by force. To that end, I have brought a very large retinue of soldiers.” Wallford spoke to her as if to a slightly addled child.

Tusk shook his head. “I have matters of my own to attend to in my kingdom. I cannot come back with you. You may join us on this journey if you will, but that is all.” The man’s voice brooked no argument.

Wallford looked at the king for a moment and rested his hand significantly on the hilt of his sword. He made sure to let the gesture be seen.

Tuskandru looked to her for a moment, his eyes narrowed, and then looked back to the colonel. “Do you have gods?”

The colonel nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

“Then should you draw your weapon, pray to them.”

“Do you not understand the situation? The Emperor is dead!” The colonel’s voice was outraged.

Desh’s voice rang in her head, a distant echo that grew clearer, became a significant sound. “I will speak through you.” The words were for her alone and she nodded and closed her eyes.

And a moment later she felt herself displaced from her own body, felt her essence rise into the air above the group as Desh Krohan’s will possessed her form.

From her new height she could see the trans-formation. A thick shadow rose from the ground and surrounded her form, cocooned her in its darkness and from the depths of that odd black cloud the voice of Desh Krohan spilled forth with a dark, echoing quality, “There is no need for this.”

Tuskandru stepped back three paces, his eyes growing wide beneath the beastly visage of his helmet. The colonel fell back as well, not merely startled by the unexpected change in her form, but also by the voice of a man who was feared as much as any legend ever has been. Around them the Sa’ba Taalor and the soldiers of the Imperial Army reacted as well. Several of the horses made noises and threatened a panic at the rumbling voice of the sorcerer.

“Colonel Wallford,” Desh continued. “You are here under orders of General Hradi. I am acting Regent of the Empire. My word supersedes the word of your commander. Stand down.”

“The Emperor is dead!” Wallford’s nerves were not holding well, but his discipline could have been admired under different circumstances.

“The Emperor is dead, yes. That does not allow General Hradi to take command of the Empire.”

Wallford pointed a hand at Tuskandru. “This man is accused of murdering the Emperor!”

“Not so!” Desh’s voice lashed out, demanding attention.

Tuskandru’s hand lashed out, slapping Wallford’s accusing hand aside. “You dare?”

And that was the moment that war broke out between the People of the Seven Forges and the Fellein Empire.

Wallford’s reaction could easily have been expected. He grabbed the hilt of his sword and began to draw the blade from the scabbard.

The heavy blade of King Tuskandru’s sword cleaved the top of the colonel’s head from the rest of his skull.

Desh Krohan stepped back, taking her body along for the ride, and Tega stared on, horrified, as the soldiers who followed Wallford grabbed crossbows and aimed, or leveled the horseman’s pikes they held and prepared to charge at Tuskandru. The King did not step back, but instead moved toward the closest soldier behind the colonel’s falling body. The man’s crossbow bolt fired at Tuskandru’s chest even as the warrior swept his great sword in another tight arc and hacked into the soldier’s leg and into the horse under it. The sword cut deep. The crossbow bolt dug partially into the armor on Tusk’s body and vibrated where it stopped.

Tega felt her essence pulled backward, as Desh did something with her body, and suddenly rose into the air. He tried to speak again, tried to gain the attention of the soldiers and warriors alike, but it was far too late for that.

War cries came from the mouths of the Sa’ba Taalor and their great mounts alike. Arrows and bolts lashed through the air, striking some targets and missing others. The cavalrymen turned their warhorses toward the enemy and discovered that the enormous beasts their enemies rode not only ran fast, but also pounced. The warriors held onto their mounts with hands and legs alike as the animals ran and jumped, moving over the first rank of riders and into the columns of horsemen who were jostling for position as the first line tried to brace for an attack that never happened.

Thick claws and powerful teeth ripped into horses and soldiers alike and even as they did so the Sa’ba Taalor drew weapons as varied as their armor. Men screamed, women screamed, horses screamed, and the great beasts howled out in voices that seemed too large for their enormous bodies.

Tega had little chance to see more before her body rose higher still, sailing away from the sudden explosion of combat, moving at a maddening speed and dragging her anchored spirit along for the ride. Had she eyes she’d have closed them. Had she a mouth, she’d have screamed.

••••

The wizard tried to warn them, but failed. The soldiers of the Empire approached with threats and then the foolish one insulted him. And Tusk responded as he had been raised to respond. There was no question in his mind of right or wrong. The gods made their demands in exchange for all they did for the people. The first demand was obedience. Durhallem did not believe in mercy and so Tuskandru, King of Durhallem’s Heart did not believe in mercy. The accuser died first. And then the one who’d followed him so closely. The point of the crossbow bolt cut at his chest and so he pulled it free, even as the next of the fools came for him, charging with a long pike. The rider was good at riding his charging horse. He was not quite as good at holding the lance on target. Tusk stepped to the side and blocked the weapon before it could hit him, felt the impact run up his arms and stepped back enough to alleviate some of the force.

He whistled and Brodem, his mount, roared in response. The animal would not follow him, would not come to his aid, but because of his call, was now free to hunt the enemy. He did not bother further with Brodem. If they survived the battle, they would reunite. Until then, there was only one thing that mattered: the fight.

Tusk’s sword cut through the flank of the great war horse and it fell, toppling along with the rider. The man who had tried to impale him with the pike was pinned under the horse at it screamed its way to the ground. He struggled to rise, perhaps to fight or merely to stand. Tusk stomped down on his skull and felt bones shatter beneath his foot. The horse thrashed too much and so he carved its head from its body and moved on.

A pike rammed into his helmet and skidded off. His head rang with the force of the blow but not enough to stop him. He grabbed the pike with his free hand and held it as he pulled the rider closer to him. The man could let go of his weapon or he could fall off his horse. Foolishly he chose to hold the weapon. Instinct told him the weapon could save his life. Tusk knew better. To depend on any weapon alone was to weaken yourself. That was the first lesson taught by Wrommish, and none of the Sa’ba Taalor lived long without knowing the lessons Wrommish made them learn. His sword stuck in the chest of the man when he shoved it through the armor of his enemy. Rather than fight the sword free he surrendered it and reached for the chain held against his hip. The heavy links sang and rattled as he swung them.

A crossbow bolt found its way into his thigh and he roared as he faced the man who’d fired the thing at him. The soldier surrendered his crossbow and tried for his sword. The chain shattered his lower jaw before he could pull the weapon from its scabbard. The enemy seemed skilled at the weapons they used, but only employed a few. That was a mistake in Tusk’s eyes. Many weapons, many ways to kill. That is what the Daxar Taalor demanded and a wise man did not argue with his gods. The chain lashed out a second time and the soldier fell.

Around him, his people grinned and roared and called the names of the Daxar Taalor, celebrating both the injuries they sustained and the ones they delivered.

The Daxar Taalor were gods of war, and they had been training for so very long for this moment, for this time when the gods would finally unleash them on their enemies.

Sometimes the gods are kind.

Tuskandru, Chosen of the Forge of Durhallem, called out his god’s name and celebrated the offerings he made to his deity. Around him blood spilled across the half-frozen ground of the Blasted Lands, which had waited as patiently as the gods for this day, for this time.

At long last the time for war had come.

A soldier screamed as he caught the man’s fingers in the links of his chain and pulled, breaking the digits and tearing the flesh around them. While he was screaming Tusk drove his elbow into the man’s windpipe and shattered the cartilage there. The man began coughing and trying to breathe. He was still dying while Tuskandru moved toward the next sacrifice he would offer to his gods.

Truly, he was blessed.

Nineteen

Desh Krohan released the body of his apprentice, Tega, and watched her slump across the bed where he’d set her down. She was exhausted. That was hardly surprising. She was not used to the rigors of anything but the most minor sorceries. There was a reason it took years to learn the more powerful spells.

Tega made a slurred noise and he regarded her. “Sleep. You’re safe now.”

He’d hated to release her from being with the Sa’ba Taalor, but had no desire to see her harmed and had little doubt that she would have been if she had stayed. They seemed an honorable people, but he didn’t know them well enough to know how they treated anyone they associated with their enemies.

Enemies. He shook his head. That damned fool, General Hradi, was about to learn what it meant to have enemies.

Desh moved back to his body where it lay within the safety of his guarded room. As he fell back into his flesh, his lungs breathed again and his heart beat, and the cloak that sheltered him once more began to shimmer and pulse.

And Desh moved his body, rose quickly to his full height and left the room he kept locked against troubles, barely allowing himself time to recover from the disorientation of jumping bodies. Anger made him a little less cautious. Anger made him reckless. And he was so very angry.

He stormed down the corridors on the way to the Emperor’s chambers and those who saw him coming did their very best not to get noticed by him.

General Merros Dulver looked at the other men at the table and scowled. Currently all of them were sitting in the Emperor’s throne room, which for the moment was not being used to run the country and was therefore available. That would change soon, but until then it was the only bloody office that Merros knew well enough to find.

“Which one of you actually decided to start a war, and why?” The two men facing him were both longtime commanders of the military forces. He had, on rare occasions, received commands with their names, signatures and formal seals. Generals Olec Hradi and Dataro Larn were not the least bit impressed by him. He should have been terrified.

Instead he was well and truly pissed off.

Hradi sat a little taller in his seat. The man was old, much older than Merros expected, with a heavily weathered face, perfectly tailored uniform and a gut that could not be hidden by the by the very finest of tailors. His white hair was thinning on his head and he’d worked hard to comb it over so that it might seem fuller. He was failing in all efforts.

“Who are you to talk to us that way, Dulver?” He sneered. “You’re a nobody! The only reason you’re here is because you managed to cull favor with the Emperor. Perhaps you heard the news that he’s dead?” Hradi leaned forward, his hands planted on the table as if he might decide at a moment’s notice to leap into action and come across the grand marble surface at a full charge.

General Larn looked on, not saying a word. His eyes watched one man and then the other as they spoke, taking their measure and doing nothing else.

Merros stood perfectly straight and stared daggers at Hradi. “So you decided the best way to take care of his death was to send two hundred soldiers off to start a war? Have you lost your mind?”

“How dare you?” Hradi’s voice cracked with outrage, or just possibly age. It was hard to clearly decide while the man was bellowing and red-faced. “I took control of the situation! It’s very likely that the person responsible for Emperor Krous’ murder was moving with that caravan! They had to be made to come back here.”

“The caravan left before the Emperor was assassinated. I was there. I watched them climb on their animals and leave.” Oh, yes he was liking the general less by the moment.

Hradi’s eyes nearly bulged from their wrinkled sockets and he found himself wondering how it was that he had ever feared or admired the man who had sent him off to a dozen different border skirmishes over the years. There was nothing about the man that spoke of military strength or of anything remotely like discipline. He stank of perfumes designed to lure women to his bed and his hands were soft and his nails manicured.

“They need to account for themselves!”

“So you sent two hundred armed men to politely ask a visiting king and his retinue to come back and answer to whom, exactly? You?”

“If needs be, yes!”

“You’re not the Emperor! You’re not in charge of the Empire!”

“No I’m in charge of the greatest army in the known world.” Hradi’s voice grew cold and calm and he rose from his seat with an oily grace. His eyes were clear and his expression was calm and that worried Merros more than anything else.

Merros looked toward General Larn, but the man was still merely watching. His facial expression had not changed in the least.

Merros frowned. Actually, it should have changed at least a little. In fact, the man’s eyes should at least move a bit or blink.

“General Larn? Are you well?”

Hradi looked over at the other general. “Answer him, Dataro. You agreed with my decision, after all.”

There was no response. Larn remained in the same position, but he trembled a bit, his hands shaking ever so slightly.

“Oh, damn.”

Merros walked toward the man and called out at the same time, “Wollis! I need you!”

Wollis March opened the doors to the room immediately, and two other men were right there with him. Surely there was no such thing as a general without an assistant. Merros barely knew the generals by name and likeness together. The assistants were lost to him.

His hand reached out and touched Larn. The man’s flesh was nearly like ice and though his heart was beating it was a close thing. The small needle in the back of his neck was all the hint that Merros needed to know the man was poisoned and likely already dead.

“Poisoned. We’ve an assassin around here.” Larn had entered the room after Merros. He had been lively enough when he sat down. That had only been a few moments before. Merros took in the details of the room. There were a great many items within the place. Tapestries on the walls, suits of armor – really, he was beginning to wonder if anyone ever actually wore the armor or if it merely lay around waiting to be used as decorations – several different globes and tables covered with documents and maps.

Halfway across the room the great skull of a thing Merros hoped never to run across sat like a centerpiece. It was adorned with gold and crusted with gems of every type. It was enormous.

It had also been moved recently. The last time he’d been in the room the nostrils of the thing faced directly at the door and now they were slightly to the right of where they had been.

Without speaking he pointed to Wollis and his second nodded, drawing his sword before heading for the great skull.

Larn slid from his seat with a soft sigh. Merros wanted to check on him again, but not now. There simply wasn’t time.

He pointed to the two men standing in the doorway: “Close that. Block it.”

They listened without asking. Hradi made a rude noise and started looking around the room himself. His eyes didn’t bother with the skull, he knew that someone was already looking. Instead he focused on the draperies around the area. They ran up to the ceiling in most cases and were loose enough that a person could likely hide with little or no difficulty. Good. The idiot was keeping himself busy. That meant that Merros didn’t have to worry about doing it himself.

Instead Merros approached the skull himself, looking into the cavernous eye socket that stared blankly back in his direction.

There was nothing at all pretty about the beast.

He ran his hand along the eye socket, felt the contour of the bone ridges and saw what he’d half-expected. The inside of the thing was hollow, as most skulls would be, granted, but there looked to be a larger cavity inside than in most skulls he’d seen. His fingers kept sliding over the surface, feeling the gems, the markings and carvings, and he kept looking for…

There. His fingers pushed on a gem near the hinge of the massive jaw and a clicking noise followed. “Wollis. Help me with this.”

Wollis came to him, his face serious, and looked at the spot where Merros was touching. He lowered his head to examine the spot where the skull seemed to have a hidden compartment.

While he was looking the assassin slipped from under the table and threw a dagger directly at Hradi. The general never even saw the weapon that killed him. The blade rammed into his temple and he let out another little harrumphing noise before he crashed to the ground.

Merros turned at the sound – compounded by the shocked screams of the two men at the door – and watched the commander of the Empire’s army fall dead.

The figure moved fast, doing exactly what he’d imagined Hradi might do earlier and sliding across the polished marble surface of the table. Slim, possibly female, and shorter than he’d expected, the way she moved was telling, even if he hadn’t recognized the pattern of scars on her left hip, where his hand had rested more than once.

“Swech!”

She ignored him and moved for the door, both hands already in motion, throwing glittering objects that drove into each of the men at the door. One fell back with something vibrating in his bleeding eye socket. The other staggered to the side and tried to stop the blood that was flowing from a fresh wound in his throat. Still she did not stop moving. She carried herself toward the door and potential freedom.

“Swech! Stop! What is this?” Impossible was what it was. He’d seen her climb aboard Saa’thaa, had watched her leave the city with the caravan of riders. Yet he looked at her now, saw the scars he’d damned near memorized, the way her gray hair moved in a slow wave of curls.

Swech spun and cocked her hand next to her shoulder. He could see another blade, small but no doubt deadly, resting amid her fingers.

Merros raised his hands, wanting to talk this out somehow, wanting not to get a knife through his eye or throat or any part of his body, really.

And while he had her attention, Wollis took a chance and charged, his sword drawn back for a killing stroke.

Three seconds, at most. The hand holding the blade moved with a casual flick and the blade cut into Merros’ jaw, sliding across bone and carving a trench. The pain was immediate and exquisite. He hissed and stepped back his hand moving automatically to staunch the blood, the fire, the pain.

Wollis brought his sword up in an arc and down toward Swech’s head. By rights he should have taken a large portion of her features away from the rest of her skull, but she moved out of the way, sliding sideways and striking the descending blade with the palm of her hand. Swech kept her balance with ease. Wollis staggered forward, trying to compensate for the unexpected change in his weapon’s direction.

Had he been there, and instructing, Tuskandru might well have pointed out Wollis’ mistake. The sword is only a weapon after all, and none of the Sa’ba Taalor lived long without knowing the lessons Wrommish made them learn.

Swech hit Wollis in the throat with her hand. He staggered back, coughing, and she struck again, her elbow driving into Wollis’ surprised face and shattering bone. She struck one more time, and Wollis fell as surely as a tree taken down by the foresters of Trecharch. Swech did not look back. She pulled open the closed doors leading into the hallway and ran.

Merros ran too, but only as far as Wollis. The man was his friend. They had been on a good number of journeys together.

One look told him that they would not journey together any further. Wollis was dead. Really, that was all it took to slow Merros down for the moment. Wollis was dead and he was left wondering exactly what had just happened.

Desh Krohan arrived in the chambers exactly too late to be of any assistance at all.

Merros would be a long time deciding whether or not he could forgive the sorcerer for that.

••••

Goriah rode on the bow of the small vessel, staring at the mountain looming out of the waters ahead of her. She did not need to get much closer to see all that she needed to see. The islands of the Guntha were gone, swallowed by the newly born land still steaming and growing. The towering center of the freshly formed land burned and above that fiery pit the skies were filled with sulfurous ash and lightning crested, turbulent clouds.

She stared at that sky and was immediately reminded of the Seven Forges.

There had been no warning. The Sooth had not given so much as a cry of the threat that this moment brought with it, and that was beyond unusual. While the spirits were hardly the most reliable creatures, they tended to offer too many possibilities not to remain quiet about disasters of this scale.

The islands of the Guntha were gone and so too were the Guntha themselves, burned away when the explosion birthed this new place.

But was it new? While the land looked fresh, the mountain did not. It struck her as remarkably similar to one of the Forges, the one farthest to the west on the maps she and her sisters had studied with Desh Krohan. It was impossible to say, of course. She had not circled that one particular mountain as she now circled this one, but at certain angles she could almost be certain. If Desh was correct in his guesses, that would be the mountain closest to the ocean, though to be fair it was purely guesswork on his part.

“Do mountains move?” She whispered the words, not expecting an answer.

The captain of her small vessel cleared his throat. “Lady, we are in danger here. The storms are growing again.”

They were indeed. The storms were gathering above and they would grow wider and more violent soon. The shore where she had rented the services of the captain and his crew were covered already with heavy ash blown over from the new island. Surely there would be more of the same covering their homes in the near future, covering them as well if they did not return to the docks and soon.

“As you say, Captain Whelan.” Goriah studied the peak for a moment longer and stared at the clouds painted the color of blood that brooded above it. “Let’s return to the harbor. I have seen enough.”

The man was quick to accommodate.

Desh Krohan would find the news very interesting. She intended to tell him just as soon as she could get to dry land. The turbulent sea was making it difficult for her to concentrate well enough for long distance communication.

The sun set on Tyrne, and instead of stars there were only clouds. The storms were coming from the south, from where the Guntha once lived before flames swallowed them. Their shroud seemed to want to cover the world, at least for the moment.

Guards moved in close precision throughout the palace, moving in groups of three or more and checking everywhere they could, for there could be no doubt that somewhere nearby a murderer crept, perhaps even now seeking a way to reach Nachia Krous, or another member of the Imperial Family.

Swech did indeed move through Tyrne, but no longer moved to strike against anyone. It was time to go home, her mission was complete.

The Daxar Taalor had visited her, their voices softly whispering for her alone. It was not King Tuskandru who guided her to kill, though likely he’d known of what was planned. Had it been Tusk she might have listened. She might not. She was not overly fond of him, though she bore him no particular dislike.

But one did not disobey the gods. Not if one wished to continue living.

She looked back at the palace, at the torches that burned around the structure and the distant shapes of guards that had not been there before she did as commanded.

She had no regrets.

The men she’d killed meant nothing to her. They were not Sa’ba Taalor. They were not her people. Still, she felt a little sorrow. She had been fond of Merros Dulver. He had been a pleasant distraction and had taught her a great deal about his people while they journeyed together. Also, he was a fun lover.

Saa’thaa still waited patiently for her, exactly where she had left him. Her hand patted his muzzle and his warm breath greeted her fingers. He breathed in her scent and let out a pleased rumble.

“We go now, yes? We head home.” She sighed the words into his ear and then climbed into the saddle he bore without effort. Her muscles ached from hours staying in one position, barely breathing, waiting patiently for the right times to do as the gods commanded. She was grateful for the chance to rest for a moment. The work of the faithful could be exhausting, but was, as always, rewarding.

Swech rested her head against Saa’thaa’s neck and he rose moving with a steady gait that very gradually increased in speed.

Merros Dulver.

Unconsciously her hand drifted to her abdomen, to the child she felt growing within her womb. He was an interesting man. She remained uncertain what she should feel about the child within her body, but she also knew that the Daxar Taalor willed that she carry the baby, and so she would.

Would her child meet the man who had helped with its conception?

If the gods willed it, it would be so.

Some of the plans she had for the future were accurate, but not all of them. The gods had different ideas.

Nachia Krous looked at the crowd of people around her and kept her composure through sheer force of will. Pathra would have expected no less of his successor. Though she did not yet wear the crown of the Empress, only a few considered denying her the position. They did not matter. Desh Krohan kept telling her as much and she believed him.

Merros Dulver stood to her left, the sorcerer to her right. It was time to deal with affairs of the state and that meant having her forces gathered and with her. There were other generals, of course. The Empire was too large to have only three men in charge of the armies, but the others were in other places and not yet even aware of everything that had transpired.

They would know soon. The wizard had sent his messengers and there were others like him who would receive the messages and inform the appropriate parties.

“Like as not the rumors of your cousin’s death will reach the other side of the Empire before the messengers arrive. That’s the way of it with bad news and gossip.”

She managed a small smile for his jest, but only barely. Even the sorcerer’s acerbic wit would only go so far right now. Too many things were going wrong. They were at the very edge of war, and possibly they had already gone over that precipice. Most of the armed forces were in disarray because of the assassinations, and there were several forces gathering around the area that would very likely add to the chaos rather than detract from it. Her cousin, Laister, was behaving himself, but only barely, and there were other members of the Krous family who were already being vocal about their support of his claims to the throne.

Desh had said the situation would resolve itself. He had not promised it would do so without bloodshed.

And the closest thing she had to a commander for her armies at the moment was staring around with half-lidded eyes and a seething anger in his soul. Merros Dulver seemed intent on something, but she didn’t know him well enough to know what that something was. That worried her. Pathra had always said it was best to know the minds of your closest allies.

Pathra. Damn but thinking about him hurt. He wasn’t supposed to be dead. He was supposed to be here, with her, making her laugh with his quiet humor and his deliberate antics. Instead she was mourning his loss and sitting on the throne that had been his for over a decade.

She felt like a graverobber.

That’s me, she thought, Empress of the Dead. She meant the notion as a joke, of course, but found it not at all amusing.

It felt too much like the truth as the bodies of her cousin and two of Fellein’s greatest warriors were prepared for their final rest.

Truth, she knew, was often not as solid as it appeared. She had only to look at the sorcerer at her hand to know that fact.

Three months earlier his life had been a frozen wasteland and the promise of wealth if he survived a trek to the Seven Forges. Since then he’d gone into a land no one from Fellein had ever been to, met with kings, gained a larger fortune than he’d ever imagined and become the nominal head of the Empire’s armies. He had met with a fascinating woman, gotten to know her intimately, and then watched her murder his best friend. A friend he had not really considered very much through his journeys, because like all good friends, the man was simply there when he needed him.

And now he was gone.

Tataya’s words came back to haunt him: the prophecy she claimed Desh Krohan had received about him. You will lose your hand, find your fist and gain an ally. You will also meet your enemy face-to-face. He did not know of prophecies or of the ways of sorcerers. He did, however, feel as if he had lost a vital part of himself with Wollis’ passing. He had in fact lost his right hand man.

Of fists and allies he had no such claims. Perhaps that was the problem with prophecies: they only came true after you looked back at them. As for his enemies, he had only met them face to veil, really, so that could hardly be a proper choice of words.

Dretta March would be arriving soon. She would be followed by her son, Nolan. It was very likely that they would blame him for the death of Wollis. Even if they did not, he felt to blame. His friend had been following his orders, had been trying to protect him. Tears threatened to sting his eyes and he forced them back.

Tears were for men, not soldiers. He did not have time to be both. Currently the scariest fighters he had ever seen in action were heading back for their homeland and they would likely be gathering an army to come back to Fellein and seek retribution for whatever had caused them to assassinate Pathra Krous in the first place.

Were there any prophecies that claimed he would win the coming battle? He did not know and he was afraid to ask. The answer might terrify him a bit too much.

Nachia Krous stirred in her seat near his side and he turned to look at her.

“Call in the first claimant, please.”

Once every month the Emperor heard from his people. The lords and ladies and the courtesans as well as a select few of the commoners, all of whom had matters they felt needed his attention.

That day had fallen again and the Emperor would not be able to answer. But the woman who would soon be crowned Empress would stand in, along with the Regent to the Throne and the First General of the Empire.

First General of the Empire. Merros wanted to run screaming at the very notion. Not all that long ago he’d nearly wet himself at the notion of facing seven Pra-Moresh on the frozen wastes of the Blasted Lands. Currently he found himself longing for the good old days when the only thing at stake was his life.

The Princess Lanaie of Roathes was led into the throne room. Her eyes were wide and her lips trembled. She was terrified.

“Yes, Lanaie?” Nachia waved away the formal protocols for this particular occasion. No one would hold it against her.

Lanaie fell to one knee and lowered her head. “M… Majesty, I come on behalf of my father, King Marsfel of Roathes.”

“Yes, I know. What is it your father seeks?”

“Only to inform Your Majesty that the Guntha seem to have been telling the truth.”

Nachia frowned. “What truth is that?”

“On the horizon, near where Guntha used to be and where the great island of fire now burns, many people have now seen ships. Great black ships, Majesty, and they are headed for Roathes.”

Nachia frowned. “And where do these ships come from?”

“From the north and the west, Majesty. From the Blasted Lands.”

Merros frowned as well. The Sa’ba Taalor could not possibly have a navy as well, could they? He shook his head. Navies took time to build.

Of course, the people of the Seven Forges had been alone for a thousand years. They could have planned anything in that time.

He cast his eyes toward Desh Krohan, but the man’s cloak was on, his face lost in shadows and unreadable.

Damn. What the hell had he gotten himself into?

Three days without food, and he was running low on clean water too. Drask Silver Hand and his cohorts had abandoned him, and Andover Lashk walked slowly toward the distant fires of the Seven Forges. The winds had picked up a great deal and he was grateful for his fur-lined cloak and the scarf he’d now used to cover most of his face. He squinted through the grit trying to blind him and oriented himself on the Forges. He’d have turned back, would have tried for home, but he didn’t quite dare. There was a chance that Drask was waiting for him to do something like that. There was also a chance, no matter what the Sa’ba Taalor had said, that he would lose the gift of his iron hands if he tried to return to Fellein. He doubted that last, but faith was as new a concept for him as having artificial hands that could feel and could move at his command.

Faith takes time to cement itself in a wary heart.

The sun had set, or if it had not the clouds overhead were too thick to let the light shine down. Either way the world was mostly darkness and Andover found the light in the distance as attractive as a moth finds the glow of a lamp in the night. He walked faster whenever he let himself look up, as if he might somehow make his way to the Seven Forges magically shorten by increasing his speed.

There would be no rest. No stopping. He would prove himself to the people who demanded to know his worthiness, or he would die trying.

The air around him shifted and danced and he heard the sound of weeping coming from his left. A moment later laughter came from his right.

His skin crawled. There was an element of insanity to both sounds and he made himself stand still and truly listen.

The sounds came again from in front of him and from behind as well.

His hands reached instinctively and he pulled the hammer slung across his back into his hands. For one brief moment the air calmed itself and he could hear skittering noises as something in the darkness sought to properly gain purchase on the icy ground.

The darkness was almost complete but he could see shapes, far larger than he was as they moved along the edges of his vision.

His hands gripped the hammer the way he’d been taught.

Andover released a breath and drew back for a proper swing as something giggle-screamed and charged him from the right. Another something wept as it came from behind.

Seven Forges Book II

The Blasted Lands

This one is dedicated to Christopher Golden, Tim Lebbon, Martel Sardinia, Anya Martin, Lee Harris, Caroline Lambe, Marc Gascoigne, John McIlveen, Cliff Biggers, Mike Underwood, Ro Moore, Steve Moore, Nela Bell, Eric Bell, Brian Bell, Dimi Kosmakos, Andrea Cummings and the memory of friends and loved ones past. Thank you all for making this journey an interesting one.

And to Pete and Nikki Crowther for the bow tie emergency repairs and for being wonderful souls.

One

The wind howled furiously, but it did not howl alone.

The Pra-Moresh joined into the fury, their voices breaking into warped laughter, sobs of sorrow and snarls of rage.

Andover Lashk listened to the noises and gritted his teeth to stop himself from screaming. His heart stuttered in his chest and his stomach clenched into a fiery fist. He had heard of the beasts, but never seen one before.

That was about to change and he knew it.

His iron hands wrapped around the long haft of the hammer and the blade he’d forged into a proper weapon. He felt the familiar weight and concentrated on unwinding the tension in his arms.

Jost, the girl who’d taught him the most about unarmed combat, said the secret of fighting was to be relaxed: tension slowed the body down and he would need all of his speed.

The cackling and weeping of the things came closer and danced around him in a slow circle. The Pra-Moresh fought in packs. He knew that much. He could see shapes but they were barely visible through the dust and snow whipped around by the storming air of the Blasted Lands.

Something charged from his right. It was a shambling mountain of fur and claws and he saw the mouth of the thing open in a feral grin. Andover pushed back across the frozen ground with his left leg and slid his weight onto the right. The paws of the thing swept the air where he’d been a moment before and he used his left leg to kick back a second time, sliding across the icy surface a few more inches.

The shape came closer and he swept the weighted end of his hammer back, letting the balancing point swing up toward the beast.

A sound like a weeping man came from the thing and it swatted the air a second time to see if the point of the weapon was a serious threat. The paw slapped the sharp tip knocking it aside easily.

This was exactly what Andover hoped for. He used the momentum of the attack to help him bring the heavy hammer’s bladed head around in a hard arc and added his own meager body mass to the swing.

The impact ran up his arms and the shriek of pain from the beast set his teeth rattling in their sockets. The thing staggered back, shaking its brutal head. Something vital had been broken. A stream of blood ran from the nightmare’s face. While it was moving around in pain, he brought the blade up a second time and shattered the monster’s jaw.

More of the things were coming. He couldn’t tell how many, only that they were there. It was their damned voices; they sounded like they were everywhere at once. A wall of fur came from the dusty air and he stepped toward it, sweeping the heavy hammerhead up and around in a savage arc. The hammer bounced off the back of the Pra-Moresh and an instant later Andover was knocked to the ground as the monster loomed over him. His head hit the hard, frozen earth and his vision faded to gray.

The monster swept a paw at him and he blocked, the reaction more instinct and luck than anything else. And his hammer was knocked into the distance.

A wailing sob of victory came from above and the vast mouth of the thing dropped toward his face. Andover reacted instinctively and shoved his hands forward to protect himself.

The iron fingers of his hands caught the teeth and lips of the Pra-Moresh and he grunted as the thing tried to bite down. Hot, stinking saliva bled across his metallic fingertips as he strained. He was not strong enough to stop the mouth from closing, but his hands proved too much for the monster’s teeth, which broke off against the living iron.

The beast pulled back, no doubt surprised by the unexpected pain. While it was shaking its face and working its jaw, Andover reached up and grabbed the thick fur of its throat in his hands and squeezed with all of his might.

Had his hands been flesh it might have made no difference, but metal fingers clenched and punched through meat and fur and cartilage and shattered the monster’s windpipe.

It reared back again, lumbering to the side and gagging, trying to breathe, while Andover pushed himself backward and looked for any method of escape. It was impossible to say if he could get away. As for weapons he could use, there was nothing. The first of the demons was alive and recovering and enraged. The second was coughing and gagging–

The thing fell down and shuddered, but did not rise. The torso of the monster vibrated and it thrashed in a frenzy, but did not get back up.

Madness. Andover felt a grin peeling his lips apart.

He rose to his knees and looked around. There were two of the nightmares near him and neither was making noises now. He tried to see his hammer but it was lost in the storm.

The bow was still slung across his back. The quiver of arrows still contained a few though some had been lost when he was thrown down.

He drew an arrow and slid the bow from his back, struggling past the heavy fur cloak that stopped him from freezing to death.

The dust slapped across his eyes, making him blink furiously. The first of the Pra-Moresh was eyeing him angrily, its ruined muzzle bleeding a constant stream of steaming hot blood. The second convulsed violently and then stopped moving.

He took careful aim at the first of the creatures and drew back the bowstring, breathing as he’d been taught. The shaggy head continued to face him, but the monster did not charge. Not yet at least.

The arrow cut through the air and punched deep into the flaring nose of the thing. He had been aiming for the eye. The Pra-Moresh reared up, bellowing-crying-giggling, and then came down on all fours, charging him, a mountainous heaving bulk that would surely crush him.

He drew and fired and missed. And then it was there. The body of the thing plowed into him and carried him easily from the frozen ground. Andover let out a groan that was lost under the noises from the brute.

The great arms wrapped around him and began squeezing. Pain ripped into his sides and forced the air from his lungs and his hands reached – sought what he had previously missed with his arrow. The fingers caught one of the dark eyes and he dug as hard as he could. The other hand found the fletching from the arrow buried in the nose and he pushed down with all he could muster.

To call his hands miracles was not an exaggeration. The hands were a gift from the Sa’ba Taalor’s god, Truska-Pren, their god of iron. In his short lifetime Andover Lashk had never had much need of gods but one had granted him new hands when his had been ruined by the city-guard. The hands were metal. No doubting that, but he could feel with them, and they moved under his command. So he felt the raw juices that vomited from the ruptured eye of his enemy and he felt the arrow drive deeper before it bent and broke under the pressure from his grip.

Those sensations were miracles. The way the Pra-Moresh threw him like a horse might throw a kitten was simple physics. The beast screamed. Andover screamed and sailed and tried to find the way to land without hurting himself.

He failed.

Some rules are simply universal: When kings call to arms, the soldiers fall in. That is one such rule.

When the fighting was done and the soldiers from Fellein had fallen, King Tuskandru looked down upon his enemies and allowed a grim smile. He was physically exhausted, battered, bruised and cut in many places. Three of his people were badly wounded and many more were injured to the point where they would need to mend before they could easily fight again. They had been outnumbered four to one. Injuries were unavoidable.

Still, the enemy lay dead and dying. He called to Brodem, his mount, and the great beast padded over to him, panting and well fed on the horses of the enemy. He patted the bloodied muzzle of his ally and then reached into his saddlebags, fishing until he found the great horn he’d wrapped carefully before the trip began.

Tusk blew four hard, sharp notes into the air and felt the winds change as the sounds rang out. He did not wait for a response. He knew that if the gods willed it, the soldiers would come to him.

The battle was over. They had won. In time there would be a victory feast. For now however there were other considerations. Tusk called to Blane and Ehnole to pass the word around. The bodies would be taken home. All of them.

The ride home to the Taalor Valley was uneventful. Saa’thaa moved across the broken landscape without complaint and they only stopped when nature demanded or to give Swech a chance to slide into her furs and armor. The air was cold, the winds were violent and while her mount might easily endure the elements, she preferred to wear protection.

They rode past the remains of several horses and the broken weapons of different fighters. Swech called Saa’thaa to a halt and examined the find carefully, reading the signs of the battle. Her people and the soldiers from Fellein. There were no bodies from either side to be found, but she would have been surprised if there had been.

The fight had been brutal and short. She had no doubt of that.

She would have been there for it, but the Daxar Taalor had given her other orders and one does not question the will of the gods. Whatever she missed was secondary to the demand to kill not only an Emperor, but also his military minds. Only one had been spared and she was grateful to the gods for that.

She had aimed the blade for Merros Dulver’s heart, fully intending to kill him much as the notion hurt her. And instead the voice of great Wrommish filled her being and told her to spare him. The blade that should have ended his life instead merely cut across his jaw and while he recovered from that she fled the room.

Being captured was not within the plans of the gods. She made sure she was not taken.

It was exactly that simple for her.

So now she rode home, to the valley of the Seven Forges and she looked at their guiding light as she made her way and felt her heart swell with joy. The dark clouds meant nothing in comparison to the warm glow of the volcanic mountains that lit their underbellies.

Soon enough the vast mountains dwarfed the raging storms and sheltered them from the harsh winds. The light from above reflected down onto them and warmed their flesh. The great black shape of Durhallem welcomed them home. They rode through the obsidian tunnel beneath the vast mountain and into the valley proper. The others she had traveled with were there, and they had gathered a large force to help them. A few people nodded as she passed, but there were no greetings and the work continued for those gathered. They did not have time to rest and neither did she. Wrommish demanded more of her and she obeyed.

Wrommish was one of her favored gods. The Daxar Taalor demanded that they be served and the Sa’ba Taalor served without hesitation. All that was right in their world was a gift of the gods. To do other than serve them was foolish and wasteful. And while each of her people served the gods, they were not served equally. Inevitably one god or another was favored by individuals. The philosophies of Wrommish and Paedle were the ones that she liked best. Wrommish believed above all else that the body was a weapon. Paedle’s philosophies often agreed. Paedle stated that war did not need to be a business of sword against sword when a properly placed dagger or bared hand could determine a victory or win a battle before it was fought.

Swech believed that the greatest weapons were the body and the mind. Together they could accomplish amazing feats. Wrommish and Paedle best exemplified her beliefs and so she followed them above all others.

And now she would either be rewarded for her beliefs or she would be punished. She had no reason to believe she would be punished – except that Merros Dulver was alive and she couldn’t say with complete faith that the gods wanted him that way. The heart can lie to the mind – time would tell.

The Taalor Valley was as lush and green as she remembered and the air was sweet after the acrid stench of the Blasted Lands. She eagerly peeled away her excess layers of fur and armor when they stopped to eat. The sky was clear for the first time since they’d entered the Blasted Lands and she looked at the sun and reveled in the warmth it caressed her flesh with.

Merros Dulver’s face haunted her. The look he bore when he realized she was the assassin. The sound of his voice when he called her name and begged her to stop. She sighed once and then pushed him from her mind. She served the gods. She obeyed. There was nothing else.

Two days of continuous travel had her at the foot of Wrommish. The mountain was jagged gray rock, littered with occasional greenery and draped in several waterfalls that descended from the snowcapped top of the vast, sheltering shape. It was home and she loved it as she loved each and every one of the Forges.

To her west was the vast fortress wall that hid the city of Predayne. One of her homes was there. She would not be visiting this day. Instead she patted Saa’thaa on his muzzle and looked him in his great eyes. “Go. I head for the Heart of Wrommish. I do not know when I will return.”

The bond between rider and mount was unique. From what she had heard of man and horse from the people of the Empire, they did not share the connections that she and Saa’thaa experienced. How very tragic and hollow their lives seemed on so many levels.

Saa’thaa stared back and then sighed. A moment later he was bounding away from her, toward the west.

Swech climbed the mountain. There were no pathways, but like most of her people she was used to physical challenges. Many people had made the trek over the years but that did not matter. Wrommish did not want easy ways to reach the heart of the forge, where the god rested and waited. The Daxar Taalor did not offer a life of ease; they offered life. Struggles were to be conquered.

She stopped only to eat, and then it was a quick meal. Though the voice of Wrommish had made no demands for haste, there was a deep-seated need to hurry.

There were stories told that Wrommish hid the entrance to the cavern from anyone He did not wish to see. She had never had a problem entering the cave and could not testify to the truth of the matter. Whatever the facts, she reached the entrance to the natural cave she had passed into on four separate occasions. Each time she had come alone and each time she had not left the area without being changed. One cannot meet with gods and remain unaltered. That simple wisdom was one of the first lessons she had ever learned.

Though there were no torches, there was no worry about illumination. Metal seams ran through the rock of the cavern that gave off a warm golden light. The luminescence was not natural; it was another gift of Wrommish. As she walked into the heart of the mountain, Swech stopped long enough to remove her clothes, setting them into a small pile near several other collections of leather and cloth alike. The veil covering the lower half of her face was removed last, and she sighed in simple pleasure at the air that ran across her nose and her lips. The gods had decreed that the people of Fellein were not worthy to see the true faces of the Sa’ba Taalor. One look at them made clear why. So, since they had met the strangers, the group that traveled with them had hidden their faces away. Two days back in her homeland and the veil had become so much a part of her that she never thought to remove it. Now she was free from that order and it was a good and lovely thing. She breathed deep the warm air of Wrommish’s breath. She was not alone today. There were other pilgrims, either called forth or here on their own journeys. Like her, they had set their clothes into neat piles, knowing none would consider touching their possessions or taking from them in this holy place.

There was nothing to fear here. Fighting could occur anywhere, but none among the Sa’ba Taalor would ever fight in the hearts of the Forges, simply because it would be disrespectful. Should Wrommish demand that she strike and kill a hundred of her brethren she would do so, regardless of place or time. But, to her knowledge, none of the Daxar Taalor had ever demanded bloodshed within their mountain homes.

The cave around her was different than the last time she’d entered. The walls were still stone, and the ground still soft sand and pebbles, but the patterns of the stone cavern had changed and the sand had a lighter color. It was different each and every time, as the mountain was alive. She could feel the beat of the mountain’s slow, steady pulse with each step she took. The ground beneath her feet was almost the exact same temperature as her body, and she stretched and sighed and reveled in the comfort that the sand offered her. The walls glowed brighter the closer she came to the core of Wrommish and, though the heat from the fires below should have roasted her flesh and crisped her hair, she felt no discomfort. The aches of her long journey faded and her exhaustion was washed aside by the love of Wrommish.

The sand faded, solidified and became Boratha-Lo’ar, the fabled crystalline bridge, the thick translucent stone floor that ran the width of the vast chamber of Wrommish. The heart of Wrommish glowed beneath her feet and lit the cavern in shades of gold and autumn. The fires of the mountain ran below her, and Swech held her arms wide and basked in that warm, wondrous glow. By all rights she should have been dead. She knew that. She was not foolish. The heat below her was more than enough to cook her flesh away and the gasses that rose from the molten core were poisonous. It was the will of Wrommish that all who entered the mountain were safe from the heat, just as the will of the gods kept the raging storms of the Blasted Lands at bay. Merros Dulver’s gods had never offered him any evidence of their existence. He was raised to believe that faith alone would protect him from certain fates, but none of the gods ever offered proof of their power. The Daxar Taalor offered miracles every day. The wise understood that.

She was aware of the others who stood near her, but they were not significant. For the moment she felt the delicious heat of the god’s heart and savored it. Merros Dulver had spoken to her of his people’s gods and how some of them were feared, angry forces of retaliation. The concept was preposterous. One should not fear the gods. One should only feel their love as the love of a parent for a child: unchanging and ever-present.

She closed her eyes and said a silent thanks to Wrommish for the love she felt and when she opened her eyes she finally acknowledged the people around her. They were her kin and her people. In some places she might have killed them on sight, but here, in the Heart of Wrommish, they were family.

N’heelis, Chosen of the Forge of Wrommish and King in Gold looked upon her and spread his arms in welcome. He wore no crown, but his long hair was wrapped in heavy golden thread and draped down to the small of his back in a coil as thick as her leg. She returned the gesture, enchanted by his beauty as she always was. His flesh bore the scars of a thousand battles and almost as many victories. He stood naked before the god and the deep slash marks on his chest formed a serpentine pattern that ran from his left nipple down to the middle of his right thigh. The heavy scars were the mark that Wrommish himself had placed upon N’Heelis when he was chosen as king. She had borne witness to that event herself.

When N’Heelis spoke it was not with his voice, but with the voice of Wrommish. His lips moved but the sound was too low, too deep and resonated across the entire chamber.

“You have served the Daxar Taalor with honor, Swech Tothis Durwrae.”

Words could not express her joy. Instead she merely held her arms wide apart and bared herself to her god.

N’Heelis walked closer. “I ask more of you still. I ask that you leave this land again and become the instrument of my will.” There was no question of refusing the command. For Swech, for any of her people, it would be easier to forget how to breathe and see than to deny the gods.

N’heelis’shands reached out and held her face. His eyes locked on hers and the will of Wrommish spoke into her soul, telling her all she needed to know.

She smiled and almost wept. Great Wrommish was generous. There would be great glory in her works to come.

N’Heelis let go of her and smiled. Swech leaned forward impulsively and kissed the palms of his hands. Then she turned from her king and kindred and walked to the edge of the crystalline bridge. The fires of Wrommish blazed below her and the rising heat, here exposed and unforgiving, dried her eyes and made her hair wave and flutter. Here, as nowhere else, Wrommish was present and his power was undeniable.

Swech stepped from the edge of the hard floor and allowed her body to fall, plummeting into the glowing core of Wrommish’s molten heart. Behind her three others followed suit, each called by the god for their own tasks.

For only one heartbeat she wondered about the life growing inside her, the child of her union with Merros Dulver. As with all things, the child would be born to her if the Daxar Taalor wished it.

The heat blistered her flesh and Swech’s hair burned away long before she was swallowed by the molten gold of Wrommish’s heart. Fires scorched her lungs and eyes even as she whispered the god’s name one last time.

There was no darkness.

There was light: brilliant and soothing and all-encompassing.

And then there was rebirth.

Her body was fire. As she rose into the night the flames congealed, solidified and became flesh.

Swech climbed from the blaze in two quick motions, ignoring the fluttering sensation in her stomach. Wrommish had told her she would be placed in a different location, carried by the flames. For the moment she had no fear of the fire, as she was shielded from the heat, but that would not last. The flames crackled and popped, and even as she climbed from them she had to duck under the meat roasting above her. The ground was cold not ten feet away, but where she rose the air was as hot as the pit fire.

Swech looked around for only a moment before spotting her chosen prey.

A careful examination of the area let her know that most everyone was occupied. Eyes looked elsewhere and people ignored her presence, as Wrommish willed it. Most were gathered together into tight knots of flesh, huddled in the cold and talking, relaxing, or just sharing each other’s company.

The one she sought was alone, her back to the fires and her body almost hidden in shadow. The woman stared out into the darkness and held council with the night. No one else was near her, and that was for the best. Unlike so many of the females she’d met in Tyrne, this female was not soft and pampered, but wore comfortable attire. Her hands were callused, and a long thin blade rested near her. This one could fight, her posture even when resting spoke of her abilities.

Swech did not carry a sword. At the moment she was naked.

She used that to her advantage and stepped in front of the woman.

There was a moment of shock at her unclothed body, and then a heartbeat of curiosity. When recognition flared in the woman’s eyes, Swech struck quickly; a hard blow that knocked her opponent into a daze. Before she could recover Swech killed her. A deft strike to the throat and the woman coughed softly and then choked on her own blood.

Another quick look around told her that no one had noticed anything. Wrommish was good to her.

The chill of the night air made itself known and so Swech took the woman’s clothes. She could not leave the body to be found. There were too many witnesses who would surely ask questions. Instead she crouched over the cooling corpse and lifted it onto her shoulders.

Her skin felt wrong. Her mouth felt wrong. Every part of her felt off from the way it should have, but that was not an issue. She would adjust. Beyond the fire’s edge there was forest. The caravan the woman traveled with was on a wide road, well paved and tended, but there were no signs of towns or cities, and not more than twenty or so people looked to be taking this journey together.

She did not bury the body, merely hid it beneath a layer of loam that had not been disturbed in many months. Scavengers might find it and eat it, but they would not cause a problem. The people around her would be moving on with the dawn’s light. Wrommish had told her that much and shown her a great deal more.

Swech moved back to the campsite and gathered the belongings of the woman she’d killed. They were hers now, along with the woman’s body and face, name and memories.

Even as she settled for the night she felt the thoughts and beliefs of the woman in the back of her mind, like a constant echo from a hundred different people. She would adjust and endure if the Daxar Taalor willed it.

She wondered what went through her victim’s mind when she saw herself approaching, naked and unarmed. Ultimately it did not matter, but curiosity was one of the many aspects of life that she enjoyed. The world was full of new wonders. She would see as many of them as she could on her way to Fellein’s capital.

They gathered the bodies and carried them, sometimes hefted on shoulders and other times dragged by their heels, but all of them were accounted for. By the time Tusk and his retinue had reached the apex of the mountain they had been joined by two hundred additional members of the kingdom.

Tuskandru, Chosen of the Forge of Durhallem and Obsidian King looked down into the heart of the great mountain and saw the fires below and knew that they were good.

Without hesitation he raised the body of the man he knew only as Colonel Wallford above his head and heaved the corpse of his first victim into the punishing heat rising from below. As the body flopped bonelessly downward and smashed into the liquid fire he bellowed out his god’s name and then watched the body burn. One after another his people followed his lead, raising the bodies high and then tossing them down, calling out to Durhallem with each offering. Nothing of the enemy was kept as a trophy. All that they had carried with them was offered to the god.

And when they were done, Tusk led his people from the top of Durhallem’s highest peak and down to the Great Hall where they would feast and celebrate the start of the great battles coming their way. And feast they would, for Tusk was hungry and soon enough the Council of Kings would be gathering across the valley in the Palace of the King in Iron to discuss the destruction of their enemies.

Sometimes the gods are kind.

Two

The Guntha told stories of massive black ships crewed by demons. The demons were allegedly horrible to see and impossible to kill. They were, according to the Guntha, the main reason that the island people had attacked Roathes again and again.

Each time island-dwelling Guntha had been repelled until, finally, there had been a sort of peace for the last three years. No one expected them to try again after their last defeat.

Then the Guntha started amassing their troops as they had in the past along the finger of land called the Blade of Trellia once again. They always gathered there first, for Trellia was one of their earliest queens and she had declared that strip of land sacred long ago.

This time when Marsfel had asked for assistance from the Emperor the result was different from times past. Instead of weeks of correspondence and requests, the long-time enemies of Roathes were killed in one simple attack by a handful of strangers sent by the Emperor as a favor to King Marsfel.

Marsfel had expected a few soldiers to come along, look at the gathering forces and send word back to the Emperor that, yes, troops were needed to reinforce the meager army of the Roathians. That was what had always happened in the past. The troops had to be paid, the Empire sent money, Marsfel skimmed a bit of currency and everything went on as it had before.

Only not this time. This time the Guntha were massacred. This time Marsfel had sent a small group of mercenaries to detain the eleven people who had allegedly slaughtered over a thousand of the islanders, and his mercenaries had never returned.

Their remains were found on the King’s highway. The eleven got away. According to Lanaie, Marsfel’s emissary and daughter, the man who had led the eleven was now in charge of the entire Imperial Army.

Could it get worse? Marsfel had asked himself that question after reading the latest news from his daughter. The answer was yes. Of course it could get worse. It already had. The Guntha were no longer a problem. That would have possibly been good news, but the reason they were no longer a problem was because at least one of their islands had exploded.

Fire had erupted from the sea and the islands had been buried in flaming rock and the Guntha had been burned to ashes as their islands merged into one massive, growing land mass. The islands had once been tiny specks on the horizon, but now they were one large pillar of flame and ash that covered most of the skies above. The waters of the Corinta Ocean were cloaked in black clouds that rained gray ashes down upon all of Roathes, as far as he could tell.

The ashes covered the land, the people, the buildings and the water alike. Hideous clouds of black ash came in from the waters, stinking of death and worse. The plague-winds had come to his kingdom and the people he ruled were succumbing to them. Some grew sick and recovered. Some simply grew weak. Others died, and there was nothing to be done about it. Even kings cannot force the winds to blow the opposite direction.

The tides that rolled in were greasy and stank of dead fish and rotting meat. The waters were too hot, and the air was hotter still. Roathes was cooking away, stewing in its own juices, and he was powerless to make it stop. The raging storms over the growing land mass out there had not abated, and roaring hot winds were washing in regularly, tearing apart the shoreline and washing away anything that was too close to the waters. The Blade of Trellia was already gone, submerged or washed away. Who could say? The waters were too hot, and the fish that had long been a staple for the area were either dead or had fled. Fishermen aren’t much use without fish.

And reports kept coming in of vast, black ships on the horizon. Ships large enough that they could be seen even against the backdrop of the fiery island and the falling ash and lightning storms. If they were really out there and not merely nightmares, they were supposedly filled with demons.

The ships had not come in from their distant location yet. That was the good news for Roathes. The only good news.

Most of the boats in Roathes were for fishing. There were a few naval ships and they were being readied, but, really, there weren’t nearly as many warships as Marsfel had claimed for a very long time. There hadn’t been much need, after years of peace. Corinta had the closest naval fleet and they really never came this far north.

The absolute worst news? Well, he had asked for help from the Emperor after being caught in a lie, and the man who would ultimately decide whether or not he needed assistance was a man he had attempted to capture or kill.

Marsfel considered all of these things while he waited for word from Lanaie. She was still in the Summer Palace, because the Emperor was dead, assassinated by gray-skinned strangers from the Blasted Lands.

He had never been to the Blasted Lands. He never wanted to go to the Blasted Lands. He could not understand why anyone would willingly go to the hellish place to begin with. All he had ever heard of the desolate ruins was that they made the raging storms coming in from the sea seem relatively calm. That was a horrible notion.

And yet the Emperor had sent emissaries for some insane purpose and so now he was dead. Was there a connection? The people from the Blasted Lands were gray-skinned. They came from the same direction as the black ships.

He might well have continued on that thought process, but instead he stopped when Turrae showed up, shaking his head and running. He was not normally a nervous man, one of the reasons that Marsfel had chosen him as a steward.

“The ships are coming closer, Majesty.” Turrae’s voice was weary.

The ships? “The black ships? From near Guntha?”

“Yes.” His voice shook. “Majesty, they are so much larger than we thought.”

Marsfel shook his head. “Show me.”

Turrae led quickly and climbed the stairs to the highest level of the stone keep Marsfel had lived in his entire life. There a dozen soldiers were standing together and arguing over who got to look through the spyglass that was a permanent fixture on the side of the tower pointing toward Guntha, or rather, where Guntha used to be.

“Leave us!” Marsfel roared the words, and the soldiers vacated as quickly as they could while maintaining their dignity.

Without the glass, there were a few distant specks that might be ships in the distance between the flaming island and the shoreline. He used the cylindrical contraption that had been one of the treasures of his people for as long as anyone could remember and looked around at the waters carefully. The specks were indeed still there and, as his steward had warned, they were ships. They were indeed much larger than he’d expected.

The ships were as black as iron, and bloated. They sat low in the waters and their sails were drawn tight as the winds from behind them pushed them toward the shores. It was hard to count how many of them might be on the waters, but with an effort he made out fifteen of the vessels. Fifteen ships cutting closer to the land. Very large ships, if he was guessing correctly without the benefit of any reference points.

Marsfel sighed and shook his head. “Call to arms. Prepare for battle.”

“What if the ships are merely investigating?”

“Then they will see our forces preparing for them. There is no way around that.”

“Yes, Majesty.” He heard the regret in the man’s voice and felt it in his own heart. They were not ready for a war.

“And Turrae?”

“Yes, Majesty?”

“Send word to the capital. We need help. We need it as soon as possible.” He did not expect an answer, and certainly not a positive one, but it was all he had left.

How long does it take to bury a man? How long to give his spirit rest?

In the case of Wollis March it had not taken long. His spirit had gone on and, in the traditions of his people, his body had been burned and the ashes collected. When his wife and son finally showed themselves they would be presented with the ashes, which would then likely be scattered to the winds with the appropriate ceremony.

In the case of an Emperor, however, there was a great deal more involved. There were kingdoms to notify, you see, and they in turn had to send emissaries to present themselves before the Imperial Family, and then, likely, there would be declarations of regret and more promises of fealty and, of course, there was the matter of replacing the deceased with the next in line to rule the Empire.

It was a statistical nightmare, and for well over a month the Summer Palace had been as tempestuous as the skies above the Corinta Ocean.

Merros Dulver left most of that to the people who took care of such affairs. He was busy enough without having to consider seating arrangements and who had to make offerings to whom.

There was a war getting ready to happen and it seemed he was in charge of preparing the city for any possible attacks.

For over a month he made himself known to the soldiers in Tyrne, and they in turn made themselves as ready as they could for the rage of their new commander.

His anger was not as great as they believed. He was merely loud and more than ready to be louder. He bellowed out of necessity. He leveled orders and he watched with hard eyes to make certain that the men under his command met his demands. From the highest-ranking officers to the greenest recruits, he made himself seen and known.

There were walls around the Summer City that needed reinforcement and there were watchtowers that had fallen into disrepair that needed to be mended. The structures were solid enough, but the long years of peace had led to a lack of readiness. Buildings that should have housed guards were instead storing supplies and in one case – he would eventually track down the culprits responsible by all the gods – housing a brothel.

Soldiers who had grown relaxed and soft were soon put to work at fixing those problems, and more, and woe to the foolish that suggested that workmen might be better equipped to handle the matter.

The City Guard were drafted to handle more work than they were used to, and while there were a few protests, they did not last long.

At first a few men tried to desert. Merros Dulver put an end to that quickly enough. Had they run in combat they’d have been killed. Instead of death they were given options after meeting with the General. Most chose one of the less extreme punishments he offered, especially after the first would-be deserter attempted to call his bluff of being hanged. It seemed that the new commander of the Imperial Army did not believe in bluffing.

While the people of the Taalor Valley made their ways home and prepared for what was coming, Merros Dulver did the same. A few claimed he did all that he did out of fear of the Sa’ba Taalor. A small number of soldiers, who’d known him from before his meteoric rise to power, believed he did what he did out of grief for the loss of a man who was very nearly a brother to him.

Most just did the best they could to follow orders and stay well out of his way. In the long run, they were the wisest of the lot.

The body of Emperor Pathra Krous was presented before the royal family of Fellein and from there he was carried to the wagon waiting to take his mortal remains to the waiting barge on the Freeholdt River. The royal family had a very large crypt and he would be buried with the rest of his family in Canhoon despite his love of Tyrne and the Summer Palace. Some laws cannot be changed on a whim.

The First Advisor to the Emperor and the legendary sorcerer Desh Krohan walked beside the casket carrying the body the entire way to the river, keeping pace. He had been there for the birth of Pathra Krous and he said his farewells to a man he’d called his friend on more than one occasion. From the river, the Sisters would stay with the Emperor’s body until he was placed within the tomb and they would seal the great building to ensure no one foolhardy or greedy enough to try for the alleged riches within the tomb would succeed. Pella, Goriah and Tataya were his most trusted allies and he was going to be far too busy seeing to the ascension of the next ruler of the Fellein Empire to consider making the trip himself.

The women stood before him, their heads lowered and their cloaks in place. The air was passably warm, but along the river and heading toward the proper seat of the Empire, it would get colder. Spring was fully upon the land but the cold winds from the north and from the Blasted Lands weren’t quite done with the area yet. Desh knew that better than most.

“Be safe and be alert.” He made a point to look at each of them. They nodded their heads. “This is not a good time for any of us but now in particular there are plenty who would see me dead and gladly eliminate the three of you in the process of trying help me reach that state of being.”

Krohan looked at the elaborate coffin one last time and touched the wood, muttering unheard words in the process. The body would remain unmolested. Of that he was absolutely certain.

Without waiting, he turned and started the long walk back to the palace. The hood covering his face kept anyone from seeing the worried expression he wore. Most would have backed away in fear if they could have caught a glimpse of his anger.

After a dozen paces, Tega met with him. Tega was young and blonde and had caught a few eyes, despite the fact that she dressed in simple enough clothes. The blossom of youth was still with her and that made a difference, he supposed, though he had not been young in a very long time.

“Are you well, Desh?”

He looked at the girl and managed a smile. “I’m horrid. My back hurts, my head hurts and in an hour’s time I’ll be having a meal with over half of the royal families in Fellein. It would be all of them if the rest were done traveling here.”

“Oh.” She looked down at the ground.

“Calm down, Tega. I’m not the least bit angry. I’m just being truthful. And even if I were angry, it wouldn’t be you who had to face my wrath. You’ve done nothing you shouldn’t have.”

That made the poor girl breathe a little easier. He wished her relaxed state would last longer.

“You called for me, Desh?”

For the first two years they’d known each other she had called him Master Krohan, not because it was the title he preferred, but because he wanted her to know her place as his apprentice. Reflecting on the practices he had seen some of the sorcerers use on their apprentices, he considered himself positively mild in comparison. These days she was allowed to call him by his first name because she had learned her place very well and because she was an excellent student. She had earned the right to call him by his first name and she had long since proven herself worthy of being his apprentice.

Desh Krohan had only three rules for his apprentices. First, they had to study and practice every day. Second, they were never to perform any of the more complex rituals before getting his approval – he’d lost two apprentices in the past to foolhardy attempts – and lastly, they were to obey him in all of his orders.

In return for that last there was an additional rule for himself: he was never to consider his apprentices as either servants or slaves. They were sorcerers in training and as such needed to be respected. The average wizard tended to have an amazingly long memory.

With those simple rules in place Desh Krohan looked to his apprentice and did something he did not at all want to do. “Tega, I need you to set aside your regular training for the present time. I need you to gather information for me.”

“Of course, Desh.” Her response was automatic. Part of him was glad of that. Part most decidedly was not.

“No. This is not a standard request from me. On this you can deny me without consequence.”

That got her attention. She stopped walking and looked at him with hard eyes. He stopped in return and met her gaze. “What are you thinking, Desh Krohan?”

He looked around them and sighed. There were people aplenty moving in their vicinity. The City Guard was in force, currently, moving people along and preventing too many from blocking the roads away from the funeral procession. There were plenty of hawkers and cutpurses alike in the area, looking to make a few extra coins. Most of them were wise enough to stay well away from the two of them. Desh Krohan’s name was well known and the majority of people wisely avoided getting his attention.

“We will speak more in my chambers. Meet me there if you will. First I need to have a quick discussion with General Dulver.”

His apprentice nodded her head and stepped into the crowd. She was gone from his sight in a matter of seconds, lost in the flow of people.

Desh moved toward the Summer Palace and the people parted for him as if he were a very large rock in a fast moving river. He met the newest commander of the army in the throne room. Currently the room was covered in papers and maps and Dulver was standing next to the largest table in the place and staring at the very maps he had brought back from the Seven Forges himself. Like everyone else, he was worried about the attack that might well be coming their way.

Merros Dulver was a good soldier and a better man. He was also currently brooding. Desh liked that about him. Had he been as calm as some of the other generals he would likely have not been the right man for the task before him. Planning a war is not an easy thing to do, after all.

“How are you today, Merros?”

Dark eyes regarded him from under dark brows. Merros Dulver was tanned from his time in the field. His hair had recently been cropped to a length that could easily fit under a snug helmet and he’d started shaving his face clean again. When Desh had first met the man he’d been clean shaven, and when he’d seen him the next time he’d been on the road and traveling for over three months, most of that time in the harsh environment of the Blasted Lands. He’d grown a full beard and his hair had fallen almost to his shoulders. The first time, he also hadn’t looked quite as haunted. The wizard blamed himself for that last part. It was he who had hired the retired military man for an expedition into the Blasted Lands that had ended with absolutely surprising results.

The Sa’ba Taalor were not what he’d expected anyone to encounter in the endless, raging storms that hid away most of the areas to the north of Fellein. An occasional nightmare made flesh, one of the Pra-Moresh or the even more vile creatures that populated the wasteland ,were all he’d honestly thought the men might run across on their journey. All he’d truly hoped for was that sending the Sisters along would give the soldiers and cartographers a chance to map out the pathways to the Seven Forges.

Thinking about that made his stomach twist and his heart ache. His damned expeditions had cost a few lives over the years, but he’d never expected the constant quest for knowledge to result in the death of the Emperor or an encounter with an unknown race.

The Sa’ba Taalor. The people of the Forges. They spoke a variation of the Old Tongue as one of their languages and they had skin the wrong color. Desh Krohan had met people from every part of the known world. He had seen people with a dozen different hues of flesh but never before had he run across a species of people who had gray skin. Had they not been so very vital he might have thought them animated corpses.

Merros responded and brought him out of his reverie. “I’m not having a very good day.” His face made clear that he was being kind.

“You are currently hating your existence and wondering if you can back out of being a general in the Empire’s army. The answer is ‘no’. You cannot back out. I need you and Fellein needs you. More importantly, you are one of the very few men I trust at the present time to ensure the safety of Nachia Krous.”

Nachia Krous, another issue to deal with, and soon. She was next in line to ascend to the throne of the Empire. Several different members of her family felt someone else should be taking that honor.

Merros looked him up and down. A lot of people refused to look him in the eyes and Desh was fine with that. He preferred it, actually, as it meant they were justifiably concerned about the rumors surrounding him. Very few men felt they could look him in the eye without fearing for their lives, their souls and their freedom.

Merros Dulver might have been worried about all of those things, but he still looked the sorcerer in the eye. Desh admired that about him.

“What is it you need from me?” Merros spoke softly. Both of them were grieving, and he knew that. While Desh was walking the Emperor’s body to the river Merros Dulver had been working through the rebuilding of the city’s defenses and adjusting to the death of a good friend. The death of a soldier did not warrant the sort of vast ceremony required in the passing of an Emperor. That didn’t make the impact any less.

Merros Dulver had lost his best friend. Desh Krohan had lost a man he’d helped raise from childhood to become the ruler of the Fellein Empire. He didn’t consider his loss any greater than that of the soldier before him. He knew better.

“I know you are grieving. I’ll do my best to give you time to do so, Merros. I just wanted to remind you that there will be a feast in the Emperor’s honor tonight, and your presence will be required.” The General shook his head and his lips pressed into a thin line. “I know. I can think of a thousand or more things I could do with that time, not the least of which is mourning. But you are the ranking military officer and you have to show your support for the Empress-to-be.”

“Of course. I’ll be there.” The General looked at him for a moment longer and then his eyes crept toward the maps.

“Thank you for that.” He paused a moment longer. “I have to speak with Tega for a bit and then I’m coming back in here to look over those maps with you.”

Merros nodded his head. “Good. I’d like your opinion on a couple of these symbols.” His hand waved at the map halfheartedly. “They are unfamiliar to me.”

That was hardly surprising. The maps had been provided by the Sa’ba Taalor, after all. They were a gift before everything went insanely wrong. Now they, along with every item offered by the people from the Taalor Valley, were suspect. “I’ll be back as soon as I can to discuss the matter.”

Without another word the wizard left the room, using one of the hidden passages to allow him easier access to his chambers. The tunnels were narrow and they were well hidden, but they were not completely a secret. Most of the Krous family knew about them, at least the ones he wanted to let know about them. There were advantages to being as long-lived as he was, especially if one had a good memory for things that were not written down anywhere.

By the time he reached his quarters Tega was already there and pouring herself a mug of the tea Desh brewed almost every day. Three additional cups were already waiting. Two of the Sisters were standing in the room, looking his way with smiles. Flame-haired Tataya stepped up and grabbed the exact mug he’d been eyeing. It seemed she had a gift for taking what he wanted. Not that it mattered. The cups were identical. Pella shook her head, sending dark curls waving, and rolled her eyes and waited until Desh had chosen before grabbing the last of the cups for herself.

“Goriah is well on her way. She’ll make sure Pathra reaches his destination without incident.” Pella took a sip after she was done speaking and closed her eyes, savoring the sweet flavor.

“Just the same, best if everyone thinks all three of you are riding with him. It stops people from getting foolish when they think they might be outnumbered.”

Tega sighed. “Why would anyone want to harm the Emperor’s body?”

Desh answered that one himself. “Because no matter how kind a soul he might have been, Pathra Krous made enemies merely by being the Emperor. For some the act of harming his remains would be revenge and for others it would be a step toward humiliating the Krous family. The next ruler might act foolishly if properly provoked.”

Tega nodded and took a long swallow of her tea.

“Time to get on with this.” Desh sighed and drank from his own cup. The tea was soothing but his nerves still felt tightly wound. “Tega, I would not ask this, but the Sisters are already being sent off to handle tasks of their own. They must be away and even if I could go myself I would need someone here to take my place.” He looked into her eyes and made sure she understood the gravity of his words. “We are in volatile times and I must make sure that I have the very best knowledge available. I’ve already employed the Sooth and done all I can to interpret the signs they have given me, and now I have to ask a very great favor of you.”

“Desh, anything, you know that. I was willing to go to the Seven Forges for you, and I would be there now if things hadn’t gone so wrong.”

When Pathra Krous was killed, General Hradi, the head of the Empire’s Army, had foolishly decided to send troops after the visitors from the Seven Forges. His soldiers were not up to the task. Their fumbling demands had been enough to make a bad situation far worse. While it seemed that the Sa’ba Taalor had actually planned out and assassinated the Emperor, the matter should have been handled with greater tact, and now war was inevitable. If the gray-skinned people came back any time in the near future, Desh had no doubt they’d do so while leading their armies into combat against the Empire.

“None of that was your fault or mine, Tega. There was nothing to be done for it. But now, we must do all we can to either prevent a war or end it quickly, and that means I need information from the one place I can think of that the Sa’ba Taalor do not go.”

She frowned up at him. “I don’t understand.”

Desh nodded and looked toward the Blasted Lands as if the palace wall were a window and he might see what was out there. “I know. Some secrets I keep closely and others I simply never share. In this case the knowledge has been kept close to heart because there is no need to give away our possible weapons and, as I have said to you many times, knowledge is as powerful as any sword.”

He put an arm across her shoulders and led her to the window looking out over the city. The Sisters moved with them, silent and careful not to be seen from the window. “There is a place in the Blasted Lands that the Sa’ba Taalor will not visit. Their gods have forbidden them to go there, and for that reason we must go there ourselves. We must know what is there and what their deities want to keep from them.”

“Why?” Tega was a brilliant disciple, but sometimes the most obvious things avoided her, while she sought the answers to the complicated mysteries of the universe.

“Whatever is there is something that is hidden. More importantly, it is something being hidden from our enemies. We must know what it is because it might be a useful weapon against them.”

“What is this place?”

Desh looked away from her for a moment and then looked to the Sisters. “It’s called ‘The Mounds’, by the Sa’ba Taalor. That is honestly all that is known. Anything else I say would be conjecture. The Sisters have been far closer than I have. The Sooth told me that the Mounds are important, but they would not say why.”

Tega closed her eyes and shuddered. She had dealt with the Sooth only once, and that was enough for her. The spirits of the Sooth were often greedy, and they took as much as they could and offered as little as possible in exchange. They could offer glimpses of the future, promises of things that would come to pass, but they always hid those promises under layers and layers of deception and obfuscation.

“And you would like me to explore these Mounds?”

“Absolutely not. I would much rather you stay right here and remain safe, where I can find you at any time. But that is no longer an option. I need you to explore the Mounds, to see for me everything that I cannot afford the time to see for myself.”

Tega walked away from him and even without seeing her face he knew she was worrying her lower lip and that her eyebrows had knitted into a knotted frown. He said nothing. The Sisters were likewise quiet, understanding all too well what he was asking and that he would never demand anything of that magnitude from one of his apprentices. They had walked where Tega walked now in their own times.

They understood the dangers.

Finally she nodded. “I will go.” She did not turn to look at him.

“I’ll do everything I can to protect you, Tega. You know this.”

“Of course.” She cast her eyes in his direction but did not meet his gaze. “When should I leave?”

“Immediately. I’ll have a horse and an escort for you. And supplies, of course.”

“I’ll want to see my parents.” She hesitated to say the words.

“Of course, Tega. See them. But not a word of where you are going. Tell them you’re going to Trecharch. Tell them I’ve sent you to study the Walking Trees and to ask questions of the Mother-Vine. That should keep them from worrying too much.”

A moment later the girl was leaving the room and heading to her chambers. Directly after that the Sisters looked to him with questioning eyes. “You are both needed elsewhere.” He hated that his voice carried a defensive tone. “There are missions that require instinct and there are missions that require a properly devious mind. Tega is many things, but devious is not yet among them. We’ll start working on that when she gets back.”

If she gets back, he thought, but did not say.

“For now, my ladies, it is time for you to leave here as well.” He sighed and shook his head. “And time for goodbye speeches about good men.”

Merros Dulver ate without tasting, chewed and swallowed. He was not alone. There were a great number of people in the room and many of them sat within ten feet of him, but he might as well have been by himself for as little as he cared about them at the moment.

The sort of people who, only a month earlier, would have had him sweating through his clothes, surrounded him. Some of the most powerful people he had ever met were present and most of them were wearing enough finery to pay the salary of his entire military career with ease. Diamonds, gold, silks, fine leathers and dress-swords of every possible make.

Bite. Chew. Swallow. Even the wine, which he knew, intellectually, was a very fine vintage, tasted like ash. Also, every bite reminded him of the new scar along his jaw.

Wollis March should have been at his side, making snide comments under his breath and reminding Merros to at least try to enjoy the moments when the finer things in life were offered up. Instead Wollis was gone. Dead. His body was ashes, and those ashes were waiting for his family to arrive; the family that was expecting to be reunited with the man, not with his memories and a jar of gray dust.

How was he going to face them? He’d never met Dretta March, but he’d heard many stories of the woman and seen her and her son Nolan alike when last he rode to the far north, the very edge of the Wellish Steppes, and gathered Wollis for their expedition into the hellish Blasted Lands.

He could not quite be surprised that Swech killed Wollis. He’d been witness to her abilities, had seen her kill or break a few men before they made their way to the palace in Tyrne. Thinking her incapable of violence was rather like thinking a bonfire incapable of causing a few burns. It made exactly no sense. Still, he hadn’t expected her deception.

He couldn’t say he’d fallen in love with her, but he had very much enjoyed her company. And having her gone, having her be the one that had killed poor Wollis, well, that merely added to his sorrows.

His sorrows. He bit back a snort of derision at that. He was mourning the loss of a good friend and feeling wounded because his most recent lover was the cause of his grief. The people around him were mourning the loss of their Emperor and their family member. If nothing else, he’d have to respect their loss because they outnumbered him.

His eyes flickered to Nachia Krous, who sat straight-backed and held her grief tightly locked away. Her eyes shone with unshed tears and her mouth pulled down with a desire to cry out, but she held her own. Surely her loss was as great as his. She had lost a cousin after all, and according to the rumors they had been very close.

Of course she stood to become the Empress in a few days at the most, so he supposed that was a reason to celebrate. Or at least it would have been if not for the current insanity running through the Empire.

War. There hadn’t been a war in Fellein for hundreds of years. There had been skirmishes, to be sure and he’d been on the front line of a few of them, but the simple fact was that the Fellein Empire was the most powerful nation in the known world and no one in their right minds would consider getting into a long fight with the sort of forces now at Merros’s command.

At least that was what everyone believed. Having seen the state of the Imperial Guard, the very finest soldiers that Fellein had to offer, Merros had his doubts. Their armor was lovely, quite shiny and remarkably well-kept – now that he’d demanded repairs – but the men wearing that armor were more show than substance and that was a very sincere problem, because the Sa’ba Taalor were easily the most dangerous fighters he had ever seen.

No. He was being unfair because he was worried to the point of nausea about the idea of a war. The Imperial Guard were good fighters and well trained. But next to the coming enemy he was unsure of their skills.

His hands trembled just the slightest bit at the knowledge that ten of the people from the Seven Forges had killed over a thousand people in one evening. He had borne witness to their actions.

Well, to part of the fight. He’d been sneaking in for a closer look when he got caught by one of their enemies. The ten had crept past and never been seen. He’d been spotted. Luck or not, he had failed where the ten had succeeded. He’d managed to defend himself and end the life of his attacker.

Wollis would have told him he was being far too hard on himself. Wollis had been good that way.

And if he had been bragging, Wollis would have been the very first to slap him back down into his usual reserved state of mind.

Cut. Chew. Swallow.

A very large man with too many rings on his fingers was picking at his roast and staring silent hatred in the direction of Desh Krohan. He was a hard man, by the look of him, and likely a skilled fighter by the way he carried himself, but he was softening and growing fat. The look on his face meant he was likely a Krous who was not going to ascend to the throne, and just as likely a very foolish man. No. He knew the man’s name. Laister. He was one of the people who thought he should be the next Emperor.

He did not need or want to know more about the man just yet, but he marked him in his memory, because at some point he knew he’d need the knowledge.

Wollis was dead. Over a fortnight had passed and he was still having trouble getting past that simple fact.

Desh Krohan was talking with passion about Pathra Krous and he envied the man his oratory skills. He had never been a speaker. He was a soldier, pure and simple.

Well, except that now he was a general in the Empire’s Army. The thought made his head hurt.

Applause exploded from around the room and Merros looked left and right before focusing on the sorcerer. Apparently he had finished his speech. He moved solemnly back to his seat near the future Empress and took a long sip of his wine.

Anger bounced through Merros. It was irrational, but it was real. The problem was that he was sitting down and eating a very fine meal – tasteless to him currently, but that was not the fault of the chefs – and the people around him were applauding moving speeches and the entire Empire was sitting on its laurels and waiting for an invasion.

To the north and west the Sa’ba Taalor would be gathering their forces soon, if they had not already started. They had to cross the Blasted Lands, yes, but he had no doubt that they would find their way home faster than any of the Empire’s people ever had. Why? Because they were traveling on those damned mounts of theirs and the great beasts were much faster than horses. And when he had been with them, the very air seemed to bend to their needs when they traveled. Maybe that was his imagination, it was hard to say, but they seemed to traverse the desolate wasteland far faster than he had managed before meeting them.

To the south, Roathes was seeking his help. The kingdom that had chased him and several of the gray-skinned warriors from their palace after the Sa’ba Taalor had decimated – Gods, could it really have been over a thousand people? – the Guntha invading their lands. The Guntha were apparently gone now, destroyed when their islands erupted into a great volcanic mass and from the remains of those islands? Well, several people had seen large black warships circling the newly formed land mass. Those ships were either piloted by the Sa’ba Taalor, held by an unknown enemy or mirages created by the smoke and fear the eruptions caused.

Roathes was in chaos and the King there, Marsfel, was desperate for help from the Imperial Army.

Somebody should do something about that.

The part that made him angriest?

That somebody was him.

The Princess Lanaie moved to his table and sat in the seat next to him. The seat had been empty the entire time, not because there were seats to spare, but because, as was tradition, a place had been set to his left in honor of Wollis. The setting was present, a platter, a knife, a goblet and a fork. But in this case the cutlery faced in the wrong direction. He was a soldier. He knew the tradition too well.

The woman apparently did not. He knew her immediately. He had seen her sisters at her father’s side not all that long ago and thought that they were truly some of the loveliest women he had seen. He had met her later, when she clarified the half-truths that her father had been telling the Emperor in order to gain assistance against the Guntha.

She had dark hair, dark eyes and skin several shades darker than his. Her features marked her as a Roathian as surely as they marked her as a daughter of King Marsfel.

Merros stared at her for a few seconds. He wasn't trying to be rude – she was already doing that by sitting in the place reserved for his dead friend – but he was damned if he could think of any reason why she would want to speak to him.

“I am Lanaie, Princess of Roathes. My father is King Marsfel and I would speak with you, General Dulver.” Her lower lip trembled and her eyes were moist. She was nervous and he sincerely doubted it was his presence that caused her so much distress.

Then again, her father had tried to have him killed recently, so that might just be a cause for dismay in her opinion.

“I know who you are. We’ve met.” That wasn't what he meant to say. He meant to ask how he could help her, but currently the wine and his grief were working against his better judgment. “You are sitting in the seat of my dead friend.” He spoke calmly and made it a point to look her in the eyes. He might have overlooked the offense, but at the moment he was remembering the fight he’d had had with the men her father had sent after him.

“I don’t understand.” She looked worried for a moment her face pinched in concentration and then her eyes grew wide with horror. “I am so sorry.” Her voice broke and he could tell by the tone that she was restraining herself from making a scene.

A flash of guilt crept through him. It was one thing to scold a soldier being foolish and another entirely to chastise a distraught woman, forget the fact that she was also royalty. It seemed a day for catastrophic social mistakes.

“Never mind,” he said as gently as he could. “What can I do for you, Princess Lanaie of Roathes?”

“My father has sent news. The ships. The ones they heard of. The black ships that the Guntha spoke of. They have been spotted. My father. The King. He saw them with his own eyes.”

Ah. She wanted his help.

“I am not the person you need to speak with. You should be speaking to the Regent. Desh Krohan is currently the official head of the Empire until such time as the new Empress is crowned.”

“He has not taken the time to see me.” Her voice broke.

“He is a very busy man.” Merros wanted to be gentle. He did. He also wanted to be left alone. “He is also far likelier to help you than I am at the moment.”

“But you are the head of the army…”

“I am a soldier. I fight wars. I do not choose which wars I will fight.” And if I did, I would most assuredly not run to the aid of your father. He did not add the last, but he certainly considered it. He was human after all and currently not enthusiastic about assisting the man who’d tried to have him murdered.

She won the argument not with words but with actions. Instead of throwing accusations at him or pleading for his interference, she looked down and her lower lip trembled. Merros started to look away because he knew what would happen next.

Wollis always said women were his weakness and the man was not wrong.

Princess Lanaie looked back up at him and tears fell from her large, dark eyes. She looked so damnably lost and afraid and he had always been raised to believe that a woman in distress needed to be a gentleman’s first priority.

“Damn me. Fine. I’ll arrange for you to see the Regent. Just, please, stop that crying.”

That didn’t work as well as he’d hoped. She just cried more.

Not ten feet away Laister Krous was looking on with a scowl on his wide face. Either he had not been raised as a gentleman or he felt left out. Either way, Merros didn’t much like him. He kept that opinion to himself. A wise man knows when to keep his mouth shut.

Three

The winds were still roaring around him, but Andover Lashk did not feel them. The bitter scent of ash was still present, but the air that should have been cold was instead warm and there was a scent of roasting meat that made his stomach roar.

Andover opened his eyes and saw that someone had managed to build a shelter over his head. It was a nice surprise, as the last thing he remembered clearly was being hurled through the air by the monster he’d just maimed.

He tried to take a deep breath and immediately regretted it. Pain washed through his ribs and he winced.

“You’re awake.” The voice was deep and friendly enough. He looked to his left and saw Drask Silver Hand’s massive form not three feet distant. “We were beginning to wonder about that.” The man was sitting on a bedroll and looking directly toward him, his eyes alight in the gloom of the shelter.

Andover sat up very slowly, wincing the entire time. He was having trouble breathing.

“You have broken ribs. Bromt bound them for you.” Andover looked around and saw both Bromt and Delil, the other two people he was traveling with. Well, he had been traveling with them before they disappeared. Only they were back now, weren’t they?

“How did you find me?”

“We were never far away. We were watching.”

Anger flared in his chest and, despite the pain, he turned to look hard at Drask. “Then why didn’t you help me?”

“Are you alive?” Drask’s eyes gave off that odd glow his people’s eyes all seemed to hold inside.

“Of course I’m alive.”

“Yes.” Drask leaned back and shrugged. “Then you did not need our help.”

Andover opened his mouth to say more and then closed it. Being angry with Drask was foolish and would get him nothing but dead.

Delil moved through the small shelter in a crouch and squatted next to him, looking at his chest and moving her hands over the tight bandages there. He’d have noticed them before but he was too busy recovering from being alive. “These are tight but you can breathe. Do not move too much. It will only hurt.”

She turned away from him for a moment and her arms got busy over the fire in front of Drask. When she turned back there were several slices of roasted meat on a small wooden plate. “Eat. You need to gain your strength. Tomorrow morning we travel again.”

Her tone was not kind, nor was it harsh. It was simply perfunctory. Still, her eyes managed what he thought was a small smile, as he took the offered food. As always, the damned veils hid their faces away too well for him to see much beyond their eyes.

The entire shelter rattled as ice and dirt lashed against it. Delil cut more slices from the slab of roasting meat and folded them over on themselves before sliding them under her veil. For a moment he saw her chin through the fabric. It looked like a perfectly normal chin, well-rounded and shapely enough. At least as shapely as a chin could manage to be without anything around it but cloth. He couldn’t understand the secrecy any more than he could understand the strange quality of the Sa’ba Taalor’s voices.

“How far away from the Seven Forges are we?” He took the time to ask the question only after he’d rammed the first cut of juicy meat into his mouth and chewed it into nothingness. His hunger did not abate in the least and he intended to eat as much as he could manage in a single sitting. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. The meat was gamey, and heavy with enough fat to make it tender. His stomach fairly roared for more.

Drask shrugged his broad shoulders. “We could be there in a week or less. We will probably take much longer. The storms will not abate for at least another day or so, if I am right.” He shrugged again. “I am normally right.” Bromt nodded his agreement.

“Why will we take longer?”

“You are not healed yet, Andover. You must be mended before we head through Durhallem’s Pass. There will be challenges for you there and you must be ready to face them.”

A great, low note sounded. The noise was loud enough that the tent wall vibrated with it. Andover flinched and immediately regretted it as his ribs flared. All three of the Sa’ba Taalor looked toward the sound, their bodies tense.

“What is that?” Andover had to shout to be heard as the roaring noise slowly faded away.

“The Mounds.” Delil’s voice was harsh. “We are closer than we should be.”

Drask said something to her in a different language, one that was unsettling to his ears. Whatever he said, the tone was argumentative. If he’d expected Delil to be cowed by the large man, he was mistaken. She argued back vehemently until Bromt interrupted them both.

For a few minutes the only sounds were the winds outside and then Andover decided he was done watching the three of them locked in a staring contest and spoke up. “So tell me what the Mounds are.”

“We do not know. We are forbidden by the Daxar Taalor to approach them.” Delil’s voice was low and seething with tension.

“Then tell me about Durhallem’s Pass and why I need to be healthy before I get there.”

Drask was the one who answered. “You will be challenged there. You are unknown and you come to our land as an outsider. This challenge is the first of several for you.”

“I’ll be with you, won’t I?” He frowned. This wasn't what he’d been expecting when he agreed to the journey to the Seven Forges. He wasn’t really sure exactly what he’d expected, except that he was to work as an ambassador of sorts between Fellein and the Sa’ba Taalor. He was supposed to come with them, in part as payment for the miraculous hands he now had, replacements for the ruined lumps Menoch and Purb, of the City Guard in Tyrne, had left him with.

“Possibly,” Drask answered. “That is for the gods to decide. Durhallem’s Pass is the entrance to the valley we live in. I cannot say that the guards there will challenge you, but they might.”

“But I don’t have–” He bit his tongue.

Drask looked at him in silence for several seconds, his face unreadable. “You have no weapons?”

Andover nodded.

All three of the Sa’ba Taalor sighed.

“I know. I have my hands.” Andover mumbled the words and looked down.

It was Delil who hit him with her fist and knocked him back into a prone position. She barely seemed to move, but he was on his back and his face was first numb and then burning where her hand struck him.

She leaned over him and her eyes flared with anger. “Did I teach you nothing? Do you wish to have another lesson, boy?” The word “boy” had never seemed so insulting.

A month ago he would have whimpered. A year ago he would have run.

Andover reached up and struck her in the chest with his closed fist. Delil slipped back before the blow landed and the damage was minimal, but had it connected properly he knew he’d likely have left her in agony.

Delil continued the motion he had started, falling backward. As her arms caught her weight, her left foot came around and the heel of her boot cracked him in the stomach hard enough to leave him gasping.

Bromt and Drask watched on, offering no help on either side of the argument.

Andover rolled over, ignoring the pain in his chest. There was pain, yes, but in comparison to what he had already endured in his life it was minor. He reached for her leg with every intention of doing his level best to break it. She was gone by the time his hands should have been closing on flesh.

And then her hands were on his wrists. Before he’d been injured Andover had been working in a smithy; he’d worked the bellows and hammered at metal for hours on end, learning from one of the best blacksmiths in Tyrne. Despite his size, he was muscular enough.

Delil was not only faster, she was stronger. She pinned his arms in short order and he bucked and fought and did his best to get away while she held him in check.

Drask leaned in closer and looked at Andover, studied him.

“She has leverage on you. She has you at a disadvantage. You are not without moves you can make to break free.”

Andover looked to Delil and saw that she was looking back, her eyes watching his face. She did not look angry. And he understood. Wounded or not, this was his training. There was no reprieve for bad weather or his injuries, just as there would be none if he fought for his life.

Her weight was forward and pinning his arms. She crouched in front of him and he could not possibly reach her with his body. If he tried she would move to one side or the other and either attack or once again pin him. His arms could not move, but if she intended to keep him where he was, hers could not move either.

Andover lunged forward and slammed his forehead against hers. Delil fell back and he had his moment. He had his momentum. He was off balance, but there wasn't far they could go, and if he was going to fall, he intended to fall on his enemy.

Delil saw him coming and moved, sliding away from where she had been and moving like water around a falling tree. He hit the ground and turned as quickly as he could, but it wasn't fast enough. By the time he’d recovered from his attempt, the woman was cuffing him across the side of his head.

She could have killed him. He knew that. It didn’t make him any less angry.

Andover let out a small growl and lunged and she slithered away again, not letting him hit her.

Bromt, who seldom seemed to take the effort to talk, spoke up, “Anger is a tool, Andover Lashk. Never let it be the master. Think before you attack. Delil is not going to let anger make her foolish. You can ill afford to make that mistake.”

The entire time Bromt was speaking Delil was moving, half crawling over their supplies in the small area of the tent, watching him as a cat watches a wounded bird. She was not the least bit intimidated by him.

Delil spoke to him as she moved. “You are an unscarred baby, Andover Lashk. You are afraid of hurting me.” There was no venom in her words. “Let me worry about my injuries. When next I come for you, I will attack you in earnest. Do you understand? I will hurt you. Badly.”

He nodded. He believed her. He knew better than to think she was bluffing.

When she came he was prepared. He calmed himself, watched her and did his best to anticipate.

She dropped lower still, slid across the ground on the balls of her feet and brought her hands toward his face. He grabbed at her wrists and, while he was trying to pin her, she brought a knee into his side hard enough to send him stumbling. Before he could right himself she had a handful of his hair and slammed his face into the ground. She turned his head with her pressure and avoided breaking his nose, but he understood that this was her being nice. She had him. She could have ended the fight with one brutal move.

Andover got to his hands and knees and shook his head to clear the ringing from his skull. By the time the noises had stopped, Delil was sitting cross-legged on the ground and eating again. She looked at him and shook her head, though he could see the smile in her eyes. “Do not tell me you do not have a weapon. Your body is a weapon.” She reached down and pulled her tunic open enough to show the ugly blemish on her light gray flesh. The bruise caused by the knuckles of his hand when he’d struck her, apparently harder than he had realized. “We watched you fight the Cacklers. You broke the teeth out of one of their mouths.” She leaned toward him and let her tunic fall back in place. Her hand touched his wrist and slid up to the back of his hand, her fingers lightly moving over the smooth black metal. “You have hands of iron, Andover. Before we reach Durhallem’s Pass we will show you how they can be used best to fight.”

Bromt nodded and pointed to their supplies. “Besides, your hammer is over there. We found it when we found you.”

Drask chuckled. “That’s your lesson for tonight. Get rest. When the storm abates we move on. Before then, each of us will show you how to fight in close combat.” His eyes looked Andover from head to toe. “You need the lessons.”

Andover nodded his head.

Drask leaned in again and touched his hand. Silver fingers prodded iron. “Truska-Pren had gifted you, Andover. Gods do not make such gifts lightly. Before you told me you would meet with our gods and offer your thanks. I will keep you to that. But before that happens you have to prove yourself worthy to meet with the gods, or their representatives. You met Tusk, the Sa’ba Taalor. You have not met him in his role as King Tuskandru. Not really. He has not spoken to you and he has not accepted you. Tuskandru’s people are the guardians of Durhallem’s Pass. If you do not prove yourself to them, you cannot prove yourself to Tuskandru. He is the first of the kings you must meet.”

Andover thought hard on that. He had made promises. He had new hands. They were his gift and they were his to keep, that he had already been promised. He had fought the men who’d taken from him, who’d crippled him, and he had returned the favor to both of them. That had been the price demanded by Drask, and he had paid it. But there were other duties that came with his hands, and those included meeting the Sa’ba Taalor’s kings and offering thanks to their gods. He knew there was more to it. There had to be, didn’t there? But he did not fully understand the details.

He moved and winced at the pain in his side. Delil had reminded him about pain without even trying. He looked toward the girl again. She was curled up and her eyes were closed. She had called him “unscarred”. She was not quite right. His wrists were all scars, weren’t they? But, next to any of the people in the tent, she spoke a bit of truth. He could see the scars on her skin highlighted by the small fire. Her arms, her legs, her hands… there were scars everywhere. The same was true of Drask and Bromt alike. Bromt seemed more scar tissue than regular flesh.

He wondered how long before his skin was similarly decorated. Part of him was terrified by the thought. A look at his wrists, at the graying skin where his iron hands met his flesh – a stain that was growing, however slowly – and he knew that he was changing, becoming something other than he had been before his flesh and blood hands were taken from him. Another part found the notion oddly appealing. And that thought was just as unsettling to him as anything he had ever encountered.

There are some who say that kings rule by divine right. If that is the case then surely the kings must answer to their gods. That was most assuredly the way of the Sa’ba Taalor. The Daxar Taalor called their representatives together and, as they demanded, so it came to pass.

From each of the mountains the kings came, some with retinues and others with either no one for company or only a small number. There had been times when the seven kingdoms were at war, but those times were past and any grudges carried were cast aside as ordered by the gods themselves.

They met as equals, surely the gods were equals and therefore their representatives were as well, but they met in Prydiria, called the Iron Fortress, the vast keep of Tarag Paedori, the Chosen of the Forge of Truska-Pren and King in Iron. The great hall of the keep was opened and the kings met at one of the huge gray marble tables and settled themselves there to eat and discuss the only subject that currently mattered: the coming war.

Tarag Paedori was the host of the affair, not that it much mattered to any of the attendees. Tuskandru walked into the hall and nodded his greeting to the man. They had been allies more often than they had been enemies. That was true of all the kings when it came to Tusk. He was an easygoing sort, so long as you didn’t offend him, and as Durhallem did not believe in mercy, most of the kings had the common sense not to give the Obsidian King a reason to hold a grudge. Both of the men were of exceptional stature. They had to be. Though all of the kings celebrated different aspects of war in their daily lives, few would have argued with the fact that both kings required physical strength above nearly all other attributes.

In comparison N’Heelis, the Chosen of the Forge of Wrommish and King in Gold, was leaner and smaller. His muscles were cords and bands that ran under his flesh and his scars were so plentiful that it was far harder to find a portion of his body that was unblemished than it was to find a wound that had healed. Though he was slight in comparison, he was highly respected. The representative of Wrommish had met each of the kings in combat previously and taught all of them a good number of tactical maneuvers for unarmed combat.

Wheklam’s chosen was Donaie Swarl, the King in Lead. She was lean and tall and dark. Her skin was several shades darker than most of the others and she wore a dark blue sash wrapped around her head and draped down to her waist. The fabric was said to have cost several people their lives over the years. More than one had tried to take it from her and died for their efforts.

Of all of them, Donaie had met the most outsiders. For years she and her ships had cruised through the waters well beyond the Seven Forges and made raids on multiple lands. Wheklam demanded the sailors be prepared for when the Great Tide was upon them and the King in Lead had obeyed.

Several asked her questions about the destruction of Guntha and she answered their questions. She rolled out the maps she had made of the world and on those maps the newly growing island was carefully marked in.

Ganem, the Chosen of the Forge of Ydramil and King in Silver, entered the hall with Lored, Chosen of the Forge of Ordna and King in Bronze. If there was ever a sign that times were changing it was that the two came in together. For over a decade the only thing they had shared was their hatred of each other. Lored’s right eye and the area surrounding it had been replaced by a partial mask of bronze and everyone in the room knew that Ganem was the cause of that particular wound. Ganem was not a woman to be angered lightly and Lored had offended her many times. Still, the Daxar Taalor demanded peace and so both sides offered peace.

Either the last to enter the room, or possibly the first, was Glo’Hosht, the Chosen of the Forge of Paedle and the King in Mercury. It was incredibly rare for any of the kings to see Glo’Hosht, who warred with everyone and no one. Glo’Hosht was often called the King in Shadow and the Bone King, because Paedle, as everyone knew, was the god of silent deaths. Glo’Hosht was also androgynous. No one could decide which gender was the King’s and he or she volunteered nothing.

Seven Kings and Seven Gods met in the great hall. They were not the only ones to meet there.

The business of kingdoms and empires does not stop. In seven days the new head of the Empire would be crowned. It was, not shockingly, the topic of much conversation.

Merros found he did not care. There were other things on his mind. First, there were the men under him, many of whom he was only just meeting and assessing for the first time.

He was dressed in new leather pants and a simple shirt with a leather tunic. He was supposed to be dressed in a uniform that had been tailored to his body, but he hated the damned thing already. He would wear it when he had to, but not now. For now he preferred to meet the men around him in relative comfort.

Getting used to being one of the commanders of the army was a bit confusing for him. Not because he hadn’t been in command before – he had been a captain before he retired and he had led the expedition into the Blasted Lands, after all – but because of the sheer scope of his command.

He was used to a company, a battalion, possibly a squad of men. This was an army, and as he stood on the parade grounds and looked at the hardened men in front of him, he was almost comfortable. Then he remembered that each of the soldiers he was facing was in charge of a battalion, or a squad or a full legion.

“Durst, how many more are supposed to be here?” He’d almost called the man Wollis, but he caught himself this time. Taurn Durst had been along with both men on the last expedition and he was a competent soldier. He was from Trecharch and, like many of the people there, he tended to be direct and honest in his opinions.

Durst walked closer and pursed his lips. His thick hair was receding from his forehead like a slow moving wave drawing away from his eyebrows. He looked to have deep trouble with the idea of handling any task harder than remembering his name, but Merros knew the appearance was false. Durst was excellent with numbers and a very capable fighter.

“Might be one or two missing, General, but if they are, I suspect we can have a talk with ’em and handle the matter.” He spoke slowly and, when he contemplated the notion of punishing the , Durst’s broad mouth pulled into a dark grin. That smile alone made Merros recall why Wollis had respected the man. Durst was fond of discipline and precision. Anything that fell short of those lofty ideals was something the man felt should be crushed under one of his thick heels.

“Fair enough.” Merros eyed the crowd again. Most of them were standing at attention. He noted the ones who weren’t and made sure to have Durst copy their names onto a sheet of paper.

“We are here today because we stand close to war.” He didn’t waste time on pleasantries. He’d take care of those later. Merros scanned the men and watched their expressions. “Make no mistake about that. I doubt another season will pass before Fellein is drawn into bloody combat with warriors you do not want to take lightly.”

The soldiers started muttering among themselves. Not all of them, but a sizable percentage. Merros frowned at that.

Durst frowned too, then he stepped forward and bellowed, “Shut it! Keep your tongues still until the General is finished with you!”

Several of the soldiers looked shocked by the outburst, and one or two of them had expressions that said they were contemplating arguing. Durst’s head lowered a bit, his neck thrusting forward. His posture practically begged for someone else to interrupt.

Merros said nothing for a moment, but instead waited for calm to come back.

“Some of you know me. Most do not. Get used to my face and my voice. If you have questions, I’ll be available to answer them and we’ll discuss matters, but for now, it’s time to listen.”

A few of them got smart and responded with, “Aye. Ho, sir.”

“Let’s hear that again, lads!” Durst roared the words and the men caught on.

“Aye! Ho, sir!”

Merros nodded. “We are all aware of how long it’s been since Fellein has been in a real war. Believe me. This is likely to be a very real war. Not a skirmish, not an argument between neighbors. Ten of the Sa’ba Taalor killed a thousand Guntha.”

That caught the rest of them up and several started to speak. This time it was Merros who shut them down, bellowing at the top of his lungs to get their attention. “I said it’s time to listen!” The silence was complete and immediate.

“Ten of them killed a thousand. I saw it with my own eyes. They did not engage in formal combat. They used stealth and they crept in among numbers that should have never allowed them to gain access.” Again he looked over the soldiers. “Most of you have fought the Guntha. You know they were hard fighters and brutal enemies. They are gone now. Dead. We’ve all heard the stories about the burning seas and the new island growing where the Guntha lived. The stories are true.”

He walked a few paces and let them consider those words. “The latest messages from Roathes say that black ships with black sails are cutting along the coast. They stay out in the waters for now, but those ships are supposed to be the very forces that caused the Guntha to attack again and again. They were trying to escape what they claimed were demons.”

One of the men in the crowd snorted and muttered something just loud enough to catch his attention. Merros turned to eye the man sharply. “What’s your name again?”

Not being completely foolish, the man stood a little straighter and answered directly: “Lockner Horast, General. Captain of the First Lancers Division.”

“Lockner Horast.” He kept his eyes locked on the man until the other soldier looked ready to get nervous. That was exactly what Merros wanted. “Captain Horast, you sound doubtful. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“All respect, General, but everyone knows the Roathians like to talk a good war. Most of us have been down there a time or two fighting the Guntha.”

“Absolutely right. What’s your point?”

“The Roathians tell me a hundred ships are along their shoreline and I’m probably going to expect a dozen men fishing in paddle boats.”

Merros smiled. “Aye. And you’d probably be right. Except that this time there’s information coming from other sources too. This time one of Desh Krohan’s Sisters is studying the situation. If you’d like to talk with the wizard and ask how often his associates lie about the facts, I can arrange that.”

Horast shook his head. “No, no. That’s just fine, General.”

“There are ships. Just how many we don’t know, but it’s over a dozen.” He paused a moment and then pointed to the south. “The great clouds you see from that direction are coming from where the Guntha Islands used to be. They’re gone. They’ve been burned away and a new island is growing out in the Corinta. And between that island and the Roathians there are ships.

“That’s one problem. Next problem is that Emperor Pathra Krous is dead. He was murdered right there, in his own palace. With a hundred members of the Imperial Guard within hailing distance.” He looked hard into the audience of soldiers. “How is that acceptable? How is that ever acceptable?”

The men in front of him looked around, but no one came up with a good answer. He gave one himself. “It’s not! That happened because as an army we have grown soft and lazy.”

That got them. Several of the men made noises now and almost all of them were staring with angered expressions.

Merros held up a hand. “Don’t take my word. Instead let’s talk to Morton Darnaven.” He gestured to his left and the man came forward. “Darnaven can tell each and every one of you what he witnessed when he met the Sa’ba Taalor. He did not travel with them. He saw them when they were watching our finest soldiers being trained.” Darnaven was a heavyset man, but none of him was flabby. He was a long-timer, not quite as long for the service as Merros himself, but he’d been in combat against the Guntha and had been farther to the south than most of the men in the room had ever traveled. He had worked the skirmish lines across most of the Empire at one time or another and he was a hard bastard with a particularly mean scowl. That was why he was now a colonel.

“Colonel Darnaven is going to talk to you about the Sa’ba Taalor. He is going to explain to you why they are dangerous and why we need to prepare.” Merros looked at the crowd and then he smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. He normally reserved it for when he was about to deliver punishments. “He’s going to explain why we are now going to have new soldiers coming in and how hard we are going to work to train them for combat.”

He walked a few paces, eyeing the men and making sure he had their attention. “First, however, we are going to make sure that the coronation of our new Empress goes smoothly. There will be no disturbances. There will be no unruly crowds. We will have a peaceful coronation. Or I will have heads to mount on the walls of the Summer Palace. Do I make myself clear?”

“Aye! Ho, Sir!”

“War is coming. We will be prepared for it.” Merros walked away from the soldiers and left them with Darnaven.

As he walked, Durst kept pace. “I want that list of names. Durst. Every one who wasn't paying attention when we started, and the ones who didn’t show. When Darnaven is done with them, send them to my office to wait for me.”

“Aye, ho sir.”

He thought for a long moment and then added, “I want a post and a whip in the western yard, Durst. I won’t use it, yet, but I want it there. I want them to know we’re serious.”

“Aye, ho sir.” Durst didn’t hesitate and didn’t argue. Merros did not like using punishment to make a point and the man knew it. But like Merros, Durst had seen the Sa’ba Taalor in action. He knew how serious the situation was.

“Also, it’s time for a few competitions. Work it out. I want the best ten archers. The best ten swordsmen we have. Everyone competes. Best ten lancers, best ten horsemen. There will be cash rewards for the winners and very likely a few promotions.”

From there it was back to the palace for another round of meetings. The coronation of Nachia Krous was only a few days away. There were a thousand details to see to and more.

And, of course, there was always reason to expect a few unpleasant surprises.

Four

In the distant past, the Wellish Steppes were a place of horror and tyranny. The Overlords in charge of the area had been bested long ago, but a number of people still claim that the land was cursed. To be fair, the fact that most of the region ran alongside the edge of the Blasted Lands didn’t help the area’s reputation. The land was fertile, but not much grew there beyond fungus and scrub grass. The one distinct advantage to the place was that it’s mostly flat. Large caravans and small groups alike could travel it without too much worry about unseen threats.

It was so calm there, in fact, that even without paving the pathways through the area had long since been well established. “The roads along the steppes practically pave themselves,” was a fairly common remark among the soldiers in the Imperial Army. For that reason alone it was not unusual to find those very same soldiers looking forward to marching across the area.

There are exceptions to every rule.

The damp was constant and heavy. The moisture clung to everything and slowly, methodically seeped its way through clothes, shoes and supplies. Had it been any warmer, there would likely have been worries about the supplies mildewing. Instead they just marched on, keeping a brisk pace in the hopes of staying warm in the chill, misty air.

The caravan came from the east. They traveled the Imperial Highway, and those who had horses were glad of them. Those who did not, carried their packs and their supplies and walked the distance from Old Canhoon at a steady march. The road here was old but well tended, and cut into the low-lying hills. In some places the paths were deeply enough worn that the soldiers almost disappeared from sight, and in others they were level to the ground. Nolan March was charged with watching the flanks of the entire column, and it was occasionally amusing to watch the men seemingly sink into the ground fog, like the specters he’d heard tell of as a child.

March preferred walking the edges of the column and keeping an eye out. It broke the monotony of staring at the backs of the men in front of him when he was forced to march the column.

Nolan carried himself easily enough. He’d grown up in the north, joined the army when he was of age and had now been trained as a soldier. Canhoon was where he was assigned and where he’d expected to stay, but now he was on his way to Tyrne, where he was supposed to join the Imperial Guard and where he would see his family again.

That had been the plan before he found out about the death of his father, Wollis. He hadn’t seen the old man in a long time and now it looked like he would never see him again. The thought was a hard one to accept. He’d grown up believing his father was nearly indestructible. The man had been on the road and traveling for most of Nolan’s life, but he’d always seemed almost like a giant when he was home, and he’d always been the first to tell stories of the military life and the people he’d fought with and against.

Thinking about Wollis made his chest swell with pride and his heart ache with loss at the same time. He would be missed.

The man who’d been his father’s commander had sent for him. The plan had been to reunite the entire family and Nolan was grateful for the effort, even if it hadn’t worked out.

“First thing I do when we get to Tyrne, is I take the money I’ve saved up and buy myself a new pair of boots. These bastards are falling off my feet.” The voice came from Darus Leeds, who could rightly enough be called Nolan’s friend. Which is to say he was one of the people in the battalion that Nolan liked and additionally was one of the few he trusted. Nolan was not big on trust. His first few weeks in the army had taught him that many people are thieves. Those same weeks had taught a few of the thieves that stealing from Nolan was a very bad idea.

Stonehaven was a long ways off, but the lessons he’d learned in his hometown stuck with him. Most of the people in the area, not surprisingly, worked in the quarries and worked hard for what they owned. That tended to make them a bit reluctant to let go when something was taken from them.

Darus was fairly tall and lean, but Nolan had already learned that didn’t mean much. While he was nowhere near as solidly built as Nolan he was as strong as an ox and had a fearsome way with a sword. They often faced off against each other in practice matches and from time to time teamed up against other members of the battalion. Darus came from a good distance to the east, somewhere near Elda. From what he’d told Nolan, the people in his area still trained hard with sword and shield alike. Nolan saw no reason to doubt those claims.

Darus was looking his way and expecting a response. “What?”

“I said what are your big plans when you get to Tyrne?”

Nolan looked away. “I’m supposed to meet with a family friend.” He muttered the words and a little twist of guilt nibbled at his insides. It was unjustified but the guilt was still there.

“Your family has friends in Tyrne? Didn’t you say as you’re from up north near Trecharch?”

“Stonehaven. A bit east of Trecharch.”

“Yeah I heard of that one.” The way he said it let Nolan know his friend was lying. He didn’t take offense. Darus had a need to sound knowledgeable about everything he encountered. Several people had called him on his claims in the past and Nolan ignored them as easily as he ignored the false claims. Darus was a friend. It was precisely that simple for him.

“My father.” He paused a moment to swallow the lump trying to form in his throat. “The man he was riding with is in Tyrne. He’s asked to see me. He wants to present my father’s ashes.”

Darus made a noise and nodded his head. That was all there was to say on the matter. Darus had left home when he’d joined the army and had no intention of looking back. What his parents might have done to inspire the cold distance within the otherwise friendly man, Nolan did not know. He merely understood that Darus had no desire to speak of it.

Nolan thought back to his one meeting with Merros Dulver. He’d seen the man ride up on horseback and thought him a striking figure. He was tall and rugged and solid. He carried himself with confidence and he’d shaken Nolan’s hand and spoken highly of his father’s prowess in combat. He’d liked the man just fine right up until the time his father decided to go off with him.

There was nothing fair about that, of course. He knew Dulver was a good man. His father had said so on several occasions.

Still, his father was dead. And the man who’d taken him away was one of the men in charge of the entire army.

“What you should do is find out what this fella says about how your father died.”

Nolan nodded his head and looked around. They were following the same road they’d been on for longer than he cared to think about. Up ahead the sound of horns came back their way and the foot soldiers dutifully stepped to the sides of the road and waited, most of them grateful for the chance to rest their legs for a moment. The last time they’d been called off the road had been to let the escorts past with the body of Emperor Pathra Krous. That had been a somber moment. An escort of mounted Imperial Guards had dominated the road, and a great black wagon moved between them, the windows covered and the Imperial crest gleaming on the sides. Nolan, along with every other soldier, had held his sword out above his head as the wagon rumbled slowly past, and several of the soldiers had done their best to hide tears.

Tears for a man none of them had met. What a mad world they lived in.

Somewhere up ahead a loud noise came their way, as if to prove the point. It was a warbling cry, a trumpet call that he was not familiar with.

The response was immediate, by a good number of the foot soldiers. They grabbed their shields and their weapons and prepared. The men sported swords or axes. Those that did not, brandished spears. The road almost immediately bristled with pointed, sharpened steel.

“What the hell is happening up there?” Darus was squinting against the glare of the sun’s attempt to burn away the mists, trying to see what was causing the disturbance, but with no luck.

Someone called out, “Spears to the front!” and immediately the foot soldiers with spears came forward, sliding past the swordsmen and preparing themselves. A lanky man with graying hair moved into position in front of Nolan and dropped into a crouch, holding his spear with the point aimed high, but easily lowered should it be necessary.

No one questioned whether or not this was a drill. The sounds of conflict came from further up the road. The view was obstructed by spearmen and by the curve of the road itself.

“What the hell?” That was Darus again as a deep roar cut the air and was immediately followed by the sound of several men screaming.

“Spears, ready! Here they come!”

“They” were impossible to see at first, but hearing them was easy. The sounds of metal and men joined together in a loud tidal roar, but that was nothing to the other sounds clashing for attention. The noises were unsettling, alien, and made Nolan’s skin crawl. There were low growls and higher sounds, a keening noise that barely made sense to his ears.

The lines of men that bordered the road began to falter and spear tips that had been raised high wavered and then dropped as something came closer. Whatever that something was, the spears were attacking, doing their best to pin it in place.

A vast shape took to the air for just a moment. A blur of dark fur, darker leathers and metal and, unless he was mistaken, there was a person atop that lunging, flailing insanity. Yes, he saw an axe coming down even as the massive thing yielded to gravity. Several spears went sailing in the wrong direction, their points falling like saplings in a sudden flood. But more weapons went in the right direction and a moment later the roars and screams of the furred nightmare were faltering and then dying completely.

Ahead of them, along the line, soldiers screamed and broke ranks. The squad leaders called out for order and a small handful began listening, drawing back into the proper ranks, but some did not pay heed, too enthralled by what they were seeing, apparently.

Darus shook his head. “Can’t see a damned thing.”

Nolan was about to agree when the shape came through the ranks. It was low-slung and charged across the ground, roaring and swinging clawed front limbs that slapped people aside with too much ease. There was indeed a man riding on the beast’s back, but he was dead near as far as Nolan could tell. The man’s skin was gray and his body sagged to one side, flopping and flailing with each move of the creature. Soldiers screamed as they were hurled through the air, broken and bleeding. Some only staggered a few feet, but a few truly unfortunate souls were thrown twenty feet or more with a single sweep of the monster’s limbs.

Nolan backed up and looked for a better access point. Darus moved with him, looking for a moment as if he planned to run away. But that wouldn’t happen. The punishment for running from combat was death, and they all knew it.

There were few people from the north who couldn’t climb a tree. Trecharch and the surrounding areas had trees that practically begged to be climbed, and so Nolan resorted to older skills, found the best looking tree for the job and scampered up as quickly as he could. Flinching a couple of times when his equipment snagged itself on a branch or rough bark.

Not far away, the soldiers he’d trained with were scattering away from whatever the hell they were fighting and he saw them for the first time. The great furred nightmare he’d seen was down, killed by the footmen. Easily a dozen of them had gone down in the process, but they had taken man and mount alike.

Moving over those remains, demons from the worst kind of nightmares charged, slashing at the soldiers too close to them. The attackers moved quickly, but they were not faster than the eye.

What he’d thought was one enormous attacker was actually several. From above he could see the breaks in the forms, close together and pushing along the same path to give the impression of one body. The large shapes could easily have broken away from each other and moved through the entire area, but they stayed stubbornly on the road and they continued to follow the path even when the foot soldiers and cavalry were in their way. Horses and riders were knocked aside and torn apart if they got too close. Any men standing nearby when the odd shapes got closer were slapped away or violently attacked. As he observed, one of the shambling things reached out and yanked a man into its embrace. Within a heartbeat’s span the captured soldier was screaming and dying. As he died, four of the spearmen attacked, driving the points of their weapons deep into the loathsome thing that shuddered and wailed and died.

Before he could see much of the dying creature, the next in line rolled forward, crawling over the dying man and monstrosity alike.

He clamped his teeth tightly together and looked down at Darus. “Get to the supplies! Get to the wagons!”

“What? Why?”

“I want to try something.”

As they spoke the column of nightmares tramped closer, pushing past or through the men fighting them. Spears and swords rose and fell and a few more of the things fell to the weapons. But the next in the line kept coming in a slow moving tide of unnatural flesh.

And as the people fighting them looked at the creatures, occasionally a trained fighter would back away, disgusted or horrified or simply unbelieving of what they were seeing. Nolan wasn't sure which was stronger: his desire to know what was so unsettling or the part of him that never wanted to be that repulsed.

Nolan dropped quickly from his perch and ran toward the wagons, hoping that Darus was with him. The things were coming closer and he had a momentary fear that someone would see them running and think they were trying to flee. He remembered his father telling him about two occasions where he’d had to discipline a soldier trying to flee from a fight. Neither of the men had lived through the experience. The idea of a spear in the back or a noose around his neck did not appeal at all.

Death did not come, but the things behind him were definitely getting closer.

The wagons were in motion. Not because they were supposed to be, but because the horses apparently did not like what was coming their way and they were trying to get up the sides of the well-worn road and drag their wagons with them. The men trying to calm the beasts were not having any luck. One wagon had fallen to its side already and the draft horses were straining and trying to haul their burden along despite the added resistance. The men riding the wagon had fallen. One lay broken on the ground and the other was pinned under the weight of the capsized vehicle.

Nolan didn’t take time to think it through. Instead he pulled his axe and climbed atop the wagon, hacking at the couplings until they broke. It didn’t take much effort as the wooden connections had already fractured. Darus followed his lead and took a long knife from his belt sheath and cut the leather straps at the same time. A moment later the horses were free and the wagon was no longer moving.

The man under the wagon was not moving. He was alive, but his eyes had rolled back and his skin was pale and sweating. It would take more than the two of them to free him. The wagon was too damned heavy.

Nolan shook off his worries for the downed driver and climbed over the wagon. The canvas cover had broken and the supplies inside were spilled halfway across the road, only adding to the chaos as other wagons and horses tramped over the supplies within.

He’d been hoping for one of the armory wagons, but was not that lucky. The spilled contents were from the larders.

Behind him, a wagon succeeded in climbing the rise and lurched off the road. The driver did not make it along for the ride and let out a yelp as he fell backward and flopped down the hillside back to where Nolan and Darus were waiting. He was battered and looked a bit surprised to find himself in the mud, but he got back up on his own. His round face was familiar, but there was no name associated with him in Nolan’s mind.

Nolan looked the man over. “Get a weapon ready!”

The man nodded and pulled at his sheathed axe. It was more a tool than a weapon, unlike like the one Nolan himself carried, but it would cut a monster as sure as it would chop wood.

Nolan looked at the debris, searching for any possible tools to help them, and then looked up at the road ahead where the monsters were still coming.

No time.

The closest of the things was almost on them and he saw the head of the beast again and wished that he did not. It should not exist and yet it did. Had someone taken a dozen men sculpted of soft clay and decided to make something different from the originals, what was coming at him might have been the result. Faces were distorted and pressed into new shapes, crushed against shoulders and torsos and bent by angry fingers into a new, rough form. He could see mouths and broken teeth, he could spy a nose mashed into a semi-flattened shape and smeared into an eye socket. The eye was still there, rolling madly and possibly seeing the world around it or merely staring blindly. Arms and fingers were broken and bent and pressed into that rough-hewn face. And it wasn't only the heads of the people used to make the shape. There were legs and torsos and there were broken swords and shields and armor twisted into that moving, impossible mess.

There was an Imperial Guard insignia crushed into the side of the monster’s face. Part of the thing. The crest of a shield was warped into that nightmare, a piece of the unholy whole.

The bloated nightmare pushed forward and ran into the wagon, not stopping, not slowing but continuing along the same pathway. The wagon did not budge; it was a very heavy obstacle to be sure, but the thing kept shoving forward, the heavy forearms of the monster slamming into the overturned affair and smashing into it again and again, pummeling wood and iron that began to break and bend under the assault.

Darus had to drag Nolan back as the brute continued forward. A moment later and he’d have been crushed when the wagon fell toward him as the monster kept coming.

The beast was the last of them, apparently. It kept moving, trying to push along the same road, but behind it the soldiers had finished their bloody work and had hacked and stabbed the rest of the monstrosities into immobile carcasses.

Revulsion got the better of common sense. That was really the only way to put it. As the bloated, loathsome thing kept pushing up the road, not the least worried about Nolan as it moved along, his mind went dark and red.

Nolan let out a battle cry and swung his axe in a great arc, bringing it down on the mottled, vile back of the thing. The blade cut deep and the creature let out a sharp bleating noise and started turning back to examine Nolan with its repulsive piecemeal, rudimentary face. He hacked again and again and felt himself climbing onto the thing’s great back as he pulled the axe free and snarled at the impossible head.

There was nothing rational to his actions. Deep inside his skull, buried under the insane rage that consumed him, Nolan wondered at what he was doing and whether to not he would survive his foolish attack, but it didn’t matter just then. He wanted this abomination gone, and more than anything else that was what drove him.

His axe rose and fell and rose and fell, and he felt his throat go raw as he screamed again and again and kept hacking, dark blood splattering its way up his arms across his face and down his chest, painting his uniform in the color of the thing’s vile juices.

He was dimly aware of Darus next to him and others coming closer, but they did not matter just then.

It only mattered that the thing be dead; the better for him to pretend it had never existed.

And then the fight was done and he stood on the bloodied remains and panted, looking at his trembling hands and then slowly around him to see Darus and the man from the wagon and a half dozen others staring his way with wide eyes and unsettled expressions.

“Well then.” Nolan’s voice was coarse and raspy. He stepped back from his grisly work and shook his head, trying to clear away the last of the red rage that had consumed him.

Nolan’s legs gave out, and so he fell back until he landed on his rump in the dirt.

“Well then,” he repeated. “That’s that.”

It was close to an hour before he recovered enough to move. He heard the people speaking around him but was too exhausted to care. Considering what he’d just done, it seemed the rest of the troop was fine with letting him alone.

News of the Emperor’s death had spread faster than tales of other events. Though the great eruption in the Corinta Ocean was certainly a topic worthy of discussion, and the destruction of the Guntha was a situation most would be speaking of for months to come, it was the death of Pathra Krous at the hands of an assassin that overtook conversations. The reason was simple enough: the changes wrought by his death would surely be more far reaching.

Still, even that news took time to cross the continent. First there were rumors, and those are often ignored. Then there were confirmations and from there the true wave of guesswork flowed wildly.

The Pilgrim did not care for speculation or hearsay. Both were the work of weaker minds.

When he heard of the Emperor’s death he sighed once and then rose from where he’d been resting for a very long time.

Pathra Krous had been a good man. He had been an important man. His death was what mattered, however. The Sooth had spoken to the Pilgrim of Pathra Krous’s dying and what it meant to the world around him.

It was the sign he had waited for.

It was worth rising for.

The Daxar Taalor were not the only gods that made demands.

The Pilgrim struggled from the murky waters where he had rested for so long and shook off the sediment that covered his flesh. The air was hot and sticky with humidity. His clothes clung to him like a second skin. He was aware of the fabric as he was aware of the heat: as a secondary consideration. The most important thing was the news that Pathra Krous was gone.

Everything else was secondary to that one portent, that one sign that his time had come at last.

The Pilgrim had slept for so many years and now he would fulfill his destiny.

Muscles that should have atrophied and withered long ago moved stiffly at first, but as circulation returned to his muscles, so too did the ease of movement he had known before.

How long had he slept? He did not know. He did not care. It was enough to know that he was needed again.

He called out with his mind to the gods, and frowned as he waited for their response.

Silence.

Only silence. Still, he walked. He had a great distance to cover and there were people he needed to gather to his side if he were to succeed in his holy mission.

The bodies were heavy, and they felt greasy to the touch. Nolan did not like handling them and he liked being in charge of guarding the remains even less. Still, someone had to do it, and Sergeant Niles insisted that it was the sort of honor that would eventually lead to promotions.

Of course, Niles was also known to say the same thing of digging the holes they pissed in whenever they made a camp for the night, so his word was hardly trustworthy.

The bodies were covered in salt and then wrapped in cloths in the hopes that they might make the trip to Tyrne intact. There was a firm belief that whatever the things were, the leaders of the army would want to examine them.

Nolan would have dealt better with that thought if the damned things would stop moving around. Everyone said it was the motion of the wagons they were piled into, but Nolan didn’t believe it for a second. They moved just as much when the column was at rest. They’d finally turned south and moved alongside the Freeholdt River. According to the maps, that meant they were almost to their destination. He’d had doubts, too, until they finally saw the city in the distance.

Tyrne was immense. That was the only way to put it. Even from half a day away, they’d seen the tallest buildings. Now they headed into the city proper, and he did his best not to gape as they walked. He was not alone. Most of the soldiers he was with had never been to Tyrne and a goodly number had never been to any city of size except for Old Canhoon. Canhoon was large to be sure, and with a sizeable population, but it wasn’t so very tall. The outer buildings were not so enormous, but the ones further in rose higher than he would have thought any buildings could be built.

It took most of a day to get to Tyrne and that was long enough for some of the awe to wear off. And as they got closer they were joined by other groups coming to the capital in a stream of humanity. Many of the people coming seemed to be taking care of regular business – carts, loaded with goods to sell, or leaving the city and heading toward other destinations with supplies, were common sights – but there were more who bore a desperate air with them, who seemed to be heading to the city in the hopes of escaping from the inevitable war that people they encountered were certain was coming to eradicate them all.

War. That was an unpleasant notion. Darus shook his head and spat as they walked together. “You think there’s anything to the notion of war?”

Nolan looked at the man and cocked his head to the side. “I expect yes. We just fought some sort of monsters and we’re heading for the capital. Not just us, either. There’s more soldiers behind us and more ahead. I saw a full regiment of cavalry making for the city up ahead.”

Darus spat again, squinting up the road as if he might see the horses and their riders. Nolan knew better. His friend had eyes meant only for seeing things close by. The further out he looked, the worse his sight.

“You sure?”

“I saw them.” Nolan was about to say something else, but whatever it was fell away from his lips unspoken. Up ahead the road was clear enough to let him see what waited in that direction. The great wall of the city and the open gateway, and through the gate he could see the long road leading upward into the heart of Tyrne. He could see the path leading all the way to the palace.

“Can you see them now?”

“No.” His heart hammered in his chest. “No. I don’t know where they went.”

“Well I guess we’ll see for ourselves soon enough.”

Sergeant Niles came toward them from further up in the column with his usual swagger. His eyes were dark splotches in the sunlight. “Nolan!”

“Aye, ho, Sergeant?” He didn’t much like Niles, but he could respect him well enough. There was a difference.

“Got a note from the Office of the Commander General, says you’re to go to the palace immediately and bring your prizes with you.” He pointed to the wagons loaded with rotting flesh. “Get to it and take Darus, Tolpen and Vonders with you.”

Nolan nodded and started to head for the carts. It was Darus that asked the question that had already started ringing in Nolan’s head. “Why us?”

“March because he was asked for. The rest of you because the Captain says you deserve recognition for killing those things.” The sergeant didn’t wait around any longer. Before Darus could ask another question the man was heading back the way he’d come.

“What do you make of that?” Darus’svoice was soft.

“I make nothing of it. We’ll learn what we need to know when we get there.” Nolan wasn’t sure he believed that himself. He just knew he needed to get to the palace. He wondered if Merros Dulver would be there. He knew the answer, of course, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about that knowledge.

Desh Krohan swept into the throne room with a smile on his face. Merros looked at the man as if he might have lost his mind. What in the name of all the gods was there to smile about?

Nachia Krous looked up from the throne with a similar look of puzzlement on her face.

“Oh, look at the two of you.” Desh shook his head. “It’s like watching two children trying to study their letters with their eyes closed. The sun is out, the clouds are fading to the south and the day is young. Nachia, you’re to be Empress of this land within a week and Merros you’ve been promoted to the head of Nachia’s armies. Try to actually enjoy that fact for a moment, will you?”

Merros cleared his throat, trying to find the right way to respond without having himself reduced to cinders by the man.

Nachia was more direct. “I don’t want to be the Empress. I want my cousin back.”

The wizard shook his head. “I know. Still, you can’t have Pathra back. He’s gone from us and wanders now wherever the spirit goes when the flesh is sundered.” He leaned closer in to the woman who was supposedly his ruler. Supposedly because Merros was almost certain that no one ever actually ruled over the man. “I know that look. Calm yourself. Tantrums won’t help you now. You’re ascending to the throne. There’s no choice in this.”

Merros sighed. That was the problem with the wizard. One of them at least. He tended to be very sure of his declarations. He also tended to be right. The General did not like that combination very much. Not that he could do much about it.

“So let’s have a chat, shall we?” Desh walked to the table where paperwork sat for the Empress’s consideration and pushed the papers away from one edge, the better to rest his hip and buttock against the marble. “I think it’s time to get past the losses we’ve suffered and move on to running the Empire properly.”

Nachia opened her mouth, her lips peeling back in an angry grimace, but before she could respond Desh shook his head. “I don’t mean we forget the death of Pathra. He was one of my dearest friends. I mean we don’t let his death stop us from keeping his Empire safe. He wouldn’t appreciate his hard work being allowed to fall into ruin because our souls are heavy with his loss.”

That stopped her. She closed her mouth and slowly nodded. “What do you suggest, Desh?”

Merros felt himself release a breath he had been unaware he was holding. The simple fact was that angering the future head of the nation was a bad idea, even if you were working on her behalf. Desh Krohan was not his friend, exactly, but he was definitely a benefactor. He needed a few of those.

“Merros, here, has been bolstering the city’s defenses and that’s a wonderful notion, but we need to do more. There are soldiers coming here, forces gathering, because we need them, but they need to be supplied, they need to have places to sleep.”

“There are ample barracks, Desh. I’ve made sure of that.” Merros couldn’t keep a defensive edge from his voice.

“Oh, to be sure, Merros. I know that about you. If I didn’t think you were up to the job I would have never recommended you to Pathra as strongly as I did.”

Merros resisted the urge to snort at the comment. Nachia Krous did not. “Recommend, he says.”

“The papers were signed by your cousin, Nachia.”

“I know that. You know that. But I have no doubt as to who was holding the pen in place for him.” She was not angry as she spoke. If anything, she seemed to be teasing the man. Merros had no idea what sort of relationship they had, really. He had seen both of them repeatedly, but most of their interactions had been in front of an audience of people and now they were positively casual with each other.

“I merely make suggestions, Nachia. Same as I always have.”

The gesture she made was universally accepted as a rude one. Merros managed not to laugh out loud. It was possible that both of them were trying too hard to get along, but he rather liked it. The camaraderie, forced or not, was closer to feeling natural than the stony silence that had held sway over the palace since the murders.

“What do you want to do about the black ships in Roathes, General Dulver?” The sorcerer, advisor to the Empire, looked his way, as if he might be asking about the weather.

“Well, I suppose we could send a few of the Sa’ba Taalor to handle the matter.” His response was automatic, offered in a dry voice and completely inappropriate. It was the sort of thing he should have saved for when he was speaking to Wollis March.

Both the future Empress and the sorcerer who technically ruled the land until her ascendency looked at him for a long moment in complete silence, and then the wizard started laughing out loud, his face reddening as he let loose with a raucous cackle. Nachia joined in only a moment later.

And when they were done he sighed and shook his head. “I suppose I should send troops that way. Just to ensure that if there really is a problem it gets handled quickly.”

“You doubt the existence of the black ships?” Nachia’s voice was low and curious. He sensed no hostility. She merely wanted an honest answer from him.

“I do. Mostly because King Marsfel has already proven himself to be untrustworthy.” The man had lied, and repeatedly, in an effort to gain financial assistance from the Empire. He had apparently made a practice of it as his father had before him.

“True enough, but the claims aren’t only coming from him. They are coming from a dozen different sources.”

“And yet these black ships that are supposed to be running around in the Corinta near Marsfel’s shores have made no move to attack. They are simply out there sunning themselves like lizards.” Merros shrugged. “I have made no secret of my dislike for the king. That has not changed my decision a smattering. I don’t think we can afford to send too many forces to chase after phantoms when we are very likely at war with the Sa’ba Taalor.”

“No ‘very likely’ to it. They aren’t welcome here and, if they show themselves, I’ll expect you and your soldiers to cut them down.” Nachia’s voice held a sharp edge.

“We have a company of two hundred men missing in pursuit of them. I expect we’ll hear from them all too soon, Majesty.”

Desh raised one eyebrow and said nothing.

Nachia sighed. “So, we wait on the ships then?”

Merros lowered his head rather than stare at her. “I’ll do exactly as you tell me, Majesty, but I would suggest waiting. We have seen no sign that the ships mean harm and even with a dozen reports we’ve little proof that they even exist.”

“I’ll defer to you, Merros. I’ll trust in your judgment. Now, tell me what happens with the city’s defenses.”

“They’ve been finished, Majesty. The gates are back in working order, the areas where the walls needed repairs have been mended and the structures that had taken root along the outside of the wall have been taken down.”

“Taken down?”

“Yes, milady. Several buildings had gone, up using the outer wall as a support. They weren’t supposed to do that to begin with, and they might be used by the Sa’ba Taalor to allow their mounts to climb over the wall.”

Nachia contemplated the great beasts that the enemy rode and then nodded her head. “Are we safe from attacks without those structures?”

“Safer, I suppose. I honestly don’t know how well those things can scale a wall, but I know they made it out of the Blasted Lands without having to resort to the Temmis Pass, and we have never managed that on horses.”

She nodded her head again. For a moment there was silence and then Desh spoke up again. “Onto the next matter at hand. Regarding the defense of the Imperial Roads…”

It was going to be another long day, Merros supposed, but at least it seemed they were able to move on a bit. There was much to do and it seemed they would have very little time to get anything accomplished.

He had no idea.

Five

It seemed help would be a long time coming.

Marsfel looked out at the dark waters of the bay and sighed softly to himself. No one to blame, really, but himself. He had angered the Empire’s military commander. What could he possibly expect after that?

There were no stars to see. The clouds had blacked them out again. He knew that the Great Star was in the sky, as bright as ever, but he could not see even that light through the ash and the heavy foulness that tainted the air.

The rains had come down throughout the day and painted the sands with gray and black patterns of soot. Every building within sight of his palace was black now, and even the trees were darker in color than they should have been.

The only light, outside of a few torches, came from the fire raging in the distant ocean and in the lightning that sometimes stabbed the waters where the new island covered over the remains of the Guntha.

The Guntha had never been friends. They had been enemies for most of his life and occasionally they had been allies when all parties felt there was some use in alliance. No matter what they had been, however, they had always been a part of his world and now they were gone.

Much, he suspected, as his kingdom was soon to be gone.

Even if the black ships never came in to attack, the fish were gone and the stores of supplies were wearing thin. A lot of his people had left their homes and fled to the north, seeking aid from the Emperor or at least a place to stay where the air did not stink of death. The erupting mountain in the ocean was not going away, and the cloud of filth that belched from it was not leaving either.

It seemed likely to him that they had the right idea. It might well be time to move on soon. His needs were few, but keeping his family and his people safe definitely qualified as something the King wanted to accomplish in his lifetime. And for the first time since he had taken residence on the throne, he had doubts that he could accomplish that task to his satisfaction.

A barrage of lightning danced through the clouds in the distance. The flares were bright enough to let him see the ships in the water.

“Turrae!” he bellowed his assistant’s name and as always the man responded in moments, slipping through the door as if he had been standing just outside and waiting for hours for the first call of his king.

“How may I help you, my Lord?”

“The ships, Turrae! They are at the shore. They are so much closer than they were before. Sound the horns and light the signal fires. It is time!”

The man stared at him with wide eyes in the near darkness of the room. For just one moment the fear was clear on his assistant’s face. Then it vanished, replaced by his usual calm. “Of course, King Marsfel.” Turrae vanished from sight and Marsfel stalked across his room, his hands fluttering nervously as he reached for his weapons. He had armor, but despite having worn in several times for the fittings, he really didn’t much know how to put it on, not without help. And there wasn't time. The ships were too close and his daughters had to be protected. His kingdom needed defending. He would not stand by and wait for the enemy to come to him. Not here, not now when so much was at stake.

The Ghurnae blade was long and curved, heavy with one sharp edge and a jagged point that could gut a man with ease. He had trained with such blades since he was a child and while he was heavier than he had been before taking the throne, Marsfel remembered well the lessons he’d had. He slid the sword and hilt over his shoulder and took two long daggers as well. The set was matched and had been presented to him many years ago by his father when he came of age. They had been well cared for and well used over the years.

Marsfel was many things and, while a few would disagree with his personal assessment, he was capable as a leader and as a fighter alike.

Still, his hands shook and his heart raced.

By the time he left his personal chambers the call had gone out. Several of the watch still called out on the great bone horns and as he strode toward the front entrance of the keep the way was lit by two of the great signal fires. His soldiers would come.

He would lead them into battle and they would live or die together. Turrae stepped next to him, carrying his own Ghurnae blade and daggers. A small shield was strapped across his back, but otherwise he had no armor.

The guards were a different matter. They always wore their armor; it was a part of their duty. They stepped with him, falling into loose formation. At another time he might have demanded a closer step, a better pacing, but that was not a consideration. They would fight.

Fires lit the paved road leading toward the shoreline and, as he progressed, the mercenaries he had hired to bolster his soldiers came forward, most of them riding horses. He hadn’t thought about that, hadn’t considered having the horses readied.

Marsfel shook his head and swallowed harshly, his throat a tight, dry lump. He hadn’t thought of so many things. He’d known this was coming and yet he was ill-prepared.

The leader of the mercenaries stared at him. He couldn’t think of the man’s name. Turrae mumbled “Jepphers” under his breath, and Marsfel could have kissed him.

“Captain Jepphers. It is time.”

“Do you lead this fight yourself, Majesty? Or do I lead with my soldiers?”

A damned good question. The mercenaries were there to fight for him.

“Lead the way, Captain, and we shall follow.” He shook his head. “I have no horses.”

Jepphers nodded his head. He could see the man was well aware of the situation and that he was also keeping his tongue. The Captain had brought a good number of mercenaries with him. Turrae could have said exactly how many, but Marsfel couldn’t hope to guess.

Jepphers blew a loud, whistling note between two fingers and his hired men turned their attention to him and followed as he led them in a charge toward the beach and the ships that had settled near the shore.

The winds were harsh and hot and the clouds over the waters were as dark as a sinner’s thoughts. The ships that had seemed large before were enormous as he and his troops marched up the road toward the beach. The waves crashed against the vessels, which rocked in the waters and occasionally groaned a soft protest.

He saw the mercenaries riding hard and felt a grim satisfaction in his choice to hire them. He’d hoped for help from the Empire, but prepared for whatever might come his way. The sword felt good in his hand and, despite his fears, he believed he was prepared to defend his people and his kingdom.

How many people could the ships hold? Marsfel had no notion. The boats his people used were much smaller, and even the largest would be dwarfed by the black shapes. They seemed nearly impossible and he couldn’t see them well enough in the rough weather to determine much beyond their size.

Turrae coughed into his hand and shivered as the winds picked up. The air was warm and his condition had nothing to do with the breeze. “They are so damned large…” It was the only time Marsfel had ever heard the man curse.

He was trying to find the right encouraging words when the flurry of arrows rose from the ships and plummeted toward the approaching riders. Had he wondered how many people could hide on the vast structures? It was hard to say with any certainty, but most definitely enough to kill fifty men with one first volley. The arrows rose silently and dropped in graceful arcs. They stopped in the bodies of mercenaries and horses alike, some peppering the shoreline, but most landing in flesh and crippling or killing.

The soldiers were far enough ahead that it took a moment to hear their screams. But he could see them as they fell, some dropping to the ground and others clinging to their horses even as their mounts collapsed or bucked and tried to escape the unexpected pain.

A second volley of arrows rose and fell, missing more targets as the animals bolted and took a number of fighters with them. But the respite was brief. When Marsfel looked to the ships he saw silhouettes in the shape of archers moving to the edges of the vessels, bracing themselves and taking careful aim. Several riders tried to break away, but the assault seemed nearly endless, and most died with arrows in their backs.

He had meant to lead his men into glorious battle. He’d told himself that this would be an easy thing, a certainty, really, because so much was at stake, but as the men he’d hired to fight for him were cut down by archers, he felt his courage blowing away with the ashes in the wind.

How could this be? How could this happen?

Turrae said something, but Marsfel did not hear him. The sound of the dying and wounded was too close and too loud.

Turrae screamed this time and struck him on the shoulder, roughly, to get his attention. Part of him wanted to turn and lash out at the man, but he resisted.

His assistant’s voice rang clearly enough. “They’re coming! They are leaving the ships!”

The shadows were dropping from the side of the ships into the rough, shallow waters. He knew they must surely be on ropes but he couldn’t see the lines and as a result they looked more like man-sized spiders scaling down the sides of the great vessels than anything else. The notion sent shivers through his body.

The forms flowed down the sides of the boats and into the turbulent waters. They did not hesitate to move toward the shore, swimming, walking or carried by the waves, he could not say. He could only see them coming, see the odd gray glow of light where their eyes should have been, and wonder if the Guntha who claimed demons pursued them had been telling the truth.

He had seen the Sa’ba Taalor, had seen their odd eyes in the daylight and in a well-lit room, but this was different. The light seemed stronger and it unsettled him.

He wanted to run. Oh, how he wanted to leave as quickly as he could, because the shapes coming toward him were fast, and even moving through the water they were intimidating.

Kings are not allowed to be afraid.

“Come then! Let’s kill a few enemies!” Marsfel roared the words and moved, sweeping the heavy Ghurnae sword in a few wide arcs to test the feel of the weapon. His men followed. He could feel them moving with him and that knowledge gave him strength. A king leads. That is what a king must do.

The ashes in the wind whipped through the air and stung at his eyes, but Marsfel did not care. It was time to teach these fools a lesson. Time to show the Empire that he was a king to be respected.

Before he knew it, he was running, charging on thick legs and driving toward the surf, a feral grin pulling at his lips. He was a king! He was a warrior!

The woman who met with him wore leather and carried two thin swords. Her hair was wrapped and pulled away from her brow by a thick blue length of cloth.

Marsfel swept his blade toward her head. It would make a fine prize to show his enemies when this was over.

His hand fell away from his body. The sword he carried flipped through the air with his hand and landed in the sand and surf.

The woman crouched and whipped one of the swords at his knees and fire ripped through his legs where metal met flesh.

Marsfel could not keep to his feet. He fell forward and landed on his good left arm and his bleeding right stump.

The pain was immediate and ripped away all hints of confidence he had sported.

She stood over him and for the first time he saw the face of the demon that had crippled him with ease. The Sa’ba Taalor had worn veils. This creature did not. The eyes were fine, the nose long and elegant, despite a heavy scar that ran from below the left eye and down to the right cheekbone.

But below the nose? Oh, truly, there must be demons in this universe!

“What are you?”

Rather than answer his question, the demon spoke, her words carrying the odd echoing sibilance he’d heard from the Sa’ba Taalor before. “You are King Marsfel of Roathes?” Her eyes regarded him coldly and her twin blades glimmered.

Turrae tried to come to his aid. The man ran silently, but his words broke that silence. “I am Marsfel,” Turrae hissed.

Marsfel looked to his second. The man came in proper stance, his sword held before him to guard against possible strokes, the heavy tip at the right level to easily gut a foolish opponent.

The woman was not a fool. Her arms moved; the left sword struck against Turrae’s blade and sent that deadly tip to the side. She stepped closer, close enough to let Marsfel count the heavy laces on her boot, and then her right sword drove through Turrae’s mouth and opened the side of his face all the way back to his left ear. The left sword whickered through the air a second time and cleaved into his neck from the other side. When she stepped back, only a strand of gristle kept Turrae’s head from falling completely away from his body.

She looked back to the King. “You are Marsfel?”

His mind wanted to lie. His heart would not allow it.

“Aye. I am Marsfel, I am the King.”

Her voice remained calm through the exchange. Around her, beside her and to her flanks, more of the demons came out of the waters and attacked the people who ran with Marsfel. They did not leave survivors. His men were brave at first, and then they were afraid. It seemed they did not fight humans. Nothing should have been as savage as the things that came ashore and killed.

“I am Donaie Swarl, Chosen of the Forge of Wheklam and King in Lead. This is my fleet. Do you surrender your lands to me?”

“Will you show my people mercy if I surrender?”

“I will offer the same mercy I gave the Guntha if you do not.” Her hand gestured to the waters behind her, where the column of flame and ash and smoke continued to roar into the skies.

“Spare the people in my palace then, and I will surrender.”

“I do not negotiate.” Her swords barely seemed to move, but the points found themselves in either side of his neck just the same, and the movement cut through to bone with ease.

His death was fast, but Marsfel died just the same.

The cold was an old friend now. It wrapped itself around Andover Lashk and wove its spell through his skin and muscles alike. He did not shiver. Shivering took energy. Instead he walked, one foot forward and then the other.

The perpetual twilight was no better than it had been, but now the sky above was bloody and clearly showed the silhouettes of the great mountains he had heard so much about.

The Seven Forges were before him and Andover found the cold hardly mattered at all. His exhaustion was still there, but that too seemed a trifling thing in comparison. The mountains were enormous. So much larger than he’d have thought possible before.

Delil walked next to him and he saw her eyes looking at the vast black surface facing them. The only highlights he could see were the places where the reddish light from the clouds accented the more prominent edges of stone.

“You face Durhallem,” Drask spoke from directly behind him. When last he’d looked, the man had been almost a hundred feet to his left and now he was only a foot away. How a man that large could move so quickly, so quietly, still unsettled him.

“That is the mountain? Where is the tunnel you spoke of?” Andover looked but could see no sign of the gate he was supposed to pass through in order to enter the valley of the Taalor.

Drask chuckled. “We are not close enough for you to see it yet.”

He looked away from the mountain and stared hard at Drask. “We’re not?”

“Not nearly. We have two more days of traveling before we reach the passage.”

“Two more days?” He looked back at the mountain, which already consumed most of the horizon. “We’re still two days away?”

“Durhallem is a very large mountain, Andover Lashk. We have at least two more days of walking before we are there.”

Andover shook his head.

Bromt walked closer and without preamble he swung one massive fist at the side of Andover’s head. Andover worked on reflex alone and ducked under the blow, skittering back and staring hard at the man.

Drask spoke as if nothing had happened. “That is two more days to make sure you are ready for whatever you face in the Pass.”

Bromt came for him again, his eyes the only sign of his features in the darkness.

Look to any map of Fellein and at the very southern edge is the Corinta Ocean and on some of the more sophisticated and detailed maps there is an indication of the Brellar below that.

There were people who had come from Brellar and a few of them had made it as far as Roathes in their time, but most of them were stopped long before they planned on ending their journeys. Roathians were not known for their tolerance of anyone with knowledge of the seas.

Still, it happened. There were tales written of the Brellar, and a few of the older books at the Imperial Academy had illustrations of the Brellar and careful depictions of the scars they placed on the their bodies.

In total there were seventeen recorded situations, determined to be historically accurate, of the Brellar making it to Fellein and living to tell their tales.

So this time around Desh Krohan sent a representative to find them and talk to them first hand. Because she was particularly good at dealing with sensitive issues, he sent Tataya across the ocean. She went with his blessings, a rather large supply of gold and gems, and a ship full of men who knew how to behave themselves around sorcerers.

There are maps that are more detailed than those most commonly found. Most of them belonged to Desh Krohan. The man, who had paid several fortunes over the years to find and map the Seven Forges, was not new to the notion of learning all he could about the world around him.

Tataya and Captain Callan were standing together on the prow of his ship, a sleek, fast affair that bore no name, when the lookout called “Land ahead, Captain!”

Captain Callan was a lean man with wind-tanned skin and an abundance of freckles. His hair was a dark auburn and he sported a thick mustache and a grin that was always eager and just a little bit ravenous. Tataya liked him immediately. He claimed to have encountered the Brellar before, thought there was little to prove it. Still, as he was exactly the sort of man who tended to ignore the rules he did not agree with, she could easily believe that he might have had a run in or two in his time.

He managed to take his eyes off of her for a moment and looked to where the young man crawling along the top of the sails was pointing.

“Well now, looks like we might just be in luck this day, milady.” His voice was cheerful and his grin stayed in place.

“That would be a lovely thing, Captain.” Far to the north the ocean was a foul mess of ash and dead fish. Here the skies were calmer and the waters were a clear and lovely shade of blue. The air was pleasant and the wind whipped a few stray strands of her hair around. Most of her locks were bound with a leather tie, but some escaped, almost inevitably. The Captain kept staring at her hair as if it might be the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. At least he was good enough not to speak directly to her breasts, which was more than could be said for several of his crew.

“Do you want to set into a port, if there is one?”

“‘If there is one?’ I thought you said you’d met the Brellar before.”

His grin grew larger. “I have. Our ship met theirs. We waved and I managed to purchase a few trinkets and several crates of fruit from them.”

To be fair, that did actually qualify as an encounter. “And that is the only time you have run across them?”

“I have never had a reason to go this far south before, milady.”

“Why did you go now?”

Callan’s smile actually grew brighter. “A beautiful woman offered me a great deal of money.”

She allowed a small smile and a nod as acknowledgement of his words. “Perhaps we should see if there is a port where we can land.”

He called out to his first mate and they exchanged a quick flurry of words in the slang-heavy dialect employed by the Guntha, until that people had been slain. Likely he thought she had no knowledge of what he was saying, and she chose not to disillusion him of that belief.

“What can you tell me about the Brellar, Captain Callan?” Her voice was calm and the question was casual enough. She had asked him before and he had carefully avoided giving her answers that offered any details. That alone was reason enough for her to doubt his claims, but not enough to make her call off the expedition.

“They’re friendly enough, I suppose, if they’ve a mind to be. I’ve only met them the once and we exchanged trinkets and food. The captain of their ship spoke the common tongue,, but it wasn’t his first language. If he hadn’t, I’d have been hard pressed to deal with him properly.”

That was a lie and she knew it. He’d already displayed knowledge of several languages. He simply didn’t understand that she shared his knowledge. The Brellar might well speak the common tongue, and so much the better if they did, but the good captain was hardly without resource when it came to communication.

Still, it was a small enough lie.

“And if they have other notions?”

“The Brellar don’t have a home. What I hear was they had a place to call their own, once, but the good people of Fellein took it from them and cast them out. That’d be a few hundred years ago. No country, so they took to the water. Found new places to call theirs.” His eyes looked into hers as he spoke. He made sure he was looking at her properly when he continued on. “You need to know they’re not supposed to like Fellein much.”

“What do they like then?”

“What they can take as theirs, mostly. They like easy prey and if they find a ship that isn’t properly defended, they’ve been known to take it and everything on it.”

“And the crews of those ships?”

“Some of them survive. Others float in the water till the sharks come along.”

“Do you suppose your ship is defended well enough?”

His smile flashed out brightly. “I bought fruit and trinkets. A wise man has a crew large enough to handle troubles.”

“Well, I wonder what they’ll think of my offer.”

“You brought an abundance of gold and a promise of more?” Callan’s smile was wider still and she half expected him to purr. “I expect they’ll meet you with open arms. But I do not expect you should trust whatever they agree to.”

“Are they liars?”

Callan shook his head. “No. They are opportunists.”

He would give nothing more on the subject and she knew it. “And what do you know of the Guntha?”

The Captain looked at Tataya and sighed. “That they are mostly dead now.”

“Mostly?” She looked back at him and raised one eyebrow in question.

“They are a seafaring race, milady. Not all of them were on their islands when the great fire took them.”

“What has happened to the rest of them?”

The Captain shrugged his shoulders and looked away. “I expect they’ll do what everyone does in such situations. They’ll survive as best they can and fade away.”

“And do you know others who have been in such situations, Captain Callan?” She found herself looking carefully at his face, wondering what he was thinking. There were ways to find out, of course, but none she chose to employ at the time.

Callan’s smile faltered. It did not completely fade, but it seemed to her that he held it in place by force of will.

Neither of them spoke of the rumors just starting when they left port. A few spoke of the black ships finally closing in on Roathes. If there were truth to the stories, it remained hidden from them.

Much like Desh Krohan, Tataya hated not knowing with a certainty what was occurring.

“Well now,” he said. “I’ve met a lot of people in my time, milady. Travelers always do.”

“I’ve been known to travel myself.” She looked away from him. Not because she was done studying his reactions, but because he wanted her to not look at him for the moment. There were few who could tell what a person wanted as well as she could. She had been trained to understand the finer aspects of desires.

Callan pointed to one of the crew with his chin. “Vondum tells me you’ve actually been to the Seven Forges. Is that true?”

It was Tataya’s turn to be cryptic. “I have been to the Blasted Lands.”

Callan was ready to ask another question when the youth climbing across the top of the sails called out again, “Ship coming, Captain! Ship coming fast!”

The Captain looked up and followed the lad’s pointing finger with his eyes. And there it was, a longship heading for them. The sails were clean and well tended. There was neither flag flying nor any colors to indicate alliances, but there were none on the ship she rode on, either. Flags tended to fly when there was a reason, and currently there were no countries fighting against each other that she knew of.

Callan squinted and looked closely at the approaching vessel. “This could well be the day I earn my money from you, milady. That would be a Brellar ship.”

“How can you tell?”

Callan smiled again. “Might not be Brellar running that ship, but it’s definitely built by them. You can tell by the metal along the sides.”

Looking closely at the approaching vessel she could see what he meant. There was a rail along the entire length of the ship, and it had the dull gleam of steel.

“Why do they have a rail?”

“They use it to tie lines to the ships they’re planning to board.”

“Why would they need that?”

“Most times the Brellar run across another ship, they either make a sale or two, or they take what they want in tithings.”

Tataya looked to the Captain and shook her head. “You couldn’t mention that before?”

Callan shrugged. “Hardly seems good business to have you too scared to go looking for them before you’ve paid me.” He smiled and waved an arm around to indicate his crew. “Besides which, we’re armed and you have money. One way or another, we’ll work these things out.”

There were many ways to work out the potential issues facing them, and not all of them involved spending the gold she’d set aside for negotiations.

“The money I brought with me is to deal with the Brellar in an official capacity.”

“Oh, to be sure, they’ll act very official when they get here.” Callan’s voice was as cheerful as ever. She found she liked it less under the current circumstances.

As she contemplated the best possible answer to his latest words, the ship ahead of them doubled and then tripled. Three ships. Three.

One quick look let her know that the Captain was no longer quite as confident as he had been moments before.

The skies were just as blue as they had been a moment before and yet the feel of the air was a bit chillier.

“Do the Brellar normally run in fleets, Captain Callan?”

“To my knowledge, which is limited, no, milady.”

Tataya nodded to herself and then looked on as the three ships came closer. “And what do we do about that situation?”

“I would expect we wait and see how they receive us.” Callan shrugged his shoulders. “There isn’t much else we can do, to be fair.”

Tataya nodded her head. There was a great deal more she could do, but she preferred to see how the situation progressed.

There was no love lost between Danieca Krous and her much younger cousin, Nachia. That was a fact that few people outside of the immediate family knew. Desh Krohan knew, of course, because he made it a point to know. Amazingly little got past him along those lines. The careful study of the Krous bloodline was an extremely important part of his duties as the Royal Advisor. Currently he was also the man in charge of the nation and deciding who would ascend to the throne. He had actually already made his decision, but that didn’t stop the majority of the Krous family from continuing to demand he change his mind.

Currently it was Laister Krous who wanted that change to happen the most. Laister felt he should be the Emperor. He’d felt exactly the same way when Pathra ascended to the throne and he would likely feel that way regarding who should rule the Empire for as long as he was alive and possibly into any number of afterlives as well.

To make his point clear, Laister had run to his second cousin, Danieca, who controlled a substantial fortune in her own right. Danieca was a large woman and, while few would have believed it, in her time she had been a true beauty. A life of excess had been unkind to her, but had not, unfortunately, calmed her attitudes in the very least.

Her voice was like the sound of a crying baby, shrill and impossible to ignore. Far worse was the fact that Desh could not make himself stop staring at the rash at her hairline. It was a fairly ugly rash, to be sure, but the angry red marks seemed to flare with every breath she took.

“I am hearing ugly rumors, about you and Nachia, Desh.” Her lips snapped shut for a moment and she glowered. “Ugly. Rumors.”

“The same sort of rumors once floated around regarding you as now float around regarding your cousin. Neither has any validity.” He forced himself to focus on her eyes. Hard to believe that she had ever been capable of seducing a man with the baleful things, but in her time she had managed repeatedly.

Danieca didn’t so much as blink. She sucked in a great breath and prepared to continue the debate at a new volume.

Desh held up his index finger before her and made sure it got her attention before he spoke. “Think very carefully about what you’re about to say. The wrong words will go a great way toward determining your lifespan.”

She paled. “Are you threatening me?”

“Not at all.” His eyes remained locked on hers. “I’m reminding you who you speak to; no more, no less. I have about had it with your accusations regarding my relationship with Nachia, who will be the new Empress in a matter of hours.”

“I could protest this.”

“You already have. You’ve been protesting since Pathra was slaughtered.” She flinched at his words. “You and yours seem to have forgotten that part. He was murdered.”

“And his murderer remains unpunished!” Danieca slapped her meaty hand onto the table and leaned toward him. “Where is the assassin who killed our Emperor, Desh Krohan?”

“I’m still investigating that very question, Danieca.” He spoke softly, but his eyes kept their grip on her gaze, not letting her look away. “Very little else has been on my mind of late.”

The woman no longer looked comfortable with the current discussion and, if he had to guess, it was the tone of his voice that was responsible for the change in her demeanor. When the latest wave of demands had started he’d been as patient as he could, but his tolerance for screaming was wearing thin.

Desh Krohan rose from the seat where he’d been leaning a moment before and rose to his full height, looking down on the woman who had, as a young girl, done her very best to seduce him – sometimes he thought it was a game all of the women tried to play as surely as the males of the Krous family tried to bed the Sisters – and spoke softly. “This conversation is over now, Danieca. The decision is made. I have listened to the endless prattling of Laister and yourself, and even done my best to ignore the veiled accusations you’ve thrown my way, but this ends now.”

“I have merely done what I must to ensure the safety of the throne in these troubling times, wizard.” Danieca’s voice was harsh, but of a lower volume. She was not cowed, but it was just possible she was remembering whom she was talking to.

“The throne is not the issue here. Your concern is Laister. Your concern has always been Laister. Let me make this clear to you one last time. Pathra Krous, the last Emperor of Fellein, stated who would ascend the throne when he passed. He named his cousin Nachia, as was witnessed not only by me but by the Lords in residence at the time. I have shown you the signed writ. I even allowed you to examine the royal seal before it was opened. Nothing has changed. Nothing will change. Laister is not fit to run the Empire. Nachia ascends to the throne before the end of the day.”

“You overstep yourself, Desh Krohan.” Her voice now was softer still, the faint whisper of a serpent preparing to strike. She was afraid of him, but she was not backing down.

Sometimes a person picks the wrong battles to champion.

“No, Danieca.”

He was still trying to find exactly the right words to end the discussion when she continued. “You forget yourself. I am not the Empress, that’s true enough, but you would do well to remember who you speak to. I have a great deal of influence with the right people and you know that to be true.”

“I do.” Desh nodded his head. “I know exactly how much influence you have. I know how much you are worth. I know your fortune is vast. I also know that Laister has done several scandalous things that have been brushed away by your influence.”

She started at that. Likely she would have tried to speak, but he continued on. “I am aware of everything that happens, Danieca. I knew about your delving into sorcery when you were younger, and I know exactly how well that went for you. I could, if asked, point to precisely where the bodies are buried.” He leaned closer. “Really, Danieca, not everything you read about sorcery is true. I speak from experience here. I wrote most of the books that are studied.

“I know where Towdra keeps his money. I know who you trust to watch your wealth when you are away. I know exactly what you own and where you hide it.” His voice rose, though he was doing his best to avoid actually yelling. The good fortune of the day was that Danieca had come to his private offices before preparing to make her latest threats and the rooms were excellent at keeping their secrets. “I know more than you understand, Danieca. As clever as you think you are, there is nothing you have done that remains a secret from me for long.”

“You’re an advisor, Desh Krohan. Nothing more than that. You’d do well to remember your place.”

“My place?” It was Desh’s voice that became a whisper then. “I am not an advisor. I am the First Advisor to the Throne of Fellein. I am the Regent to the Empire. Until I surrender the throne to the proper heir, I am in charge of the Fellein Empire, the greatest single power in the known world.”

Desh managed to stand even taller. “And you? You are an old woman with delusions of importance. Would you like to test me, Danieca?” He leaned down until their faces were only inches apart, knowing full well that what she saw most clearly were the shadows of his hood. There had been a time when he’d allowed himself to go casually around her, but those days were long past. They had not been friends or allies for many a year. Instead she was a thorn he tolerated. Sometimes he found her charming in her own caustic fashion, but not at the moment. He had had enough of her veiled accusations of impropriety and the barely concealed warnings of how powerful she was.

“You won’t be the first member of your family to threaten me. You likely won’t be the last. But I will tell you exactly what I have told previous members of the Krous bloodline that have tried to force my hand. You do not want to push me any further. If I decide that you are a real threat to me, I will defend myself.”

That got her attention. The woman who had pushed into his office with a dozen demands now looked at him and nodded her head fearfully. She opened her mouth to speak and he stopped her again.

“Just to make this very clear, Danieca, I will defend myself in any way I feel best suited to protecting myself, the Empire and the interests of the Empire. Consider very carefully the stories you heard about me when you were growing up and contemplate whether or not you wish to test their validity.”

She did not run out of his office, but she left with as much dignity as she could muster while walking at three times her usual pace.

Desh sighed and settled back into his seat. Usually one or more of the Sisters was there to stop that sort of confrontation, but they were away and he missed having the buffer.

His fingers found their way to his temples and once there started worrying at the knots of tension just under the skin.

The sound of Nachia entering his chamber was a small one, but he heard it.

Desh looked up and smiled at the woman. Nachia Krous was a beauty, much like most of her family. The entire group had married for money and success for generations and somewhere along the way they’d found a way to breed attractive children. He wasn't quite sure where things went wrong as they aged, but in most cases that seemed the case.

“My family has been here to see you again?”

“Of course they have.” He grinned and winced both. “Haven’t I told you it would be best to avoid sneaking into my chambers by way of the hidden passages?”

“Of course you have. But I’m about to be the ruler of the Empire, so I figured I could just ignore that rule.”

“There is that, I suppose.” Her logic was much like Pathra’s. That alone made him believe he was making the right choice by following the dead man’s wishes. Pathra Krous had been his friend as well as the Emperor of Fellein. He had been groomed and chosen by Desh himself. While Pathra had definitely been the one to suggest Nachia, it was also true that Desh had been planting that suggesting for a long time before the decision was made and that he’d spent a fair amount of his time grooming her just as he had her cousin.

“Have they convinced you that Laister is the better choice?”

“The world is many things, Nachia, but it has not gone completely mad. Laister will not be the Emperor. It’s you walking to the throne when the coronation takes place.”

“Have they all shown up?”

“Do you mean your family or the royal families?”

“Both I suppose.”

Desh sighed. “Well, it seems King Marsfel will not be with us.”

“Being dead tends to cause difficulties.” Nachia spoke under her breath but Desh heard her just the same. He almost scolded her, but in the end he merely smiled indulgently. She was behaving herself. She seemed to understand as well as Pathra had that she could say things to him that were decidedly not for the general populace.

“As his heir apparent, Lanaie has asked for aid in securing her kingdom.” Desh looked at her carefully as he poured himself a small goblet of sweet wine to ease the pressure in his skull. He poured a second for her as an afterthought.

Nachia took the small treat gratefully and sipped. “And have you made a decision on that, Desh?”

“Of course not. I’m setting that particular challenge aside for the new ruler of the Empire.”

She made an obscene gesture and Desh almost choked on the wine he’d just raised to his lips. “Really, is that the sort of thing Empresses should do on their coronation day?”

“So long as I am wise enough not to advertise the fact. Isn’t that what you always told Pathra?”

“He always did talk to you too much.”

“More than you know, ‘old man’.”

Desh rolled his eyes but could not keep a smirk from his face. “I’ll not live that name down for a while then, I suspect.”

“You are old and you are a man. It’s a fitting title.”

Amazing how the right words from the right person eased his tension far better than wine had ever managed.

“Sit down, Nachia. Relax for a few minutes before you have to start getting dressed.”

“I’m contemplating a drastic change in fashions.” She shook her head and sneered just a bit as she took a seat.

“I’m sure you are. Just the same, that dress you wear tonight will be the height of any fashion.”

“I’m not wearing it so much as having it built around me.”

“I have no doubt you will look amazing.”

She paused and looked away from him. “I’m scared. You know that don’t you?”

“If you weren’t I’d be horrified for the fate of the Empire. You should be scared. It’s a very large responsibility you will be taking on.”

“That’s not actually comforting, Desh.”

“It’s not meant to be. But I will be by your side, Nachia. You understand that much at least. I will be by your side at all times.”

She nodded and blinked several times. Her face was already showing the stress of her future upon the throne.

“So there’s that. Today you ascend to the throne.” Desh sipped at his wine and savored the sweet warmth it offered. “Tomorrow we begin dealing with the affairs of the nation properly.” A slow grin spread across his face. “And next week we start looking to find you a suitable husband.”

“Excuse me?” Her voice did not quite shatter, but it most definitely cracked.

Desh smiled. “One of the duties of the Empress is to have an heir. It avoids problems like the one we’re facing with your family right now.”

“So would killing them all.” She was joking. He knew she was joking.

Still, “That could be arranged.”

“Shame on you, Desh.”

“I’m just acting in my official capacity as your advisor, Majesty.”

“Not for a few more hours.” She shook her head. “Not just yet.” She said the words like they were a plea to the gods.

The gods did not answer.

Six

The Coronation of Empress Nachia Krous went off without difficulties. That was the part that mattered. The rest of the world falling into pieces was merely an unfortunate side effect of the times.

Merros Dulver shook his head and looked at the courtyard before him. The Summer Palace was a vast place, to be sure, and it would be easy to get lost within the many halls of the place. The courtyard, however, was not a location where getting lost normally seemed remotely possible. The lawns were carefully cultivated; the hedges trimmed down and tended with regularity. It seemed a horrid waste of labor to tend to the place in Merros’s eyes, but the fact remained the entire area was a beautiful, wide open spread that ran in the front of the Summer Palace and looking at it now he couldn’t imagine the hedges would survive.

The long stretch of cobblestone road leading to the palace was clear, but on both sides were vast crowds of people, all of them looking on with awe. And, closer in, wooden platforms had been raised to seat more people and to give a clear view of the coronation. He had understood Tyrne was a very large city, but never had Merros seen so many people in one place, not even in the numerous border clashes he’d been part of.

There were musicians aplenty, and they made sure to spread joyous music for all to hear. He wondered who paid them for their efforts, but he had enough to worry about without adding that particular consideration.

Nachia Krous was crowned with all the appropriate celebration and decorum. Merros himself stood on the platform with her – he had even escorted her with a full battalion behind him – and he had watched while Desh Krohan introduced her, and the heads of each of the different churches in Tyrne had offered their blessings on her Majesty. She made her vows and she was given a spectacular crown to place on her brow above a dress that surely had enough fabric to make a dozen uniforms.

And while all of that went on he looked around for any sign of cutthroats, assassins, or even anyone with a good arm and a rock, because sometimes people wanted to get attention in the worst possible ways and didn’t consider their actions until after the fact. Nothing. Sometimes silence was lovely and other times it was nearly perfect; of course there were exceptions. He should have been delighted but instead the lack of anything untoward made Merros tense.

He shook his head. Perhaps that was the recent past rearing up to bite at him. There had been a time when he’d been a bit more optimistic. At least he thought there had.

A roar went up from the crowds as Empress Nachia was revealed to them in her full regalia, wearing her crown and holding the sword that had last been used to crown her cousin. He observed her with as detached a mind as he could. She was a lovely young woman. She was also capable of having him executed with little more than a thought, not that he believed she would. Still, it helped to have a little perspective.

Instead of looking at his new Empress, he scanned the crowds, looking for anyone who stood out, who did not follow the general mood of the crowds. It was easy enough to see them. The entire Krous family seemed to stand out along those lines. Brolley Krous was standing close by his sister and seemed delighted. Laister Krous looked less pleased. His expression was exactly the same as if he’d realized he’d just inhaled a bug in his sleep.

They were amusing on both sides, but there seemed no threats from either side of the Krous spectrum.

Taurn Durst moved closer to him and spoke just loudly enough to be heard over the din of people applauding. “We have to move now, sir. You said you wanted her back in the palace fast as could be.”

Merros nodded. The man was right, of course. “Let’s get her in the carriage and get back to where we need to be.” The notion of moving a woman a hundred yards in a carriage seemed almost comical, but not really, not when one considered the massive crowds.

He looked around and saw the armed soldiers along the wall, each with a crossbow and all of them alert. Had they looked at all bored he’d have made examples of them and they knew it. This was a moment to be careful. It had been only a short time before that a careless moment had caused the death of the last Emperor.

He gave a nod to Taurn and the man moved, calling out sharp orders to the Imperial Guard around them. The soldiers were in formal armor, wearing the dark blue coat of arms for the Empire and gleaming in the twilight. When they moved it was with nearly perfect precision, and Merros allowed himself a brief flash of satisfaction. Nothing less for this event. They had to look perfect in order to make the people understand that the Empire was strong.

Even if he doubted that strength was enough.

New recruits kept coming in, moving into the barracks and then quickly discovering that all of their previous training was only the start of their learning. The new soldiers, the old, all of them were fast discovering that they were not up to standards. Merros was serious about preparing the troops.

One hundred of the best the Empire had to offer held the way for Nachia Krous and Desh Krohan. Merros Dulver walked four paces behind them and, as they passed, the troops lined up behind him.

How the new ruler of the Empire managed to fit herself and her gown within the confines of the carriage would remain a mystery for all time in Merros’s eyes, and yet she accomplished that feat and left enough room for her advisor.

And a moment later the eight black chargers were moving on, pulling the head and heart of the Empire into the Summer Palace and leading the way for Merros and his troops.

And when they were inside and the main gates had been closed, the General allowed himself a little breathing space.

Only a little, however, as the celebration would surely go on for a good number of hours, regardless of whether or not the new Empress wanted to celebrate.

Nachia Krous sighed and fidgeted. “I hate this damned dress.”

“The coronation is done with. You can now head to your chambers and find something more comfortable if that’s your desire.” Desh Krohan’s voice was low and calm and he stared at her with that damn half-smile of his in place.

“You don’t approve though, do you?”

“It doesn’t matter, Nachia. You are now in charge of this nation. I merely offer advice.”

“By all the gods,” she shook her head. “You’re actually glad to be done with ruling, aren’t you?”

“I’ve never cared to rule, Nachia. I prefer to observe and offer assistance.”

Before she could respond the wizard’s face pulled into an expression of pain.

“Desh? Are you well?”

He shook his head and held up a hand for silence.

“You should take the time to get dressed in something more casual, Nachia. I have… a task to attend to.”

“A task? What do you mean?”

“The Sooth are making demands.”

He had spoken of the Sooth before, but she shook her head. Sometimes he spoke of the Sooth as a mystical art and sometimes as the spirits that art dealt with. Perhaps it was both. Whatever the case, she knew from experience that he did not like dealing with the Sooth.

“You said you don’t like handling the Sooth alone, Desh.”

“Not a matter of choice in this case, Majesty.” His teeth were gritted and his brow stippled with beads of sweat.

“What is happening, Desh?”

He looked up at her;those eyes she knew so well were dark and desperate.

“The Sooth almost never make demands, Nachia and when they do, I do not dare ignore them.”

The carriage came to a halt and, as it did, Desh rose from his seat and opened the door, sliding quietly into the crowded area. When Merros Dulver offered her a hand down there was no sign of the sorcerer.

“Your Majesty…” He held an arm out for her and she took it, mostly because the insane dress she was wearing made walking without help feel nearly impossible.

“I need to get to my chambers.”

“Your chambers?”

Nachia stared hard at him. “I’m not wearing this thing a damned moment longer than I must. I want comfortable clothes and I want them now.”

“As you wish.” He stifled a smile and walked with her, a dozen armed men following behind them.

“Are they necessary?” Nachia didn’t like the idea of being followed wherever she went.

“At least for tonight, Majesty. I’d beg your tolerance. We can’t take chances. Not on this night and not when you have enemies who are already attacking your Empire.”

She nodded her head and pressed her lips together and once again wished desperately that her cousin were still here and the ruler of Fellein.

“What news from Roathes?”

“There is no news, Majesty.” Merros shook his head. “We can only believe that the worst has happened.”

“What are you doing about it?” She didn’t mean to sound harsh, but the thought that the entire country of Roathes might be under attack or conquered already did not sit well.

“I have sent several scouting teams to tell me exactly what is going on.” Merros looked at her closely. “They’ll be reporting back soon. Now that your coronation has been taken care of and I have enough troops here, I intend to see about sending help, if we can.”

“If we can?” She didn’t like the sound of that.

“If we can, Majesty. My first priority is taking care of Tyrne and you. This is a very large Empire and we do not know exactly what has happened yet.”

They moved through the hallways at a solid pace and Merros kept his eyes moving, seeking any sign of troubles despite the security he’d left within the confines of the palace earlier.

Merros continued, “Until I know exactly what has happened, and what is left, sending any help would be a waste, despite the wishes of Lanaie.”

She bit back a sudden question as to whether or not his delays in assisting were of a personal nature. In the time they’d known each other she’d already decided that Merros was an honorable man. He’d done nothing to change her mind and she wouldn’t allow herself the luxury of alienating the man over a trifling suspicion.

As if he’d read her mind he answered, “This is not a personal thing. We have a very large army, Majesty, but they are spread out across the Empire and I need to assess the needs of the Empire before I offer help to what might already be a lost cause.”

“Of course, Merros. I know that.” She hoped her voice sounded as assured as she wanted it to.

When they reached her chambers – she had not yet moved herself to the suite her cousin had occupied and was not completely sure if she would – Merros entered the room before her to make certain that no one waited within. There were three women there, the very ones who’d helped her into the preposterous affair she was currently wearing. If they were unsettled by him entering the rooms unannounced, they were wise enough to keep their opinions to themselves. Only when he was comfortable with the security of the room did he step outside.

As he passed her he shook his head. “Do I need to make any comments for Desh Krohan as to appropriate attire and timeliness, Majesty?”

She chuckled. “No. I have heard them all. I’ll be ready in a few moments, Merros.”

She barely tolerated the maids helping her remove the full regalia and ostentatious gown that went with it. When they had finished she smiled her thanks and immediately went over to her closets, sorting quickly through the clothes and throwing down a heavy blouse of white and dark brown riding pants. When the maids started to make noises of shock she shushed them and went about her work, getting dressed.

Within five minutes she was back in the hallway and looking at the moderately surprised expression on Merros Dulver’s face.

He managed not to say anything, but she could see him thinking it.

“What?” she demanded.

“It’s not for me to speak on how the Empress of the Fellein Empire dresses herself.”

“You’re right, it’s not.”

“But if I were going to speak on the subject and having seen what your cousin’s choices in hair stylings did to the men in the courts, I would point out that remarkably few women in the courts can carry off riding breeches with quite the same level of flair.”

She shook her head. “What do you mean?”

“No disrespect meant, of course, Majesty, but have you seen the backside on your cousin Danieca? I dread the notion of her trying to squeeze into a similar set of breeches in the name of fashion.” His voice was direct and dry and he made it a point to be looking elsewhere when he spoke.

“Oh, by the gods, Merros! You’re as bad as Desh!” Her laughter carried down the expansive corridor, momentarily dwarfing the sounds of the score of men walking behind her in perfect unison.

“Speaking of gods, Majesty, I was thinking we might want to have a discussion with a few of the church elders who helped at your coronation.”

“Whatever about?”

“Well, mostly I feel if we are dealing with people who look to their gods for answers, we should at least consult with the representatives of our own deities.”

Nachia considered that and nodded. “What if they don’t give the sorts of answers we like?”

Merros let a lazy half-smile flicker across his mouth. “We might want to investigate finding new gods…”

Desh made it into his chambers as quickly as he could, blinking back the bloody tears that burned at his eyes. There had only been seven occasions in his very long life where the spirits of the Sooth had come seeking him, and each time it was agony. The last time had only been a month or so earlier, and that had ended with a massive eruption and the murder of one of his closest friends.

He was not looking forward to what the spirits might have to say. He wiped the blood from his eyes and staggered over to the dark wooden cabinet where he kept the offerings he made to the Sooth. The stones took weeks to carve just the right way and required energies he could rarely afford to sacrifice. To those who understood their value, the simple stone spheres with their elaborate markings were worth a hundred times their weight in precious gems. To the Sooth they were the only guarantee of getting information without being tortured in the process.

Desh grabbed four of the stones, blinking away crimson tears and heading for the small room off the main chambers he called his home.

The floors of silver, pounded thin and meticulously polished, the walls of oiled iron, the ceiling of deep red liquids best not contemplated too carefully. The chambers never gave him comfort, but they gave him something else he needed: a chance to understand what was coming his way. A hint of the future that he needed from time to time.

The meeting place of sorcerer and spirit.

Desh fell across the floor and grunted in pain as he rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling above.

He did not need to speak and so he chose to remain silent. Instead he opened his eyes and looked toward the seething red waves above his head and they flowed toward him and covered him in their unkind embrace.

Sometimes the cost of knowledge is minor, but no sorcerer would ever expect truth to come without pain.

Desh Krohan was not disappointed.

Seven

The mountain dwarfed everything Andover had ever seen before. He’d known that for a while now, certainly over the last two days the vast slopes of the black shape had grown to hide the grit and storms of the Blasted Lands and replace them with its brooding presence. He could no longer guess how high the mountain rose, because the top of it was lost in the clouds.

All his life the largest thing he had ever seen was the city of Tyrne, where he’d been born and raised. The city was immense to be sure, but it was a structure built by man, and for the first time in his life he understood that nature could build on a much grander scale.

The cave before them was another example of that scale. The gates of Tyrne were possibly higher at the main entrances to the city, but the Durhallem Pass was a fiery tunnel cut through the entire mountain and looking into it was unsettling. Dark stone lit by streaks of red light that seemed almost to pulse as he looked at it.

Andover’s voice sounded small even to his own ears. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

Drask stood next to him, his face lit by the reddish hues, his eyes ablaze with that same light. “If you mean, ‘will the mountain fall down?’ it is safe. If you mean ‘will you survive entering the pass?’ that is up to the followers of Durhallem and the King Tuskandru.”

The answer was not at all comforting.

“So, what now?”

“We walk.” Drask started forward and the other members of their troupe did the same. With no other choice, Andover followed. His hand slid along his side until he felt the haft of his weapon and took comfort from the grip. The Sa’ba Taalor walked with no real change in their demeanor, meaning they remained alert and their bodies moved with the same predatory grace as always. He gave no thought to the way he walked, but might have been surprised to know how much of that same relaxed gait he’d adopted over the last few weeks.

Delil walked next to him and Bromt stepped to the side, his eyes narrowed into slits. He could never tell if the man was angry or merely trying to see something far away when he looked that way, but the appearance was one of great rage, barely suppressed, so he kept his distance just to be safe. As he had been struck no less than a thousand times by the man in the last few weeks of travel it seemed the safest course of action.

Delil spoke, and for that briefest instant he was taken aback by the soft voice. The weather in the Blasted Lands, never gentle to begin with, had been stormy, and all of them were virtually buried under layers of armor and cloaks. Well, except for Andover. He didn’t have any armor. Just a lot of clothes and the gamey hide of a Pra-Moresh. “They will be with us soon, Andover.”

“Who?”

“The guards of the pass.”

“What will happen?”

Delil turned to look at him and her eyes wandered over his form, assessing his appearance and taking his measure. “They will challenge you.”

“Why?”

“You are tiny.”

“I’m taller than you!”

“No. At best you are my height, but you are tiny. They will challenge you just because it is fun to see you squirm.”

Andover nodded his head. So really they were bullies. He had met his fair share of them over the course of the years, hadn’t he? Memories of Purb and Menock flashed through his mind: recollections of a dozen times they had shoved him around and brought him to the edge of tears because he’d let them. And then of course, there were his hands…

He remembered the hammer coming down, the pain of flesh and bone exploding under the impact.

He remembered how it’d felt to return the favor after he had been granted his new hands.

They stepped out of the shadows. He’d been looking but had not seen them. The four men were dressed in black armor and sported black weapons. Two carried axes and two more had swords. All of them had bows. The two furthest back, the swordsmen, had their bows readied. The men with the axes stepped forward and rested hands on the handles of their weapons.

Drask called out sharply and the men looked to him. Once again they spoke in whatever language the Sa’ba Taalor shared with themselves and with no others, as far as Andover could tell.

The closest guardsmen looked at Andover and came closer, their eyes glowing with the odd and unsettling light that all their kind seemed lit up with inside. One of them came closer and Andover let himself relax as he looked the man over from top to bottom.

None of the Sa’ba Taalor seemed to have uniforms, not as far as Andover could tell. They’d explained their beliefs of weapons and armor alike: that it was best a person make their own, the better to be certain the tools of war were as close to a perfect fit as they could be.

This man was no exception. His armor appeared rough, but Andover immediately understood why. It was designed to imitate the walls of the great cavern they were traveling through. At a distance the stone seemed almost smooth, and in the areas where volcanic glass was lit with the rage of Durhallem it was often closer to smooth, but the stone had been carved by the Sa’ba Taalor after their god Durhallem demanded it. They’d expanded the tunnel the god had created until it had satisfied him. In the process they had left the marks of their tools and that is what the armor mimicked. It was an impressive level of craftsmanship.

The axe he carried sported an equally rough looking blade of obsidian. A really very large blade, to be sure, cut from the black volcanic glass. From what Bromt had explained to him, the followers of Durhallem were occasionally gifted with an offering of obsidian by their god. According to what the man had told him, the obsidian was harder than steel and considered a great honor.

The man was enormous – which seemed to Andover one of the two sizes of most Sa’ba Taalor men: enormous and gigantic – and carried himself with as much strut and posture as the most offensive of the City Guard back home. Purb would have been proud.

“Why do you come before Durhallem today?” The man’s voice was rough, his use of the common tongue was adequate but with a thick accent. Had Andover not grown accustomed to the accents of the Sa’ba Taalor, he’d have been at a loss for what the man said.

He answered in the language that the Sa’ba Taalor shared with others, an archaic form of the common tongue according to Desh Krohan, but different enough that Andover had spent as much time learning it as he had how to fight. “I am here to pay my respects to your gods and to thank them for the gift of my hands.”

His voice was much calmer than he’d expected. His eyes looked the man over continuously, reading the man’s motions, his stance, and what little he could see of the stranger’s face behind the black veil hidden under his black helmet.

The man stared back and was likely doing the exact same thing. And then the guard stepped forward and looked down at him, physically, as he was easily a head taller. He switched to the same language that Andover was using. “Why would the gods care about you or your hands?”

Andover sighed and pulled away his gloves, revealing the cold iron of his miraculous limbs. The eyes of the guard looked from the hands to his face and back again, studying carefully.

And when the man’s hand reached for his axe, Andover stepped in close and drove his right fist into the guard’s throat as hard as he could. It was purely reflex. He did not stop to think if the guard was reaching for a weapon or scratching at an uncomfortable part of his armor, he just stepped in and struck as soon as the man moved.

And as the man gagged and stepped back, he hit him again. There was a part of Andover that was perfectly fine with his actions, but it was a small part, really, barely large enough to notice. The rest of him was horrified. The guard had merely asked him a rough question. That was hardly reason to attack.

And yet his left hand dropped down and caught his enemy’s wrist in iron fingers. His hand clamped down on that wrist with all the power he could muster and broke skin, tortured muscles, and crushed bone before the hand reaching for the axe could pull the weapon from his belt and drive that lethal blade through his face.

Andover Lashk used his other hand to strike the guard’s jaw savagely and felt bones breaking against both of his iron hands.

And that little part of him roared in triumph as the guard staggered back from the pain.

The other guard was moving now, heading for him, and his weapon was already drawn as he came closer.

Andover shoved against the guard he was fighting and staggered him backward toward his companion. The first guard was bleeding and broken, the second stepped to the side, moving around his wounded friend.

Andover shrugged a shoulder and his hammer dropped to his waiting hand with practiced ease. As the second guard pushed past his injured companion, Andover was already bringing his hammer around from a lowered position, his muscles straining and accepting the demands he made. The grip felt as natural in his hand as if it were part of the same metal. In truth, it was, as he’d forged it from the remains of the very iron used to create his amazing hands.

The second of his enemies blocked the punishing blow from his bladed hammer and snarled something in a language Andover did not speak. Still he could understand an insult by the tone used and he stepped in closer, crouching down and pushing toward the man with his weight.

The guard was larger than him and had a longer reach. From any sort of distance the man had an instant advantage. Delil had explained that and Bromt had reinforced it. Drask had listened to their words and watched their actions with barely a change in is expressions, but he nodded his head now as Andover swept the heavy head of his hammer at his enemy’s knee, instead of using it conventionally. The guard hissed as the heavy weapon slammed into his knee and sent him staggering, trying to keep his balance.

Andover let out a hiss of his own as the axe came up in a hard arc aimed at his face. His free hand caught the edge and he felt the metal surfaces scream across each other. Say what you will and call it a blessing that his hands were metal, but he still felt that edge trying to cut and it still hurt enough to make him scream.

His adversary had reach and he had weight advantages, too. Andover saw his arm coming and could do nothing but try to get out of the way as a fist the size of his face smashed into the side of his head. He was not fast enough to get away clean, but he avoided part of the damage. His ear burned and his head rang but he was conscious.

As Andover reared back, trying to shake off the blow, his enemy pushed into him, limping from the blow to his knee but not nearly stopped by it. Andover hissed into the man’s face as he pushed back and felt himself sliding across the ground, unable to resist the sheer bulk of his enemy.

He pushed himself in close again and used his left hand to scrape and claw at the man’s face, pulling at the veil covering the lower half. Metallic fingers caught cloth and flesh alike and ripped.

The guard howled in pain and pulled back as much as he could. His face was bloodied and Andover felt wet heat spilling across his iron fingers. There was a certain dark, visceral satisfaction in the man’s agony.

Andover hauled his hammer up in a tight grip, letting his hand slide up the long haft before he brought it around. The hammer’s uneven head brushed his fingers. Close to his thumb, the rounded head pushed down with comfortable familiarity. The heavy blade on the other side of the hammer covered his fingers like a shield and he heard himself screaming as he drove the entire affair up into his enemy’s face.

The guard fell back soundlessly, bleeding from the great gash Andover’s hammer had opened across his nose and his mouth alike. Whatever the veil had hidden was ruined beyond his ability to identify any features. Teeth and blood alike slopped over his hand.

He was horrified by his actions, but that little voice that was so pleased to be in a fight was crowing with joy now.

No time for that.

The first guard came at him again, and this time he was better prepared. The axe blade skidded down the length of Andover’s hammer and then took a slice out of his outer thigh, just above his knee.

The pain was impossible to ignore, but, despite that fact, Andover had no choice. If he took the time to think about the pain he would be a dead man. The same rules applied as had before: the man was larger and had a better reach. Up close and personal was the only chance he had of surviving this.

The hammer was tight in his hand and he stepped in closely and used the blade of his weapon, ramming the wetted edge into his enemy’s armored stomach with all the force he could muster. It was a small wound , but it was a starting point, and as the man grunted and tried to get away, Andover bent his knees and dropped a bit lower, then lifted with both legs, forcing the hammer’s head into the wound with all of his body’s weight.

The axe caught in the heavy hide of the Pra-Moresh and was lifted and brought down one time, twice and a third time, each blow smashing into Andover’s bound ribs with crushing force.

Andover used his free hand and sought to catch his enemy’s wrist, but failed. His close-quarters tactic was working, but not completely. The axe wasn't getting through his thick cloak but each impact was agony. He either finished this quickly or he was going to die.

The hammer’s blade was still pushed into the man’s torso and warmth slicked his fingers. He pulled the hammer free and let it drop down. He felt the heavy weight sink into his enemy’s thigh, the blade cutting through muscle and sinew and catching on bone.

The guard only grunted and stepped back, pulling his axe free from the hide that had impeded it. The obsidian blade whipped back and the guard went with it, dropping into a defensive posture.

Andover stepped back and felt a grin pull at his lips. “You’ve lost. Yield.” The wound in the man’s stomach was moderately worrisome. He would heal from it in time, barring infection. But the hammer had cut deep into his leg and a heavy flow of blood poured down his trembling, weakened calf. He would bleed out very soon.

The man shook his head and spat.

Andover could not believe that any sane person would continue to fight until the words Delil and Drask had both used a hundred times rang in his mind: Durhallem does not believe in mercy and neither do those who follow him. The guard brought his axe around and let loose a bellow that shook the walls of the pass. Despite his readiness, Andover flinched and then did his best to block the blow.

The axe’s blade screeched along the iron rings wrapped around the hammer’s haft and carved into the wood of the handle. It stopped against his iron fingers and caused a bark of pain. Andover let the hammer drop and rammed the palm of his hand into the guard’s face, felt bones crack and bleed under the veil and watched the man’s head snap back at the impact.

The other hand he used to block the axe again. And then he stepped back as the guard tried to come for him and fell to one knee, his leg giving out. Andover did not let himself think. His foot caught the handle of the hammer and he hooked it upward, catching with his right hand.

Then he brought the hammer up over his head and brought it down with all of his might. His enemy looked on, trying to bring his weapon up to defend himself, but failing as the axe fell from blood-starved fingers.

The helmet on the guard’s head let out one loud clang as the hammer crushed it into a new shape and the man fell forward, dead.

Andover looked over the dead men and reached for his hammer. Two more. Two more and he might have a chance of surviving the fight long enough to meet up with Tusk.

King Tuskandru. The man whose guards he had just killed. No. Only one. The second guard’s face was a bloody pulp, but he was still alive. He still breathed.

Andover looked at Drask and saw the two other guards behind him. They had arrows aimed at him. He was not foolish enough to think that he would survive if they fired the arrows. He was also not foolish enough to think they would accept his surrender. There was a compromise, he knew that, but he could not wrap his mind around what it might be.

And then the words came to him again: Durhallem does not believe in mercy and neither do those who follow him.

He took three steps toward the fallen guard and brought his hammer down upon that ruined head. The man died a moment later, his body shuddering.

Drask Silver Hand looked at him for a moment and then nodded. He did not speak. He did not have to. Since they had left Fellein, Drask and his associates had spent their time schooling Andover on the ways of the Sa’ba Taalor. This test, at least, he had passed.

Both of the remaining guards kept their eyes on him and one of them spoke in harsh tones. “You will wait here. You will not move. King Tuskandru will be here soon.”

Andover nodded his head and rested his weight on the handle of his hammer. The other guard blew several harsh notes into a horn, the sound echoing madly down the length of the pass.

Drask walked closer to him and pointed at the bodies. “Whatever of theirs you like you may take if you wish.”

“What?” The idea of taking from the dead did not sit well with him.

“They are your kills. According to Durhallem if you wish to take what they have, you have earned it. That is not the way with all of the gods, but Durhallem accepts it.”

Andover looked at the two corpses for a long moment and then reached down and took the obsidian axe. The blade was impressive. If nothing else, he intended to study it.

Delil walked closer to him. She looked at the blade and shook her head.

“What?” He couldn’t keep the defensive edge out of his voice.

“You should worry less about trophies and more about the fact that you are bleeding badly.” Her eyes looked pointedly at his leg and he followed to where she was looking, surprised to see a thick runner of blood streaming down to the ground. The cut he’d taken was far worse than he’d guessed originally.

Until that moment he’d been only vaguely aware of his wound, but upon looking at the damage he felt the pain he’d made himself ignore before. The axe fell from his hands and he let out a groan.

Drask looked at the wound from where he stood and sighed.

Bromt dug into his various bags, not speaking at all, but searching. “I’ve not got any.”

Delil spoke, “Of course you don’t. You never have any. You just hope to scab up and survive.”

“Am I alive today?” Bromt’s voice was low and filled with irritation.

“That is up for debate.” Delil’s voice, in contrast, was amused. She pulled a satchel from her back and dropped it before her, pouring the contents out on the ground. Half a dozen different objects fell out and she sorted through them with care, as most had sharp edges. He had never seen that large a collection of knives and arrowheads left in a pile on the ground before. What she reached for was a stick made of silver, which she then tossed toward Drask without looking up.

Drask caught it effortlessly and looked from the four-inch long rod to her, and then to Andover’s leg.

“How do you have this?” There was no accusation in Drask’s voice. He was merely curious.

“You gave it to me.”

His brow knitted with concentration. “When?”

“A long time ago. Before my first Great Scar.”

“You have a better memory than me.” Drask shrugged and walked over to Andover. “You are bleeding. I can stop the bleeding, but it will hurt.”

Andover looked up at the man and gritted his teeth. The last time Drask Silver Hand had told him something would hurt he’d had the new hands bonded to his flesh in a moment of the greatest agony of his life. The pain had been so overwhelming that he’d been buried alive by it and had woken several hours later.

On the other side of that coin, Tuskandru was the king here and he’d just killed two of the man’s guards. There was a very real chance that the man would want to rip him in half with his bare hands and if he wanted to defend himself from that particular pain, he’d need to be as intact as he could be.

“Do what you have to.”

Drask nodded his head and pulled at the gaping wound in his pant leg. The larger man yanked at the cloth until it tore, allowing him better access to the torn flesh beneath. Then he held out the silver. “This will touch your wound. If Ydramil decides you are worthy, he will mend you. If not, nothing will happen.”

Andover shook his head. “How can he decide if I’m worthy? We have never met.”

Drask stared at him for a long second, shaking his head slowly side to side. “Ydramil is a god. He knows what he wants to know.” He slid the metal between his metallic fingers. “Besides, I’ll be asking on your behalf.”

“Oh.” It was all he got out before Drask’s thick fingers were pinching the wounded edges of his flesh together roughly. A yelp slipped out before he could stop it and Drask shoved the silver rod against his skin and spoke softly in words that made no sense to Andover.

And then the world went momentarily too bright for him to see as the silver between Drask’s miraculous fingers melted and poured directly into the wound on Andover’s leg.

“If you move, I will stop and you will bleed.” Drask’s words were loud enough to get past the pain. “Do not move.”

The hands on his hammer’s haft gripped harder and he winced, but made himself stand still. The pain was great, but he had endured greater in the past.

A moment later the pain was gone and Drask was leaning away, looking at the wound and the long line of reddish metal that was rapidly cooling. His skin should have blistered and blackened from the heat. Andover knew that for a fact. He had burned himself more than once as a blacksmith’s apprentice. Still, the pain was fading and his flesh was undamaged. In fact, the line of metal was cooling quickly and as it dropped in temperature the pain vanished.

A thick line of silver was clear across the sealed cut, a metallic scar on pink flesh. But the pain was gone.

He had just enough time to marvel at that thought before the riders came, the great beasts of the Sa’ba Taalor and the riders who commanded them. They seemed larger than he remembered. That was always the case with the mounts and their riders alike, as if his mind refused to accept the fact of their scale.

They came at a leisurely pace, Tuskandru at the head of the column. It was impossible to forget the helmet of the man and he couldn’t imagine anyone else in similar garb.

The group came forward at slow pace, not hurried and not concerned about the people they were facing. When Tuskandru dropped from his mount, his hand rested on the hilt of a weapon. Andover could see nothing but the hilt and the sheath and that was enough to leave him worried.

Drask Silver Hand lowered his head and held his hands away from his weapons. When Andover saw both Delil and Bromt doing the same, he mimicked the gesture. Tusk looked at the bodies of his guards and then looked at each member of their party, waiting until the last to look at Andover.

“Who killed my people?” Tusk’s voice was lower and deeper than Andover remembered, but that could have just been the terror that was eating at him. He had held his own against the Pra-Moresh and successfully survived not one but two separate battles against multiple opponents, and not a one of those situations worried him as deeply as the King of Durhallem’s Forge.

“I did.” He could barely believe it when his mouth opened and started making noises.

Tusk looked at him for a moment and then looked at Drask. “And did he have help?”

Drask stood up and shook his head. “He had training, that is all the help he needed.”

“They were good guards.” Tusk looked at the bodies again.

Delil shook her head. “Not that good. They underestimated him.”

“He’s tiny.” Tusk gestured toward Andover with one hand. “He is smaller than you, and you are a runt.”

Drask laughed. Bromt laughed. The Sa’ba Taalor with King Tuskandru laughed. Delil made what Andover assumed was a rude gesture.

Andover did not laugh.

He looked at the bodies and reached down, once again taking the axe he had chosen as his prize.

Tuskandru watched him as he lifted the weapon. It was a very heavy blade and lifting it was not as easy as he might have hoped.

The King walked up to him and held out a hand, gesturing for the axe. “May I?” Andover was surprised to hear the man ask.

Just the same, he handed the weapon over.

Tusk looked at it for several moments, moving the blade so that he could look at it better in the red light of the great tunnel. And then he handed it back.

“That is a fine piece of obsidian. When you use it, you should place it within a weapon that you make yourself. Do you understand?”

Andover licked his lips and nodded. When they had met before Tuskandru had not spoken directly to him. And now the King had addressed him.

“I will, your Majesty.”

Tuskandru looked to Drask and spoke several words that meant nothing, followed by the phrase “Majesty”. Whatever he said, Andover suspected it was a question.

Drask made a few gestures and spoke a few words of gibberish back. When he was finished Tusk nodded his head and looked to Andover again. “I am King Tuskandru. When you speak to me as a leader that is what you call me. When you address me as a person you may call me Tusk. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“I am not ‘Majesty’. I am Tusk.” There was no room for discussion on the matter. “Now, come. You are welcome in Durhallem and you need to clean yourself and make yourself presentable.”

“I do?”

“You are going to meet a god. It is best to be prepared for that.”

“A god?” he shook his head. “I’m going to meet a god?”

Drask spoke softly, “Durhallem wishes to meet you. You will meet a god.”

Andover nodded. He could think of no words to say to that.

“What did you call this? An ‘adventure’?” Nolan’s voice was a harsh crack as he looked to his left at Darus. His friend was crouching lower over his horse and holding the reins for dear life. The horse below him slid and stumbled on the icy, rough ground, but managed to keep running. He did his part by not falling from the saddle. His hood was up around his face and his eyes were squinted half shut. Beneath him the horse was squinting, too. That was almost inevitable. The winds of the Blasted Lands were utterly miserable to contend with and the cold had long since numbed Nolan’s exposed skin.

Darus waved one arm to the blackness coming their way from behind. “That will undoubtedly be an adventure.”

Vonders Orly was riding up on Darus’sother side and he bellowed to be heard. “We’re making camp!” Nolan started to say something but Vonders shook his head. “No choice! These are cutting winds! We stop now, or we will likely die out here!”

Vonders was from the Wellish Steppes and, if he was to be believed, he and his family had made several raids into the Blasted Lands in the past. They’d gone looking for anything they could sell and they’d found things on a few occasions. He wore a ring made from a very odd piece of metal: misshapen and hammered by wind and worse, the circle around his middle finger was heavy and the myriad fragments of what looked like melted gems that ran around the edges and fused together into a multicolored lump at the center were unusual enough that Nolan did not doubt the origin.

There were two ways to get that sort of piece: be very rich or go find it yourself. Vonders came from a family that had gotten wealthy selling the pieces they found.

“How long?” Nolan’s voice sounded like a distant mumble to his own ears.

Vonders pointed back the way they’d come and Nolan saw that the wall of blackness coming toward them was eating the distances at a terrifying pace.

Seen from the top of the Temmis Pass the Blasted Lands had looked almost calm. There were whorls of mist and cloud, but they were hardly violent in appearance. The pass went far deeper than most people realized, several hundred feet down into the lower levels that held the raging storms of the Blasted Lands at bay. From the inside, the clouds of mist revealed themselves for the tips of the endless winds and the nightmarish dust and frigid air. Nolan preferred the view from above, really.

The four men rode only a hundred feet further before they scrambled to pull blankets for themselves and their animals. While Nolan and Vonders drove spikes into the merciless ground to anchor their tent, Darus and Tolpen quickly set about sliding the heavy cloth of the blankets around the horses and securing the straps that would keep them from blowing away.

Calling their shelter a tent was a bold exaggeration. It was shelter, yes, but hardly as noble a structure as a tent. The horses gathered together at one of the three posts that held the structure up. The supplies stayed at the second post and the men gathered at the third. Darus had pissed and moaned about hauling the posts along for the ride. Each horse had trailed one of the heavy beams, and Vonders’s horse had hauled the heavy leather sheets on a small wagon. As the beast had been bred for hard work, it also carried several heavy stones that they were using to anchor the sides of the shelter, now that it was built.

Darus looked to Vonders and shook his head. “I was wrong.”

Vonders did not gloat. Instead he merely nodded. “Brace yourselves. It’s coming.”

A few seconds, later the harsh hiss of wind and grit and small stones slapping the leather and canvas sides of the structure drowned out nearly all other sounds.

Nolan shook his head, shocked by the violence being unleashed against their protection. The walls seethed and buckled and whipped in a frenzy as the winds tried to tear them down, but Vonders’s instructions had been very detailed and Nolan had listened. He was almost certain the tent would hold.

The horses stayed surprisingly calm and Nolan thought that a good sign. Not that he could be certain. He’d seen horses many times, and he’d been trained to ride one without falling off, but they were still a fairly new experience to him. His thighs and hips and backside were likely never to forgive him the sin of taking up riding.

When they’d been summoned to the palace in Tyrne, he’d thought they were going to be questioned about the beasts that they’d hauled with them from the battle. Nolan could not have been more mistaken. He’d expected to see Merros Dulver, and on that front too, he was disappointed.

Instead of meeting with a general he met with the Empress and her advisor, a sorcerous thing called Desh Krohan. He’d heard of the wizard, of course. Nearly everyone had heard stories, but the truth was so much worse. The wizard towered above them in a great cloak that seemed alive, and no matter how hard Nolan had stared he’d never been able to see a face within the cowl of that hood.

He’d almost ignored the wizard, he’d been so busy looking at the Empress. That she was a beauty was a given. She had reddish hair and a lean body, and she’d been wearing a crown on her head, but she didn’t seem like she was capable of ruling the whole of the known world.

Tolpen was the one who figured out how to bow properly and the others followed suit very quickly. There were two guards at the doors of the immense room where they met the Empress and the sorcerer. The throne she sat on was surely elaborate enough, and he supposed that the fact that she sat there should have been his warning, but the notion of bowing to a girl barely any older than him had not sat at all well until Tolpen did it and made him realize what was supposed to be done.

Empress Nachia did not show the least bit of concern over whether or not bowing got done. The wizard seemed less interested in that notion and more concerned with talking to the four of them.

After that it all sort of blurred. One moment he was focused on the Empress and the next he was trying to figure out what sort of nightmare was hiding under that sorcerer’s cloak and then Tolpen was nodding and promising that they would not disappoint the Empress or the wizard.

It was only when they were choosing horses from the royal stables that Nolan realized they were going somewhere.

Turned out they were going to the Blasted Lands. Something about being heroes of the Crown and needing to go to protect a young girl who was on a mission to find out more about the enemies of the Empire.

Nolan cursed himself for not paying better attention.

Vonders had opened his bedroll and was sorting himself. His ring kept catching the light from the lantern. They didn’t quite dare a full fire, but two lanterns burned in the tent with them and kept the entire assortment of soldiers and animals in semidarkness.

“How much did you say a ring like that costs?” Darus kept eying that ring like it was the crown on the Empress’s brow.

Vonders shook his head. “Didn’t cost me a thing. Found it out here in the Blasted Lands. Keep your eyes aware and maybe we’ll find you a treasure of your own.”

“You think so?” Darus managed to sound both hopeful and dubious at the same time. Like he couldn’t quite believe the pretty girl he’d been looking at might like him in return, only more so.

Vonders yawned and curled his furs around his shoulders to keep the cold at bay. “Trust me. It ain’t so hard to find stuff. You just have to know how to look.”

That was the last word spoken during the night. The winds were shrieking and being heard was impossible.

The next morning was more of the same and the men sat in their shelter and ate dry rations and drank water and then tended to their horses. Fresh water and oats, and the animals seemed perfectly content to stay put. Vonders said that was a sign it was time to stay where they were, and not a man among them much argued with his logic. The winds and the screaming hail were enough to stop anyone from being foolish.

The tent was holding well enough, but Vonders instructed them on several occasions to beat at the sides when the storm seemed to grow quieter. His reasoning was sound. The silence was brought on by a thick sheet of ice building on the outside of the structure. Had it been left there was no doubt the entire thing would have collapsed under the weight. By the time the worst of the storm finally abated there were splits along a couple of seams and the taste of ash and dirt coated the inside of every mouth.

So far, the beauty of the Blasted Lands did not impress Nolan.

Darus spoke up as he carefully rolled his gear back into a bundle that could be carried on his shoulders. “So, where are we going again?”

Vonders pointed in a direction that meant nothing at all to Nolan. “That way. The Mounds.”

“What are the Mounds, exactly?” Darus did like his questions. No two ways.

“No notion as to what they might be, except they’re big and the Sa’ba Taylers ain’t much for ’em.”

“Sa’ba Taalor,” Nolan corrected.

Vonders nodded, taking the correction in stride. “The bastards that killed the Emperor don’t like ’em and that wizard sent his sister to go look ’em over. We’re supposed to make sure she gets back in one piece.”

“What? He sent his sister into this?” Darus’s voice squeaked at the very notion.

“Maybe they aren’t close.”

Nolan shook his head. “Long as we get there soon and get back. I don’t care much beyond that.”

Vonders shrugged and then secured the supplies in his wagon. The tent itself went over the top of the supplies and Nolan helped him tie the furs and canvas in place. Whatever else he might think, he’d never doubt the man from the steppes when it came to the weather again.

They were on their way within another fifteen minutes. An hour after that the horse that Tolpen rode slipped the wrong way on the ice and broke its hind leg. Tolpen managed to roll free before the animal could crush him.

If Nolan needed proof that the man was a hunter he got it right then. Tolpen put an arrow through the screaming animal’s head, killing it instantly. Within ten minutes after that, he was hiding the carcass and cutting thick slabs of meat from the animal’s body. Much as the notion horrified him, Nolan’s stomach rumbled at the thought of fresh meat. Their dried rations kept them alive but tasted like the air in the Blasted Lands.

They packed away as much flesh as they could on the supplies and Tolpen took turns riding behind the others to avoid exhausting the other horses. That night they ate fresh meat.

Not much more than a day later they met the woman, Tega, and the two guards who’d been watching over her.

When she was a young girl, Tega’s parents had worried about her. They felt that she was too serious to be a child. Really, that was something that never changed. Even when she was lying to them and telling them that she was going to Trecharch and planned to visit with the amazing flora of that area, her parents felt she was too serious.

They’d have been far more worried along those lines if they’d known she was heading for the Blasted Lands.

There were six men traveling with her. All of them had eyed her with appreciative looks. They did so when they thought she wasn't looking, just as they saved their uncivilized comments regarding how well they could warm her nights for when she was in her private wagon and they thought she could not hear them.

She did not let the way they looked at her or spoke of her affect her ego. As Desh had said more than once, the least attractive can be a beauty when compared to solitude.

In the public times, they were very proper, but ultimately they were men and they were soldiers. In other circumstances, the two often led to a problem with crude humor and occasionally with inappropriate behavior. The latter was not a worry. Fear of Desh Krohan and of sorcery in general was enough to make sure they behaved, even if they hadn’t each been watching the others for foolish behavior.

They were soldiers, true enough, but they were also men who were promised extra monies if they returned their charge undamaged to her mentor.

Their expedition was much smaller than most that attempted to enter the Blasted Lands. Not small enough to be foolish, but very close to that in most eyes. The Pra-Moresh were a danger and a very real one. Several people had allegedly seen the great beasts in the northern areas of late, and Pella had heard them up in the Wellish Steppes. While it was not unheard of for the nightmares to wander those areas, it was a rarity.

The guards did not complain about their small numbers, not even when they thought Tega was too far away to hear them. They were grateful for the money and the opportunity to prove themselves to Merros Dulver. The new head of the Imperial Army was a harsh man to please, but gaining his favor and his trust could surely not hurt a soldier’s career chances.

The men with her were all chosen by Desh himself as examples of brave soldiers with a powerful sense of duty and a proven talent for defending their charges.

They had fought some sort of abominations on the road to Tyrne. They had done so well, in fact, that Desh had sent them to meet up with her by way of the Temmis Pass. She had ridden down the narrow cut away in the vast pit that held the Blasted Lands, and sweated the entire time. Twice she’d traveled that stretch now and both times she’d wondered if the wagon she was in would survive the trek. So far, her luck was holding.

The group had stopped for the night, such as it was. The wind and ash blew just as hard and the cold tried to sink through the wood of her wagon even more vigorously at night than in the daytime, the only other difference was that the darkness was more solid than before. The faint light of the sun was gone; the great orb set for the evening and the light of the Great Star that often shone down at night was lost behind clouds and grit.

Outside her shelter, the tents had been set up and the animals had been protected as best possible against the howling storms.

The storms did not seem to care. The winds were harsh enough to batter and shake her wagon.

A hard knock at the door of her wagon had Tega nearly ready to let out a yelp before she caught herself. The sound was simply so unexpected that she had no idea how to respond to it.

When she could breathe again she answered the door, one hand held behind the wooden barrier and holding a dagger. Just because the men had behaved themselves so far did not mean they would continue to follow that trend. In any event she did not want to take any foolish chances.

The winds tried to rip the door from her grip and the dust from outside entered the cabin in a rush. Tega squinted her eyes against the worst of it and looked at her unexpected guest.

The man on the other side of the threshold nodded his greeting. “According to the best guesses we can make in this weather, we should be at the Mounds tomorrow, if this storm lets up.” That was very likely the most words Maun had spoken to her since Desh had introduced them. He was a lean man, and hard, with several scars on his arms and his neck alike. He was unsettlingly quiet at the best of times. When they’d left Tyrne he’d said nothing, leaving most of the comments to the other man guarding her, a burly fellow named Stradly Limms. Stradly liked to talk and had filled her with a dozen stories about the City of Wonders. She enjoyed each of the tales, having never once been to the area often called the Old Capitol these days. The actual palace remained there and the majority of the Krous family lived there, but she’d never been herself. The stories Limms told honed her curiosity.

“Do you think the storm will abate?”

Maun stared at her for a moment without responding and finally gave a very small nod of his head. “Likely. At least according to Vonders.” Vonders was as close as they came to an expert in the area. He was, aside from her, the only person who’d ever entered the Blasted Lands before.

Tega thanked the man, but he did not leave. Eventually she decided to ask him why.

“We can’t tell for certain, the storm is too bad, but it’s possible there are others out here. Might even be some of the enemies are following us at a distance.”

Tega nodded her head. “Thank you for the warning. We’ll talk again after the storm lets up.”

Maun nodded and slid backward and into the winds, his hair flipping madly around his face. A moment later he was gone.

She did not like the man. There was something about him that was unpleasant, though she could not quite decide what it was. She would trust him only because Desh said she could, but she could not bring herself to be comfortable around him.

The winds continued their screaming fit and the wagon shuddered and groaned along with it, a victim of the raging abuse the wind delivered.

Outside the winds calmed for a moment and then a low noise thrummed through the air, through the ground itself, and set her entire body to vibrating along with everything in her shelter. Tega closed her eyes and felt her lips drawn down in a scowl of discomfort. The sensation was unpleasant at best and bordered on painful.

She knew what it was, of course. The sound – low vibration that rattled her bones in her flesh – was nothing other than the target of her investigation. The Mounds.

There were stories about what had happened in the Blasted Lands. Those different tales were one of the reasons she’d chosen to apprentice with Desh Krohan in the first place. He was supposed to be wise and ancient and if anyone would know the mysteries behind the ruined area it would surely be the man nearly old enough to have been there.

His tales were as broken and sporadic as the rest. There had been a great war, that much was a given. There had been sorceries on a scale not seen since and those powerful spells had caused the devastation. But what, exactly had happened? No one knew for sure.

According to Desh there was a very real possibility that the Mounds rested over the remains of Korwa, the greatest city that had ever existed. Korwa, where magic was first studied and taught, where the seat of the known world had been before the Cataclysm. Vonders and his family scavenged the Blasted Lands for the tiniest relics, but what might still be waiting if there was anything left of Korwa? Certain sorcerers, like Desh, had long since prepared their most important items to withstand amazing damage. It took time and power, of course, but according to Desh there were a few items of his that could not be destroyed by lightning, by fire, or sword. They could be hurt, yes, but it would require an army’s worth of effort.

What might still wait where sorcery got its start?

Despite herself, Tega felt her heartbeat faster at the thought of the Mounds. Not with apprehension, though surely there were plenty of reasons to be worried. Not with dread of what might be waiting in the place that could make noises low and strong enough to rattle her teeth in their sockets.

No. Her pulse quickened at the thought of what she might find if she could, indeed, discover a way to enter the area that the Sa’ba Taalor were forbidden to seek by their gods.

Ultimately, she knew that Desh had sent her for his own reasons, but in this case, she had decidedly a secondary purpose of her own.

She had questions, and now, by the gods, she just might have a way to get answers.

Eight

Four days passed before Desh Krohan came out of his chambers. No one, not even the new Empress, was quite foolish enough to knock on the doors to find him. Nachia Krous did indeed visit his chambers – twice, actually – but she did not find him. Instead she saw only the sealed door to a room within his personal area, and left without a sound. She knew that the door there lead to an area where he locked himself away to do whatever it was that sorcerers did when they dared not be disturbed.

There were stories aplenty of what sorcerers did, of course, but Nachia had never much cared about that. She was a very bright student when she was growing up, and she had always been inquisitive enough, but when it came to magic and the casting of spells, she had no interest.

It was not a lack of imagination so much as a simple understanding. She would never be allowed to practice any sort of sorcery, and so she did not waste her time with it. In this she was completely different from Pathra Krous. He had always desperately wanted to know more of everything that was forbidden him. She had never decided if that was a strength or a weakness in her cousin. Either way she missed him.

When Desh came out of his locked room he staggered to his personal chambers and immediately poured cold water from a pitcher into a goblet and a ceramic bowl. He drained the goblet, filled it two more times and finished it thrice. Then he washed his entire body, carefully splashing away the worst of the blood. There was a great deal of blood, more than he had expected.

When he was mostly presentable he draped his great robe over his body and moved into the main work area, lamenting, again, the lack of the Sisters to aid him.

Nachia was not in the room when he got there, but in less than twenty minutes she made her presence known. By then he had called for a servant to fill his bath properly and was busily eating pabba fruit, cheese and bread with desperate appetite. Four days without food or water had left him feeling wasted away, though he looked much as he always did.

“Where have you been?” Nachia’s voice was just a little demanding.

Desh didn’t even bother looking up from his food. He chewed, swallowed and washed the latest bite down with a splash of wine and answered, “Dealing with the Sooth. I’m glad you’re here. You’ve saved me the trouble of coming to you.”

Nachia was surprised not to hear his usual admonitions about privacy and the possibility of rumors but brushed that aside. “What’s wrong?”

Desh finally looked up and took another sip of his wine. “A great deal, actually. But the thing we should focus on for now is the need to move everyone out of this city immediately.”

“What?” Her voice cracked like a whip, and Desh imagined he could hear the echo from the other side of the palace’s courtyard walls.

“A little quieter, Majesty. We would rather not share state secrets with the enemies of the Empire.”

“Desh, what are you talking about? Have you lost your mind?”

The man’s skin was still pale and his eyes a touch feverish in appearance. He had cleaned himself fairly well but had not yet bathed, and as a result there were spots around his hairline where dried, crusted blood could still be seen.

“Possibly,” he said. “But I don’t think so.”

“We cannot move everyone out of the city, Desh. It’s impossible.”

“It’s hardly impossible, Nachia. Difficult, to be sure, but well within the realm of possibilities I imagine.”

“Where would we take them?” Nachia stared at him and shook her head. Her brow knitted into a tight “V” above her eyes, a sure sign that she was vexed. He rather enjoyed that aspect of the conversation, as she was normally the one putting him into that state of mind.

“There is a very large Empire beyond the walls of Tyrne, Majesty. You know this. You’ve lived beyond them for most of your life.”

“Desh Krohan, you are my First Advisor and I have always respected your opinions, but I need more than that to convince me to move an entire city’s worth of people.”

Desh sighed and stood up. His great robe fluttered and moved and shimmered and looked as impressive as ever, but with the cowl down the effect was lost. He was simply not as terrifying when he had a face.

“We need to move the people from the city, Nachia, because the Sooth have warned me that it has to be done.”

“What are these Sooth, anyway? And why do you listen to them?”

Desh frowned. Describing the Sooth was rather like trying to explain the distance between the Great Star and the sun. There was no proper measurement that he knew of.

“They are spirits. They don’t exist in the same way that we do, and they can often see events that haven’t happened yet.”

“How?”

“I have no idea. All I can tell you is that they can often tell what will happen and it strikes their fancy they can share that information.” The “V” between her eyebrows grew more pronounced. “Honestly, Nachia, you look like you’re about to have a fit.”

“I’m not going to do anything of the sort.” A wave of her hand, brushing away a pest. “Explain why these spirits say we should abandon one of the largest cities in the Empire.”

“Because they say the city will be destroyed.”

Nachia’s eyes sought something and when she spotted a chair she nodded and moved over to it.

“How? How will the city be destroyed?”

Desh felt his face grow a bit hot. “Yes, well, that would seem to be the problem I’ve encountered.”

“Excuse me?”

“They can’t tell me how, only that it will happen and soon.”

“How soon?”

“Well, that would be the other problem I’ve run into. The Sooth don’t understand time as we do, you see and so they can’t exactly point to a precise moment.”

Nachia’s mouth dropped open in surprise and then slowly pulled into a tight line of disapproval. Desh found himself puzzling over how mobile her features were.

“Desh. I need more than that before I can do anything.”

“Why?”

The Empress shook her head. “Because I can’t very well demand that every person in the entire city abandon their homes over what amounts to the faintest possibility of a problem.”

Desh shook his head in counterargument. “Of course you can. You’re the Empress. You can tell them whatever you want and they have to listen.”

“Are you mad?” Nachia’s voice broke for the second time.

“We’ve already discussed the possibility, I believe. Listen, Nachia, I would love to argue this out with you, I would, but I rather got the impression that time is of the essence and we have a lot to accomplish if we’re going to evacuate an entire city the size of this one.” He scratched at the dried blood along his scalp line and looked at the chamber where even now a very large tub of refreshingly warm and clean water was waiting for him.

With the usual disregard for his needs, Nachia crossed her arms and shook her head. “This can’t happen, Desh!”

“It has to happen, Nachia. I mean that. I know it’s inconvenient, but it’s absolutely necessary.”

Nachia stared hard at him, a child, really, the difference between them amplified by decades, by centuries, not merely by years. “Then I fear we may all die here, Desh Krohan. I need more than the thought that the city might someday come to an end to move us.”

“Nachia! You have to listen to me.” He strode toward her, and stopped himself from grabbing her shoulders. “We have to leave here. Go back to old Canhoon. Go to the proper palace and easily half the population will follow you soon enough.”

“Give me a proper reason, Desh. Find out what is going to happen here and explain it to me. Give me more than the spirits giving vague warnings.” Her voice was steady and so was her gaze. Desh cursed himself a bit for picking as well as he had who would rule when Pathra died.

“Then how’s this for a reason? The Sa’ba Taalor have only been in one city. This one. They know where it is and they will surely strike here when they attack.”

“If they attack.”

“Ask Merros Dulver if he thinks they’ll forgive the slight against their king.” Desh kept his voice calm. Anger would only fall on deaf ears and she would not listen to anything else from him at the moment. She was as stubborn as ever, just smarter about listening.

Nachia nodded. “I will. And while I’m doing that, you find some proof of these troubles. Anything I can use to justify moving tens of thousands from their homes.”

Desh nodded his head.

Nachia waved a hand in his direction as she headed for her secret passage. His secret passage, which she had gleefully usurped. “And clean yourself, wizard.” Her voice took on the faintest note of teasing. “You still smell like a slaughterhouse.”

For once Desh had no additional words. He moved toward his bath and disrobed, desperate to be clean.

Every morning Merros Dulver rode past the red brick wall surrounding the palatial home of Wollis March and stared at the closed gates in front of it. It had become a part of his routine, a path he rode to let himself think in relative privacy.

This time, for the first time since he’d started his ritual, the gate was open. The sight was enough to stop him in his tracks. He did not stare with his mouth hanging open. He had more control than that, but he was decidedly surprised.

And when the woman stepped past the threshold of the gate and looked at him he still kept his calm, but inside he felt a river of frost spilling into his insides.

He had seen Dretta March only once before. She looked much the same, but the angles of her face seemed harder. Her eyes, dark as her husband’s had been, assessed him for a long moment and she nodded her head.

“You are Merros Dulver.”

Merros nodded his head and slipped carefully from his saddle. His knees wanted to shake but he did not allow them that luxury. Instead he walked stiffly toward the woman and laid one hand on the hilt of his sword. He had no intention of striking her, and certainly no desire to attack, but old comforts are often the ones we seek when confronted with uncomfortable situations. The pommel was familiar in his grip and he needed that, if only for the moment.

Merros Dulver dropped to one knee before the woman who looked back with mild surprise. His eyes wanted to look down, but just as he could not let a soldier flee in fear without penalty he did not allow that. He stared into her eyes and forced his voice to remain calm.

“I can never take back Wollis’s death. I would if I could. He was the finest man I know and he was my friend. I miss him.”

Dretta March looked at him for a long moment and then shook her head. “Stand up, you damned fool and come in here with your oversized horse.” She turned away from him and called over one shoulder, “We have much to discuss.”

Merros listened, though the ice in his guts tried to fill his very soul at the notion.

Despite the intimidating wall, the house beyond it was not overly large. The land was cleared and the grass in desperate need of a proper grooming, but that was to be expected. No one had been there to care for the place since Wollis’s death.

Merros made a note to send a few soldiers to handle the matter. There were plenty on his list who needed a reminder that he was still watching them and expected improvements.

Dretta led him and his horse to the front of the villa, where a table had been set with chairs and freshly baked bread and meats. Two servants looked at the General and nearly quaked to see him. Still, they recovered quickly enough and began pouring wine and water into goblets.

Dretta gestured to the closest seat. “Sit and eat with me. Tell me how my husband died.”

Merros sat and stared at the freshly prepared food. He should have been ravenous, but looking at the widow before him he found his appetite faded completely.

She brushed away the hands of the closest servant, a man trying to cut into the roast, still steaming in the early morning air.

Merros had no idea what to say and simply stared as she carved into the meat, skillfully slicing thick pieces away.

“You’ve come past my home every day since I got here,” she said. “Likely since before then. In all that time you’ve found nothing you wanted to say to me?”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“I’ve already told you. Tell me how Wollis died.”

He nodded and swallowed. “He died, bravely, trying to stop the woman who murdered two generals and very possibly the Emperor.”

She merely nodded and stared, and then she waited as he slowly told the tale of how Wollis had saved his life when one of the Sa’ba Taalor had a knife aimed at him.

“So, you see, he saved me,” Merros finished.

“Well, then, that would be a fine end to my husband’s life.” Dretta’s voice was low and soft and looked at her expecting hatred or contempt but found none of that.

“How do you mean?” His own voice was soft and broken with grief.

“Wollis considered you a good man and a good friend. He died saving you.” She eyed him carefully. “What can be more noble than saving the life of a good person? He died a good death.”

“I would rather he still be alive, myself.” Merros looked at her and felt his insides finally begin to thaw.

“Oh, and I’d prefer the same, Merros Dulver.” Her eyes looked at his calmly enough, but he could sense what Wollis had spoken of so many times when it came to his wife: a deep and abiding strength. “I’d very much prefer my husband alive, even if it meant your death. He was away from me for too many years and several of those were spent with you. That is not something I have forgotten. But if he had to die, there are worse deaths he could have suffered.”

“I am so very sorry, Dretta.” The man who commanded the largest army in the world heard his voice break and tremble and could not stop it. His vision shattered into hot tears. “I could not save him.”

There was silence from Wollis’s widow as he cried. A distant part of him burned with shame. Soldiers do not cry and men do not cry before women, but still it happened ,and he could not stop it. He lowered his head and made fists of his useless hands and let out great, braying gasps of grief.

And when he was done with the worst of his unexpected grief, he looked up to see Dretta March looking at him with a calm face. Of the servants there was no sign.

“You could not save him.” Dretta nodded. “But he saved you. And you, Merros Dulver, you are supposed to save us from these Sa’ba Taalor when they attack. That’s what I keep hearing. That you are a hero and will keep us safe from the people that killed my husband.” Her voice was calm as she looked away from him to layer slices of roast meat and bread on his plate.

When she looked up at him again her eyes were dry. “Keep us safe. Keep me safe. And while you are doing that, I want you to find the bitch that murdered my man and I want you to carve her head from her body.” Her voice was still calm; as if she were discussing the crops she might plant on the last lands of her villa. “Bring me her head and prove to me that my husband made the right choice in dying for you.”

The northerners were known for being a harsh people. That was true in the past and, if her words were an indication, it was true now.

Merros did not respond, save to pick up his knife and to cut into the food his hostess had set before him.

He was hungry. He had not felt hungry in quite a while.

The next morning when he headed for his offices, Dretta March was waiting outside the gate and they had breakfast again. It was not long before he realized a new ritual had become a part of his routine.

Goriah tended to her duties as she always had, with a meticulous attention to detail. That was necessary at the present time, as she was handling the work of three. Pathra Krous was buried in his ancestral tomb, placed next to the remains of his father and his father’s father. When he had been settled and sealed in his location, she carefully set the wards that would keep the bodies of the Krous bloodline safe from prying eyes and greedy hands.

And then she got to the business that had brought her to the City of Wonders.

Old Canhoon spread out before her, a sweeping series of structures that seemed to have grown from the very ground. The appearance was deceiving, of course. The city had been built, but over such a vast span of time that many of the buildings had acquired a layer of dust the same color as the ground they were built on.

Of course, in some places the appearance was exactly what it seemed.

The palace looked nearly identical to the Summer Palace, but seemed larger still and was surrounded by concentric rings of walls, ancient barriers designed to keep out invaders that never showed themselves. Unlike in Tyrne, however, the walls were well kept and still guarded. The military forces in Canhoon made sure of it, as the city was where the largest number of soldiers were trained and lived. As she set the wards, several hundred soldiers stood at formation around the tomb, silent and somber and armed and waiting.

As the vault was sealed again, the orders were given, and in slow procession the battalions of armored men passed before the great doors to the tomb and saluted before returning to their duties.

And while the military leaders in the area said their goodbyes, Goriah looked to the dignitaries waiting with her. They were leaders of the vast city, the Commander of the City Guard, the men in charge of the vast universities and colleges that gathered within the oldest city in the Empire, and the men who were charged with making sure that the Gem of Fellein remained well polished in the absence of the Empress.

In the absence of an Empress to impress they were doing their very best to catch the attention of one of her personal advisors.

In the absence of the First Advisor, they were perfectly glad to suck up to Goriah, who was one of his personal assistants, and to the illusions she’d created of her sisters. Tataya and Pella seemed distant, but that was rather common, really. None of the Sisters had a reputation for being easy to know.

Goriah remained suitably unimpressed, but listened to the dignitaries just the same.

There were endless questions, of course. Who were the Sa’ba Taalor and what had started the conflict? What was being done about the murder of the Emperor? Why had the Imperial Highway not been better tended north of the Lishter Gap? Would the Empress be approving a request for more soldiers along the Imperial Highway? Was there news of what had really happened in Roathes? The list went on for nearly as long as the funeral march that brought the Emperor’s corpse to the city.

Goriah did her best to answer a few questions and promised to bring many more questions to the attention of Desh Krohan and thus to the attention of the Empress.

Three faces she had hoped to see where woefully absent from the final farewell. She would have been surprised if any of the wizards had shown themselves, but still she had hoped.

As soon as she could, she sent her illusory Sisters on their way. Pella bid farewell first, offering her formal smile and courteous bows to the men who were doing their best to get to know her better. Not long after Tataya left as well, and when they were both gone and Goriah could finally allow herself to relax a little, she took stock of her situation and decided it was time for her to leave for real.

When she had made the proper goodbyes and promises to convey messages, Goriah slipped away from the large crowd of dignitaries, leaving more than a few wondering exactly how she had vanished so easily.

Desh Krohan had taught the Sisters the secrets of sorcery. She never quite understood why so many people forgot that fact.

The universities and colleges around Canhoon were vast things, more often than not: old and well respected and in some cases among the largest structures within the city.

The sorcerers did not advertise their school. There were no signs pointing the way and if one asked around the requests for directions were likely to be met with blank stares and puzzled expressions.

Goriah did not need directions. She found her way back with ease and entered through the front doors without bothering to knock. The structure was built of stone and better kept than many places. Despite the warmer weather outside, the interior would have been chill if not for the fires burning in several hearths.

No alarms were raised by her presence and no one came to see if she needed assistance. She walked the long corridors and drank in the atmosphere of a place that would always be home in many ways. She found the offices of the headmaster, well hidden though they were.

The chambers where Jeron studied were as large as the throne room at the palace but nowhere near as neat. The walls of the room were paneled in dark wood and decorated with shelves that held more books and scrolls than most people would ever see in their lives. A total of ten sets of heavy doors were placed along those walls, none of them seeming to fit where they were, rather as if they’d just wandered into the room and then decided to skulk along the walls in the hopes that no one would notice them. In the center of the room was a table of immense scale. That table was covered with more books and more scrolls, often stacked in precarious heaps and occasionally set alone into cleared areas as if that space were destined to hold that one volume and nothing more.

Roughly at the center of the chaos was a large and very comfortable chair. The arms and seat were covered in soft leather and stuffed well. The man who sat in that chair leaned heavily to his left and studied a manuscript written before the Fellein Empire had been even a distant thought in the first Emperor’s mind.

Jeron looked up from his studies as soon as she entered the room. He was a solid man with arms nearly as thick as her thighs, and though when last she had seen him he’d been sporting a beard and a mane of hair, he was currently bald and clean-shaven. His jaw looked better with a beard, but she said nothing of that. Instead Goriah smiled and gave an informal bow.

“You look well, Jeron.”

“You always look well, Goriah.” He rose from his desk and pushed past the vast stacks of papers that covered it. Jeron was always happiest when he was reading. Desh had once said that he felt Jeron would be perfectly content to spend the rest of his days studying words that had been written in the past and Goriah had no reason to doubt that comment’s validity. Neither did Jeron, who merely chuckled and nodded when Desh had made the comment.

He ambled over and hugged her to him. He was easily a head and a half taller than she was, and he hugged like a bear, with great strength, barely restrained. Still, nothing was broken by the contact, and she sighed contentedly. He had always given wonderful hugs, even when they had been children.

“How are you, little sister?”

“I am tired, and I feel like a hundred years have passed since I had a proper bath. I miss my bed and I suspect it will be a long while before I am properly comfortable again.” She smiled as she spoke and Jeron chuckled.

“Do you ever not complain?”

“Do you ever tire of asking me foolish questions to which you already know the answer?”

One thick thumb from the paw of his right hand stroked the side of her face and she smiled. “I never tired of hearing you speak. How could I then grow weary of asking questions that will make you answer me?”

“Are the others here, Jeron?”

“Of course.” His broad face moved into an easy smile. “Where else would they be?”

“Out and handling the affairs of the school? Perhaps seeking knowledge and wisdom?”

“Well, yes, that could possibly be a good goal for them, but there are many dire warnings of a war coming our way and so I sent for the rest.” He put a familiar arm around her waist and led her gently toward the doors. He was not urging her to leave, but rather guiding her toward the very goal she sought.

“You were expecting me then?”

“I was expecting you or one of the others. Desh does not change.”

“Desh sent me, of course. He wants to know what might be known of the Sa’ba Taalor and what you have learned from the old writings.”

“He could have just asked,” Jeron’s voice was only half in jest. “Or he could come to visit.”

“That’s why he has us, you know. So that he doesn’t have to travel as far.”

When they reached the massive doors he’d been leading her towards they opened of their own accord. Neither of them was the least surprised by that miraculous event. They crossed the threshold without hesitation and continued along their way.

A careful observer would have noticed that the corridor down which they walked was far too long for the house that Goriah had entered. That observer might also have noticed that the air was substantially warmer than in Jeron’s offices or in the main entrance. Both of them noticed, of course, but were unimpressed by the change.

They walked only a dozen paces before entering the next room. There, sitting around a comfortable table and picking at the foods laid out for them, a gathering of several very powerful sorcerers looked up and smiled warmly when they saw who Jeron had brought to visit them.

Goriah smiled back and one by one she hugged and was hugged by some of the only people in the world who knew her before she wore the face she had chosen to call her own.

There were smiles aplenty in that room, but that couldn’t hide the fact that the people she was facing were scared and had a very good reason to be afraid. Whenever the Sisters came to visit it was because Desh Krohan had sent them. And when Desh took note of the sorcerers he had trained, it was because he had need of them.

It could be said, and fairly, that few people wanted to be noticed by the wizard and less of them wanted to be needed by him. That sort of attention inevitably led to changes of an extreme nature. One needed look no further than the transformations in the life of Merros Dulver to understand that.

When the greetings were done and they had all settled themselves down to eat and drink and Goriah herself had made them mugs of sweet hot tea, she looked at the people gathered with her and spoke not with her voice but with the voice of Desh Krohan.

“These are dangerous times, my friends. And they are about to get much darker.”

Desh Krohan and Merros Dulver stood together and looked toward the south, where the dark plume over what had been the Guntha Islands remained like a distant storm cloud.

“What news from your Sisters?”

Desh leaned along the parapet and let the wind play with his hair. He’d scrubbed himself several times in scalding hot waters before he’d felt properly clean again and now that he was, he wanted to savor the sensation.

“Pella travels to the east. She’s gathering knowledge and will contact me soon, I hope. Tataya is far to the south. She’s been speaking on our behalf to the Brellar.”

“The Brellar?” Merros frowned at him.

“Well, we need to have a proper navy, don’t we?”

“We have a navy.” Merros frowned. “At least I think we have a navy.” His frown became a proper scowl. “Why don’t we have a navy?”

“We did. Actually we had a fleet of ships and boats, many of which were supplied by Roathes and the descending kingdoms to the south.” Desh gestured toward the distant cloud of darkness. “The Guntha blew up. And then Roathes was taken by black ships. And now we don’t have a navy so much as we have plenty of promises that when the time comes, if it comes, a few ships will be spared for the use of the Empire.”

“Would you care to explain how that works, please? Are there ships or no?”

Desh looked at the General and raised an eyebrow. “Mostly there are ships. They are held by the different kingdoms and assigned to the Empire, should there be a war. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.”

“So why are you now looking to hire a naval fleet?”

“You misunderstand, Merros. I’m preparing for the events that could happen.”

“No. You’re deliberately not telling me something. You have placed me in charge of defending the Empire and now you’re hiding things. Tell me what you’re hiding or find someone else to run this affair.”

“You can’t possibly be serious.”

“I did not come out of retirement to be lied to. I came out of retirement because you promised me a preposterous amount of money and told me I would be in charge of the military forces.” Actually that was a lie. He’d been told that he would be a general and in charge of defending against the possible threat of the Sa’ba Taalor. The murder of the Emperor and most of his military staff had facilitated the rise to general and head of the army. “I can’t run anything if you hide secrets that can impact my ability to command our forces.”

Desh sighed and shook his head. “You know I really do prefer a certain level of blind obedience.”

“Which is fine when I’m not running an entire Empire’s military forces. Besides which, as we’ve already discussed, you’re paying me far too well for me to give less than my all.” He looked sideways at Desh. “Really, it’s embarrassing how much you’re paying me.”

“I could always arrange a cut in your salary.”

“Don’t be hasty. I’m perfectly willing to be embarrassed from time to time. I just don’t want to be left ignorant of important facts.”

“The facts are simple enough. There’s been no need of an Imperial Navy for a long time. We have access to ships and we’ve made the most of it. But there might not be enough ships ready and waiting any longer and the best method of handling the situation is to bolster what we have with support from outside of the Empire.”

Merros shook his head and chewed at one edge of his mustache.

“No. We need to build more ships.”

“We’re currently under attack.”

“All the more reason to build more ships.”

“We can’t possibly justify building more ships if we don’t have the support of the Empress, and Nachia’s not likely to want to bother if you can’t prove your worth.”

“What do you mean by that?” Merros’svoice took on an edge.

Desh smiled. He liked knowing the man was paying attention. “What have you done about Roathes?”

“I’ve sent scouts.” His voice took on a defensive edge.

“And what have the scouts come back with?”

“Remarkably little.”

“Why is that?”

“You know why, Desh. They haven’t gone far before they returned.”

“Because?”

“Because there’s nothing there. The land is a ruin. It’s burned and blackened and the people are gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Mostly up this way, it seems.”

“How many?” Desh looked at Merros carefully as he asked the question.

Merros sighed. “Not enough.”

“Then you need to find out where the rest of them are, Merros Dulver. You need to find out where they are and you need to gather them together. The Roathians know how to build ships and boats and you want to build a navy’s worth of both. So find them and have them get to work.”

“And how do you propose I manage that?”

“What were you telling me only minutes ago? You’ve been put in charge of the greatest army on the planet. Find a way.” Desh waved a hand and stared out at the distant plume.

“Damn it.”

The wizard smiled. “Indeed.”

“You knew it would come to this.” Merros jabbed a finger at the wizard and stopped himself just before it would have touched the man. He was brave and he was angry, but he was not foolish. It was one thing to speak his mind with the sorcerer and another to touch without permission.

“Lanaie is now the queen of her people. Find her and ask her assistance.”

It was Merros who looked out at the horizon then, staring at the dark smudge that pointed toward the ruins of the Guntha.

Far to the south of the Fellein Empire, Captain Callan steered his ship, carefully following the orders that the Brellar had given. Next to him Tataya stood firm and swayed with the movement of the waves. Next to her was a complete stranger who was possibly the most important person in the world just then. Because he was the reason none of them were dead.

He hardly seemed especially significant. He was average height and a little on the slim side, with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and a long, thin mustache that was well suited to his long, thin face. He also sported a sword on his hip and no less than three daggers, but that was hardly unusual with the Brellar. As a rule, they remained heavily armed. Like all the Brellar he had scarred most of his arms and parts of his face with symbols that meant nothing to Callan. He knew only that the markings told stories or noted achievements. The scars were small, but numerous. He supposed that was to make room for more claims of greatness.

Ahead of them were four ships. Behind them were three more.

The man the Brellar had sent along to keep them company walked closer and took the wheel from Callan. He was not demanding, but he did not have to be. As the man currently in charge of their fates, he chose to be gracious. Callan was grateful.

The redheaded beauty that’d hired him watched the newcomer as he steered the vessel into the docks where the Brellar were waiting. They had caught a good wind and rode it all the way to the land where they came to a rest. Captain Callan had never been this far south and east. He did not know if they were at an island or if they were touching a larger land mass.

They had left the areas he knew seventeen days earlier. Now he was doing his best not to get killed. He had doubts about his success rate.

Still, they were all still alive when the men on the docks started securing the ship.

Callan felt a bit intimidated, really. He called his boat a ship, but, in comparison to the Brellar vessels on all sides, it was rather like calling a stunted pony a warhorse. The Brellar’s vessels were monstrous in comparison, and all of them were in fine shape.

Their Brellar escort gestured quickly and headed for the gangplank, chattering away in the common tongue about the beautiful weather and promising a meal for everyone.

Callan did not know that he trusted the cheerful mood, but he went along with it.

The redhead, Tataya, walked with calm assurance and glided her way down the to the docks. Several of the men gladly followed behind her. He doubted that their luck would be any better than his, and he’d been trying to woo her without the first hint of success since the day they’d met. The wind shifted and he caught a hint of his own scent. Perhaps if he’d bathed a bit more regularly.

Up ahead, a large group of large men with large swords was standing at the foot of a long staircase and looking toward the redhead with an odd expression on their faces.

No one was more surprised than Callan when the gathered strangers dropped to their knees in supplication before her.

Except, just possibly, Tataya herself.

Nachia Krous paced the throne room in long strides, her hair flapping in her wake. She seemed incapable of sitting still, and Merros was obliged to at least follow her with his eyes. He’d actually given up trying to walk next to her when she was in a mood like this very early on, even before she was properly crowned.

‘There’s no one left? No one at all?” Nachia asked the question for the third time and for the third time he answered.

“No one. My scouts didn’t even find very many corpses, Majesty.”

“Well, what did they do with them?” She looked toward him with wide eyes and a slightly dangerous expression.

“I have no notion. I’ve spoken with Desh about it and he said he’ll try to investigate. Didn’t look at all pleased by the idea, actually.”

“Gods!” She pointed at one of the guards in the room, a man picked by Merros himself for his loyalty. “You!”

The man flinched.

“Darfel. His name is Darfel, Majesty.”

“Darfel! Go immediately to Desh Krohan’s chambers and tell him I demand his presence!”

Darfel responded with a sharp salute and immediately left at a brisk walk. Merros suspected the man thought he was being sent to his own death, but he listened.

“You know he’s likely ready to wet himself at the notion of bothering Desh, don’t you?”

Nachia looked at him for a moment with a puzzled expression and then managed to relax a bit and chuckled. She shook her hair back into something resembling a proper position. “I guess if one doesn’t really know him, the old man is rather intimidating.”

“Actually he’s just basically rather intimidating all the time.”

“Are you intimidated by him, General Dulver?”

“Majesty, I deal with people who can order me executed on a whim. Why should one who can turn me into a spider and squash me under his foot be any more intimidating?”

“Do you really think he could turn you into a spider?”

“According to the rumors I’ve heard over the years, he could just as easily turn me into a butterfly or kill me with a glance. After a certain point you just accept that the man can kill you any number of ways.”

He kept his tone light, because the Empress needed a bit more levity in her life, near as he could tell.

“Well, you may rest assured I’ll only have you executed with good reason and if I do I’ll allow you a fair chance to argue your case.”

“You know, I really don’t know you well enough to get if you’re joking when you say that sort of thing, Majesty.”

“Of course I’m joking.” She shook her head. “I’m just getting used to you. I would rather not go through finding a replacement.”

“Still not sure if you’re joking.”

“Good. I rather like keeping my staff guessing as to my motives.”

“You have been around that damned wizard far too much.”

“I should rather not be described as ‘that damned wizard’, thank you.” Desh’s voice had an edge of annoyance. He hadn’t been there a moment before, but he stepped out of the shadows and looked at Merros with a scowl.

Nachia shook her head. “You’re not to consult your damned spirits about the Roathians.”

Desh looked at her for a long second with narrowed eyes. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good. That’s good. I’d prefer you not disappear for several days again.”

“Pity that. I was planning on going to Roathes myself to see what happened there.”

“What?” It took Merros a moment to realize that he and the Empress had spoken simultaneously.

“I’m going to Roathes. I need to find out what happened there and I have no one else here I can trust with the examinations.”

“Send more soldiers.” Nachia was shaking her head, her lips pressed into a thin line.

“Soldiers won’t answer the questions. I need to go myself.”

“Send one of the Sisters.” Nachia’s expression brooked no argument.

“Can’t. They aren’t here. They’re otherwise engaged.” Desh crossed his arms and shook his head.

“I know you can talk to them over long distances. I’ve seen you do it.”

“I can be there and back before any of the Sisters could manage and I need to see this myself, Nachia. It has to happen.”

“What if I need your counsel?”

“I am the First Advisor, not the only advisor.”

“Fine. Take soldiers with you.”

“They’ll only slow me down.”

“Desh…”

“Nachia. I’ll be back within five days.” He shook his head. “Ten if you make me drag along soldiers.”

Merros watched the two of them as if they were engaged in a proper duel, with throwing knives.

“What do you need from the area to know what happened, Desh?” He asked the question with a sigh.

“I need to see what I need to see. I need to touch the sand and examine different homes. I need to investigate for evidence of what transpired. It’s not as simple as merely asking an inquisitor to get answers from witnesses, Merros. There are no witnesses. There’s no one there at all from what you’ve said.”

“Couldn’t you get the answers from the soldiers who made the trip?”

“No. I need more than they can offer.”

Nachia cleared her throat and both men looked at her. Merros felt a quick flash of guilt. For just one moment he’d forgotten he was in the presence of the Empress.

“Five days?” She looked so damned young staring uncertainly at her advisor.

“No more than that. Possibly less.”

“Then do it if you have to, but be back soon.”

Without pausing for so much as a breath, she turned to Merros. “You need to send men to watch him.”

“But, milady, he said–”

“I don’t care. Send soldiers. They’ll follow behind him and stay out of his way.”

“Yes, Milady.” There were logistics to consider. That, and Desh Krohan was looking at him as if he might be more useful as a spider. He apologized to the mage with his eyes, but ultimately they both served the Empress.

“Does this mean we’re at war, General Dulver?”

“Well, I suppose it must, Majesty.”

“Then I do not wish for this to be a case of waiting and wondering, General. I wish the armies mobilized. Look at your maps and find the best way to invade the Taalor Valley.”

Merros bit his tongue. The very idea of trying to move an army through the Blasted Lands was one of the problems that had kept him up and sleepless more nights than he’d managed to rest.

“I’ve been preparing, Majesty. It’s been a matter of waiting for everything to be readied.”

“Waiting for what, exactly?” She wasn’t being terse. He knew that, but it certainly felt like she was. His chest felt constricted his uniform. He hated the formal attire, but had to wear it in the palace, even when the Empress was running around in her riding clothes, which was most of the time.

“Majesty, you’ve seen the Sa’ba Taalor. We have them in numbers, but our army is spread across the entire Empire and theirs is in a single valley. It has taken me time to prepare our soldiers, to make sure they are properly armed and trained.”

“Well, you are in your position because you have the trust of your Empire. But now it’s time to move forward, General. Prepare for war. By the time Desh Krohan gets back here, I want our troops ready to strike into the Blasted Lands and attack the animals that murdered my cousin.”

“Aye, your Majesty. As you command.” He bowed formally. They had a fairly casual relationship and he was grateful for that, but when the Empress gave an order he would obey, even if he feared the consequences.

Desh stared at Nachia Krous for a long moment in silence and then looked toward Merros. The General could not read any expression at all from the sorcerer. He may as well have been looking at a statue of the man.

When Desh spoke it was with a soft sigh. “I suppose I should ready myself. We’re all going to be very busy when I get back.”

Nine

Andover spent one week in the company of Tusk and his people. He was treated as an equal, which is to say he was treated well enough, but expected to handle his own troubles.

When they left the Durhallem Pass they moved down a short passage to an area that had been set aside for the sole purpose of allowing travelers to rest. The sun shone down on the space and for easily ten minutes, all Andover did was close his eyes and feel the warmth and light of the sun on his skin. It seemed forever since he had felt that simple pleasure and he reveled in it. According to Drask the gods had decreed that the location be tended and left for any Sa’ba Taalor who hunted in the Blasted Lands. As the spot was on the side of Durhallem’s mountain, it was his followers who tended to it.

There was a bathhouse, there were stables old and new, and there were rooms with simple but functional beds. For some it might have seemed rather simple, but for Andover Lashk, who had lived more than once on the streets of Tyrne while he was growing up, the bed was a luxury and after the long walk through the Blasted Lands to get there, the baths were as fine a treat as he could recall.

What he found unsettling was the moment when he was joined in the baths by several members of the Sa’ba Taalor, male and female alike.

The room had a few wooden benches built into the walls where people could sit and take off their clothes. In the center was a rather elaborate collection of stone troughs that could be filled with water by working a series of chains and levers. Andover tried to watch while one of his hosts worked the devices but, really, they weren’t the sort of thing he was used to. Mostly, if one wanted a bath, one went to a place that offered them or one carried the waters from the Freeholdt River and took matters into one’s own hands. As he’d been apprenticed to a blacksmith, he’d simply washed in the waters there and called it done, over the years, and before that when he was a child his mother had prepared his weekly baths. On a few occasions he’d snuck down to the river in a private area and after making certain no one was around to observe his naked state, he’d managed a few quick baths in the extremely cold but fresh waters.

In all that time he had bathed alone, as the gods had surely intended. He listened to the echoes of the water splashing as he settled himself. It sounded like he was in a cavern, not a structure built by people.

According to Drask, again, the waters were warmed by the fire within the mountain, and then released into the long troughs and allowed to cool down from a hard boil to something that wouldn’t actually cook flesh. The method meant nothing to him, but the end result was a delight. He had just settled his body into the heated waters when Drask and Delil both entered the room and stripped down, discussing their reunion with their mounts, who had been waiting in the area when they arrived.

Andover felt himself blush across his entire body, lowered himself in the waters and tried to think himself somehow smaller and less noticeable. Neither of them seemed to have noticed him at first and he was feeling rather pleased with that notion when Bromt and Tusk and seven more of Tusk’s people entered the chambers.

To be fair, seeing Delil and the other women take their clothes off certainly solved a few mysteries of the female body that he had been wondering about for a long time, but watching the men with them peel off their clothing was rather unsettling. Seeing Delil naked also awoke his arousal, and Andover prayed fervently to the gods that no one would notice. Andover had never been in the military and he had most assuredly never bathed with anyone else, male or female. Seeing that much unclothed flesh was unsettling in the extreme and he was fairly certain that sooner or later they would truly see him and make fun of his naked state of being.

The groups continued their talks while they disrobed and then climbed into the waters around him.

King Tuskandru sat immediately to his right. Sheer fear that the gigantic man might accidentally crush him against the side of the trough had Andover sitting up again in an instant.

Tusk was as naked as the rest, and Andover saw more of the man’s body than he wanted to by a long stretch. Nearly every inch of him was scarred. His muscular chest was hairy, which did nothing to hide the signs of old wounds. He had to resist the urge to check if the king’s penis was as scarred as the rest of him.

The only thing any of them were wearing was their veils. Tusk’s was covered with fine metal rings.

Andover contemplated the best ways to make himself seem either so small as to be beneath notice or large enough to feel less like a child around the Sa’ba Taalor. He was of average size, and he knew that, but by the gods even the women of the gray-skinned people seemed more muscular than he.

Tusk looked at him. “You are so pink…”

Andover looked at his hands, at the flesh that had tinged with gray where the iron limbs were fused to the rest of him, and lifted them to where they could be seen by the king. “Not everywhere.” Really, it was all he could think to say.

Tusk roared laughter and cuffed him in the shoulder. He had to assume it was a playful gesture as he was still alive.

“Why are my wrists changing?”

Tusk looked at him for a long moment. “The metal, I suppose.”

Andover looked at him, trying to understand.

Drask leaned over and spoke in their native tongue.

Tusk spoke back and nodded.

When he spoke again it was in the common tongue. “You have not seen our children. You will. When you do, you will understand better. We do not start off gray.”

“You don’t?”

Tusk’s eyes shone in the room. “No, Andover. We are not so different, your people and ours. You will see.” The King called to one of his people who listened and nodded. A moment later, the man was rising from the waters and baring his body to everyone there. Not a one of them seemed to care. Andover had to make himself look away. He had never seen so much bare flesh in his entire life. People should be clothed, that was all there was to it.

The man walked to the doorway of the bathroom and cupped his hands, calling out. A moment later he nodded, responding perhaps to words Andover could not hear, and then climbed back into his bath.

When he spoke to Tusk, he spoke in the common tongue. “Trumdt will bring them.”

“Who is Trumdt?”

Tusk waved a hand. “Trumdt is here to tend this place. He will be here in a moment with his children.”

A moment later the man approached. Like the rest of the Sa’ba Taalor he carried weapons strapped to his body. He also wore a veil. The two young children with him did not. They were dark haired and their eyes bore the same sort of gray color as the rest of the Sa’ba Taalor, complete with the odd light that seemed nearly to come from inside their skulls. But both of the children, no older than five or six years, if Andover had to guess, had dark hair, and their pink skin was tanned from many hours of being outside.

He stared at them as if they simply did not belong where they were.

Tusk spoke his native tongue and the man and his children nodded alike and promptly stripped their clothes away. The children were both girls. They did not hide their nudity. Neither did their father.

Trumdt’s body was a map of scars, a book written in healed flesh and callused palms. He was as much a warrior as any of the others around them. Both of the children bore scars as well, though nowhere near as many.

“Do you understand now?” Tusk’s voice caught him off guard.

“Why are they pink?”

“Why are you pink? They have not yet met with the Daxar Taalor. They have not yet worked the metals and shaped their weapons. They are only just learning the ways of the Sa’ba Taalor.”

The older of the two children eyed Andover suspiciously. The younger stared as well, but without any seeming hostility.

Drask spoke up. “You are wondering why they are pink. They are wondering why you are pink.”

Tusk spoke at the same time and the man nodded. He and his children climbed into the baths as well.

“I’ve worked metal for a few years. My skin has not changed color because of that. It’s changing because of the hands, I think.”

“There are differences in working metal for your people and ours, Andover.” Drask spoke casually enough. “I watched you when you forged your weapon. Your metal is taken from the ground, yes? And heated by fires until it is molten.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Our metal is a gift from the Daxar Taalor, heated just as these waters are heated.” His silver hand splashed slowly through the water, making a small wave but nothing more. “Our metal is the lifeblood of the mountains, the lifeblood of the gods themselves. They give to us, and when they give to us, and we accept, we are changed.”

Drask reached down under the waters and Andover nearly jumped when he felt the warm silver fingers touch his leg. “Look at your scar, Andover.”

Andover looked down at the place where silver metal had healed him before. There was indeed a thick scar there, but looking at it under the water something seemed wrong. He raised his leg for a better view and let out a small gasp when he saw the flesh properly. The skin was tinted there, much as scars can be, but the tint was gray and looked almost dead in comparison to the pink flesh elsewhere.

There was a harsh ringing noise in his ears for several moments. Andover’d had enough surprises in his life to know that noise was not real, merely in his head. “Am I becoming one of you?” The words were spoken softly enough that he wasn't sure anyone heard him.

Tusk looked at him and answered just as softly: “Would that be a bad thing for you, Andover Lashk of the Iron Hands?”

An hour after he’d settled for sleep Andover sat up and took in a deep breath. He’d been having a pleasant dream about Tega and the thought of her in his dream was enough to startle him awake.

He rose from his simple bed and looked around. A few beds were occupied, but many were not. After listening in the darkness for a few moments he heard the sounds of people talking and followed them.

Just beyond the doorway, outside in the night, Drask Silver Hand was speaking in low tones with another man Andover had never seen before. The man was smaller than Drask, but not by much. His elbows rested on his knees and he squatted next to a small fire. The air had grown much colder since the sun went down and the fire was a necessity. One half of the man’s face was a ruin of scar tissue. His left ear was nothing but a hole amid the pitted mess of ruined flesh. If he had an eye on that side of his face, Andover could not see it in the light from the fire.

Andover coughed into his hand and both men looked in his direction. He did not need to cough, but suspected that startling any of the Sa’ba Taalor would be foolish in the extreme.

Neither of the men looked at all surprised by his presence and he wondered if they’d already known he was there.

Drask tilted his head a bit. His hair was down and fell around his shoulders, across his back. “You are awake? I thought you had gone to sleep, Andover.”

“I was wondering if you’d heard about Tega or the rest of my people? We’ve been so busy I forgot about the travelers who passed us on the way here.”

“The soldiers.” Drask stared at him for a long time. “They are dead. Tega, the girl, I think went home.”

“The soldiers are dead?” There was no moisture left in his throat.

Drask answered calmly enough. “Your Emperor died. He was killed, to be precise. The soldiers tried to accuse Tusk of killing him.” Dry mouth, yes. But now there was the problem with his knees feeling weak, too. Drask continued, “Tusk and the rest of the people with him killed the soldiers. The girl, Tega, was with Tusk at the time and under his protection, but she lifted into the air like a bird and soared away.”

“Oh. I. Oh. Um.” There were words he wanted to say, but they were hiding themselves very well.

“Nothing more has happened yet, Andover. The kings have met to discuss matters, but that does not change your position here. You were invited by the Daxar Taalor themselves. No one here will blame you for the actions of the soldiers.”

He nodded his head, swallowed the dryness and desperately wished he had a drink.

“You have questions?”

“Oh, yes.” Andover nodded vigorously. “Many questions.”

“You may ask them of Tusk in the morning. He is sleeping and I would not awaken him without good cause.” Both of the men offered smiles at that comment. He suspected there was a story behind those smiles, but just then could not make himself ask after what that tale might be.

He was alone among the most violent fighters he had ever met, and apparently his nation had attacked them.

Andover had no possible idea how to respond.

“Would you drink with us, Andover?” Drask held a skin that sloshed with fluids.

He nodded and the man tossed the skin to him. A moment later he took a deep drink of the cool, sweet wine within it. He had not consumed many wines but rather liked the taste.

A moment later a pleasant warmth ran down his throat and into his stomach. Within a dozen heartbeats that warmth was moving through his entire body.

He nodded his thanks and tossed the wine skin back. The man with Drask caught it and offered a ruined smile from the ruined face.

Andover smiled back, though he felt like screaming in fear, and then waved his good nights.

He moved back to his bed and settled in, but he did not sleep. Instead he found himself lost in thoughts of Tega flying like a bird and armies clashing over the body of a dead Emperor.

The following morning the entire group, excepting only Trumdt, his two children and the others that tended to the place, rode and walked up the steep slope of Durhallem, scaling the mountain at a steady pace. After the time spent in the Blasted Lands, the trek was easy enough for Andover. He did not complain and felt no reason to, instead he enjoyed the view as he climbed.

Tuskandru was well ahead of him in the procession and he contemplated how to approach the man about the attacks and the deaths he’d heard of. How to find out what the King knew of Tega.

There was an odd sense of guilt lingering in his mind. When he’d left the city she had been on his mind constantly. Now? The girl he’d adored from afar for so long was almost gone from his mind.

That was for the best, perhaps, but still he felt as if he might somehow be betraying her.

The valley below was lush with greens and other hues. He had not expected that. He wasn't sure what he would expect after walking through the desolation outside of the mountain range, but truly the notion of farmlands had never seemed a possibility.

“Who tends the farms, Delil?” He couldn’t imagine a farmer among the Sa’ba Taalor.

“Mostly the children.”

He looked at her to see if she was having a jest at his expense, but the girl seemed completely sincere.

Andover stopped to look long and hard at the distant fields, and Delil stopped with him. “How?”

“How does anyone tend a farm, Andover? They plant the seeds, they grow the crops, and they cut them down and harvest them. It is different for each kingdom, of course, but Tusk’s people teach the children to farm so that they will always be prepared to grow whatever foods they need.”

“I have never seen a farm before.” The words were out before he knew what he was saying.

She looked at him for a moment and her eyes smiled behind the veil. “Then we shall have to take you to see one.”

By the time the sun was on its way down, they had stopped at a wall of buildings. That was the only way he could think of it.

According to the stories he heard, the people in the area had once lived in stone huts they built themselves, but after the Mound Crawler came, that great and terrible beast that Tusk had killed when he became king, Tusk ordered his people to change their ways and change they did. The people lived in the mountainside, in homes that they carved from the rock themselves, though it had taken years to accomplish the task.

Stairwells cut into the rock of the mountain itself led to openings at different heights, some of them only a few feet from the ground and others that required climbing nearly a hundred feet from the flat plateau where the odd town was settled.

There were rooms and they were solid, as they should have been, seeing as they were hacked from the side of the mountain. The work was not primitive, as he’d first imagined it might be. Instead the rooms were smooth walled and even floored and as squared and balanced as any he had ever been in. Some were simple in design and others far more complex. It seemed to depend entirely on who lived there and what they did to complete their dwellings.

He was given a room in the same structure as Drask and Delil and Bromt. None of them lived in the area and so all of them were hosted in places set aside for visitors. The rooms were comfortable and functional, with little or no decoration.

What little Andover carried was left in his room without fear of it being taken. The idea seemed insane for a moment. Back in Tyrne you kept your possessions close by and hid them away if you were going to leave them behind. Here the idea was as foreign as he was. The Sa’ba Taalor did not have much of a problem with theft, according to Drask. Thieves had to fight to keep what they might take, and especially where Durhallem ruled and mercy was not an option, it seemed one would only risk theft if one was willing to die for what was taken.

It was a very different place from what he was used to. Then again, he was a very different person. All he had to do was close his eyes and think back on the fights he had survived to know that.

After the sun had set, there was a feast before the wall of structures. A broad area had been cleared of all brush and artificially leveled. He could see the cut marks where stone had been meticulously chiseled away until the area was as flat as a well-planed board.

In that area, there were four deep pits and in each of those was a fire. They proved necessary as the sun set and the chill of the night came across the mountain. From their height the people could see the entrance to Durhallem’s Pass and also see into the valley far below. Andover saw rivers and lakes that he had spotted when the sun was still up. They were a different shade of black in the darkness of the valley and from time to time he could spot fires along the edges of the water.

Drask Silver Hand joined him in observing the valley, as more and more of the people from the area came down from their homes and started gathering around the four fire pits.

Drask gestured with his hand. “The valley is larger than it looks from here.”

“It does not look small. How many days would it take to travel the length?”

Drask assessed him for a moment, his eyes once again catching whatever light was around and reflecting back a silvery glow. The more he stared, the more he suspected the light was internal somehow.

“To walk the Taalor valley would take you at least two weeks from end to end.”

“Impossible.” The word was out before he could stop himself and he dreaded the man would take offense.

Drask’s eyes smiled behind his veil. “As I said, it is larger than it seems. There are seven vast mountains, Andover. They are not neatly lined up. They are staggered. You cannot see the other end of the valley from here.”

“Which mountain do you call home, Drask?”

Drask shrugged his shoulders, a gesture he had picked up from the soldiers he’d traveled with a while back. Very few of the Sa’ba Taalor ever seemed to shrug, now that he thought about it.

“I follow Ydramil and his King in Silver, Ganem. I have a home near the top of Ydramil, but I have not been there in over a year now. I have been busy.”

“A year?” Andover frowned at that. “Why so long?”

“Ydramil makes demands of his followers. We are told to study much of the world. I have been visiting each of the mountains, each of the kings and each of the gods.”

“Like I’m supposed to?”

“Just so.” Drask sighed, the thin veil fluttering with his breath.

“Why the veils, Drask? I have seen every one of you naked, but still you wear veils.”

“We do not question the Daxar Taalor. They have not yet said you are ready to see our faces and so we cover them.”

“What is so special about your faces?”

Drask chuckled. “What is so special about yours? To us, they are just faces. We are who we are.”

“Does your face look like mine?”

“No more than my skin looks like yours or my hand looks like yours.”

He held out his silver hand and placed it close to Andover’s right hand. Both were metal. Both moved through sorceries Andover did not even try to understand, but beyond that they looked like hands and had five fingers, there was little that they had in common.

“Your children do not wear veils?”

“The children have not yet met with gods.”

“Like I’m supposed to meet with them?” That thought was still too large to completely take in. It was easier to try to study the whole of the sky and count the stars than it was to comprehend meeting actual gods.

Drask looked away. “You ask many questions. I can only answer a few. You will meet the Daxar Taalor. They have reasons for wanting to meet you that they have not shared with me.” There was no anger in his comment, not even disappointment. Drask merely stated a fact. “I can tell you only this: no one stands before gods and remains unchanged by the encounter.”

They were silent for a while, lost in their own thoughts as the sounds of people gathering and preparing food came to them. At each of the fires, carcasses were spitted and set above the flames. There was a time when the notion of eating a Pra-Moresh would have been repellent, but having endured the Blasted Lands and eaten even stranger things – for strange things indeed lived in the wastelands – Andover found the idea had a certain appeal. His stomach rumbled agreement.

“I’ll be leaving after the feast.”

“Feast? Leaving?” Andover frowned at the other, larger man.

“Ydramil tells me I must go back into the Blasted Lands. He has plans for me and I will obey.”

Andover shook his head at the notion of speaking directly to a god. The notion refused to sit comfortably. “Where will you go?”

“The feast is in your honor. You should remember to thank Tusk properly.” Drask stood up, not answering the question. “Should we meet again, after you have spoken with the gods, you may ask me more questions. Until then, Andover Lashk, the Daxar Taalor watch over the both of us.”

The man who had taught him harsh lessons tapped him lightly on one shoulder and walked away, his thick dark hair swaying with his steps.

Andover was uncertain how he felt about that. In part he felt he was losing a friend, though in truth Drask had done little that could be called a kindness.

Aside from teaching him not to die. That had been a very large kindness indeed.

Andover contemplated all that Bromt and Delil and Drask had done for him, even as he ran one hand gently along his bound ribs and felt the area where the pain still flashed if he pushed. The ribs were mending. They’d felt fine when he was fighting – too busy staying alive to care about the pain, and he’d been fueled by the thrill of combat – but now his side ached with a dull throb again.

He heard Bromt laughing and saw the man walking with a few other men of similar stature. They wore no armor at the present time, though all of them still sported weapons. He imagined this was as close to relaxed as they managed.

Delil talked with several others, men and women alike, and though Andover wanted to speak with her, he did not wish to interrupt her homecoming.

Tuskandru walked toward him. He was again taken by how large the King was, how striking a figure. One of the soldiers, who had traveled with the Sa’ba Taalor to Tyrne, a man named Wollis, had told Andover that Tusk cut a Pra-Moresh nearly in half with one swing of a sword. Despite having seen the monsters, having fought them, he did not have trouble believing the outrageous claim.

The King wore a tunic and leather breeches, the same as he had when Andover had first seen him. His necklace of teeth was wrapped twice around his thick neck, and his hair was pulled back into a heavy braid, wrapped with leather and decorated with a few small pieces of onyx. He did not carry any weapons. That fact alone was unsettling to Andover.

Tusk stopped before him and nodded. “Drask said you want to know what happened with your people.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” His voice only cracked a little as he spoke.

“They came for us. One of them claimed that your Emperor is dead. He said that someone killed the Emperor and said we must go back and speak with your generals.”

Andover nodded his head. He’d been on the receiving end of demands from the City Guard and, in comparison to the soldiers, those men had almost no authority. Certainly not as much as generals in the Imperial Army.

“They did not ask. They tried to command me. I am a king. I do not answer to your Emperor or his generals. When they would not accept that, one of them drew his weapon. I killed him.”

Andover nodded again. He could think of nothing at all to say to that.

And so instead he asked, “Tega. She flew away?”

“She spoke with the voice of her master, the sorcerer. He asked that your soldiers not attack and they did not listen.”

“So is she safe?”

Tusk crossed his massive arms. “None of my people hurt Tega. She was under my protection and helped me speak with your soldiers.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“You wish to go home? To your people?”

Andover shook his head. “No. I made a promise to you and your gods, Tusk. I keep my promises.”

Tusk nodded his head. “This is good. In the morning, I will show you how to reach Durhallem.”

“You’ll show me?” His voice broke a second time. “Are you not coming with me?”

Tusks eyes looked at him hard, their light burning. “No one goes before Durhallem who does not walk alone. That is Durhallem’s demand.”

Tusk gave him an amiable thump on the arm. Andover managed to keep his balance, but it was a close call.

A moment later the King was moving away, heading for one of the fires and calling out cheerfully in his own language. Andover understood a few words of the greeting, but only enough to feel embarrassed that he had not yet learned more.

Of course he had been learning other things.

“Tusk!” He called out before he could let himself think too much.

The King turned to look at him. He did not walk back and it was clear that if Andover wished to speak discretely it would be he who did the walking.

Instead he called out, “Are our people at war?”

Tusk looked at him for several heartbeats and nodded. “We are at war. Fellein has attacked us. You will be asked to defend that attack before the kings of the Sa’ba Taalor.”

Oh yes. His heart hammered away in his chest and he nodded. “When?”

“First you meet the Gods of the Forges. Then you answer to their kings.” Tusk spread his arms wide in a gesture that almost looked like he wanted to embrace. Only the fact that he’d seen the gesture before let Andover know the move was the equivalent of a shrug. “You will be given the chance to prepare.”

“Can I speak to my people?”

“You have agreed to be here. Unless they send you a message, no.”

Andover nodded again and Tusk started walking. This time he didn’t try to get the King’s attention again.

Andover shook his head. He’d rather hoped to know the love of a woman before he died. That seemed less likely all the time.

Ten

The Krous family was powerful, to be modest. There was remarkably little that even the lowliest members of the family wanted for. Even the bastard children of Towdra Krous had more money than most could conceive of, and it is fair to say that Towdra cared little for any of his offspring, legitimate or otherwise.

Most of the family was quite content to stay where they were, fully aware that anything they desired was theirs so long as they behaved themselves.

There are always exceptions. Towdra himself was fine with the current situation. He and his great-niece got along well enough; though there were many members of the family who believed he felt otherwise, Nachia sitting on the throne suited his purposes.

Laister Krous was not as content. He believed that he was better suited for the throne, that his long years of making connections and preparing the way for his eventual accession should have paid off already. For him, Nachia was a nuisance and a problem. The only purpose the girl could have served in his eyes would have been as a good bartering tool to the appropriate parties. Want a country to behave? Offer them a fine looking woman to serve as obedient wife and mother of royal children and call it done. But Nachia on the throne was offensive to his sensibilities.

She was now on the throne and that was a problem, but not one that couldn’t be surmounted with the appropriate actions.

It was for that reason that the men were sitting together in a small tavern called the Adze and Axe just outside of Freeholdt. A night’s hard ride would have him back in Tyrne and no one the wiser and he had chosen his timing flawlessly. The sorcerer was gone on one of his very rare excursions from the castle. Nachia herself was too busy looking into the possibilities of war – or perhaps pleasuring herself with her new general, who could say? – to notice his absence. Brolley was, of all places, with Desh Krohan on his little search for answers to what had happened to the Roathians. The boy was hardly an issue in any event, especially after his public humiliation at the hands of the barbarians Pathra had invited to visit from the Blasted Lands. Since then, Brolley seldom let himself be seen in public. Most likely it was Nachia keeping him out of harm’s way. She was an overprotective sibling and Brolley needed all the protection he could find. Danieca was staying well away from everything ever since she’d tried confronting Desh Krohan. Whatever the man had said to her was enough to convince her to keep herself to herself for the present time, but Laister already knew where she stood on matters. She was with him.

The rest of the Krous family was a herd of simpletons as far as Laister was concerned. They would follow whoever was leading and for the moment that meant they obeyed the whims and desires of Nachia.

The men in the room with him were not as loyal or as easily swayed. They required hard coin for their devotion and a great deal of it. Laister himself was not at the table where the negotiations were taking place. He left the particulars to Losla Foster, his personal assistant. Losla was a quiet man with a quiet way about him. Most everyone who met him forgot he was even there, which was exactly why he was so very successful in his endeavors. Losla sat in the shadows of the tavern’s western corner and spoke softly to men who were far easier to remember and much more likely to cut a throat. They were exactly as hungry for money as they appeared, and they looked to be starving for the stuff.

There were four of them, all from the east. It seemed all the best mercenaries came from the east, normally from Elda or even farther away. Laister did not listen to the negotiations. Instead he concentrated on his surroundings and seeing everyone in the room. There were the five men concentrating on their shadowy business. There was the fat sow of a tavern keeper’s wife, a woman who had long since moved from buxom to unpleasant, though at the right angles a ghost of her old beauty lingered. There was the tavern keeper himself who was even larger but had an infectious smile and a pleasant attitude. The two of them made sure customers were happy and otherwise stayed out of the way. There were three others in the place: two road-weary men who looked like they would be finishing their meals and then taking rooms upstairs, and a woman who might or might not have been an aging whore. She was attractive despite her peasant’s clothes and her common features, but old enough that Laister wouldn’t bother even if he were so inclined. Whatever the case, she paid him no attention and, aside from noting her presence, he returned the favor.

The biggest danger, in other words, was that Laister would grow bored enough to find the whore an interesting notion.

Losla saved him from that fate by nodding and rising from the table. The men with him did nothing to indicate that they much cared one way or the other and Losla left the tavern after gathering his cloak and saying a few words to the tavern keeper.

Laister would wait a few minutes before meeting him outside. He had no desire to be connected with anyone in the place. The inquisitors tended to investigate when dignitaries died and Laister had already endured enough polite questions regarding Pathra’s death. They were always polite when dealing with the Krouses. It was in the best interests of everyone to avoid offending the Imperial Family.

When the tavern’s owner started talking with the men Losla had spoken with – nothing untoward, merely pleasant chatting as he cleared away a few emptied mugs – Laister slipped outside.

It was time.

He met up with Losla on the road back to Tyrne, riding in the darkness with relative ease. If he could say nothing else for Pathra, he could agree that his dead cousin had managed to keep the roads well tended.

Laister asked, “The situation has been handled?”

Losla nodded his head, looking away from the road ahead long enough to eye the surrounding area for possible bandits. They rode at night and that meant a certain element of danger.

“They are good at what they do. Your cousin will be dead soon enough.”

Laister shook his head. “Pity. I always rather liked Nachia. I just don’t see her as the sort who should run an Empire.”

“She’s a lovely girl. I made them promise she’ll feel no pain.”

“Poison?”

“Likely. Their leader is a man I’ve dealt with before. He does excellent work.”

“Have you had a lot of people poisoned before, Losla?” He already knew the answer, of course. The man had worked for him for over fifteen years.

“Me? Hardly. I’m just a facilitator. All I do is answer correspondences and occasionally make certain appointments are kept.”

“Must be hard work.”

Losla smiled. “My employer can be demanding from time to time, but he pays well enough.”

Laister snorted. Losla was paid handsomely indeed. He kept his mouth closed and he handled everything Laister did not want to handle. For that reason he was worth every coin he earned.

“When will it happen?”

“Your cousin has been very good about letting herself be seen. Probably the next time she goes out in public.” The light from the tavern grew brighter, highlighting the side of Losla’s face and the back of his head.

Laister looked, wondering for a moment if the hired cutthroats had decided the offer of coin would be better handled as a reward for turning in the men who planned to kill the Empress. Stranger things had happened, true enough, but neither Laister nor Losla were foolish about these things. They were wise enough not to pay much in advance, only enough to whet appetites.

There were no lanterns following them, nor men on horses charging to find the traitors. Instead, the tavern was burning, the roof of the place fully aflame and lighting the night sky.

“Gods, man, what happened?” Laister’s words were out before he even thought about it.

Losla looked over his shoulder and frowned. “Perhaps they decided it best not to leave witnesses. Dead tongues cannot tell secrets.”

Laister nodded his head. Sometimes innocent people had to die in order to accomplish goals. He did not have to like it, merely to accept the fact of it. He’d always liked Nachia well enough. She was one of his favorite relatives, but she stood in the way and had to be removed as an obstacle. The burning tavern merely proved a proper reminder of that fact.

As he looked back toward the road, the roof of the Adze and Axe collapsed in on itself with a faint groan, and a gout of fire danced toward the Great Star.

Without another word, the men moved toward home. The ride would be a long one and the night would hide their secrets.

Swech shook her head and took the closest horse. She did not like the animals, but she could ride them well enough. Her body knew how, just as it understood the secrets of the face she hid behind.

She had listened to the fools whispering their plans of murder and waited until the men paying them left the tavern and then she had done as Paedle told her she must. The mercenaries died as they lived, choking on the poisons she slipped onto their drinks and food.

The tavern keeper looked at the dying men and opened his mouth to scream. Swech ran her blade across his throat before he could make a noise and then buried the same knife in his wife’s heart. The other woman was heavy and dropped with a thump. The last two men had been sleeping, but at the sound of the tavern keepers’ bodies hitting the floorboards of the place they awoke.

Swech broke their necks as quickly as she could and then started away from the tavern.

When she heard the sounds of someone above her whispering, she merely shook her head and carefully climbed the stairs. There were four rooms. Two of them were empty. One of the occupied rooms held a sleeping man who kept one hand on his sword. His death was fast enough to prevent him drawing the blade from its scabbard. The last room held the whisperers: two lovers who knew nothing of the murders below and merely spoke softly to each other.

They died as one, the borrowed sword cutting through both hearts in one stroke.

After that, setting the fire took only a moment.

Sometimes the best way to win a war required the deaths of thousands of soldiers. Other occasions required the deaths of innocents who knew nothing of the war. Whatever the case, Swech was ready to do what was required of her to show her gods that she was loyal and worthy of their trust.

For the present time the Daxar Taalor wanted Nachia Krous kept safe.

Swech would see to it as surely as she had seen to the death of the previous Emperor.

“That’s just the problem. Nothing was supposed to be out there.” Jeron gestured at the old maps, which had likely been hanging in his walls for longer than he could remember, and then at the new maps, copies carefully drawn out and given to him only a few days earlier by Goriah herself. The main difference was simply that a large portion of the area left blank previously had been expanded as a result of meeting the Sa’ba Taalor.

Goriah shrugged. “Well, we now know differently. Now we need to know what is out there and you’re one of the very best at scrying. Desh needs you to do this.”

“First Desh needs my knowledge of history and now he needs me to scry.”

Goriah let out a low chuckle. “You’re the one constantly telling me and the Sisters that you are a man of many talents. Though to be fair you normally tell us separately.”

The man had the decency to blush a bit as he smiled. “You win. I’ll make an effort.”

“We need to know what’s north of the range as well. We need to know whatever you can find.”

“If it were easy we’d have mapped the entire thing out centuries ago.”

“If it were easy, Jeron, Desh would have asked a lesser sorcerer to handle the task.” A little flattery often went a very long way; a lesson Goriah had learned a lifetime earlier.

“Several of us, those adept at the Sooth, believe there are dangers in Tyrne.”

Goriah nodded. Desh believes so, too. Right now he’s actually gone out to investigate the possible causes.”

“He actually left the Summer Palace?” Jeron leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I thought the walls there too jealous to ever let him escape.”

Several of the others, who had been remarkably quiet during the exchange, added their laughter to Goriah’s. Most of them knew Desh Krohan well enough to understand how seldom he left the side of the ruler.

“Given the gravity of the situation, Desh is making an exception.” Her smile quickly hardened into a sterner expression. “Still, we must do what we can here to prepare for the challenges coming our way. If they do listen and do leave Tyrne, a great number of people will come this way.” She shook her head. “Most of them, really. We need to start preparations for taking in, well, thousands and thousands of people.”

“This is called the City of Wonders for a reason, Goriah, as well you know.”

“Of course.”

She had not been alive then, though both Jeron and Desh Krohan had. Still, she’d heard the stories. Disasters happen. They are inevitable. Great storms batter shorelines, the earth itself shrugs and the land changes shape. Old Canhoon, the original and still formal capital of the Empire, ran across a disaster once upon a time. The earthquake caused a rip in the ground and a portion of the city had fallen away into that unexpected chasm before the land closed shut around it. No one was certain exactly how many were lost, but the number was well above a thousand. Foolish people made their share of mistakes along the way and fires blossomed in the rest of the city.

Canhoon trembled and burned, many of the structures collapsed, burying still more people. Back in those days the people of the Empire had tried raising a city that towered all the way to the clouds. After the Great Cataclysm, Canhoon was the largest city in the known world, second only to the memory of Korwa.

The city was old, but the Empire was new. The wounds on the face of the world were still fresh and sometimes bleeding and the nations around the Fellein Empire still fought against the notion that one ruler could make the world a better place. Kings had sent armies to break the crown and sunder the Empire. They’d have succeeded, too, if not for the wizards.

The Empress, she could not remember which one of the Krouses it was, had demanded the help of the sorcerers. In exchange for that assistance, Desh Krohan had demanded the title of First Advisor, a role he had already been handling but without any formal compensation or recognition. The Empress agreed.

Desh Krohan, Jeron and their peers had been the ones who’d stopped the fires and reclaimed the land. The City of Wonders had risen from the flames and ashes, from the desolation of most of the city. The buildings had grown forth from the ground. The streets paved themselves. The great walls that still stood today had been raised in a moment, and the Silent Army had stood against any who dared attempt an attack.

The Silent Army was long gone to dust, but their sacrifices held a nation together, as surely as the sight of the City of Wonders rising from the flames and ruination had cowed many an attacker and brought out the fiercest determination from the people of Canhoon.

That had been a very long time ago, however, and there were not so many of the sorcerers left these days. The cost of raising Canhoon had been high indeed and few were willing to endure that sort of sacrifice twice in their lifetimes.

Jeron looked down at the table before him, his eyes lost in the memories of what had gone before. Goriah knew the look well enough. She saw the same expression on Desh’s face when he thought no one was paying attention.

“Still, Jeron, perhaps it would be best if we did all we could before having to summon that sort of power again, yes?”

He chewed at his lip for a moment and nodded. “Indeed. Most decidedly. Let’s see what can be done. I’ll have Seshu and Corin look into it.” He turned his head to the two he’d named. Seshu nodded her head and rose from her seat with a tight smile. Corin nodded but did not rise. He would go at his own speed and remarkably little would ever change that.

“So, while we’re all together, have any of you ever heard of the Mounds?” Goriah pointed at the new map and the odd symbols marking the place the Sa’ba Taalor claimed was forbidden by their gods.

Seshu looked over her shoulder and stopped at the doorway. She’d just been ready to cross through. Like the rest, she stared at the point on the map of the Blasted Lands.

When Seshu spoke her voice was hesitant. “It’s impossible to say for certain, of course, but by the map’s size, I could guess that it is close to the center of the Blasted Lands. If that is the case, if that is true and the lands settled as quickly as Desh believes, these Mounds you speak of could be over the site of Korwa.”

Goriah nodded. “Desh said something similar.”

Jeron sighed. “Korwa was destroyed. We know that. The land itself was shattered. Nothing could have survived that sort of devastation.”

Goriah looked to the man and then lowered her head. “You are the expert, Jeron. That’s one of the reasons I was sent here, to check with you. If not Korwa, then what?”

“Who’s to say? These Sa’ba Taalor have their own gods. Perhaps they have their own demons as well.”

Corin spoke up, which was a rare enough event that Jeron actually flinched at the unexpected noise. “These gods of theirs. Has anyone spoken with the temples and churches here to see if there is any connection?”

Goriah shook her head.

“I’ve certainly not the time, but might I suggest that someone do that very thing? Gods have power.” Jeron gestured with one hand in a sign that maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. Contrary to his words. “That is the claim I’ve heard all my life at least. Perhaps it’s time someone found out if there is truth to the claim.”

“I’ll mention it to Desh. He might have a few notions.” Goriah smiled. “And I must be on my way. I have to find him and that’s going to take a bit of time. Thank you, all of you. There’s much too much happening of late to leave anyone comfortable.”

Corin made a rude noise they all knew was his way of agreeing. The rest said their goodbyes.

“This place is horrid.” Brolley Krous’s voice was small. He stood only five feet away from Desh Krohan but from that distance he sounded almost like a child.

Desh turned back to look at the young man. “It is horrid. There were people here, Brolley. There was a town. And now?” He reached down and grabbed a handful of ruined earth. The black dust and ash mingled with the soil and he let it drift from his fingers. “Perhaps we will be fortunate and plants will grow here again someday.”

There were ruins all around them. It had been a very long time since Desh had been to Roathes, but he doubted much had changed until recently. The houses were built to withstand rough storms and harsh gale-force winds. They should have taken anything thrown their way, but the fires had burned them down to skeletal remains.

“How did this happen?” Brolley shook his head and then brushed his thick hair back with his fingers. A trail of soot ran along his brow as a reminder of his actions.

“The Guntha Islands are gone, Brolley. They’ve been destroyed by that volcano. But that’s not what did this.” He pointed to the ground and the deep tracks that still showed in a few spots where the wind had not scoured them away. There were footprints, to be sure, human enough in size. There were also massive paw prints as well, treads with heavy claws that made deep impressions.

“The winds brought a lot of this ash, but they didn’t bring these marks. Others have been here. Most likely the Sa’ba Taalor.”

Brolley shook his head, and for a moment he seemed younger still, and then his face hardened back into a man’s angered expression. “Haven’t they done enough?”

“We’ve been preparing for war, Brolley. You know that. This is the first of many steps, I suspect. But we need proof.”

“What more do we need?” The horror in the boy’s voice pleased Desh, but he kept that fact to himself. Not that long ago, Brolley had been willing to get himself killed over a comment about the Sa’Ba Taalor. His actions had nearly led to a war by themselves. That had been the first step in the boy becoming a man. Apparently that particular transformation was continuing apace.

“A paw print that might be from a trained bear is not enough.”

“Never seen a bear that size. Have you?”

“Oh, yes. They can be very large. Most of what you’ve seen have been cubs.” He scowled. “Beastly habit, training bears to be pets. Never goes well.” The fact that Brolley had once ranted and screamed for weeks about wanting a pet bear was not lost on Desh. Now and then he felt a need to remind the Imperial Family of their occasional lapses in judgment.

“Where are all the people, Desh?”

“Gone. I suspect a lot of them fled when the clouds came. We certainly saw enough on our way down here.” Which was the truth. Nearly every town they’d passed had been inundated with families that had fled the ash and deadly winds from the ocean. A good number of the people travelling had suffered from deep, wet coughs and ragged breathing, a sign that they were suffered from inhaling too much of the poisonous fumes.

“Aye, we did. But not enough.” Brolley shook his head. “Roathes was a large kingdom with a lot of people. Where would the rest have gone?”

“That’s what we’re examining here.” Desh sighed. “If we are lucky we will discover that a lot of people fled to the south and east.”

“And if we are not?”

“Then the Roathians have gone the way of the Guntha, and the lovely Lanaie is the Queen of a dead people.” Brolley’s brow grew stony indeed at that notion. He was as infatuated with Lanaie as Pathra had been, but not old enough to know it was merely infatuation. That was why he’d asked to come along on this journey, and why Desh had agreed. The others, the dozen soldiers standing in the distance, were there solely to appease Nachia’s need to protect her loved ones.

“Barbarians.” Brolley’s lip curled in disgust.

“Barbarians? Hardly. They’ve lived in an area where few could hope to survive. The Sa’ba Taalor are violent, yes, but not barbarians. Warriors. Survivors. And currently they are our enemies, if I am right.”

Brolley said nothing to that. Instead he stared out at the black waters and the black sky.

Desh shook his head. The air smelled of sulfur and worse, and the breeze from the waters was hotter than it should have been. That damned mountain growing in the distance was the culprit, of course.

“We have to move on.”

“No. I think we have our evidence.” Brolley sounded very sure of himself, sure enough that Desh turned to see what he was speaking about.

The woman stood exactly two arm lengths away from the Empress’s brother, her arms at her sides, within easy reach of her weapons.

Desh Krohan had not heard her approaching, had not seen her, and for him that was a very rare thing indeed.

That she was Sa’ba Taalor was a given. Her skin would have given her away, the light gray color of it, so close to the ash that painted the ground. Her attire would have given her away as easily: the leather pants, the vest, the insane number of knives. The veil over her face. The eyes that glowed even in the light of the sun.

“You are the wizard, Desh Krohan.” It wasn't a question.

Desh nodded his head and wondered if his cloak would stop whatever the woman intended to throw his way.

“This is for you.” She tossed a metal tube at his feet. The dust kicked up when it landed. He watched the object as it rolled to a stop at the edge of his robe and when he looked back up the woman stood directly behind Brolley. “Read it. I will be here waiting for your response.”

He nodded his head silently and lifted the container. He wasn’t at all worried about poison or being attacked. If they’d wanted him dead he would have already achieved that state. The fact that the woman – by her stature he guessed “child” more accurate; she was likely no older that Brolley – had virtually manifested from nowhere made it clear that she could have killed him at any point. Even now the soldiers in the distance were just realizing that there was a problem. He could hear their cries of shock.

Desh held up a hand to warn them against any foolish actions. Despite their surprise, they listened. He could see the man in charge – damned if he could remember a name – pacing like a caged animal. No one liked to be caught completely unaware.

Desh read the scroll inside quickly. The note was five simple words: Do You Wish To Parley?

“Yes. Yes we do.”

The girl nodded. He’d seen her before, he was sure of it. “When?”

“Choose a time and a place. We will meet for the parley.” He kept his voice as calm as he could manage. “What happened to the people in this town?”

“King Tuskandru was attacked by your soldiers.” Her voice was calm. “The Council of Kings felt a message needed to be delivered.”

“I would imagine I’d have been just as happy with a note on the subject.” He tossed the tube back to the ground to make his point.

The girl nodded. “Some messages need to be made more clearly.”

“When and where do your kings wish to arrange a parley?”

“What your people call the Temmis Pass will do. Ten days from now, when the sun rises.”

“How many people from each side?”

The girl tilted her head, considering. “As many as you like. This will be a discussion of peace.”

Desh’s eyes looked around a second time, trying to understand how the girl had seemingly manifested from nowhere. It took a moment, but finally he saw the marks in the ash-painted sand. “What if we had attacked you instead of agreeing to parley? What then?”

“I would have lived or I would have died and the Daxar Taalor would have had their answer either way.” She slid back from Brolley, who, to his credit, did not try to reach for his sword. Desh had half expected the boy to try to defend his honor.

“Ten days from now. Until then we are at a peace?”

“Until then.” She spread her hands out from her sides and bowed in formal accord.

Desh returned the bow.

A moment later she turned and walked away, heading toward the Blasted Lands. It would take her longer than ten days to get home and that in and of itself told him more than he had known before.

One of the soldiers looked as if he might go after her, but the commander said something from too far away for Desh to hear and the fool stopped. Good. That was good. He had no particular desire to kill a soldier who was only trying to do his duty.

Brolley took a step toward him and then shivered as quietly as he could. “By the gods where did she come from?”

Desh pointed to the marks in the soil. “She was waiting here.”

“What?”

“She was waiting here. Waiting for us or for someone else, I’m not completely certain. But she was waiting. She rested under the sand.”

Brolley walked over to the indent and shook his head, his face showing clearly his surprise at the notion. “For how long?”

“Who can say? Long enough to surprise us and we’ve been here for a few hours.”

Brolley looked after the retreating figure. “Jost. I think her name is Jost.”

“You’re right. I couldn’t think of her name to save my life.”

“So they want peace?”

Desh looked at the Empress’s brother and shook his head. “It’s hard to say what they want. Peace? Possibly. Or they might be hoping to find us in a vulnerable position and attack then.”

“Who will handle the parley?”

“That is for your sister to decide. And Merros Dulver as well.”

Neither of the men said much more as they headed for their horses. They had the answer to what had happened in Roathes. They had all the answer they needed for the moment.

And they had new questions.

“What will happen in the meantime, Desh?”

Desh Krohan looked out at the bleak sea of ash and dead fish and shook his head. “I have hopes to accomplish several impossible tasks.”

Danaher spread out before the Pilgrim, a collection of towns that had grown into one city over the course of centuries. The last time he had been in the area, the towns that had become a city had been little more than villages. Times had changed and for the better it seemed.

Still, looks could be deceiving.

He walked into Danaher without event, and only a few people noticed him at all. He had changed his clothes since awakening and his flesh had taken on a more healthy color.

Little remained of the towns he knew from long ago. Certain buildings, the way roads cut between two hills here or there. Mostly nothing was the same, but there were always exceptions. Near the lake’s edge a rough wall – Danaher’s Wall, actually, where the great man had first settled the area and decided to raise his family – ran for a quarter of a mile, holding back the earth that had, in distant times, been soft and prone to collapse. The roots of trees had long since hardened the earth’s grip and the tendency to slough away was a thing of the past, but the wall remained, mostly intact. The Pilgrim walked the length of the wall and occasionally let his fingertips trace the rough stone. He followed the length of Danaher’s wall to the temple of Plith. The path was clear of weeds and the stones placed for walking the length were worn from generations of feet.

Plith was the God of the Harvest, who aided the farmers in their efforts and, in her wilder days, had also been known to drive men wild with lust. In those times, she’d been portrayed as a beautiful woman with harsh features and vast antlers. The statue he saw of her now was a different thing entirely. There was a statue of a woman covered in vines instead of the lusty figure he recalled so well. He suspected there were changes in more than the way she was portrayed.

He would find out soon enough.

There were many people who spent lifetimes seeking to better understand the gods and those who wished answers often went to the priests and priestesses to get them. That was exactly what the Pilgrim did.

The temple itself was in fair shape. The original building had been expanded several times to make room for more worshippers, as was to be expected when a small personal temple became the center for something larger and far more formal.

Danaher had been a good man. He had also been an excellent leader of men. The temple was only one of his legacies.

The interior of the temple was clean and warm, inviting, as it should have been. Plith was not an angry god, but a generous one. Did she not offer of herself to strangers? Did she not help make the most meager of crops enough to allow a family to thrive? Had she not offered herself to the people of this region?

His presence did not go unnoticed. The man who approached him was smiling as he stepped toward the Pilgrim. “Welcome. Well met.” The man held his hands together, cupped as if to accept water from a fountain. Puzzled by the gesture, the Pilgrim nonetheless returned it.

“How can we help you, my son?” The priest’s voice was warm and soft. His eyes shone wetly in the well-lit temple.

“I would speak with Plith.” The Pilgrim bowed his head in the old ways, showing his respect.

The priest’s face worked in a strange way. “She is not here, of course.”

“Where else would she be?”

“Well, Plith is among the stars with the other gods, looking down upon us all.”

The Pilgrim’s mouth cut into a harsh line. “Where in all the teachings does it say that Plith resides among the stars?”

Again the man seemed puzzled by his words, as if the Pilgrim was speaking in a language that seemed almost like one that made sense, but only sounded close to right.

“It is common knowledge.”

The Pilgrim closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them after waiting for patience in the darkness of his head. “No. It is not. ‘Plith may be found in her temples and in the great woods and in the fields when the harvest time has come.’ This is her temple and I would speak with Plith.”

“Plith resides among the stars, with the other gods. There is nothing that I can do to make her show herself in this place if she is not already here.”

The Pilgrim took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Then you are not a priest of Plith and you should not be here.”

“I am a priest of Plith, my son. I am the First Priest of Plith. The teachings of Fornuto and Polemea reside within this temple.” The priest’s voice had taken on an edge and his eyes looked past the Pilgrim, seeking, perhaps someone to assist him.

“Fornuto was second to Treidin and Polemea was a follower of Tyrea, not of Plith.”

“You are mistaken, my son.” The priest now spoke with a definite edge to his tone.

“No. I am not.” The Pilgrim’s hand lashed out, striking the priest in the throat. The priest staggered back and hit the wall, coughing, trying to understand exactly what had happened, his hands probing the damage.

The Pilgrim walked forward and held the priest’s shoulders, looking into the man’s panicked eyes.

“I would speak with Plith. Now.”

From so very far away, he heard the voice of Plith. It was a faint sound, barely above a whisper as it came from the mouth of the priest.

The Pilgrim listened as best he could to the voice that should have been so very much clearer.

This was the first of his gods whom he sought to speak with. Plith would not be the last.

Eleven

After weeks of living on little more than scraps and dried goods, the feast was amazing. The meals he’d enjoyed in the palace in Tyrne had been extravagant, but they had also been terrifying things, with endless runs of cutlery and odd bowls and goblets for almost everything. True, most of the Sa’ba Taalor had ignored those sundry items, but Andover hadn’t felt quite like he could, and so he spent most of each meal with others trying to imitate what item should be used with which bite of his meals.

This was different. There was a great deal of fresh food – roasted meats, vegetables, raw and cooked alike, and several different breads – and the only rule seemed to be to eat until you could barely move.

Andover had no problem with that notion. He ate a great deal and enjoyed every mouthful.

And when it was done there was only one speech. King Tuskandru stood where he had been sitting and raised one hand for silence. When most of the people were paying attention, he simply said, “The gods are generous today. Eat and celebrate that generosity.” Had he not known better, Andover would have thought that the most rousing speech he’d ever heard by the way the people around him reacted. They roared approval and stomped their feet and drank their wine. And through it all Andover enjoyed his food with the gusto of a condemned man. He drank three glasses of the sweet wine he was offered and leaned back against a stone that had obviously been set where it was for the purpose of leaning against. There was no furniture, as such, but there were many spots like the one where he found himself, where one could settle against the stone and enjoy the view.

The air had cooled substantially, but he wrapped himself in his cloak. He looked at the stars above through their thin veil of clouds and down into the valley below. A good ways off, he could once again see the lights that burned near the lake. There were more than there had been before. A lot more. Enough to make him wonder if there was a city down there that he had somehow missed before.

Delil sat down beside him, sort of falling into a cross-legged puddle of mellow intoxication. “You should be celebrating more, Andover Lashk.” She considered him for a moment and then took a drink from her flask, moving her veil out of the way and once again revealing a hint of a strong chin and jaw line.

“I’ve eaten nearly my own weight in food, and I’m drunk.” He waved a hand in her direction and smiled. She was a welcome sight after being surrounded by strangers for the last few hours. Drask had already left, waving one time before he climbed on his mount and the beast charged down the steep slope to the pass. Bromt – never the most talkative of souls – had found a group of friends and gotten first drunk, and then rowdy. He wasn't quite sure how it had turned out but the last he’d seen of the man there had been a fight and at least one of the participants had been bleeding rather badly. Tusk was… well, Tusk was Tusk. That was all there was to it. And most of the others looked at Andover as a curiosity. A few spoke to him and a few did not.

He pointed to a man with only one arm and leaned toward Delil. “Why does he not have a metal hand like mine?”

Delil looked back at him and then touched his hand, her thumb caressing in circles over the palm, while her fingers wrapped into his. “The Daxar Taalor do not merely give away replacements. If they, did most of the people in this valley would be covered with metal. Metal skin, metal eyes, metal ears and noses.” Her voice was low and soft and calm and soothed him. “Your hands are a blessing from Truska-Pren, who decided for whatever reason that you should be blessed. You are an exception. You were given your hands and then told to earn them. Most times, if someone wishes a replacement for what they have lost, they must prove their worth. If they are worthy they will receive the blessings of the gods.”

For a moment he considered his hands and then thought how odd a man would surely look with an iron ear. “They can replace ears?”

Delil laughed. “I suppose they could though I have never seen a metal ear on the side of a head. Mostly if a replacement is made it is for a hand or a leg. On a few occasions I have heard of faces being replaced.”

“Faces?” He looked at her and his vision swam for a moment. He would not have any more wine. He had learned a long time ago that too much would leave him hating his existence the next morning. There was also the chance that he would say something foolish and get himself killed, so best to stop before his tongue talked without his consent.

“One of the Kings in Lead once had most of her face destroyed in a battle. She won the fight, but it cost her dearly. Wheklam granted her a new face. She was fearsome in combat.”

“No doubt.” He nodded his head and then closed his eyes for a moment. The world finally stopped wobbling. “I’m to meet a god tomorrow, Delil.” His voice was tiny when he spoke.

“That is why you should be celebrating, Andover Lashk. It is a great honor to meet one of the Daxar Taalor.”

“What does one say to a god? How does one behave?”

“You answer the questions of the god. You behave with respect.” She paused a moment. “Treat the gods as you would treat your parents. With respect and the knowledge that they can punish you and there is nothing you can do to stop that punishment.”

“So it’s all right that I’m scared?”

Her laugh came again and she nodded. He watched the way her hair curled and bounced along with her nodding face. “It is probably best to be scared. But I would also try not to let it show too much.”

“All I know is that I’m supposed to climb up there,” he waved in the direction of the top of the mountain, which seemed roughly half the distance to the Great Star from where they were. “And then I am supposed to present myself to Durhallem and offer my thanks.”

She nodded. “Every person you see here has done the same. All but the children. They have not yet earned the right to see the faces of the gods.”

“Have I earned the right?” He wasn't sure, and that was a large portion of his doubt.

“No. And yes.” She shrugged. “You have not done all that most have to do to be presented to the gods. But you are also not from here and born of the Sa’ba Taalor. You are an exception that was made by the gods for the reasons they deem necessary. If you were not worthy, you would not be given the chance.”

“What did you do to earn the right?”

Delil rolled her head to the side and considered him for a moment. Her eyes looked at his face and then at his body, her thumb continued to massage the palm of his hand. “I have lived and learned as the Daxar Taalor have asked, Andover. They told me to learn their ways and I did.”

“What happens to those who fail, Delil?”

“Are you afraid of failing, Andover?” She had not answered his question. He only realized that much later. As with the lessons she had taught him, when she defended against his mad swings with his hammer or with his fists, she managed to evade and avoid rather than risk being hit.

“I am very afraid, yes.”

She moved, and a moment later Delil was on top of him, her weight settled in his lap, her eyes looking into his, her hands holding both of his, fingers intertwined and palms pressed together.

Her lips pressed to his ear, the thin fabric of the veil tickling as she spoke softly. “So I will give you other things to think about for this night.” He had no doubt at all what she was speaking of. He had never been with a woman, had never so much as kissed a girl, though he had often dreamed of the notion.

Somehow they rose from the ground. Somehow they found a private area, in the shadows, away from the celebrating crowds.

After that there was pleasure, and a little pain. There were awkward gropings and eventually there were matched motions and the most amazing, wondrous heat to counter the night’s chill.

He did not think of Tega. He thought only of the woman he was with as his lips and fingers traced the scars on her flesh. He studied her as much as she would allow, knowing he could have spent an eternity learning the secrets of her form.

Andover was glad he had only had three cups of wine. More and he would not have remembered as much as he did of that night, and he never wanted to forget a moment of it as long as he lived.

Tega stood in the relative calm and looked at the area around them in wonder.

They’d made the Mounds with almost no additional troubles, but had decided to wait until after the latest storm before trying to find access to the frozen towers. It was a wise choice as just after the sun set and brought an even greater darkness, the weather soured and grew violent again.

The ground was locked under a sheath of ice. Opening the doors of the wagon had been a challenge and had involved the men using a wood axe to shatter the ice layers around the entrance before she could finally be freed.

The spokes of the wagon wheels were under so much ice that there were no longer any spaces between them. The entire wheel was coated in ice an inch thick.

Only a few feet away, the tent that the men had slept in was surrounded by a much thinner crust of frozen precipitation, but long sheets and shattered trails of the stuff lay all around it: signs that they’d been busy clearing the ice through the night.

For the moment, the storms were done, but they lost time getting free from the worst remains of their last encounter.

All of which paled when she considered the structures before them.

The Mounds.

They were not mountains, to be sure, but the spires and odd growths that thrust from the ground were monstrous in scale and even hidden they were unsettling.

They were layered by ice as well, but the thickness was far more than an inch. The Mounds were buried within ice and dirt and ash that had accumulated to a depth Tega doubted could be cleared by a single axe. More likely the blade would break before the frozen caul yielded.

Darus Leeds looked at her and kicked at the ice. “How are we supposed to get past this?”

Tega looked back at him and shook her head. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“What you can do?” He was frowning as he said it.

“I’m the apprentice to Desh Krohan. I have been taught a few things.”

The man’s eyes grew wide as she spoke. He’d forgotten why she was there, apparently.

Tega climbed back into her trailer with a sigh and closed the door. Beyond it, she heard Darus talking to the other men. “Where is she going? We have to figure this out.”

One of them responded, “She has her ways. We have ours. Grab your axes, or a pick if you brought one. Does that sound right to you, Vonders?”

Vonders replied, “The gods of fortune are with you, my fellows. I happen to have several fine tools for just such purposes.”

His words were met with grumbles. Tega allowed herself a smile and went in to get her supplies.

She could not leave. That would be foolish this far into the search, but she could consult with Desh or one of the Sisters. She sorted through her supplies for the right ingredients and then set about making her preparations.

Ten minutes later Tega fell back on her cot and closed her eyes. Moments after that, she was where she needed to be.

Desh!

The man looked at her and smiled, held out an arm for her to land on his wrist. He was not in the castle, but riding slowly along a well paved road, Brolley Krous next to him. Brolley seemed rather surprised to see her. He should have been. Not every day that a storm crow settled on the wrist of a wizard.

“What are you doing here?” Desh’s voice was warm and he had a smile on his face.

She told him quickly of the Mounds, her eye locked on his to let him understand her words. She could not speak, of course, as she was not truly there. She was back in the camp and resting on her cot.

“Well, I certainly can’t come to you right now, Tega. I’m afraid it’ll have to be you. But if you think you’re up to the task I have little doubt you can manage it. Just be careful. And prepare yourself. You’ll be very tired when it’s done.”

She bobbed her head up and down a few times. The feeling was perfectly natural, as natural as the feathers on her wings and the claws at the ends of her talons.

I’ll do my best, Desh.

“Do better than that. You have the knowledge and the skills. You just have to be patient. Don’t rush.” He paused a moment and then, “Have they been behaving themselves?”

Perfect gentlemen the lot of them.

“You are a bad liar. If they misbehave too much, call on me and I will resolve the matter.”

She bobbed her head one more time and then launched herself into the air, her wings flapping madly to get the altitude she needed.

The bird went left, her mind went right. A few moments later she was opening her eyes and back in the cot, the cold seeping through to her bones.

She climbed from the wagon and looked to where the men had been hacking at the ice. They had cleared a surprising amount, but the ice must have been nearly as hard as steel, by the way they were attacking it.

Tega took a few deep breaths. “You should rest yourselves for a few minutes.”

Nolan March looked at her for a moment, his dark eyes regarding her. He was a fine looking man, but the way he looked at her was not what she expected. Most men tended to examine her physique and went out of their way to smile for her. He did not seem to care.

Finally he nodded and stepped back, gesturing for the others to do the same. They did not take much convincing.

Tega walked over to the spot where they had been digging. The ground here was not jagged and rough but unsettlingly smooth. The ice layer had been hacked and brutalized and shattered by their work, but the surface below that murky layer had a look that was both organic and almost deliberate. Once, long and ago, the ground here had been boiling with heat and the spot where they chose to dig looked as if it might have hidden depths. She could see a darkness that ran low and deep into the earth there.

A tunnel, perhaps, or merely a pocket where air escaped as the ground here re-solidified millennia ago. Whatever the case, it seemed a good spot to try digging. If it was an entrance into the area forbidden by the Daxar Taalor all the better, but at the very least it might be a shelter for them should another storm come.

“You chose an excellent spot.”

Vonders Orly nodded his thanks. “The only spot that looked like a possibility. Most of the other areas are too… jagged.”

She nodded. There was little doubt in her mind that the man had looked around. His eyes were constantly scanning the ground and seeking, always seeking. His family was familiar with the Blasted Lands, had scavenged there before. She had already seen him seeking whatever might be close to the surface for him to claim, though so far with no appreciable luck.

“I would ask you to all stand back; I’m going to try to clear a bit of this away.”

They did not hesitate to listen.

Tega eyed the area carefully and assessed the weakest spots and the areas most likely to collapse. Not the earth itself, hopefully, but the ice that surrounded the different structures. None of them were clear enough to make out. They were shadows within the ice, and even looking closely offered little but hints and vague possibilities. The ice was the issue in any event. Ice as thick as what she was dealing with might not respond to her attempts, or it might fall away in fragments large enough to break bones if it fell in the wrong area.

In the distance the horses let out several noises and Tega hesitated as the men looked first at the tent where the animals were sheltered and then to each other.

Maun spoke to the others in his soft voice and Nolan, Darus and Tolpen went to examine the situation. A moment later Tolpen called out and the rest ran to join them.

Tega let her curiosity win over for the moment and turned toward the sounds of the horses and the men alike. There was another noise, but not one that she immediately recognized.

It was inevitable that their luck, such as it had been, could not hold. They had managed a great distance without any encounters with the denizens of the Blasted Lands, but now she could see the Pra-Moresh as it came closer and the horses were not at all pleased with the creature’s approach. It was only one, but it came in a stampeding rage, and even as she watched, the creature swept a paw in an arc and tore away half a mare’s ribcage. The animal shrieked as it died and the Pra-Moresh greedily tore at into the flesh, unconcerned about whatever or whomever might approach.

The other horses reared and bucked and pulled at their restraints. Three of the leads holding them to the wagon’s side snapped and the horses bolted, sliding on the ice, falling over themselves in an effort to escape the beast.

Tolpen Hart cursed and ran for the tent, ignoring the horses as they escaped. Darus and Nolan tried to recapture the animals, knowing that without them they might well be doomed in the wilds.

By the time the two of them had reached the wagon, the rest of the horses had broken free and the Pra-Moresh was looking up from its feast, blood painting the heavy muzzle a startling shade of red against the grey and black fur.

It screamed and laughed and whined as it looked toward them and reared up on its hind legs. By the gods, it was a massive thing, easily twice the height of a man.

Tolpen came from the tent with his bow at the ready and an arrow drawn back. He took careful aim and fired and the missile skidded across the monster’s face, not even breaking the hide.

But it got the beast’s attention. It looked toward the archer and roared. Tolpen was a hunter. He knew how to handle his weapon and he took the time to draw another arrow and aim as the beast charged. Nolan managed to get out of the way even as he pulled his axe. Darus was not as fast and was slapped aside as easily as a leaf. The poor man bounced across the ground. Even from her distance she could hear his grunts of pain.

Maun approached along with the other escort who’d been with her since the beginning of her quest. Both of them carried short spears and looked at the creature intently, even as it bore down on Tolpen.

Tolpen stood his ground and fired. He this time did better. The arrow drove into the open mouth of the Pra-Moresh and then through the soft side of the creature’s cheek. It reared up and roared-screamed-wept again, shaking its face as if to make the pain sail away as easily as Darus had.

While it was busy, Nolan came up from behind and brought his axe around in a hard swing at the beast’s legs. Tega took a deep breath and let it out as the thing yelped and turned and swept both of its paws at Nolan. The man managed to duck away, but fell on the ice as he did so. He was surely as good as dead, might have died right then, but Maun and Stradly threw their spears and hit the thing. One shaft sank into the creature’s bare abdomen and the other caught it in the shoulder. It turned to them and limped forward as it fell to all fours. The spear wobbled in its shoulder and it moved that limb with less strength, but still it charged. Blood fell from its hind side, but still it came at a frightening speed.

They were not prepared; it was as simple as that. The men had been trained to fight men, not monsters and the Pra-Moresh did not stop. It came for Maun and Stradly and they drew weapons and held their ground though she could see how desperately they wanted to flee.

Maun and Stradly were in front of Tega when it came for them. The thing looked so big already but grew at a horrible, sickening pace as it lumbered closer.

Tega concentrated and made herself remain as calm as she could. It was not easy. Calm went against her nature at that moment. What she wanted was to run from the unholy thing coming at her.

She said no words. They were not necessary. Instead she summoned the energies she had been studying for several years and forced her will upon the world.

And the world responded with a roar.

The Pra-Moresh exploded. Flesh and bone and fur and gristle went in every direction. The ground beneath the thing bulged and rippled and snapped in a violent wave, and Maun and Stradly, who were standing closest to the Pra-Moresh, were hurled aside and bounced and skittered as they tried to recover from the unexpected force.

The sound of the magic was as terrifying as the sight. The air roared with a force like thunder, loud enough to nearly deafen Tega. The air whipped from the center of the explosion and a few seconds later the remains of the thing rained down across the terrain.

She stared in horror, knowing full well that she had done that.

Past the ringing in her ears she heard the others calling out, looking around and trying to take in all that had happened. Maun lay on the ground, holding his stomach and grimacing. Stradly crawled over to him, looking at the spreading red stain on Maun’s belly. Nolan March walked toward them, barely even aware of the axe he dragged behind him, and Darus tried to sit up. Tried and failed. She could just make out the sound of his moan.

Nolan turned to the other soldier and started looking him over. Tolpen came closer, moving with extreme care, his eyes wide and worried. He did not understand what had happened, but only that the Pra-Moresh was gone in a wave of gore and violence.

Vonders understood well enough. He came up behind her and looked at her with horror in his eyes. “What did you do, girl?”

“I stopped it. It was going to kill them.”

Before she could say more the ground beneath them roared. The air above them followed suit a moment later and the sound was so loud that thinking became impossible. It was all she could do not to simply fall down and scream. Heavy vibrations rattled her eyes in their sockets, her teeth in her gums and the flesh on her bones. Beside her, Vonders did fall down, howling into a noise that made his anguish silent.

They had heard the roar of the Mounds before, but always from a distance, from as much as a day’s travel away. Now the sound came around them and shook the world. The ice that they had spent time trying to hack through shattered, in some cases falling away and in others sticking doggedly to the surfaces where it had adhered for who knew how long.

Tega turned in every direction trying to understand the nature of the noise, the source of the cacophony that dominated her senses and her ability to think. There was no one thing that she could see; there was only the sound.

And then the noise ended and she could breathe again and the pain faded to a tolerable level.

Vonders looked up from where he was laying on the ground, his eyes wider than before and a pained expression on his face. He was not injured, that she could see, but likely just overwhelmed. Aside from storms there had been nothing in their time traveling across the Blasted Lands and now all of this in only moments.

Within a few minutes they were assessing their situation. Darus had broken his left arm, and had several substantial bruises from being knocked out of the Pra-Moresh’s way. Additionally, his left leg was either sprained or broken. He could stand but he could barely walk at all.

Nolan was unharmed. Vonders was unscathed. Tolpen remained uninjured as well, though he was still extremely shaken. She did not think he’d been as prepared as he’d thought he would be for the actual sight of a Pra-Moresh. Certainly she had not been ready for it. Stradly Limm was bruised across one half of his body. His right side had been facing the monster when the explosion occurred and his skin on that side was mottled and looked as if he’d been struck with a hammer across every inch of flesh. He was able to walk. He was able to stand. He did not look as if he was able to think clearly and his speech was slurred.

Maun was the worst of them. She did not think he would live through his injuries. One of the Pra-Moresh’s teeth, a massive thing as big as her hand, had been blown into his stomach by the explosion. And while she watched, Nolan and Volpers did their best to pull the bloodied thing from his insides without tearing him up any further.

For almost an hour they worked at sewing his insides back in place, neither of them speaking more than in single words, mostly communicating in gestures for one item or another from a small surgical kit.

Maun was a quiet man, but he screamed a great deal as they worked on mending him. Eventually he fainted from the work and the silence was almost worse.

The horses were gone.

Darus doubted they would return. There was nothing for them in the Blasted Lands and they likely had only stayed because they were well trained, but now that they had broken free there was little to make him believe they would come back to the area.

By the time they were done with the surgery and had recovered from the madness of the moment the sun had slithered its way down toward the west again. The darkness would come back soon and none of them were in a state to attempt the Mounds.

Ultimately Tega decided they needed warmth and safety more than anything else. Though it was cramped in the extreme, all of them slept in the wagon that night.

Maun was still alive in the morning. The work that Nolan and Volpers had done was clean and efficient. Tega checked the wounds herself and used what ingredients she had to make a poultice to keep the wound clean from infection and to aid in healing.

None of them said anything. None of them blamed her, but she blamed herself. She had lacked the proper control. She had failed to restrain the power she wielded and when she could stand it no more she apologized.

“I’m so sorry you were injured, Maun and you, Stradly. I did not mean to do that.”

Stradly had recovered a great deal from his earlier shock. He shook his head and winced. “Sorry for saving us, then?”

“What?”

“We were there, Mistress Tega. We saw the thing coming. We was as good as dead. Nothing to be done for it but to watch that evil thing eat our guts out. You saved us.”

Maun nodded and spoke more softly than usual. “Aye. Might have been a trifle rough in the saving, but that you did. Only a fool would think otherwise.”

Nolan nodded his head. “You were a ways off. I know how large the thing looked to you, but from where we were it was a lot bigger.”

Vonders nodded. “Seen the head of one of those in the Duke’s palace once. And saw the corpse of one that died of old age I guess. We’d have taken it back for the possible prize, but it was too rotted and too heavy and we had enough salvage. The one we saw yesterday was bigger than either. I pray they don’t make them any bigger.”

Tega had no true response to their words but thanked them with a smile and a nod of her head.

“So.” Nolan looked around at the group and then looked rather pointedly at the door to the wagon. “When do we go exploring. Or do we, with what’s happened?”

Maun was the one who answered. “We go. We have to. We’ve given our word to the wizard and we are on a mission to help the Empire.”

Tega looked at the man and studied him. “Yes. That’s the truth of it. But we go tomorrow and not today. Today we recover and we prepare.” She was exhausted. She had never used so much energy at once before and, though she was young in years, she felt nearly ancient after the effort involved.

Maun nodded his head. “Tomorrow then. That should be soon enough.”

There was nothing more to say after that.

Twelve

There was no time in the morning to consider the magnitude of his night with Delil. The sound of great horns blaring out in the open echoed into his sleeping chamber and Andover awoke with a groan, sitting up in the cot and wondering for just a moment where he was. He reached up to rub the sleep from his eyes and barely caught himself before disaster. His hands felt, yes, and they moved, yes, but they were still forged from iron and he had already learned the hard way that rubbing at his eyes could leave him in agony and half-blinded. That was the last thing he needed when he was on his way to meet a god.

Meet a god.

“Oh.” It was the only sound he could make.

Andover rose from his bed and quickly dressed himself. The room was empty. Delil sat up and dressed just as quickly, not speaking at all. She made sure her veil was in place before she stood and then headed for the threshold of the entrance.

“I… Good luck.” She left before he could respond. That was just as well, he could think of nothing to say that would not come out the wrong way. Women always confused his tongue and after this? Well, “thank you” hardly seemed the right words.

He ran his fingers through his hair – taking a few strands along with his gesture – and then slipped on his boots. A moment later he walked out into the bright morning sunlight and found Tusk and several others waiting for him. They were a terrifying lot and for one brief moment he feared that he’d offended them. Was Delil someone’s daughter? Betrothed?

Tusk dismissed any possible worries and added new ones, instead. “Andover Lashk of the Iron Hands, it is time to meet Durhallem.”

Andover nodded his head nervously and stepped closer.

“No one faces the Daxar Taalor except on their own.” Tusk’s voice was not unkind. “You must walk.” He pointed toward the top of the mountain so very far above them.

Without another word, Andover walked, heading toward his first meeting with one of the gods of the Seven Forges.

The palace was an endless hive of activity most days. There were people moving about almost constantly. Between advisors, guards, soldiers who were being trained as guards, chancellors, representatives from different kingdoms that sought to see the head of the Empire and all of the souls who took care to make every detail of the work seem effortless, it would have appeared to many that the people living and working in the palace never slept.

That was not true in most cases, but just at the present it was accurate.

Desh Krohan came back to the palace and moved directly to the throne room, not bothering to head for his usual stop at his quarters or anywhere else. When he got there Nachia Krous was already waiting and in discussion with Merros Dulver. The general was going over the maps with the Empress, showing her in careful detail the layout of the land as best they knew it and the places where he thought it likely they could manage to find access to the Blasted Lands and thus the Seven Forges.

Desh took one look at the maps and sighed. “We should prepare for war, yes – we have been preparing for war – but I believe we have a few other matters to attend to first.”

“Desh, how very nice to see you.” Nachia’s voice was deliberately too bright and cheerful.

The wizard shook his head. “The Sa’ba Taalor are offering us a chance to parley.”

Merros seemed genuinely surprised. “Really?”

“One of them was waiting for us. Had likely been waiting for a few days by the time I arrived.” He looked at both of them for a moment to see if they understood. They did not. “She was literally waiting in the ashes, buried in the ground a few inches down. I would have never seen her had she not made her presence known.”

“Oh.”

“Exactly. It was an offer of peace and a reminder that for them the notion of sneaking in and causing mayhem is a minor thing.”

“She could have killed you then?” Nachia’s voice was small.

Desh shook his head. “Not likely. I am better defended than most. But she certainly could have killed your brother.”

Nachia did not respond except to shift on the throne.

“The point is this. We have a chance to argue for peace before this gets worse, yes, but we also have a chance to move forward with whatever you decide to do, Nachia. We also have a chance to leave this city before it is too late.”

Merros shook his head. His lips pressed together. “A nightmare of efforts, Desh, especially if your predictions are wrong.”

He turned on the general and pinned him hard with his gaze. “How many people live in this city, General Dulver?”

“I’m not really sure…”

“I am. I have studied the surveys and the figures provided by the revenuers. We have almost thirty thousand people in the city of Tyrne and the surrounding areas. This is an old city and it has had a long time to grow in size. The occupation of the Summer Palace year round has already bloated the city over the last fifteen years.” He waved a hand to stop the protest of Nachia. “I’m not saying there was ever anything wrong with Pathra choosing to be here instead of in Canhoon. I’m saying that the city has grown well beyond where it should have.”

“I can see that. I’ve already discussed the need to fortify the walls, possibly to build another wall around the outer areas.” Merros’s voice was as calm as ever. He did a remarkable job of hiding his agitation. He was a proper soldier.

“That’s only one of my points of debate here. Building a new wall would take a great deal of time and money. We have the finances, of course, but the time is a different story. The Sa’ba Taalor would parley with us in seven days.”

“Seven days?” Nachia sat forward in the throne.

“Seven days,” Desh nodded. And if we fail in the parley or if they decide to break their word and attack, that is only seven days’ time in which to try to build a wall. We would fail.”

Merros shook his head. “And even if we should fail, we don’t plan on letting them come to Tyrne without preparations, without moving the armies into position.”

“And what then, Merros?” Desh tried to keep his voice from rising in volume with limited success. “You said yourself our armies are not at their peak. What happens if they send four hundred of their best against the city? We have battalions ready and waiting, but they move between the proper ranks of footmen and horsemen and charge on past on those demons they ride and they attack anyone they see, armed or not. You said yourself that ten of them eliminated over a thousand people.”

“Then what do you propose we do, Desh?” That was Nachia, who rose from the throne and began pacing. The seat was uncomfortable at the best of times. Her response was simply to stand and move about.

“The Sooth did not say that the Sa’ba Taalor would attack Tyrne. They said that Tyrne is a doomed place. We cannot stay here. We should evacuate the city and immediately at that. There’s no proof of what will happen, but I have been in places where disaster fell. Look at the Guntha! Look at what remains of them. Look at what that very disaster did to Roathes. The entire area is abandoned. The country is gone, lost in ashes and smoke. Gods, it’s as bad as the Blasted Lands…” His voice faded away on that last part.

“Desh, what it is?” Nachia’s voice took on that maternal edge he sometimes heard in Pella’s tones. No matter who it was, the tone annoyed him.

He bit back his distaste for her concern. “I have not been to the Blasted Lands in a very long time, but I might be on to something there. The Sa’ba Taalor would not have a problem living in Roathes. Not like most would. They are better suited for it.”

“No one would willingly live in the Blasted Lands.” Merros shook his head. “And as someone who has been there, I can say that with ease and know I am right.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Merros. I’m saying that they could live there. There was no one else there. No one at all. Not that I saw at any rate. And I’m still trying to understand that, because Brolley and I agree that there weren’t enough of the Roathians on the return trip. Unless they all went to the south and east, there should have been more.

“They wouldn’t go to the south and east. They wouldn’t be welcomed by the Louron and I can’t see them even trying to survive in the swamps. The land there is too dangerous.”

“What land?”

“Precisely my point. You either know the swamps in Louron or you sink. There aren’t enough people there to work as guides and even if there were, there’s no love lost between the two peoples.”

“Then where did they go?” Nachia’s voice was taking on a frustrated edge.

Merros shrugged. “The last we heard there were black ships coming in. After that, nothing. It’s possible they’re all dead or captured.”

Nachia frowned and looked at Merros for clarification. “Captured?”

“The Empire has a few countries that deal with slaves. Who’s to say the Sa’ba Taalor do not also deal with them?”

“Did you see any sign of slavery when you were in the Taalor Valley?”

“No. But I hardly saw all of the valley. I saw a small fraction and we were moving at a hard ride for most of that time. They are a secretive people. Just think about the veils and you can see that.”

Desh shook his head. “The veils hide a deformity.”

“What deformity?” Merros looked at him with a doubtful expression. In that moment Desh understood that somewhere along the way the general had been intimate with one of the people of the Seven Forges. He had no notion as to which of them and did not care, but he saw the near-dread in the man’s expression.

“Nothing like what the plague winds do. More like some sort of scarring. Like what the Brellar do to themselves.”

Merros’s body relaxed a bit. He could understand that idea well enough.

“That’s not the point here in any event. The concern is what happened to the Roathians.”

“Well. Perhaps that’s something that should be addressed at the parley, then.” Nachia spoke up, looking from one man to the other. “We have a week to consider what to do about that. We also have less time to consider moving everyone from this town if Desh is right, and much as I hate the notion of leaving, I believe we should consider the source here and prepare to move locations.”

Merros looked long and hard at the Empress and nodded his head. He had likely come to the same conclusion on his own. Desh wished he could have said something to remove the sting from the matter, but there was nothing he could say. The Sooth had never lied about anything, not on a deliberate level. They were sometimes confusing in what they said, but there was no doubt at all what they were about in this case.

They had to abandon Tyrne and soon.

Merros sighed. “And why will we tell people that we must abandon Tyrne?”

Nachia asked, “Did the Sooth say when this great event would take place?”

“No. Only that it would be soon.”

“So why don’t we start by ordering the palace prepared for winter? Let it be known that I have decided to move back to Canhoon. That should start a lot of things happening by itself.”

“Do you think so?” Merros wasn’t completely convinced.

“Not everyone will choose to leave, but a good number will. Tyrne is a city surrounded by farmlands and one river. The industry here is mostly centred upon the palace and the seat of the Empire being here. Much of it will leave when we leave and take the soldiers with us.”

Desh stared at the table for a moment, not sure how to approach the subject. “It might not be enough. I was thinking we might use the situation in Roathes to our advantage. We might tell people that the desolation there is growing.” He held up a hand to stop either from speaking and both looked ready to. “Not that it’s an immediate threat but something that could become dangerous later. It might make those who are only considering the notion of leaving lean toward moving faster.”

Nachia shook her head. “Might well start a stampede, too. Best to avoid those, I would think.”

True enough.

Merros spoke up. “I think we should pull the army from the area. Move them toward Trecharch and the Wellish Steppes. Send them back toward Old Canhoon. Announce the move to the proper palace and watch what happens. I think you’re right. A lot of people will move on as well. And then when we’ve started that action, then maybe we talk of growing desolation to move the rest of them.”

“I thought we were already there.” Darus’s voice had taken on a plaintive tone. No one really blamed him. The way into the Mounds was hiding itself – if, in fact there actually was a way in.

The ice had thinned, though it was not gone. The last roaring vibration had shaken a great deal loose, and even after spending most of two days in the wagon or the tent, nothing had come along to make the ice grow back. Nor had anything come along to remove it, come to think of it.

Nolan had doubts about that opening and about the ability of the people with him to do anything with it. Tega seemed nice enough but she was not designed for rugged climbing. Darus was not likely to climb with a broken arm, Maun was doing poorly at best and the big man had made a good start at a recovery, but his body was still swollen and he moved like an old goat that had once lived on the farm. That is to say: he moved, but not well and not without a good deal of bleating. Stradly was a good man. He had a fine sense of humor and he was strong as a horse, but whatever Tega had done to destroy that Pra-Moresh, it had left him wounded deep inside.

No, none of them would be climbing, and that was a problem since as near as Nolan could tell, whatever entrances there were to the actual Mounds were high up in the ruins.

Every entrance they’d tried along the lower levels of the odd place was more like an ice pit than a possible entrance. They went nowhere. They promised possibilities of caves and tunnels, but ultimately even the deepest of them only allowed entrance to another wall of impassable stone.

The only person having any luck that wasn't bad was Vonders, who had already gathered many small trinkets to sell when he returned home. He showed them to his companions and marveled at each of them, regardless of how insignificant.

That was hardly fair. There were likely many who found the items amazing, but to Nolan they had no special qualities. They were shiny rocks and nothing more. Neither his mother nor his father had ever been much for trinkets. He shared that sentiment.

“Up there. Look.” Vonders pointed toward one of the towering masses around them. Nolan squinted along the length of the thing and studied the surface. It was, as with everything else, coated in ice and dirt, but he could see what the ruin hunter was looking at. There was a large hole in the side, almost a hundred feet above them. That hole looked deep, and he doubted it was merely a pit started by the wind. If one listened carefully,a note came from it when the air shifted the right way.

The Mounds were bizarre. They did not stand like buildings or like trees. There was nothing right or normal about them. They jutted from the ground at odd angles and some of the shapes looked like rocks and others like half-melted beehives. Some were long and thin and others twisted into shapes that made his eyes ache. All of them had the following consistencies, however: they were immense, and what could be seen of their surfaces looked burned and melted.

They had spent a night talking of the creation of the Blasted Lands. There was little else to do while they tried to lick their wounds and waited for the sun to rise. Surely no one felt like getting drunk, even if there had been a good tavern about, and even the most amorous of the lot had trouble considering Tega as a lover after what she had done to that monster. She was a lovely girl to be sure, but anyone that could simply destroy a Pra-Moresh was to be considered very carefully and for a long time before being approached along those lines.

There were a dozen stories or more. Old empires fighting and soldiers dying by the thousands, and then the Great Cataclysm. That was it. No one knew much more. Until Merros Dulver, no one had managed to get far enough into the Blasted Lands to find out about the Mounds or to even see the Seven Forges from up close.

Nolan looked toward the distant mountain range. The sun was up, the sky was calmer than it often was, and though he could not actually see the mountains, he could just catch a glimmer of the red light that stained the distant clouds where they stood.

How far away were they? He could not guess. Sometimes they seemed closer than others, and according to Vonders that was common in the Blasted Lands. The distant wall of the Edge was the only landmark his family had ever really used in the Blasted Lands, and that seemed to change all the time as well.

“We could climb it.” Tega’s voice shook him from his reverie.

“What?” He looked at her face for a moment and then back at the tower she was studying. The hole that gaped down at them from up high. “I’m not so sure.”

“The surface looks tricky, yes, there’s the ice to contend with, but we could climb it. Vonders says his family climbed down the side of the Edge on many occasions using ropes and spikes driven into the stone.”

“The stone of the Edge is hard. It’s granite, and even the stonecutters have trouble with it. We can’t tell how solid that stuff is. It might have no more strength than unbaked clay.”

“Nolan, have you seen anything else that looks like an entrance?”

A lot of them, but they were all lies. That was the only reason they were even considering this madness.

“And what if the winds come back while we are up there and holding on only by ropes? What if the ice storms start again?”

Tega looked at him and shook her head. “What other options?”

“There are still many structures we have not examined. Perhaps we should investigate the rest before we make a decision to climb that high with no guarantees.” Her lips pressed together and she stared harder at him as if willing him to simply – explode – agree with her. “We are here to serve you, Tega. This is your expedition and your decision to make.” He raised his hands in surrender.

She looked away from him and stared at the opening. Sixty feet was a long way to fall and the opening was at an angle that would make gaining entrance risky at best. And he still thought it looked closer to a hundred feet than sixty, but he was trying to be optimistic.

“We shall look a little further then, but let’s mark this possibility.”

He nodded his head. That was exactly what he’d hoped she would say. One thing to consider risking yourself and another when you risked the lives of the people with you. Had it been him alone, climbing the side would have been a more realistic option. With others? There were too many chances for people to die or get even more injured.

Vonders took in a deep breath. “What in the name of the gods?”

Nolan looked toward the man and then followed his eyes.

Just barely visible from where they stood, they could see a lone rider coming toward the Mounds. The figure came from the direction of the Seven Forges.

“I thought the Sa’ba Taalor were forbidden to be here?” Darus’s voice was petulant, as if someone had taken away his time to play and given him more chores. Nolan liked his friend a good deal more when he wasn’t injured and whining.

“We’ve no proof that whoever is coming this way is Sa’ba Taalor.” Nolan shrugged, but he also reached for his axe’s handle.

“This is not a good thing. I can feel it.” Darus shook his head and frowned. His good hand felt along his broken arm for a moment and then he, like Nolan, sought the comfort of his weapon.

Nolan opened his mouth and then closed it. Finally he looked to Tega. “What would you have us do here, Mistress?”

Tega looked back to him, her eyes wide. “I… We should prepare ourselves.”

“Prepare for what?” Darus said the words that Nolan was considering.

Tega looked toward the horizon and frowned. “Where did he go?”

“The rider?” Nolan looked away from her and back toward the spot where the rider had been. There was nothing. No one.

A chill that had nothing to do with the cold crept through him.

“Damn.”

Darus nodded his agreement. “Whoever that is, I won’t call it a good sign that we’ve been spotted.”

“What makes you certain we were seen?” Tega’s question was directed toward Darus. Nolan answered anyway. “We can’t be certain, but we have to guess that the rider has seen us and does not wish to be seen by us. We must expect unpleasant intent.”

Tega nodded. “Let’s get back to the wagon then. We have to take care of the others.”

Nolan bit back a response. They were soldiers. They were here to watch over and protect her, not each other.

Darus kicked at a loose stone with his good foot. “Where did Vonders go?”

Sure enough, the scavenger had vanished again. Likely off looking for something shiny.

Tega shook her head. “We don’t know how far away the rider is. We have to get back to the camp.”

Nolan nodded. “Vonders can find his own way. He’s been leading us through half the pits in this area already.”

Without another word they headed back for the wagon and the others. Nolan found himself wondering how good Tolpen was with his bow. He also found himself wishing he’d brought his crossbow with him.

Still, the weapon was waiting at the campsite and they’d be there soon enough.

Drask stared up at the Mounds and studied them. Brackka let out a low rumble and Drask patted the thick hide of his mount. “I know. I saw them.”

He sighed and let his legs grip harder to the thick body beneath him. Brackka took his cue and moved quickly, bounding across the landscape in leaps that would have terrified anyone unfamiliar with how well the beast could move. It was only a matter of minutes before they were in the rough ground leading to the Mounds proper.

There was a flutter of unease in his stomach. It could not be called fear, exactly, but it was a close relative. For his entire life the rules had been simple enough to follow: first obey the Daxar Taalor. Second, stay away from the Mounds. Currently these two rules conflicted. Ydramil had spoken directly into Drask and told him to go to the Mounds. He had obeyed, readying himself for whatever might come his way in the process, but the notion of going to the area the gods forbade went against his upbringing. Still, the very first rule was to obey the Daxar Taalor, even if that meant going against every other rule in his existence.

The Mounds made no sense. They were vast and desolate. They were dark and jagged. The wind cut around them and brought with it an odd scent unlike anything he had encountered before, and he had seen more than most of his people had.

Standing in the shadow of the Mounds, Drask closed his eyes and offered a silent prayer to Ydramil. He had made his progress as the god demanded. Now that he was here, he hoped for more information. He did not expect it. He did not demand it. But he hoped for it just the same.

His only answer was silence.

When the gods do not give an answer there is as much of a reason as when they do. The process of becoming what the Daxar Taalor demanded was a lifetime in the happening.

“We go on then, my brother.” He ran one hand over Brackka’s neck and the mount let out a grunt. A moment later they moved forward and Drask let one hand rest on his throwing axes. There were likely threats, here. If those threats could be cut than he would bleed them. If they could not, then he would handle the matter differently.

There could only be one answer to the people he had spotted. They were seen at a great distance, but he suspected they were from Fellein, even without seeing them clearly. Many things lived within the Mounds, that was accepted, but Drask doubted that any of them were human.

The winds ripped across the ground and cast dust and ice into the air. The veil he wore for traveling caught the worst of the grit, but he narrowed his eyes against unwanted irritants.

Brackka moved up into the Mounds proper, breaking a sacred law as the gods demanded. The tension rose in both of them. One does not easily defy the gods’ laws if one is wise. Even when the gods themselves demand it. Perhaps especially then.

From somewhere above him came a roar from the ground, enough to shake his body and Brackka’s alike. They held their place and waited. The sound wrapped around them, crushed them in its grip, and finally released them when it had finished its course. Pra-Wren, the wailing winds. They had been a part of existence in the Blasted Lands for as long as anyone could remember. The Mounds did not rest easily. They never had.

He looked up at a towering arm of stone that reached for the heavens and pointed in the direction of the Seven Forges as if demanding that he retreat.

Drask sighed and once again they moved, climbing into the warped wasteland.

Somewhere ahead of them, the people of Fellein sought something. Perhaps he was here to stop them. Perhaps the gods had other plans. He would find out when the time was right. For now he looked around and expected the same of Brackka as they moved carefully into the forbidden.

Four days and nights of celebration were finally coming to an end, and Tataya could not have been happier about it. The Brellar had welcomed her and that was a good thing. She had been treated with near reverence and one of their chieftains – she could not quite decide how many they had – had allowed her to learn their language by touching his mind.

At first she’d thought perhaps she was expected. The way the people reacted would have made it easy to believe, certainly, but after they’d learned to share languages, Tataya was informed that she was welcomed because of her hair. Apparently women with red hair were highly prized and even rarer than blond-haired women among the locals. Near as she could tell no one from the Brellar had any hair color but black. They made up for the lack of variety in a number of ways that seemed like lunacy to her. Still, Desh had explained more than once that cultures found their own ways to speak and words were only one example of communication.

She’d known about the ritual scarring, but knowing and seeing are different matters. The symbols they used to write their stories on their skin were complex, and in many cases the scars covered their entire bodies. Most of the marks were tiny, smaller than her shortest finger nail, but others were deep and thick on the skin, as if to indicate they had a far greater significance. She doubted there was any part of her history she wanted carved into her flesh and left to bleed for days on end, especially in the heat of the area, where infection was likely a serious threat.

But the Brellar managed and she saw very few of them who suffered drastically as a result of the markings, even though several of the people she saw were covered with fresh cuts.

The celebrations came to an end when she explained that she was not looking for a mate, but rather sought sailors for a possible war.

After that, the men she dealt with were strictly business.

Tomms and Laruth were the two men she was negotiating with, and both of them seemed amiable enough, though Tomms was still not pleased with her refusal to marry him. She lied and claimed that she was already married, but that didn’t seem to matter in the least to him. He had three wives, and collectively those three wives had five husbands. While the notion was fascinating, she opted to hold off on studying the nature of their culture in quite such detail until after negotiations were settled.

Laruth was younger and possibly more ambitious. He was certainly more willing to negotiate. The men and two others of the same rank had gathered with Tataya and Callan to discuss prices. Captain Callan spoke their language with a bit of difficulty, but he did speak it and Tataya used that to her advantage, letting him handle many of the discussions while hiding exactly how well she spoke it herself. Not because she was hiding anything from Laruth, who’d allowed her to learn his language, but because she wanted to know if she could trust Callan.

Surprisingly, he seemed to be telling the truth and negotiating fairly. She was pleasantly surprised.

“So, then.” Callan looked to her. “We have a deal? It’s a fortune we’re talking about here.”

“A fortune, yes, but not paid in full until the deed is done.” She leaned back and studied the four chiefs. They studied her right back, with varying degrees of interest. She had dressed herself to add to their distraction and it was working just fine.

“How do you wish to handle this?”

She smiled at the captain. “I have a chest of gold with me, do I not? For just such contingencies.”

Callan looked heartbroken by that idea. He had grown fond of that chest of gold. She’d caught him looking longingly at her cabin door on several occasions during the trip, and oftentimes she was surprised that he didn’t merely break the door down. It wouldn’t have done him the least good, of course, but that was something that he did not have to know.

“I suppose you do.”

“Oh, calm yourself, Captain. You’ll be paid first.”

He looked at her with a wounded expression that held remarkably little conviction. “You cut me.”

“So you’ve done all of this for love of Empire and will require no compensation?” She deliberately used an expression of hopeful ignorance that she knew would make the man crazy. He seemed to prefer his women on the naïve side. A little pout and widened eyes and the man was nearly ready to kill anyone who so much as looked at her the wrong way.

“Hardly.” His response was dry and let her know he was on to her simple tricks. That was good. It was hardly fun playing with a new toy if it did not play back.

In perfect Brellar she replied to the waiting chieftains, “The terms are acceptable and I thank you for your honest and fair negotiations.”

Tomms looked at her longingly. “You are certain your husband would not accept an offer of shared marriage?”

“He is not as generous with his wives, I fear.”

The man sighed and waved a dismissive hand. “That is a pity.”

She repressed a shudder and rose from her seat. It wasn't that Tomms was unattractive, exactly, merely that he seemed so desperate to add a red haired woman to his stable of wives. She was flattered and repulsed in equal measure.

Captain Callan stared at her with a dropped jaw and narrowed eyes, fully aware for the first time that she had understood every word he said, including quite a few that would have been deemed inappropriate. If Desh Krohan truly were her husband a few of the discussions would have ended with Callan dead instead of merely worried about his possible demise.

Desh did not defend the honor of the Sisters. They were expected to handle their own conflicts and call on him only as a last resort.

So far none of them had ever had to call on him for that purpose.

After formal goodbyes were said and arrangements made for Laruth’s people to collect their advance, Tataya headed for the ship with Callan on her heels.

“You spoke the language the entire time?”

“No. Only for part of it.”

“Which part?”

“You may rest comfortably with the knowledge that I heard your comments about what should be done with a woman who has a body like mine.”

“Oh.”

“I also heard your statements regarding the purchasing of slave-girls for the taverns in your home town.”

“Yes, well…”

“Slavery has been outlawed in most parts of the Empire.”

“But not all.”

“True. Even so, speaking of women in that way will not endear you to most of them.”

Callan smiled. “There are exceptions, you know.”

“No doubt. I have known a few men who would be exceptions as well, but I have never respected any of them enough to want to be with them.”

“You speak of relationships. I speak of rutting.”

“We speak of the same thing, Captain Callan. I merely have higher standards.”

He opened his mouth to retort and then apparently thought better of it. “So you’re not upset then?”

“Not at all. I believe that everyone should speak their minds and have their beliefs. Especially when doing so reveals more about them than I would otherwise know.”

“Is that why you left most of the negotiations to me?”

“No. Not entirely. At least two of the chieftains would have considered anything I said beneath serious consideration.” She allowed a small smile. “Not all men are as enlightened as you, Captain.”

They reached the ship in short order – most of the discussions had happened onboard one of the larger vessels and it was merely a matter of walking from one pier to another to get back to where they needed to be. By the time they’d arrived, the men Laruth had charged with taking payment were already waiting.

Tataya went to see about their payment and Captain Callan called out to his crew to ready for departure. None of the crew seemed the least bit upset by the notion. The ships around theirs were large, and even when they were silent, the knowledge that substantial crews of men who might or might not see them as enemies were stationed around them on all sides was not conducive to easy rest.

The men collecting the gold were familiar enough faces by now. They had been with the chieftain through most of his negotiations.

Within twenty minutes the payments had been made and the chest of gold first offered to Pathra Krous by the Sa’ba Taalor had been nearly emptied of coins. She rather liked the notion of paying for defense against the Sa’ba Taalor with their own offerings.

Another hour and they were ready to set sail. There were no challenges despite the worry that Callan held onto. The Brellar were indeed a strange people, but they wanted what everyone wanted. They wanted more than they already had.

They were well out to sea before the sun set. Captain Callan kept members of his crew on the lookout through the night, likely waiting to see if they would be followed.

After a while, day and night became irrelevant. The distance to the top of Durhallem was deceptive, and though he’d thought to reach the entrance to the mountain within hours, it seemed much longer.

Andover walked in heat that was blistering, and carried on through cold that left his teeth chattering and his toes numb, and still he walked. He did not stop to rest, because he had been told that his time for resting was done.

And so he walked. He moved up the side of the mountain, always angling higher, occasionally crawling on his hands and knees when the incline was too steep, and sometimes scaling sheer walls of stone. More than once he was grateful for fingers made of iron that were capable of gripping so much harder than mere flesh.

He walked until the snow started – a layer of white that hid the dark rock of the mountain. He continued higher still, feeling the ice beneath him and the biting cold of the air he breathed.

And in time, he could never say exactly how long with any accuracy, Andover Lashk reached the entrance to his destination. And seeing the entrance to Durhallem’s Heart, Andover Lashk forced down his dread and walked into the simple cave. The floor was level enough, a rough black cut into the mountain’s surface. The walls around him were obsidian – rich, black glass – and seemed to reflect his face back at him from a million or more uneven facets. He walked forward cautiously, barely able to see into the darkness, and he walked for a long time indeed.

There was no doubt in his mind as to where he was. How could any mere mortal doubt the presence of a god? He stepped into the cave and felt the heat of Durhallem’s heart and the calculating rage that rested there.

Why are you here? He did not hear the words. He felt their meaning within his body.

“I am here to thank you.” No. That wasn’t right. Durhallem had done nothing for him. It was Truska-Pren who had given him his hands. “I am here to be judged by you.” Yes. That was it. He was supposed to find out if he was worthy.

Did he see the force that came for him?

No. He saw nothing but darkness. But he felt it. He felt a powerful presence, a vast thing of impossible scope that noticed him for a moment, truly noticed him and examined him.

And judged him.

A moment later the pain came, a great searing agony across the left side of his face. Muscles spasmed, flesh twitched, bone moved within his face, and when he thought for sure that he must scream or go mad he remembered the words of Drask Silver Hand so very long ago now, as he prepared to be given his new hands.

Place your hands within the blessing box. Do not move them, no matter how great the pain, no matter how tempting. Life is pain, and if you would have hands that live, you must accept that pain. Do you understand?

He thought of those words and obeyed them as best he could. He did not move his face, despite the desire to do so. He tried not to scream and could never be certain if he succeeded there. The pain was unbearable, as great as any he could remember, but he did not move, he dared not move. The presence might notice him again if he did and he felt that would be a very bad thing indeed.

The pain disappeared as quickly as it had come to him. There was no lingering reminder of the agony. It was simply gone.

Andover closed his eyes and fell to his knees, able to breathe again for the first time since feeling the presence.

His hands clutched tightly to something he could not see. When he was strong enough to rise he kept his grip on that something and made his way to the entrance of the cave.

The stars were out and the night was cold and Andover Lashk walked carefully down the side of the mountain along a trail that had not been there before. He worked his jaw and felt the changes along the left side of his face and wondered what they might look like. His hands kept their tight grip on whatever had been given him by Durhallem, but he did not look at it. His eyes stayed on the path ahead of him instead. He understood in his soul that to look away would be to lose the path, and he was not sure he was strong enough to make it back down the mountain without it.

The sun rose, and still he walked, still he kept plodding along. In time he stopped, but only long enough to drink from a trickling stream of cold melt water. The ground was once more stone and the air was warm on his skin.

The sun was fading by the time he reached the village, and once again great fires raged within the pits before the cliff face dwellings.

Tusk came toward him and stopped a few feet away. His hand reached out and grabbed at Andover’s face looking carefully first at his right cheek and then at his left.

And then the man roared, “He is scarred! Andover Lashk is scarred by Durhallem!”

Around him the people cheered and Andover blinked, shocked by the sudden noise.

The feeling that he was in a dream did not quite leave him, but it faded as the people came forward, many clapping him on one arm or the other, others, like Delil, embracing him briefly as if greeting a member of the family they had not seen in a while. It seemed that every person in the village came his way and offered their congratulations.

And maybe they did. He could not tell.

There was the talk of his being scarred and Andover let his hand drift up to touch his face. The right side was the same as ever but the left was changed.

His voice sounded strange when he spoke for the first time in over a day. “How?”

“No one can meet the gods and be unchanged, Andover Lashk. You have received the blessings of Durhallem. He has given you obsidian and your first Great Scar.”

He nodded as if he understood, but the words only grazed the surface of his mind. He was tired and doubted he would ever feel as if he had slept enough again in his lifetime.

“You have wondered why we wear veils before your people, and now you know. Your people would not understand. They have not been blessed.”

Tuskandru reached to the veil covering his face and pulled it back. A moment later the cloth was tossed aside amidst a faint tinkling noise from the thin links that adorned it.

Andover barely heard the noise. He was far too busy studying the markings on Tusk’s face. They had no symmetry and each was as different as any of the marks on the man’s flesh, save in that they were prominent and impossible to ignore. Along the left side of his face a thick scar ran from the cheek down to the jaw. Not but a few inches distant, another scar, heavy enough to stand out among the many scars on the man, ran above his mouth and almost to his nose. A third jagged across his right side, but that one seemed an open wound that would not bleed.

At least that was the impression until the wound moved. All three of the scars opened and flexed along with the broad lips of Tusk’s mouth. And from the mouth and the scars alike Andover could see flashes of teeth, hints of gums. When Tusk spoke again all of the scars and his mouth moved, each adding a note of sound, and the apprentice blacksmith finally understood the source of the odd distortion in the voices of the Sa’ba Taalor.

“When we meet with the gods, we are gifted with the voices of the gods, you see? We understand them and we can speak with them. Once we are worthy, once we have proven ourselves, the gods bless us with their marks and their voices alike.”

Delil peeled the veil from her face and he saw that she had two such scars, one on the right that ran along her jaw line, and one on the left that bisected her full lips. When the mouths were silent they did indeed look like scars. When she spoke they moved, they formed words and sounds.

“You are blessed today, Andover. Durhallem has accepted you.”

Through the exhaustion that seemed to weigh him down, Andover felt a blooming understanding and a rising dread.

He spoke with both of his mouths. The one he had been born with and the one Durhallem had cut across the left side of his face. The mouth he had been born with let out a slight whimper and said, “Blessed?” And the other mouth, the scar that spoke in a slightly different tone said, “Blessed. Durhallem has blessed me.”

He should have been horrified, but the exhaustion was still there, like the weight of too much wine upon him, and it crushed his panic.

But there was more. He could not fully understand it, did not want to make sense of it, but part of him was thrilled with the change.

He looked around him and saw the faces looking back, Delil, Tusk, Bromt and others whose names he barely knew and could hardly remember, and understood that they accepted him and reveled in the change.

They accepted him as one of them.

As an equal.

And it was good.

He fought back tears, not of grief but of joy. For the first time in so very long, Andover felt that he belonged.

Thirteen

When he stopped at Dretta March’s home on his way to the palace and his offices there, Merros did so with mixed feelings. Since actually meeting her, the morning encounters had become a part of his life and he had come to truly enjoy them. On some occasions they merely ate in comfortable silence and on other occasions the two of them exchanged tales of Wollis and reminisced over the man they had both loved in their own ways.

It had become a part of his routine, and that was something that Merros was not used to having. His life had been broken into simple rituals since he’d joined the military, and while the locations changed the practices he kept seldom did. He woke, he cleaned himself, shaved and prepared for the day. He dressed, saw to his weapons and then went to the daily tasks, usually breaking his fast on the way out the door or occasionally when he reached his command.

Now the ritual had changed. Now he broke fast with Dretta, often eating nothing more than fruit, but sometimes having meals that required time and energy to prepare. A lot of time and a good deal of energy. Roasted meats, pastries and breads served with preserves and honey, and the breads often fresh from the oven and still warm to the touch.

If this kept up he’d be having his uniforms altered to give his belly more space.

That thought brought a bittersweet smile. Because the chances were good that the ritual would be going away.

While they sat at the table outside of Dretta’s home – to date he had never actually been inside the structure, merely beneath the cover of the patio – Merros chewed thoughtfully at his food and Dretta watched him with a wary expression.

As he was chewing on the loaf of crusty bread into which fruits and nuts had been baked – something he had never seen done anywhere but in the northern climes – Dretta finally had enough.

“What is on your mind, General Dulver?”

“Am I General Dulver, today?”

“When you are acting so formally and refuse to look me in the eyes I must assume you are here on official business.” Her words were light enough, but her expression spoke of a deep and abiding dread. “Do you plan to tell me bad news of my son’s fate? Is Nolan injured?”

He was horrified. “What? Gods, no, Dretta. Your son is fine. Nolan is on an assignment for the Empress, and I have received several reports on his condition. He is well.” He could see her relax. She let out a deep breath and the tension fled from her face, removing years from her age. In truth she was younger than he was and younger by almost a decade than Wollis had been. She had married young and her husband had not.

“Then why are you acting like an ass?”

“What?”

“You’ve barely looked at me. You’ve not said four words. If I’ve offended you, then say how, and if I have not, then explain your silence before I take offense.” Her dark eyes glared.

“I didn’t mean–”

“You are a man. Men seldom mean to do anything. Wollis did not mean to leave me for months at a time. He did not mean to run off to all the cities of the Empire. He did not mean to die.” She choked a bit on the last, but closed her eyes and continued. “Men never mean to. And yet they do. So I ask you again, what is it that bothers you?”

There it was, that knife of guilt. He made himself accept the wound without flinching.

“I have been trying to find a way to tell you that the city is going to be abandoned.”

“Say again? I did not hear you well.”

“I’m afraid you did. The Empress and the royal court are moving to Old Canhoon, to the original palace. The army will be leaving here. The people who tend to the army will be leaving and so will all those who serve the royal court. Everyone will be leaving.”

“Why?” Dretta’s had reached for a knife so she could cut herself a slab of the hearty bread. She dipped the edge of the bread into thick honey and began chewing slowly as she stared at him.

For just an instant he wondered why that should be so appealing a sight and then he pushed the thought aside. Dretta March was Wollis’s wife. That was as far as he had to consider before moving on.

“Well, there seems to be some worry about the city meeting with disaster.”

“That would be a thing to let people know, yes?”

“Well, yes, but there’s the panic to consider.”

“What panic?”

“If we tell the people that the city is in danger, they will most definitely want to leave. And they’ll want to do so in a very big hurry. And if they all leave at once, there’s going to be every imaginable sort of problem.”

Dretta raised one eyebrow archly and studied him. Merros squirmed, feeling a bit like a bug under close scrutiny. Wollis had gone on at length on more than one occasion with stories of his wife’s ability to make him feel like a complete buffoon with an expression. Merros was beginning to think his friend had been understating the matter rather than blowing it out of proportion.

“You understand the logistical dilemma, don’t you?”

“How many soldiers do you have in this city of yours, Merros Dulver?”

He almost pointed out that the city wasn't his, exactly, but decided against levity. She might well take the knife to him, and he was still resisting a powerful need to squirm in his seat.

“Well, a good number…”

“And could they not be used to maintain order? Could they not be used to make certain that each avenue and street was emptied in a proper fashion before the people on the next street were allowed to leave?”

“Well, yes, but if someone decides to panic, or to protest, or to use a sword to explain why they should be allowed to leave sooner, there will no doubt be conflicts.”

“Which soldiers are trained to resolve, yes?”

“Dretta–”

“You have only so many streets in this town, Merros. I know there are more soldiers than there are streets. There are more soldiers than there are roads away from the city. And so you have control. And if you are doing your job properly, as a general in charge of the army, then you should be able to schedule the evacuation of Tyrne.”

“There are other considerations.”

“Such as?”

“Mobilizing the army against the Sa’ba Taalor.”

“Did you not tell me only yesterday that these Sa’ba Taalor wanted to sue for peace?”

“No. Not quite. They wish to discuss whether or not we will actually go to war or if we will discuss our way out of it.”

“Well, then.” She shrugged as if to say that settled the matter.

“No. No it’s not quite that simple. In the event that they do not wish to end this, I have to have the military ready to strike.”

“And do what? March all the way to the Seven Forges? Didn’t it take you almost two months to reach them? How will an army get there any faster?”

He felt a headache growing behind his eyes. The problem was that her words made sense, but they did not take in to consideration all of the variables and he could not possibly educate her to understand them all.

“Dretta, I told you of this so that you could prepare. So that, if you want, you can move to Canhoon or back to Stonehaven.”

“Why would I move to Canhoon?”

“Well, you wanted… I mean…” She was studying him again. He hated that. He had no idea what to do with himself when she studied him that closely.

“I came here to be with Wollis. Wollis will not be in Canhoon.”

“He won’t be in Stonehaven, either.” The words jumped from his mouth before he could stop them. He was used to curbing that impulse, but here he was, making an ass of himself without really any defense against it.

“Yes.” One word and it came out as cold as a blade soaked in ice-laden waters. “I am aware of where my husband will not be.”

“Damn it, Dretta, I don’t know what to say!” His voice was plaintive, bordering on whiny.

“Do you want me in Canhoon, Merros Dulver? Or do you prefer me in Stonehaven?”

And there it was. The very thing he’d been trying to figure out for himself. Did he want her in his life? Did he want her around him even as he prepared to move on to a different place?

“I want you in Old Canhoon, Dretta March. I want you near the palace there. Close enough that I can see you every day on my way to the offices of the Commander General.”

She gave him nothing. Her expression could have been carved in stone for all the change. Still, her eyes regarded him and she said, “Then I shall move on to Old Canhoon, before the rest of this city moves on.”

And he was relieved, because he had a parley to handle and possibly a war to fight and he wanted her safe.

The rest of their conversation was easier, but still she gave him nothing to hold in his mind save the memory of her eyes.

Nachia Krous did not walk the throne room. She stalked it, looking at every shadow, every window, every curtain, seeking answers to the questions in her mind.

Brolley, never accused of being the wisest soul, was smart enough to simply sit at the table there and watch her. He was wise in the ways of his sister if in nothing else.

Merros sat across from him, looking at a detailed map of the Tyrne, on which he had made several markings. The notion of changing the face of a map was one he had never felt comfortable with. They were damned hard to come by, unless one wished to hire a cartographer. The fact that he now had dozens of cartographers working for him did not change his basic philosophy on these things. He could have ordered a hundred maps and still he would have hesitated.

And yet, he grabbed the pen and carefully made a mark at the intersection of Winder’s Way and the Harrow’s Bridge. “Here. I think we can clear the city to this point before the first major panic starts.”

Brolley looked, his face frowning in concentration. He had not said anything at all about evacuating the city, but he seemed intent on studying everything just the same. That was fine with Merros. If the boy wanted to learn, he would teach him. The fact was simple enough: he was a member of the Imperial Family, and as such he could eventually be called on to take up a weapon and lead. Better that he learn now than end up in another situation where he was an embarrassment to his bloodline.

Nachia stopped moving long enough to look at the map. “I don’t like it. I think it’s a mistake.”

“Majesty, if we do not prepare the people and we have to evacuate, it’s going to go from bad to worse. Riots have been known to break out over far less than asking people to move all of their belongings from one place to another.”

“I thought we agreed to tell people we were moving the palace back to Canhoon and let them follow us.”

“That is still the plan. What we are doing here is working on possibilities. Should we be forced to move people along at a faster pace, I thought it best that we have plans in place and routes by which the City Guard and soldiers can ensure the least amount of conflict.”

She scowled at him. It was not an expression of anger so much as it was the face she made when trying to work things through in her mind. Had he not already gotten used to the expression he might well have worried whether or not she was going to have him executed.

“What of the City Guard. Have the issues you were having with them been handled?”

“Libari Welliso has taken command of the City Guard. From what I can see, he is the closest thing to an honest guardsman, and competent besides.” Which was true enough. The man had been responsible for arresting and holding the members of the City Guard who’d beaten Andover Lashk and ruined his hands. He’d done so despite numerous members of the Guard making comments and a few of his superiors protesting the action.

“Majesty, have we had any contact with Andover Lashk since he left for the Seven Forges?” said Merros.

“Every attempt that Desh has made to reach the boy has failed. We either assume he is dead or we wait to find out his fate when we meet with the Sa’ba Taalor to negotiate a peace.”

Merros nodded and pushed back a hard edge of guilt. Once upon a time he’d left one of his men behind in the Taalor Valley, Kallir Lundt, who had been ruined in a fight with the Pra-Moresh. He still had no idea if the man was alive, and if he was, what shape he might be in. He pushed the thought aside. Kallir Lundt had been promised safety by the Sa’ba Taalor. He had to hope they’d kept their word and if not, he would likely have a chance to seek revenge on the mercenary’s behalf. Not that he expected that particular notion to go well.

“I shall make a note of it.” And he did. There was a growing list of items to be discussed with whomever the Sa’ba Taalor chose as a representative. He wrote down Andover’s name and as an afterthought scribbled Kallir Lundt’s name beside it.

“How many days until this damned meeting?”

“We have to leave the morning after next if we intend to reach the meeting place on time.” He almost mumbled the words. Much to his annoyance, the Empress intended to be there for the parley. Neither he nor Desh Krohan had been able to dissuade her.

Desh Krohan claimed he had a plan for that, but would not say what it was as yet. Merros didn’t like plans that involved not being informed. They tended to make him nervous.

Nachia looked at him. Her expression made clear exactly where he could take his mumbling and his opinion of her choice to go along for the negotiations.

Brolley looked at his sister and shook his head. “You’re being an ass.”

“What?” Her voice took on a note that Merros had never heard. He’d never had a sibling, or he would have known that particular sound for the indication that long standing arguments had not been finished.

“You’re in charge of everything. Nachia. Everything. What if this is a ploy to get you where they can kill you?”

“What if it’s a genuine attempt at working out a peaceful ending? What then? What if it’s a test to see if I’m brave enough to face off against one of their kings? How can I be a leader of an Empire if I’m too scared to look their leaders in the eyes?”

Brolley reeled back with each question she asked. Merros could see him trying to come up with good counterarguments and failing.

“What if they decided the only way to end this is to have a proper duel, Nachia? You and that Tuskandru fellow, one-on-one to the death for the right to rule over your Empire?” Brolley’s words were just as harsh as his sister’s. “Do you suppose that will go as well as my encounter with Drask Silver Hand?”

Nachia looked at her brother sharply.

Brolley continued. “I know exactly how fortunate I was. They were trying for peace. Wollis March screamed that into my ear for hours on end while he prepared me for my last fight and my certain death.” Brolley stood up and pointed a thick finger at his sister. “I got a talking to from you on that too, as I recall. Several of them. So now it’s my turn. Listen to Merros. Listen to Desh. They are here to advise you. If they say you should not go, then stay here, where you will be safe. You. The leader of the entire Empire.”

Nachia’s voice was calm and cool and slapped at the air like a lash. “Pathra was not on a battlefield when he was murdered. We have already seen that I am not safe anywhere. We saw that when Pathra died with a slit throat and got thrown from the window of this very room.” She stabbed a finger in Merros’s direction. “Want to know why I agreed to move to Canhoon? Because I can’t stand knowing the room where I deal with the business of running this Empire is the same room where my cousin died.”

The silence in the room was complete, save for a few small breaths from Nachia. “I will attend to the parley. That is my decision. If you have doubts, then bring enough guards to make our position on my living through this event clear. And bring your best, Merros. I might have to choose a champion.”

Merros could think of no retort at that moment. Instead he gave a formal bow and left the room, leaving brother and sister to continue their debates in peace. It was best to know when to call a battle done. This one was finished.

Libari Welliso was a solid man, no two ways about that. He was older than Merros, but carried himself with the air of a man on a mission from the gods themselves. His uniform was in meticulous order and his sword’s pommel was as well worn as the hilt. He was a man used to combat, in other words, and that won him a great deal of respect from Merros.

The fact that he was handling the clean-up of the City Guard as well as he was also went a great distance in the general’s eyes.

Libari looked at the offices he was taking over with a clinical eye and nodded.

Merros could barely repress a grin. “Are they satisfactory then?” He already knew the answer.

“They’re as pompous as I expected.” He gestured at the walls. There were numerous portraits of the men who’d held the office of City Guard General before him on the walls and the desk was slightly larger than a wagon designed to be drawn by horses. The room itself was only slightly larger than the average home, which meant it was impressive, but not quite as large as the rooms where the Imperial Family went to piss in private.

“You can do whatever you please to make it yours.”

“Seems a bit pointless to change things, doesn’t it?” Libari eyed him critically. He had blue eyes that seemed almost out of place in his deeply tanned flesh. Unlike so many of the officers Merros had known, this one was used to being out on the streets and walking among his charges.

“How do you mean?”

“If the city is to be abandoned.”

Merros nodded. “Heard about that?”

“It’s hard not to. One has to know where to listen, but yes, I heard about it.”

“It might be a temporary thing. It might be more permanent. No one knows yet, do they? We only know that Desh Krohan believes it must be done.”

Libari nodded. “That was all the reason I needed to send my family to Canhoon. We have relatives there to take care of them.”

“And yet you’re still here?”

“I’m a soldier first. I don’t abandon my duties.”

Oh yes, Merros liked the man. They were going to get along well. “How goes the cleaning of the ranks?”

The smile Libari offered would have dropped a Pra-Moresh to its knees in fear. “I had a very long list of offenses I wished to see handled. The list is much shorter now.”

Merros nodded and his smile came back. “I know exactly how you feel, Welliso.”

“I know you do. I watched your disciplinary actions.”

Merros felt himself nod again, his lips pressed into a hard line. “They were necessary.”

“Has it ever occurred to you how annoying we must be to the younger men?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I can’t speak for you, of course, but I have noticed a dreadful tendency to sound exactly like my father when I was younger. I’ve even caught myself saying, ‘When I was a cadet your age…’”

Merros slapped the man’s shoulder and laughed. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

“Why me, General Merros? It’s not that I don’t appreciate the opportunity, of course, but why me? There are other officers, many with higher ranks.”

“There were other officers with higher ranks. They no longer have that advantage. And actually? You were chosen after a long discussion with Desh Krohan. You impressed his apprentice to the point that she spoke often of your proper behavior when you took care of the matters with Andover Lashk.”

That was obviously still a sore spot. “If he’d killed those boys it would have been easier. I keep having to lock them back up for begging.”

“There are laws against begging?”

Libari nodded. “We only enforce them in certain areas. The areas where a beggar can actually make enough coins to offend someone.”

“Perhaps we can find something to do with that problem after everything else has been cleared up.”

Libari nodded again, his hands locked together behind his broad back. “So, when does this evacuation take place properly?”

“Soon. And when it does I’ll need you and your guard handling a lot of the troubles.”

“Just so. And how long will we be expected to watch over the city after the evacuation?”

Merros nodded his head again. The man was not a dullard.

“Likely for at least a month. Assuming whatever this threat is doesn’t get resolved before then.”

“I expect a few men to quit their contracts.”

“I can bolster your ranks with soldiers.”

Libari smiled again, a tight and cold smile. “Are you quite certain they’ll stand for the demotion?”

There was a little flush of guilt at that. Merros was one of the many soldiers who tended to look down on the City Guard as secondary to real soldiers.

“They might not like it, but they’ll follow your orders.”

“Fair enough. If they fail to, I will treat them the same way I treat my men.”

“Which is?”

“Precisely the same way I’ve seen you discipline your own men.” He looked hard at Merros. “I don’t like using a lash either, but it has to be done to make certain the men understand the proper chain of command.”

“It’s your command, General Welliso. You’ll run it as you see fit.”

“That’s going to take some getting accustomed to.”

“The title?”

“Indeed.”

“You’ll manage. I’ve started adjusting already and it’s not even a year.”

Desh Krohan looked at the bodies and felt his skin shudder with disgust.

Necromancy. That was one form of sorcery he’d never wanted anything to do with. He’d studied it, to be sure, knew about the ways of the dark art and the advantages to be found from employing it, but that did not mean he had a fondness for the subject. It wasn't the soul or the fact that dead flesh was used, really, so much as it was simple messiness of the subject.

Bodies rot. Flesh falls apart. Bodies decay. And in the process there were a great number of sounds and odors he could deal without in his life.

When he was a young man, one of the sorcerers who’d instructed him, Theurasa Sallis, had shown him how to revive dead flesh into a mimicry of living substance. It was a lesson he had never forgotten. The nightmares he suffered afterwards had lingered for a very long time indeed. The long-remembered incident – and the need to put down what he had created – were among the reasons that necromancy was now a forbidden art in the Fellein Empire.

And yet he was looking at the results of what had to be necromancy, though it was not anything he was familiar with.

Merros Dulver stood next to him. There were a dozen others there as well, all of them looking on as Desh studied the creatures brought back from the trail to Old Canhoon by the soldiers who had defeated them.

Besides the unclean things there was the body of an older member of the Sa’ba Taalor. Older than any Desh had seen, and withered. His mount was much the same, but beyond that it was almost impossible to say much about them. They’d both been trampled by the things that had followed them, and their remains were little more than broken, torn piles of bone.

Several different people had examined the remains, which had then been sealed away. Why? Because no one knew exactly how to handle them. The idea had been to hand them over to Desh Krohan to study and he’d certainly meant to, but there had been no chance.

And now there was no choice. They had to understand what the things were, not merely what they had been.

Desh reached out and touched one of the shields that had been warped and crushed into a new shape along with the bodies of soldiers. The Imperial Crest was clear on the malformed metal.

“So, what happened to them?” Welliso was the man’s name. He seemed a decent enough sort. Certainly Tega thought well enough of him, and that was enough to garner him a bit of respect from Desh. His apprentice had a perceptive mind. If not, she’d have never become his apprentice.

“Well, they died, obviously.” Desh looked at a corpse with a major’s rank still evidence on the breastplate of his armor. “This one. I saw him when the fighting started with Tuskandru.” His lip curled downward. “Wallford. Hradi’s dog.”

Merros started. He was not fond of the tone in Desh’s voice. Still he was wise enough to keep his tongue.

“This is necromancy. Sorcery as dark as any that exists. But it is not a form of necromancy I am familiar with.” Desh touched Wallford’s dead face – which had been stretched and crumpled along with his helmet. The end result was not pleasant to view – and several of the people in the room gasped as the corpse’s distended face twitched and the mouth opened and closed spasmodically.

“By all the gods…” He didn’t look up to find the voice.

“Durst,” Merros’s voice warned the man speaking.

Desh looked up to see one of the soldiers, Taurn Durst, with his sword half drawn. He looked at the man for a long second and the man looked back, deeply afraid.

“The sword will do you no good. They’re already dead. They’ve been dead. The only reason they stopped moving before is because whatever is controlling them told them to stop.”

Durst looked at him and shook his head. “The soldiers hacked them to bits.”

“The soldiers cut them, but they’ve been in here for a month or more and they’re still moving. If they were alive and locked in a cellar for thirty odd days they’d be dead and rotting. These are rotting and they are dead but they are also moving. And they aren’t rotting fast enough by half.”

Desh plucked a deeply wounded, severed hand from the table in front of him and showed it to the solider. The fingers clutched at the air.

Durst grew several shades paler and staggered back, his hand reaching for a token of one of the churches.

And in that moment Desh smiled.

“Thank you, Durst. You’re absolutely right.”

“I… What?” The man looked to Merros for help and the general looked to Desh and then back to him and shrugged. “What did I do?”

Desh put the hand on the table and walked over to the stocky man. With the same hand that had held the dead, squirming flesh he clapped the general’s aide on the shoulder.

“You’re absolutely right! We need priests!”

Merros looked at him as if he’d grown a tree out of his eyebrow. “We what?”

“The Sa’ba Taalor have a close relationship with their gods. We need people who can speak on behalf of our gods. Durst here is going to go out running and bring back a priest from each of our churches.” He looked to Durst. “Aren’t you?”

Durst looked to Desh and then to Merros, his eyes growing wider.

Merros sighed. “Go find priests, Durst. Make sure they’re ready to travel.”

“Where are they going, General?”

Merros shook his head and scowled at Desh. Desh offered his best smile in return. “I believe the First Advisor wants them to come with us to meet with the enemy.”

Desh straightened up and smiled. “There we have it. They’ll travel with us and we’ll ask them questions and get some answers. It’ll be a wonderful and enlightening experience, to be sure.”

He turned to leave the room. “Oh. And burn these things. Burn them down to ash. When you’re done, take the ashes to the river and scatter them in the water past the city. Whatever metal is left should be brought back down here for me to study.”

Merros looked to his men and nodded.

A moment later he walked into the narrow corridor leading from the long-disused holding cells where one of the previous Emperors had kept his favorite playthings and caught up with Desh.

“What are you thinking?”

“You said it yourself, Merros. We need to understand the Sa’ba Taalor better. We also need to understand the part their gods play in all of this.”

“So how will priests from around here help with that?”

“They won’t. But maybe having priests along with us will make them think our gods are ready to fight against their gods.”

Merros nodded his head. He could see the logic well enough.

“They’re not going to be happy about going along, I’d wager.”

“That would be a problem the priests can take up with their gods.”

Fourteen

How does one recover from being physically changed? Andover looked at his face, at the strange slash across his cheek, and then flexed his jaw. His mouths opened. Both of them. Rather than panicking, he considered the matter clinically. How does one recover? One does not. One adapts.

He looked down at his hands and at the scars where his old hands had once been attached to his body.

One adapts.

He sighed and heard the sound come mostly from his throat, but also from the smaller mouth, the “Great Scar” that moved and existed where before there had only been skin.

Andover did not understand all of the workings of the human body and he was exactly wise enough to know that he faced a mystery along those lines. His second mouth was a good deal smaller, and it could be hidden, he supposed, if he simply did not open his mouth. Mouths. That was going to take getting used to.

The polished metal he used to look at his face was not perfect, but there was only a small amount of distortion. He knew that when he looked at the open scar and saw gums and teeth, they were real. He could even accept the change because he could see it. The parts he had trouble with were deeper than that. Below the surface as it were. He could feel the tongue in his new mouth. He could hear it speak from time to time.

More interestingly, he could understand the words it said, though before the changes Durhallem had made to him, he would not have heard anything but gibberish.

“Are you going to stay in there all day? Or will you come out and look at the farms as we discussed?” Delil’s voice was without guile.

He thought about the feel of her body against his, the way her hands felt when they ran across his body, the touch of her lips on his neck, and his heartbeat increased.

“I’m coming.” He set down the silver disk Tusk had found for him and stretched, feeling the play of muscles under his skin. The air was cool and clear and he felt surprisingly good. Part of him wondered how that was possible with the changes he was going through, but he suspected it was because of those changes, really. He had hands. The Sa’ba Taalor who had seen him as a stranger were now seeing him as an equal and that was an amazing thing.

The Great Scar left on him by Durhallem was a sign that he was an adult in the eyes of the valley people. He didn’t understand all of their reasons, but he appreciated them.

The bag he grabbed held his belongings. It was time to leave Durhallem and move across the valley. There were other kings he had to meet. There were other gods he had to meet.

Gods.

His ears rang at the notion.

Delil stood in the daylight, her supplies already strapped across her back. She was alone. She tilted her head as she looked at him, squinting against the early morning glare. “You move like a glacier.”

“A what?”

She shook her head. “A glacier. A frozen river. Never mind. You have to see one to understand.”

“Are there glaciers in the valley?”

“No. There are three to the north of the Hearts of the Gods. Perhaps you will see them someday.” She waved the notion away. “Come now. We have far to go.”

He slung his pack over his shoulders and shrugged the weight into the now familiar place he had held it during his walk to the Seven Forges. “No one else is coming with us?” His obsidian, he held in a bundle of leather that he carried wrapped around one wrist. His hammer was slung over his other shoulder, ready should need it.

Delil looked over her shoulder and shook her head. “I will have to be enough for you.” Her voice held a teasing edge and, despite how much he had changed, he still blushed at her comment.

Andover was not aware on a conscious level of how much weight he carried with ease, but had he tried carrying as much only a year before he would have fallen on his back like an upended turtle. He did not consider that the clothes he’d brought with him were for a smaller man, or how snugly they would have fit him now, because he wore the clothes of the locals instead. A vest and breeches and boots. More than that would have to be unbundled from his supplies.

Delil walked, heading quickly to the pens where Andover could see Tusk dealing with the massive mount he rode, Brodem. Even the animal eyed him differently as he approached.

“It is time for you to leave?” The words were stated like a question, but the tone was conversational. Tusk knew the answer even before he spoke.

Andover nodded his head. “Thank you. For all that you have done on my behalf.”

“I have fed you and not killed you. Return the courtesy some day and we are even.”

Andover grinned at that and the man smiled back, his broad face with its odd mouth-scars already becoming something Andover could easily accept. How quickly the mind adapts. “I think you are safe on both accounts, Tusk.”

The King slapped his arm again and Andover braced himself for it, kept his balance.

“Show me the obsidian, yes?” Tusk pointed to the rolled leather. It seemed the man knew exactly where the two pieces were kept.

Andover crouched and unrolled the packing. The King squatted next to him and nodded. “What do you see Andover Iron Hands?”

The heavy axe blade was clear enough to understand. The other piece, the gift that Durhallem had offered up, was a curved, twisted line of obsidian that looked like nothing so much as a simple club. “I think you’re right about the axe, of course.”

Tusk laughed and slapped his arm again, his smile a broad, fearsome thing when all of his mouths opened and added their noise. And then the Great Scar on the left side of his face spoke clearly. “Durhallem has given you the handle for the axe. The Daxar Taalor agree.”

The King gestured, silently asking permission to touch the pieces and Andover nodded his agreement.

He raised the clublike section and placed it in Andover’s hand, moving Andover’s fingers until he understood what the King was doing. The obsidian was uneven, yes, but there was indeed a purpose. Each of the odd indentations matched up with one of Andover’s fingers. When he gripped the piece in his iron fingers the obsidian perfectly married itself to his grip. The heavier end of the club rested below his grip. The other end was not more delicate, thinner and pointed upward.

Tusk raised the axe head of obsidian and slipped it onto the thinner end of the volcanic glass in Andover’s hand.

“You will need to work a way to connect them together, but they fit. How do they feel in your grip?”

Andover grinned as he looked at the weapon. There was no denying what Tusk had seen clearly. They were meant to be fused as one. The lines of the two pieces of darkness even matched up in the way their facets linked.

“They are connected already, aren’t they?”

Delil chuckled and Tusk smiled indulgently. “Try to attack anyone and the head of your new axe would fall right off. Durhallem has given you a gift, but as I have said to others of your kind, you must make your own weapons. That is what the Daxar Taalor demand. You must find the proper way to bind them into one.”

Andover nodded and watched as Tusk carefully took the two pieces apart and then wrapped them back together.

“What would you use to bond them Tusk?”

“Me? I would use a good length of leather.” He stood up. “The gods say you have to make it work. They don’t say it has to be hard work.” He headed back to Brodem and turned his back on both Andover and Delil. “Go in health and walk with the gods.”

A moment later they were on their way, heading down the side of the mountain. The journey was faster than the way up, but just as riddled with its own risks. Still, they made excellent time and before the sun was setting they had reached the edge of the valley proper and the farmlands that Delil had spoken of.

The ground was harder than he’d expected. Seeing the lush greens of the valley, he’d thought to see heavy vegetation and the sort of plant life he’d experienced on his way from Tyrne to the Temmis Pass, but instead there was little to see save hard soil and a short green moss that seemed to cover everything foolish enough to stand still for more than ten minutes.

“This is the farmland?”

Delil shook her head. “No. This is the ground when we do not till and work to make fields.”

“How do you farm for anything in ground like this?”

“You say you have never farmed before?”

“No.” He watched her as she stepped. Delil was careful about where she placed her feet, careful about how she settled her weight. A few missteps over the rocks told him why. The moss was solid enough, but the rocks it covered were often lose and he nearly twisted his ankle twice before he started paying better attention.

“The ground is hard. You have to break the ground, and you have to turn the soil and remove the rocks. Then you have to add ash to the dirt, because the ash from the mountains makes plants grow better. Then you have to plant the seeds and keep them watered. Then you have to wait and you have to protect the plants.”

“Protect them from what?”

Delil stopped and looked back at him. “We are not alone here. There are other things that live in the valley and they are smaller than us and they fear us, but they are fast and they will eat the plants if we do not guard against them.”

“What sort of things?”

“I thought you wanted to know about farming.”

“I do. I just want to know the other things, too.”

She shook her head. “When I have told you about farming you may ask more questions. Hold them until then.”

They traveled a long way the first day, and never lacked for things to discuss. Mostly, Delil told Andover about the Taalor Valley and the local plants and animals. It seemed nothing went to waste in the valley. As proof of that, Delil hunted down and killed two small creatures the size of large feral cats, with thick hides and teeth that looked like they were designed to chew out a person’s spine.

Delil held the jaw open on one of the creatures, and let him look carefully at the front teeth. “They are long and thin to allow for digging in the ground and for breaking the skin of the logga nuts.”

“What is a logga nut?”

“It’s what is farmed in this part of the valley.” She dropped the corpse and reached into a pouch on her belt. There were four hard stones in her palm. No. He looked closer and saw the thin seam that ran along each of them. “Logga nuts.” Using the hilt of one of her knives she hit the nut hard enough to crack the surface. The meat inside the nut was sweet and heavy. “They are good for traveling. They also make the bread you had at your feast.”

“They grow on trees?”

“Vines. The only trees in the valley are much further down. You will see them.”

As she was skinning the first kill – and showing Andover how he would skin the second – she explained that the very same creatures were the sort that stole from the farms.

He contemplated the teeth on the corpse, and the wide-set claws capable of tearing through the heavy moss or a person with equal ease, and asked, “Are these particularly large ones? I was thinking something more along the size of a rat.”

“No. They are barely even adults.”

“Oh.”

While he skinned his meal, Delil started a small fire. It was blazing properly by the time Andover had finished his task. They ate the food together as the sun set behind Wrommish. A few small lights glittered on the side of mountain. More lights came from the valley, enough to hide much of the light from the stars.

Andover chewed at the meat. It wasn’t as tasty as Pra-Moresh, but it would keep a belly full. “What’s going on in the valley? I don’t think there were fires so close to us yesterday.”

Delil tore one of the legs from her roast and looked toward the fires. “They are moving closer. Yesterday they were still closer to the foot of Truska-Pren.”

“Who is moving closer?”

“You were still visiting with Durhallem when we heard the horns.” She looked at his scar for a moment and smiled. “That is the army of Tarag Paedori, the King in Iron.”

The timing was good. As soon as she finished speaking the first horn blew a long note into the air. The call came from much closer than Andover would have expected.

A moment later four more calls echoed and joined the first. And a moment after that the entire valley seemed filled with the sound. From behind them on Durhallem and from Ganem and from Wrommish, they heard more horns calling to each other, the sound a powerful note that made Andover’s blood race.

“What are they doing?”

“Tarag Paedori calls to the other kings. It is almost time.”

“Almost time for what?”

Delil looked toward him in the growing night and her eyes once again glowed with a silver light all their own.

“Your people attacked Tuskandru. The kings spoke together on this matter. Tarag Paedori will now go to meet with your Emperor and discuss the attack and what will be done about it.”

“And all of the horns? What do they mean?”

“Andover, the Daxar Taalor assign each king with certain tasks. They are prepared for those tasks by the gods themselves. Like Durhallem has given Tusk the order that he must always protect Durhallem’s Pass. That is his sworn responsibility.”

Andover knew she was preparing to say something but had no idea what it was. He wiped the grease from his fingers and focused his attention on Delil.

“Tarag Paedori is the King in Iron. He is the Chosen of Truska-Pren. Truska-Pren is the god of formal combat. He charges Tarag Paedori with ruling the armies of the Sa’ba Taalor.”

“The armies?” He frowned at the notion. “I didn’t think you had armies.”

She rose from her spot and looked around for a moment, scanning the horizon. “Come.” Delil moved quickly and he followed as she moved into a rocky area and climbed to a greater height.

Within ten minutes they’d reached a level where she could show him what she wanted him to see. The lights they had seen were closer than he’d guessed and far more numerous. There were hundreds of fires, most of them large enough to cook food as well as provide warmth. Large enough, surely, that more than one person sat at each.

Andover’s throat was dry and he wished he’d brought water with him. Instead, he worked his tongue around until he could speak again. “How many people are there?”

“I do not know. But we will find out together.”

“What?”

Delil clambered down the rocks as quickly as she’d climbed them and Andover did his best to keep up. Her eyes seemed better equipped for moving through the darkness of the valley. The fires were near, yes, but there was enough vegetation and enough changes in the landscape to hide most of the illumination.

“Where are we going, Delil?”

“You are to meet the kings, yes?”

“Well, yes, of course.”

“If Tarag Paedori is to leaving the Taalor Valley, now is your best chance to meet him before he goes to face your Emperor.”

He shook his head, not at all sure that her plan was a good one. She either did not see or did not care. Whichever was the case, she headed for the encampment. And after only a moment’s hesitation Andover followed.

He’d planned to meet with Tarag Paedori, yes, but after a few more days at the very least and certainly not while the King was gathering an army to go attack or consider attacking the Empire he came from.

Following Delil was easy. She made it easy for him, turning around from time to time and gesturing him forward.

And then it was even easier, as they came upon the first of the fires. There were soldiers up ahead and no two ways about that. The figures he saw were dressed in armor as varied as he’d have expected. It seemed that none of the Sa’ba Taalor shared the same designs for their armor. Like with their weapons, the individuals who wore them created each piece of protective gear.

Delil looked at several of the shapes – each seemed more terrifying and less human than the last to Andover’s eyes – and finally ran up to one, a bulky shape in the firelight that Andover could scarcely tell apart from any of the others.

Whoever he was, he lifted her into the air as if she weighed nothing and tossed her up and caught her twice before setting her back on her feet.

Each and every one of the faces he could see wore a veil, with the exception of himself and Delil.

Several members of the group saw her, saw him, and stared.

He stared back, his pulse hammering in his chest and his hand resting near the release on his hammer’s strap.

Delil pointed toward him and spoke quickly to the man she was with. He in turn looked toward Andover and nodded his head. A moment later he called out in a loud voice and several others joined in. Andover did not recognize a single word they said.

Delil gestured him closer. Despite a growing unease, he listened and stepped up to her side.

Up close, the man she was with was no less a sight. He wore heavy plates of armor strapped over a dense chainmail. The helmet on his head was not as ornamental as many he’d seen – certainly nowhere as elaborate as Tusk’s skull-like affair – but it covered his entire head, leaving only his eyes and his mouth clearly visible. His mouth was hidden under a veil. His eyes burned with that unsettling gray light.

Delil said, “Andover Lashk of the Iron Hands, this is Ventdril the Unbroken. He is my brother.” The joy in her voice when she introduced them allowed Andover to relax a little.

The voice was milder than he’d expected from the monstrous shape. “Delil says you come from Fellein.”

He nodded his head. “I was brought here to meet the Seven Kings and to speak with the Daxar Taalor.” Both of his mouths spoke, the sound echoing oddly inside his head. He would likely never adjust to the change.

Ventdril spread his arms and then crossed them. “I have called for Tarag Paedori to meet you. He will be here soon.” Andover studied the four knives strapped to the man’s thick forearm and nodded.

“I am here now.” The voice came from a giant. He was bigger than Tusk, bigger than Drask, bigger than most of the shapes standing around, and, as he approached, the warriors immediately dropped to one knee, many of them drawing swords or other bladed weapons, turning the hilts toward the giant striding toward Andover and offering the weapons to him. The move was so fluid that it had to be something done regularly.

Delil lowered to one knee and offered one of her swords. Andover looked to her, looked at the others around him and immediately dropped to one knee. The hammer was a heavy weapon but he offered it just the same, his arms straining from the awkward position he held it in.

Tarag Paedori towered above him and grabbed the weapon by the offered handle. He looked it over for a moment, his eyes quickly studying the shape, and then placed it gently back into Andover’s grip.

“You are Andover Lashk. You are now called Iron Hands. Truska-Pren offered you a great gift.”

Andover looked up at the man and nodded. “I have come to speak to you and to Truska-Pren, to offer my thanks for his gift.”

Tarag Paedori made a gesture with one hand and the people around him rose from the kneeling positions, putting away their weapons. Andover followed their lead, and forced himself to breathe.

The King in Iron lived up to his name. His body was covered in iron, from the plates of the stuff that covered his boot tops to the shell of the stuff wrapped around his body. His hands were bare and his face, but almost every other inch of his massive shape was covered. Over that armor the man wore a dark red tunic and a black cloak. On his face he wore a veil that matched his tunic, and on his head he wore a simple crown of black iron.

His eyes regarded Andover for several seconds and Andover had to resist the burning desire to fidget. He had a powerful suspicion that moving around would be seen as a sign of weakness.

Finally the man gestured with one scarred hand. “You will come with me. We go to meet Truska-Pren.”

Without another word the man turned and strode toward the side of the mountain. The Sa’ba Taalor parted for him, leaving a wide path that Andover followed as quickly as he dared.

Delil did not go with him.

The caravan was a compromise. The initial idea was for only a dozen or so people to head for the parley, but Nachia’s insistence in being along changed everything. Desh Krohan could not stop the Empress from coming, but he could decidedly make sure it was more challenging for her.

Fifty of the Imperial Guards rode along with the caravan, dressed in full armor and prepared for any eventuality. At least Merros expected them to be prepared. They were among the best-trained soldiers Fellein had to offer.

Seven wagons of supplies rode along, including cooks, serving staff and a few surprises that Merros did not feel the need to share with anyone else. Desh Krohan had one of the wagons as his own, and Nachia Krous rode with him. It was a wagon that Merros himself had once been a guest in and though he could not prove it he suspected there might be something of a magical nature involved. The wagon looked as pristine as it had since heading into the Blasted Lands, while everything else that had gone along had been scoured by the winds and debris until paint and finish were ruined.

They reached the designated site well before they had to be there, and Merros was surprised to find Goriah and Tataya waiting for them. The Sisters were dressed for the weather, they had heavy cloaks and the rain washed off the well-oiled materials.

The Temmis Pass was nothing remarkable to see. Unless one knew what one was looking for, the spot differed little from the rest of the vast edge to the Blasted Lands. In this area there was a good deal of grassland and in the distance the town of Hallis crouched. Hallis could only properly be called a town if one was feeling generous. There were seven buildings all told, and half of them were abandoned and falling in on themselves, but it was the closest sign of human life.

The people of Hallis – all eleven – stared with wide eyes when the caravan rode past. One old man – Merros could not remember his name – nodded and waved when he recognized Merros. The general nodded back but did not wave. Though he could hardly blame the man for charging insane prices for his supplies, he still wasn't fond of anyone who charged that much for barrels of water.

This time they had plenty of water along with them.

Merros waved the caravan to a halt, and the Sisters looked in his direction and approached. He’d expected them to head for the wagon, but instead they came to him. Goriah smiled softly in his direction. “You are earlier than expected.”

“I prefer being ready for when the Sa’ba Taalor arrive.”

“They are still well away. You have time yet.”

He did not bother asking how they knew.

“Excellent. We’ll have a chance to make a proper presentation for them.”

The Empress came out of Desh Krohan’s wagon and headed immediately for the edge of the land where it fell away into the Blasted Lands. The perpetual storm below them was lower than Merros had seen it in some time, and through the clouds holding below that edge the distant spires of the Seven Forges were visible, though heavily sheathed in clouds of their own making.

“It doesn’t seem that far to travel, does it?” Nachia’s voice was low and her eyes studied the distant forges.

“It’s deceptive. The storms within the area are constant and keeping any sense of direction is nearly impossible.” He looked to the Sisters. “I have no proof but I suspect the journey might well have been aided by these ladies.”

They offered no confirmation, nor any denial for that matter. Merros merely smiled. He was beginning to believe they’d be more likely to deny being able to do things rather than to confess what they might be capable of achieving. Like Desh Krohan, they preferred that an air of mystery surround them. Rumors had their own sort of power.

Both of the Sisters bowed formally to Nachia Krous and she nodded her acceptance of the gesture.

From the third wagon in the caravan a head appeared briefly and then vanished. After several seconds it showed again, just peeping past the door of the wagon, and then finally a man slipped free of the thing. He was not a very tall man, as it went. In fact he could be called short without stretching the truth in any significant measure.

If he was the scout for the party inside he barely showed it. A tiny gesture from Merros’s hand and he was heading for Merros and the rest, ducking his head again and again, as if he were practicing how to bow while only involving his neck in the effort.

He came closer and kept his eyes on Merros. In the man’s defense the general was the only one of the four carrying a weapon, but in truth all three of the women he was with were far deadlier.

Nachia turned her head and regarded the man for a long moment and as she did, Merros watched the subtle transformation in her demeanor. Her shoulders shifted a bit, straightening, and she lifted her chin. The lines of her face seemed to harden and the warm expression he was used to seeing grew as cold as the Blasted Lands.

The man came closer still, looking toward Nachia as if he were seeing her for the first time, and then remembered that he should bow to the Empress. Had a man ever looked more wretched? Not that Merros could remember.

“Your Manjesty…”

“Elder.” Oh, how cold the woman’s voice.

Teagus was an Elder for the Church of Etrilla. Near as Merros could figure it, Etrilla was the God of Cities. Wherever people gathered to live, the god was supposed to hold sway.

Merros gestured to the Sisters. “Teagus, this is Goriah and Tataya, two of the Sisters to Desh Krohan.”

Teagus managed what should have been impossible. He simultaneously cringed and sneered at the two women. From what Merros had seen, that was his expression with all females.

“I am pleased to meet the both of you. May the gods always be kind to you.”

Tataya, who normally managed to be pleasant and formal with everyone, made the barest nod in the man’s direction.

Goriah smiled frostily and offered a formal bow.

Teagus then promptly ignored both of them and looked to Merros. “Is this the place where you are to meet with the Sa’ba Taalor?”

“It is. We appreciate your agreeing to join us on such short notice.”

The cringe-sneer came back. “We were not exactly given a choice.”

“Of course you were. You were given the choice to attend to her Majesty or to be brought along in irons. I feel you made the wiser of the two choices. I’m sure by now that two of your number would agree.”

The cringing aspect of his demeanor grew more pronounced and the Elder wrang his hands. “Yes, well, that is why I am bothering you. They were wondering if they are to be kept in irons throughout the entirety of the trip.”

Merros kept his stern expression despite the powerful temptation to laugh. There were eighteen members of the eighteen different churches present now and with the exceptions of the Deiber, the head of the Church of Lalos the Wanderer and Ellish, the head of the Church of Vendahl, the leaders of the churches had all come willingly enough when the Empress invited them along. Merros had taken the liberty of extending his own invitation to the reluctant duo.

“You may tell Ellish and Deiber that they will be allowed to move about after I have had a personal discussion with each of them regarding the proper response to invitations from the Imperial Throne.” Merros shrugged. “I should be there within the next hour or so to have that discussion. Any who wishes to participate in the conversation is welcome to state their opinions at that time.”

The Elder cringed and bowed and backed away as carefully as if Merros were aiming a crossbow at his testicles the entire time.

When the man had disappeared back into his wagon Nachia relaxed back into herself.

Merros resisted laughing and kept his stern demeanour. “Honestly, Nachia. You’re a cold one. I thought he would wet himself.”

“I wonder how he feels about the city being evacuated.” Tataya’s voice was low and conversational.

“I should imagine it’s an affront to his position within the city. I can’t imagine wherever he eventually relocates that the Elder in that city will appreciate the competition,” said Merros.

Nachia responded, her voice carrying an edge, “As I understand it, the Elders of the Church of Etrilla must stay in the town where they are in charge. His being here is pushing the limits of what his faith permits. He must stay in Tyrne, even if the city is evacuated completely.”

“Even if the Empress demands he leave?” Tataya asked the question in an offhand way, but her voice also carried an edge.

“The dictates of the church. He will leave when the time comes. I won’t be giving him an option.”

Merros looked from Empress to Sister. “Why do I get the impression there’s more about this man that neither of you are telling me?”

Nachia let a smirk play across her face and then grew sober. She said, “Teagus has a long reputation for attempting to influence the youths of his faith.” Nachia shook her head. “Do you know when I was younger I went to his church for one ceremony or another and he did his very best to bed me.”

Merros felt his blood surge at the thought. “I do have extra leg irons in my supplies.”

She chuckled and waved the thought away. “Mostly I just wanted to see if he’d remember me. His attempt to seduce me did not go well for him or for his church. Pathra nearly demanded his head.”

Merros eyed the wagon and contemplated the leg irons. He was not fond of people who abused their position and that especially stood for anyone who would attempt to use that position to get between a child’s legs. Nachia was the Empress, true enough, but a few years back she would have barely qualified as an adult.

Merros ground his teeth. “But nothing has been done about it?”

Goriah answered for the others. “There is a long standing tradition of allowing the churches a certain amount of leeway in their actions. It leads to less trouble between the Empire and the faithful.”

Merros looked Goriah and shook his head. “Is that only within Tyrne?”

“No. The churches work throughout the Empire. They are a power to be considered, Merros Dulver. You would do well to remember that when dealing with them in the future.”

He was not even aware of his hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

“The churches have their place. I’m not quite sure where that is, but I intend to find out.”

Goriah brushed some of the blonde hair from her eyes. “Have you been studying the faiths your entire life, Merros?”

“No. I’ve been studying the military laws of Fellein. I have acquainted myself with the churches on the last few days. I’m still trying to understand the full hierarchy of the faiths.”

She smiled at him, her eyes holding his attention as she stepped closer. “The hierarchy is uncertain at the best of times. The churches have come to a respectful accord. The differing faiths started throughout the Empire. Plith and Tyrea to the east. Kanheer to the south and east, where the Brellar often came in and took what they wanted. Kanheer is a war god. He is used to demanding sacrifices.” She gestured toward the City of Wonders. “Vendahl and Luhnsh from around Canhoon.”

The gods of wealth and beggars respectively. It made sense that they would be best known in Old Canhoon, where the two resided within the same walls as often as not.

“There are eighteen known gods and they come from all over the Empire, Merros. There is no hierarchy. The churches agree only to tolerate each other. And sometimes they do not do so very well.”

Merros sighed. “Well, we have their gods outnumbered. I suppose that should be good for something.”

Tataya looked toward the Blasted Lands. “Let us hope they feel the same way.”

Nachia shook her head. “I will talk with the priests tomorrow, after the sun rises. Until then I prefer not to think about them more than I have to.”

Merros nodded his head. “As you wish, Majesty.” He did not feel completely the same way about the situation. At the very least he would be having a conversation with the reluctant duo and with Teagus. Of the three he suspected Teagus would like the conversation the least.

Nachia looked to the distant Seven Forges, their lights clearly visible through the heavy clouds that hid most of the Blasted Lands from this vantage point. She looked older than her years as she studied the reputed homes of the Sa’ba Taalor gods.

Merros turned away from the Empress and called to his soldiers. It was time to start preparing for the coming meeting.

Andover stared at the Iron King’s city. Prydiria was a massive gray city built into the side of a gray mountain. Where the dwellings in Tusk’s city were relatively new, these were ancient. Tarag Paedori continued his long strides and Andover did his best to keep up, taking deep breaths and fast steps to make up for the man’s pace.

“I was to be the ambassador between our peoples, your Majesty.”

The King in Iron looked his way and regarded him with eyes that offered no hint of kindness.

“I have spoken with your people before. I have talked with Merros Dulver and Kallir Lundt. You are not the first of your kind here, nor the first favored by Truska-Pren.”

Favored? He looked down at his hands.

“Yes. Kallir Lundt was here before you and healed by Truska-Pren.”

He had never heard the man’s name mentioned before.

“He was given iron hands as well?”

The King turned to face him and slowly shook his head. “Kallir Lundt did not need new hands. It was his face that was ruined.”

“His face?” There was a note of horror that Andover couldn’t quite keep from his voice. He remembered the pain of his hands being ruined, and the even greater pain of having them replaced by the living iron hands he had now and shook his head.

“Like you, Kallir Lundt decided he would rather be complete than dead.”

“Of course. I did not mean offense.”

“There is no offense in simple truths, Andover Lashk.” The man stopped and faced him. “You will meet Kallir Lundt. He has been waiting to meet with you for a long time. And then you will meet Truska-Pren. Be prepared for these things.”

“Yes, of course.” He said the words easily enough. But as his father had said more than once: words were easier to say than actions were to fulfil.

Had there ever been a place with so damned many stairs? Climbing the side of Durhallem had been a harsh challenge, to be sure, but Prydiria seemed harder still, with endless runs of staircases and level after level of hard angles and carefully carved stone. They climbed for a long while and Andover did his best not to show how tired he felt while the King continued to walk at a pace that would have shamed a few horses Andover had seen in the past.

Finally they moved into an area that forced Andover to stop. The opening they moved through was as tall as any of the others – tall enough to easily accommodate even the King in Iron – but, when they passed through, it opened into a cavernous area. The space was enormous indeed but, like everything else, was carved meticulously and filled with sharp angles. They were inside the mountain. They had to be. It was the only possible explanation that made sense to Andover. Light filled the area from dozens of stanchions lit with burning torches. He could not count the sheer number of lights that filled the area but it seemed nearly as many as there were stars in the heavens.

“This is Prydiria. This is my kingdom, Andover Lashk of the Iron Hands. And as long as you make yourself known to Truska-Pren, you are welcome here.”

Andover nodded his head and swallowed. “You are most gracious, Majesty.”

Tarag Paedori let out a sound that could have been a snort of laughter and nodded. “Come. It is time for you to meet Kallir Lundt.”

Andover followed him, his heart beating too hard in his chest. The sense of wonder he felt as he stared into the amazing structure was offset by a growing sense of dread. He was to meet another god and once again he wondered if he would be found wanting.

Down another hallway that could have led almost anywhere, and then the King opened a door, speaking softly before entering. A moment after that, he gestured for Andover to follow.

The room had little by way of decoration, save for a bed and a long table. At the table a man sat drawing meticulous maps, carefully filling in as many details as the paper would allow. Andover knew what maps were, of course, but couldn’t have guessed if this one were accurate.

The man rose and looked toward Andover.

Andover looked back, and forgot to breathe.

Kallir Lundt was a tall man, and thin in an athletic way. His muscles were solid and his limbs were long. He wore loose-fitting pants and a vest, and military boots that would have looked at home on any soldier from the Empire.

His face was hewn from black iron. That was the only way to put it. There was a line of scar tissue around that mask, but that it was fused with his flesh was obvious. The metal was angular, but it made human enough features, a broad mouth that pulled down in a slight scowl, an equally broad nose, and two eyes that lay sunken beneath a heavy metallic brow. If it had been a mask it would have been unsettling enough, but, as with Andover’s hands, the metal moved. The mouth shifted and worked, and somewhere within that living mask, parts worked to make the mouth form words. Andover felt as fascinated as a child watching a street magician and a puppet show combined.

The iron face said, “You are Andover Lashk. We’ve been expecting you.” The voice rang as if the man were speaking through a small metal tube. Perhaps he was, to some degree.

“Kallir Lundt?”

“I am.” He could not really see the eyes within that mask, not with the lighting the way it was, but he could feel the gaze that studied him.

“How long have you been here?”

“Long enough to know that I am among friends.” Lundt stepped closer. “In a few hours I will ride with Tarag. We will head for the Temmis Pass and discuss the possibilities of war with the Emperor and his people. I go along to do my part to keep things civil.”

Andover nodded his head. “I am here to meet–”

“I know.” The man nodded his metal covered face. “I wish you well with that.” He regarded Andover for a long moment while Andover watched the way his features moved, amazed as he ever had been by the miracle of his own hands. It did not seem possible that metal could be so supple, could move so well. “Truska-Pren is a war god, Andover Lashk. His followers are soldiers first. Remember that when you meet. Discipline must overcome fear.”

Andover nodded, trying to find the right words to convey his doubts. He was scared. He had been frightened when he met with Durhallem, but this was different. Durhallem seemed less imposing, his king seemed almost kinder than Tarag Paedori, and to say that about Tuskandru was something Andover had never expected.

“It is time, Andover Lashk.” The King in Iron moved forward and looked to Kallir Lundt. “It is time, Kallir. Gather your armor and your weapons.”

“It has been a pleasure meeting another blessed by the Daxar Taalor, Andover of the Iron Hands.” Kallir’s voice still echoed, but there was a warmth to his tone.

Andover smiled and held out one hand. “I wish we had longer.”

“Soon enough, if the gods permit. First we both have tasks to attend to.” He paused only for a moment before turning toward a chest that rested half beneath the table where he worked on his maps. “May the gods keep you safe and welcome you, Andover.”

“And you, Kallir Lundt.”

Tarag Paedori moved on and Andover followed, swallowing his fear as best he could.

“Where will I meet Truska-Pren?”

Tarag looked over his shoulder as he walked down the same hallway, heading at a rapid pace. “You will meet him in his heart. We are not far now.”

That was not hard to believe. The vast majority of what he had already seen seemed to have been carved within the mountain itself, so how far could away the heart of the mountain be?

They walked until Andover felt winded, and he had not felt truly out of breath since he had entered the Taalor Valley. Part of it was the heat and the odd scent in the air. He knew both well enough. The heat was certainly similar to that of Burk’s furnaces when the time came to smelt metal. The scent was most assuredly one he knew: iron and steel gave off a sharp, bitter scent when they were melting.

An immense door blocked the end of the hallway. Tarag Paedori opened that door with one sweep of his arm and the heat from the other side washed outward like a physical blow. How hot did metal have to be to melt? Hot enough to suck the moisture from the air and to crisp hairs on the scalp. The stench of molten iron was potent, but the heat was worse. Beyond that door was a furnace, a raging cauldron of white hot metal and burning stone.

Andover hesitated only for a moment and then stepped forward.

He had been an apprentice smith. The colors and scents were familiar enough, and in his heart he felt like he was coming home.

Fifteen

Tyrne was no longer a calm place. It had been called calm on many occasions, and a few visitors had referred to it as a “lazy town” when the summer heat came along. The main industry in the city had been the care and maintenance of the palace for over a decade. There had always been a certain amount of that, of course. The Summer Palace was occupied year round, even when the Imperial Family was not in attendance, but after Pathra Krous had decided to stay in the palace fulltime, the city grew more focused on tending to his needs.

Truly, the change in the activity was as sure a sign to the people of Tyrne as any other that the Emperor was dead. The decree had gone out that Nachia Krous would be moving everything to the traditional Grand Palace in Old Canhoon, and while the start of the exodus had been slow, it was now a driving force in its own right.

The armies of Fellein had been on the move, many of the regiments had been called to head for Tyrne, and thousands upon thousands of soldiers had come to the city. And now those very same soldiers were leaving, heading back the way they had come, toward Canhoon and other cities. And as they left they seemed to suck the very life from Tyrne in the process.

But if that were the case, the process was as slow and ponderous as the army itself. The soldiers gathered their belongings and formed up, and the supply lines that fed and cared for the soldiers moved too.

At first there was endless activity, and then the frenetic motion stopped, and the people of Tyrne looked around in wonder, surprised by the sudden silence where before there had been ceaseless commotion.

And then, in fits and starts, the people of Tyrne started moving. There was no choice for most of them. In one way or another they were dependent on the army or on the Imperial Family. Where those forces went they were sure to follow.

Not everyone, of course. Nowhere near everyone left.

In the palace itself, four members of the Krous family continued to occupy rooms. Brolley was packed, but he chose to wait for his sister’s return before leaving. He had not gone with her to the parley, much as he’d wanted to, but he would be here for her when she returned. Whether or not he was accurate in his assessment, he had come to the conclusion that his sister needed him nearby, if only to make certain someone told her when she was being an idiot. Oh, to be sure Desh Krohan was doing that already, much as he had for Pathra, but he was still treading carefully, because even the First Advisor had to be careful when dealing with a new Empress. Brolley had the advantage of not worrying about a new Empress so much as dealing with an older sister. Blood had certain advantages.

Danieca Krous likely did not agree. She was still in a rage with how the accession had been handled. She was smart enough not to say anything in front of Nachia, but not quite wise enough to remember that Brolley was close to his sister. She had already said half a dozen things in his presence that could have been called treasonous.

Brolley was a Krous. He kept his mouth shut and listened. One thing to offend an occasional foreign dignitary – though to be fair he had learned his lesson along those lines – and another to ignore the ammunition one was given when it came to blood.

Towdra Krous remained in the city, but stayed at his own estate. The man had certain excesses he was fond of that were not the sort of thing even royalty should mention in public without fear of retribution. He knew that Nachia and the wizard wanted the city emptied and he would eventually listen, but first there were appetites to sate.

Hiding bodies had always been easier in Tyrne than it had been in Canhoon.

Laister Krous had no intention of going anywhere. He sat in his personal office within the palace and balanced the numbers on his estates as if there were nothing in the world to worry himself about.

Losla Foster was there to do his worrying for him.

“I’m thinking about marrying that little girl from Roathes, Losla.”

“The Queen Lanaie?”

“That’s the one.”

“She’s a queen, true enough, but she is currently a queen with no country.”

Laister smiled. “I know this. I also know that she is alone in the world and in need of comfort. And that her title brings with it a certain level of legitimacy.”

Losla looked at his employer for a moment and then poured a very small amount of the potent pabba fruit elixir that came from the far east. At one point it had apparently been a wine, but now it was thick and sweet and strong enough that a full glass of the stuff would have knocked a horse into a drunken stupor. He’d grown very fond of the elixir.

“You already have legitimacy. You’re in line for the throne, should something horrible happen to the Empress.”

Laister snorted. “Yes, I know that. But I would like to have a proper woman lined up to bear my children.”

“Well, she certainly looks ripe enough to bear children.” He sipped at the sweet drink and smacked his lips. “Still, you should move quickly. I understand she and Brolley have been making eyes at each other.”

“Brolley,” Laister snorted. “May the gods spare me from his imbecilic behavior.”

“Apparently young Lanaie finds him quite handsome.”

“Looks fade.” True enough. In his time Laister had been the desire of most the women he knew. “Power and money stay. I have more of both and the girl knows it. If I approach her, she’ll very likely say yes.”

“What did you wish me to do about it, Laister?”

“I want you to look into who, exactly, controls Louron. I think it might be time to see about changing the map a bit.”

Losla set down his glass. “Are you quite certain?”

Laister looked at him without speaking. It was best to remind the man who he worked for from time to time.

Losla cleared his throat. “I only ask because we are already close to a war with the Sa’ba Taalor.”

“I don’t care in the least about that. What better time to start making the proper adjustments?”

“Well, we could hardly use the regular soldiers in this case.”

In the past there had been a few border skirmishes that had worked to Laister’s benefit. Chief among them had been the situations with the Guntha. As the people in question no longer existed, that left a need for different catalysts to start his controlled fires.

“Yes, well, I have a few connections in Morwhen.”

Losla nodded. “I’ll make inquiries. Shall I be particularly discrete?”

“Oh, yes. I should rather not ruffle any feathers just yet.”

Neither of them spoke of the assassins. They did not need to. If all went according to their plans, the parley would end with the Empress suffering from a wasting illness. And if things went astray, they would have their contingencies to consider.

In any event, Laister remained certain that he would be ascending to the throne within a reasonable amount of time.

One merely had to be patient, and that had always been one of his strong points.

Pella moved along roads she had not crossed since she was a child, and shook her head at how much had changed, but also how little. Far, far to the east of Tyrne the Empire was not the same. Here the royal family held sway in name, but not as an actual presence. Pathra Krous had never once visited the eastern half of his Empire. He had left that task to his emissaries, and while they surely had their purposes, she was not here to deal with them at the moment.

The Imperial Army was a presence, to be sure, but nowhere near as noticeable as it was in the west. The closest thing to a truly vital Imperial city was Elda, and she walked through the streets of that city with impunity, knowing she would not be noticed unless she decided she wanted to be.

Elda was large, and the people were clean and did not starve. That made it an exception to many other areas in the east. Elda thrived on the backs of neighbors, as had almost always been the case. The military might in the city was enough to cause any force considering an invasion to hesitate. The soldiers from Elda were among the finest fighters that the Empire had, but the cost of keeping them was visited on the farming communities and smaller cities.

It seemed a full legion of smiths worked the forges in Elda, hammering out shields and armor, carefully honing the edges of swords, as surely as the young men brought to the city were shaped into soldiers.

She watched the practice sessions of the trainees, observed the use of crossbows and swords, and the marching formations of the troops. Merros Dulver might have approved of the practice, but he would likely have cut the throats of several instructors. They were brutal in the extreme, which he’d have accepted in preparation for war, but only a few days in the area had shown that they could be bought and paid for. Several men wore rank who had not earned it through time served but rather with gold coin. Fellein had thrived because that sort of practice was not permitted – excepting certain royals, of course. One could not demand that a prince be trained with the rest of the troops when the family could afford private tutelage.

Of course Pella was a casual observer in these things. She had never used a sword in her life and saw no reason to start. She knew which end was employed in the art of cutting, but that hardly made her an expert. Like her Sisters she was trained to know the nature of people. She observed and she reported. Her report to Desh Krohan would be a mix of good news and bad.

Morwhen was a different situation. The kingdom of Morwhen was run by members of the Krous family. That was surely the truth. That those members had almost nothing but blood in common with the rulers of the Empire was also truth. Theorio Krous had nothing but a name in common with the likes of Danieca and Towdra. He and his kin held to the beliefs of Morwhen, and she doubted that any loyalty the man had would go so far as to send his soldiers into the rest of Fellein. They were fearsome. They had earned a reputation as violent and cruel savages. Somewhere in the past they’d sued for peace with the Empire and won it by marrying into the bloodline.

Theorio did not recognize Pella. She had no desire to be recognized. He had aged very poorly and she doubted that he would last another year on the throne under ideal circumstances. He had two sons and three daughters. Pella had no notion as to who would rule after the old man died. If she had to guess, no one within the family knew either, and that made the situation volatile.

To the south of Morwhen, things got more interesting. The city states in the area were familiar enough and had changed almost not at all, but there was talk of a resurgence in the old faiths.

Pella listened intently to those claims, not because she thought the situation was of great importance, but because she knew that Desh would want to know. The most interesting aspect she noticed was how many of the older temples – many of which had nearly been abandoned – were now active again. People gathered in the halls dedicated to the gods and prayed. She had seen very little of that to the west.

Several weeks after starting her observations Pella found a properly secluded area and fell into a potent sleep.

As she had done many times before, she dreamed of herself as a storm crow and made that dream come true.

In that way she made her way back to Desh Krohan and her Sisters.

They were not surprised to see her.

“Pella!” Desh Krohan held his arms out at his sides and Pella moved to him, hugging his ribs warmly. Several of the soldiers watching the embrace likely envied the man just then.

“I’ve missed you, Desh.”

“And I you. I like having my Sisters together again.” He smiled and she returned the smile, her eyes locked on his.

Without any more theatrics, he headed for his wagon and Pella followed. Not far away Merros Dulver was speaking with the men he’d brought along, enough trained soldiers to terrify most towns along the way. He saw Pella and nodded his acknowledgement, but he did not stop dealing with his charges. There were issues he wished to see handled, chief among them the protection of a headstrong woman who refused to understand her importance in the grander scheme of things.

Nachia Krous stubbornly refused to stay in Tyrne. Desh was actually quite pleased with that part, though he’d have preferred she be in Canhoon and safely hidden away in the palace. Naturally she disagreed. Had he told her the skies were clear when there were no clouds to be seen, she would have found a way to argue the point with him.

It was what she did.

Pella poked his ribs. “You are being harsh.”

“It’s my duty to be harsh. And I’m not wrong.” He paused for a moment. “Also, if I were Merros, I’d be ready to chastise you for reading my thoughts.”

“If you were Merros your thoughts would be decidedly more lusty.”

He smiled at that. “Fair enough.”

They entered the wagon together. Tataya and Goriah were already there and after a quick embrace they got to business.

Anyone entering the wagon would have heard only their pleasant conversation, which was exactly as they preferred it. The reality was hidden from prying ears.

There was a reason that the Sisters could read thoughts. Desh Krohan liked to share secrets only when he wanted them shared.

Pella asked, How goes the clearing of Tyrne?

Desh responded, Not as quickly as we would like. There are troubles with the people not wanting to leave.

Pella frowned and went to the small fire where water was already boiling. Goriah had beat her to it, and tea leaves were already steeping within the waters. The Sooth say disaster is inevitable?

Desh sighed and leaned back into one of the cushions spread around the interior. The Sooth nearly screamed it. There is danger, but they cannot or will not say what that danger is.

Pella scowled at that. The Sooth were not her favorite entities. She preferred to observe for herself. I do not trust the Sooth.

That makes you wise, Pella. They are not trustworthy, but they do not lie in this. I am convinced.

She was not foolish enough to doubt him. If there was anyone more adept at dealing with the Sooth she had never encountered the individual. When?

No one can say, not even the Sooth. Soon, but how soon I do not know.

How long until the Sa’ba Taalor arrive?

They should be here within a day.

Pella poured herself tea and then explained what she had encountered on her journey to the east. There were stories to share, and decisions to be made.

Merros looked out at the Blasted Lands again, watching the agitated clouds seething and drifting in the distance. They reminded him of the ocean on a turbulent day, but the smell was wrong and there were no sounds of crashing waves. The air here was acrid, and if one caught enough of a breeze from the area where no sane person went without good reason, a taste like ash and dust crept into the mouth and lingered.

Nachia Krous came up next to him, and he looked her way and bowed immediately.

“I told you that you don’t have to do that.”

“I know, but the troops are present and I’ll not have them getting the idea that they are free to ignore protocol.” He looked at her from the corner of his eye, still mostly facing the ruined land that had changed their lives recently. “I’m wondering if we would have been better staying away from here.”

A smile played on her lips, but it was the dry humor of a cynic that made that expression show itself. “Desh would likely point out that you are now in charge of the Imperial Army and that I am now the Empress and say that there are worse fates.”

His smile mirrored hers. “Mmm. There is that. But we’ve both lost people and I wonder how much more we’re going to have to go through before this is resolved.”

“Pathra used to sit in his throne room and sip at his wine and stare out his window for hours, Merros. He wanted to see the world so very badly, but he was a prisoner in his castle. Do you know why he preferred the Summer Palace?”

“No. I hadn’t given it much thought.”

“Because the view is better. Look west and you see the Wellish Steppes. Look north and if the day is clear enough you could almost see Trecharch through the hills. South and there are towns and the river that runs all the way to the ocean. East and there are farmlands and, beyond those, more hills.

“Look out the windows in the palace in Canhoon and all you see is Canhoon. He did not like the city. He wanted to see the world.”

The Empress put a familiar hand on his shoulder. He was tempted to brush it away. Not because he did not enjoy the familiarity, but because he didn’t want anyone starting foolish rumors. Ultimately, however, he did nothing. She was the Empress, and if Pathra Krous had made the exact same gesture he’d have felt no reason to act as if anything were amiss. If rumors started they would die just as quickly. That was mostly the way with fancies and little lies.

“Why didn’t he move about a bit more then?”

Nachia took her hand from his shoulder and shook her head. Her hair was carefully brushed and styled, and he knew she probably hated the effort but, like him, knew appearances had to be kept. “He felt he couldn’t. Too much to do and not enough time in the day. I think Desh probably encouraged that. Better to keep the Emperor safe and all.”

“Yes. Well.” He didn’t have to say that Desh’s efforts had failed. They both knew it.

Nachia said it though. “My cousin was murdered in his home. He stayed there most of his adult life, and he never indulged his desires to go anywhere. And in the end he died just the same.”

Merros nodded but said nothing. She had more to say and he could tell it.

“He would have given away the throne just to make this trip. I know that. I will not be in the same situation. I will go where I feel I must.” She smiled at him. “Oh, I know you hate that, but you’re good not to say it.”

“You are the Empress. It’s your decision to make.” What else could he say?

“Here’s the thing of it. I think that Pathra staying locked away made him want more of the journeys into the Blasted Lands. Whenever the expeditions actually made it back, he got a trinket of some kind. Maybe a piece of ancient pottery, possibly a melted piece of gold. Whatever the item, it let him look away from the windows and imagine a bit more of what the world was like outside his palace walls. He used to practically interrogate me whenever I came to visit. He wanted to know about the places I traveled to, and believe me, Merros, I traveled a great deal. I have spent a good portion of my life already on the road to one place or another and usually with a retinue to keep me safe.”

Nachia turned and looked at the caravan, at the tents aligned along the road and the soldiers who were stationed around the area, wisely at attention and careful to stay alert.

“None of this is especially unusual to me. Better organized than I’ve seen often, but not unusual. I saw more of this Empire as a little girl than my cousin saw in his entire life. And I think if he had seen more of it we would have never continued the quests into the Blasted Lands.”

“Weren’t those Desh’s doing?”

Nachia nodded and looked out at the cloud cover in the distance. The sky above the Blasted Lands was gray, and more clouds were moving in, mirroring the ones below in the valley. There would very likely be rain coming. Whatever fell into the Blasted Lands, Merros knew, would fall as freezing sleet and howling winds. The clouds hid so much of the raging fury just below them.

Nachia said, “Absolutely. He paid for the expeditions himself. But he would not have done so without the permission of the Emperor and in the past there were less of them. Pathra encouraged the explorations. Pathra wanted to see more.”

Merros sighed and looked again at the wasteland just a stone’s throw from them, contained by a sheer cliff and little else. He could not for the life of him remember if he could see the Seven Forges in the distance the first time he’d been in the area. Mostly he’d been drawn to the turbulent motion of the storm clouds.

“So whatever the case, I think we would have met with the Sa’ba Taalor sooner or later. Hopefully we can make peace with them before it is too late.”

Merros nodded his head. “Hopefully, indeed, Majesty.” He feared it was already too late. But hope was a lovely thing to cling to when the winds were raging.

Andover Lashk met his second god. This time he was not alone. Tarag Paedori stood at his side, unflinching in the face of the raging heat and the boiling magma. Hot as it was, Andover could still breathe and his flesh did not burn. That seemed a miracle by itself.

The walls in the room ran with liquid fire. It drooled down along the sides, its heat mingling with that rising from the floor. The ground where he stood, the same as the gray stone that the castle was cut from, was not burning hot and the molten stuff never touched it. Instead it fell into deep cuts along the floor and slipped harmlessly into whatever lay beneath.

A wide metallic face stared at him from the wall. It was untouched, the sweating fiery metal and molten stone never quite reached this centerpiece of the room.

He had seen the face before. The exact same one had adorned the blessing box before he was gifted his new hands and learned that pain could be a healing thing as well as a hurtful one. The light of the raging volcano below and the smoke rising upward highlighted rather than obscured the edifice.

The face glared down from that wall, the mouth open in a cruel sneer. Truska-Pren seemed an angry god.

Just the same, Andover Lashk lowered himself to one knee before the face, and offered his hammer handle first, exactly as he had done with the King in Iron. “I am Andover Lashk, of Fellein, and I am here to thank you for the gift of my hands and all the blessings you have afforded me.”

He half expected the face before him to grow animate, to work as easily as the iron features of Kallir Lundt, but nothing happened.

Nothing physical, at least. Instead he felt the presence come into the area, a powerful thing, vast and potent, that if it had mass it surely would have crushed him beneath it without even noticing his insignificance.

It was not fear he felt when Truska-Pren came before him. It was awe.

His hands tingled. They did not burn, but when he looked at them the metal glowed, growing first red and then yellow and finally white with heat. By all rights his arms should have burned away but there was nothing – no pain, no bubbling meat and burning blood. Instead that presence grew even greater and he understood that Truska-Pren was studying his hands, a god examining the work it had offered to a mere mortal.

It was Tarag Paedori who spoke, though his voice was not his own. His voice echoed with the presence of the Daxar Taalor. “You have proven worthy of this gift, Andover Lashk. You have shown yourself capable of defending yourself. You have faced the trials I demanded and you have triumphed.”

The King in Iron stepped forward and placed one finger against Andover’s lips as if to shush him. Instead of demanding silence he pressed his finger down harder, and Andover froze, feeling the pain come on him as it had when Durhallem had touched him.

He did not scream, but only because he could not. The heat that he should have felt in his hands directed itself across his mouth, his face. He did not smell burning meat, but it seemed to him he should have. The King in Iron’s other hand grabbed the back of Andover’s head and held him in place. “Do not move, Andover Lashk. Do not flinch. The Iron God offers you a gift this day.”

The blessings of gods, it seemed, never came without agonies of their own.

What was it that Drask Silver Hand had said to him? Life is pain.

Oh, how he lived just then.

Sixteen

Captain Callan unloaded his cargo along with his men. He commanded the ship, he made a good wage, but he did not shirk his portion of the workload. That was why the men liked him well enough to let him call himself “captain”. By the time they were done he was pleasantly tired and his crew was happy for the break. Dealing with the Brellar was always a risk, but this time it had paid off handsomely.

Freeholdt was busier than usual and he rather liked it. The port town was always busy, yes, but this time around, the activity was not as simple as he’d have expected. There were ships unloading cargo, but there were just as many hauling new cargo onboard.

What he found interesting, though he was barely aware of it, was how few of the Guntha or the Roathians he saw in port. He’d expected to see a good deal more of both, seeing as their lands were gone. Instead there was just business and, more business, with none of the begging masses he’d half dreaded encountering. Business was excellent in Freeholdt.

That meant a good chance at another commission. Commission meant a good chance at enough money to celebrate properly. After spending time with the witch Tataya he had a powerful desire to find a dozen wenches and rut himself senseless. Paying for it hardly bothered him. He wasn’t likely to be around any port town long enough to make a relationship, but he could surely spend enough time to handle the finer physical aspects of one.

Vondum climbed the gangplank back onboard with a grin on his face. “It seems everyone wants to leave the area, Callan. But wave a flag to let them know you’re ready to negotiate and you’ll have a dozen passengers and their goods to carry out of this town.”

“What? Why?” He smiled as he asked. The reasons hardly mattered as long as the money was good, and by the smile on his first mate’s face the passengers seemed willing to pay good coin for their travels.

“The Empress heads back for Canhoon. People either take their wagons along the Imperial Highway or they take the Freeholdt River to the Jeurgis and ride into Canhoon in safety and comfort.”

“So people are heading south to get to Freeholdt so they won’t have to take a wagon north?” Callan chuckled.

Vondum laughed out loud. “Isn’t it lovely?”

“By the gods, man, anyone willing to take a long way to a short cut must be willing to pay good coin indeed.” Callan’s grin refused to go away.

“I say we spend a night celebrating, restock in the morning and then head out tomorrow night, Captain.”

Callan nodded. “Whores, supplies and feasts, in that order.”

“Feasts, indeed. We have some of the finest of Tyrne’s merchants looking to take their supplies and stock to Canhoon.”

“Well, if we could find the finest brothel willing to transport their whores by river, we could sail out tonight.” Callan wiped at his brow and looked out at the town.

“I don’t think we’ll be quite that lucky, Callan, but it would be a lovely thing.”

Callan shrugged. “Tell the lads to enjoy their night. We’re going to see about earning some extra gold and heading into Canhoon.” They didn’t often take the river routes, but they could. That was one of the things about a smaller ship that Callan liked. The Brellar’s vessels would have managed nothing but getting themselves mired in sand bars if they tried a river run. Callan’s little ship was a deal smaller, but also faster and mobile. Still, he’d actually have to work this time around. Piloting through the rougher areas of the rivers would take concentration.

Vondum said he’d pass the order around and Callan took him at his word. His second had long since earned his trust.

The night was spent exactly the way he’d wanted, with three lovelies who did their best to take away the hurt of never bedding the redhead who’d paid him handsomely to get her to her destinations safely.

And in the morning the lads looked as ill as he felt, but most of them managed a smile just the same as they started restocking the holds. The trip would take a few weeks, but not much more so they went light on supplies. Better to hold a little storage space for the customers who wanted to move with their possessions.

Sadly there were no brothels willing to transport their wenches as cargo. One could only get so lucky.

By the time the sun had reached its zenith and started a leisurely crawl to the west, Callan, his crew were helping a few very wealthy folks get their cargo stowed and were nearly salivating over how much they were earning.

The captain was considering the merits of leaving in the morning versus leaving earlier for a bit of extra coin when Vondum reported the news that set them for immediate evacuation.

Three words made all the difference. “Black ships, Captain.” Vondum pointed to the horizon, in the direction of where the Guntha Islands had been.

There were indeed black ships. Callan couldn’t see exactly how many, but it was enough to make his blood sing and his testicles try to hide themselves away. He found himself thinking of the redhead again and wishing he had a way to warn her that she was right. It seemed the black ships were looking to Fellein, and at the moment that meant they were looking at Freeholdt.

He wondered how long it would be before news of the port town being attacked made it to his ears.

He hoped it would be a long time, and possibly never. He feared it would be much sooner.

Either way, he’d be heavier with coin before this trip was done. One merely had to polish the silver to make it reflect properly.

Drask eyed the sloping mountain of ice before him and nodded. Brackka was nearby, but currently had no interest in climbing.

Drask did not have that option. Ydramil demanded and he obeyed, and so he set his hands carefully into the places where the ice had broken away and started climbing.

The surface was pitted with hundreds of spots where a hand or foot could find purchase, but most were filled with ice. It took time and patience to start scaling the structure. And it took a good axe to make fresh handholds. The silver hand held him with ease, the fingertips crushing the ice into a new shape when he gripped. He used his other hand to cut away the ice and allow him a fresh grip before moving upward again. It was an arduous task, but one he managed well enough.

By the time he’d reached an area where he could stand and walk, the sun was almost up and he had a perfect view of the wagon and tent where the others slept.

They’d danced around each other for over a day now and he was tired of it. Rather than worrying about them he chose to observe what they did for the day without conflict.

Drask crouched and dug into one of his pouches until he found a few nuts and dried meat. Better to have a bit of food in his stomach while he waited for the foreigners to start their explorations again.

The winds were starting up again with proper fury and he pulled his furs closer around his body, taking the time to tie them to his wrists and ankles. The hood was drawn over his head and he crouched lower. The winds could be damned for all he was concerned. He had a task to do and he would do it.

Soon enough he was rewarded.

Nolan climbed from the tent and shook his head.

The air outside was bad. The stench inside the tent was worse. Maun was dying, but taking his time about it. His breath stank of infection and his skin was pasty white and sweaty.

Stradly was no better. The man’s body had taken on a yellowish tint. His eyes were also yellowing. Nolan was not a healer, but he knew that the colors were bad. The large, jovial solder was not dead but he was definitely dying.

Vonders and Tolpen were as fit as Nolan himself, uninjured by the Pra-Moresh or whatever sorcery Tega had done. But Darus was not well. His arm had swelled, the fingers barely recognizable, and he was in agony. The best plans for seeking a way into the Mounds had fallen quickly into ruin and there was nothing to be done for it.

Vonders climbed from the tent next and the worried expression on his face made clear he knew exactly what Nolan did, that their three companions would not survive this trip. With Vonders along they might survive themselves, despite the lack of horses, but he was having doubts.

Tolpen was a hunter. He’d spent the last day looking for anything he could hunt, but so far had failed. If there were creatures out there, like the rider they thought they’d seen, then the wind was scouring away any tracks that might have been left in the drifts of dirtied snow or on the rare patches of bare ground.

And off to the left was the wagon Tega slept in. The damned thing seemed nearly unaltered by the ice and sand and wind. The ground under Nolan’s boots crunched with every step he took, but the wagon remained untouched by it. He resented the damned thing, irrationally, he knew. It had certainly proven a worthy shelter when they had stayed in it.

One of the men in the tent let out a moan and Nolan closed his eyes. At least one of them would die today, he could feel it.

The sun was up, which meant that the darkness was kissed with lighter shades of gray and brown.

The structures around them, the towers and lumps that made up the Mounds, took on detail again. The closest of the things had a beauty to it he’d deliberately refused to acknowledge before but after days on end of nothing, he allowed himself the pleasure of staring at the texture of the thing. There were striations of what looked like ice or glass, fused with flecks of metal and layers of different stones. The feeble sunlight washed the surface and let him see all of that under the thin layer of ice that had grown over the last two days. No noise from the Mounds, which meant nothing to break the ice away and so it was thickening again, like a scab over the open sore of the slanted tower itself.

“Maun won’t make it.” Vonders’s voice was soft, just loud enough to make the distance between them past the wind

Nolan nodded. “I don’t think any of them will. We’ve no way to take care of them properly.

Vonders glared at the wagon and Nolan knew he was thinking that Tega was to blame. She had saved them. She had damned half of them. That was still something to consider. She was powerful, but she had flaws. Didn’t they all, really?

Tolpen came out of the tent, his face pale and grim. “Stradly is dead.”

Vonders spit. Nolan nodded his head. “Best tell Tega.”

Without waiting for one of the others to do it, he headed for her wagon.

So he saw the thing first.

It was moving not far from the wagon, not really looking at anything but the ground as it shuffled forward. He doubted it could have moved faster if it had to.

There was no sense to it. The skin of the thing was mottled gray, and covered in several places with bubbled clusters of watery blisters. At the very best it made him think of the monstrous lumps they’d fought on the road to Tyrne, but the comparison was merely because, like those beasts, it hurt his eyes and head to look at the thing. It was bloated and its body was squat. The torso was as wide as three men and the limbs on it made no sense.

It moved forward on one foreleg and two rear legs, none of which matched in thickness or length, which lent it a very uneven shuffling gait. A second forelimb was there, but like the rest did not seem to fit. It was much shorter than the – it hardly seemed right to call it a mate – other foreleg, and ended in a mass of stubby clawed fingers, and a thumb. The body was heavy, yes, but muscular. The four legs differed so much that none even matched in width. Judging by the mass dangling from its hindquarters he suspected the beast was male, but, frankly, he didn’t want to consider that appendage, as it was as malformed as the rest of the thing.

None of which prepared him for the face. There were two eyes, but neither of them matched. One was as large as his balled fist and the other, higher up on the left side of the face, no bigger than a grape. Both gave off a pale gray light that Tega said the Sa’ba Taalor also cast from their eyes. The nose was a gash in the front of the face. The mouth was a great, drooling, uneven thing, an angry slash that had somehow sprouted teeth and a tongue.

Nolan noticed all of that at the same time that the thing saw him and looked him over from his head to his boots.

For exactly four heartbeats he thought the thing might simply keep going. His hands shook a bit and he almost reached for his axe before he remembered that it was back in the tent. He’d only come out to relieve his bladder and had certainly not planned to meet a fiend or learn that one of his companions was dead.

And then that great mouth opened and the thing grunted.

And then it charged him, screaming out a shrill battle cry. It did not roar. He knew a battle cry when he heard one. Hell, half the soldiers he’d trained with tended to let them out when they attacked.

Nolan threw himself sideways and dodged as the malformed brute came for him. His elbow slammed into the thing’s face, hitting and mashing the oversized eye on its right side.

It yelped and the foreleg it ran with slapped him across his chest and staggered him backward. Had he not already been in motion it would likely have caved his ribcage in.

“Attacked! Arms!” It was all he could think to say.

The thing looked like it could barely stand, but it charged him again, as fast as the attack dogs his uncle had trained. Nolan let out a scream of pure panic and cuffed the thing in the face a second time, feeling its wet breath blast across him. Gods, it gave off a frightful heat.

His knee came up into the side of the thing’s face as it lost balance and tried to recover. The blow was good and it fell back, grunting again. Nolan danced back, repulsed, his heart hammering and his eyes wide.

Vonders called out, but Nolan didn’t have time to focus on him because the thing was coming again, loping forward, and as he watched, the thing planted both rear legs, squatted and then jumped at him, clearing the distance with ease.

Nolan did exactly as his father had trained him to do and caught the immense weight, pivoted his body at the hips and helped the thing on its way, adding his strength to its momentum.

It crashed into the side of Tega’s wagon, hitting one of the wheels and disproving his thought that magic protected the wagon. The wheel broke, several spokes snapping, and the wagon rocked on its axles.

The thing was back up before he could even congratulate himself on the maneuver. That mouth, that ugly slit in its face, bloomed open until it was large enough to give a Pra-Moresh feelings of inadequacy. Those mismatched eyes glared at him as the thing jumped again and Nolan met it head on, slamming his body against the thing’s bulk, hoping to kick it aside.

He failed. He staggered backward, tried to find his footing and instead slid and skidded like a skipped stone, bouncing along until he ran into the side of the tent. His ears rang and he tasted blood in his mouth.

Tolpen put an arrow through the hellish thing’s fat, bruised right eye. It let out half a squeal and fell on its backside. It was possibly dying, but it was not dead. It kicked and shrieked and rolled itself to hands and knees and then flopped down on its face. Still, it managed to get back up, its one remaining eye glaring undying hatred in Tolpen’s direction.

The hunter let out a curse under his breath and reached for another arrow from the quiver at his feet. His hand was shaking and the first arrow slipped from his fingers. His calm demeanor broke as the thing came for him, once again leaping instead of running.

Vonders tried to step in with a spear to stop the thing’s charge, but instead was knocked aside.

Tolpen gave up on the arrows and swung his bow like a great sword, clubbing the misshapen face with all the strength he could muster. The thing fell to the ground again and let out a squealing noise.

The wagon door opened and Tega stepped halfway out. Without even considering, Nolan moved to stand between her and the monster. His duty was to protect her. His father had always taught that duty was all a soldier had to concern himself with. The rest was dressing.

Tolpen whapped the monster’s head four more times with his bow, screeching with each blow delivered. As his arms rose up for a fifth, Vonders caught his elbow and shook his head. “Might need that bow yet.”

Tolpen glared for only a moment and then calmed down.

The thing let out one long sigh and seemed to deflate a bit. The body relaxed to the point where Nolan knew it must surely be dead. He stayed exactly where he was, however. Some dead things didn’t stay as still as they should. That was a lesson he would not easily forget.

Tega stepped from the wagon with surprising calm and looked down at the dead thing.

Nolan turned to her and relaxed a little. “Stradly is dead.” He had no desire to protect her from the truth and no reason to. She had seen as much as they had and still she held herself together.

Tega’s face lost composure for only an instant and then she nodded. “I had thought it would surely be Maun first.”

She pointed to the dead thing on the ground. “Roll that over, please. I want to see it better.”

Nolan almost told her where she could take her desire to examine it, but remembered that, while here, he worked for her. Instead he nodded and, with Vonders’s help, maneuvered the thing onto its back.

The monster obliged him and remained dead.

He silently thanked all of the gods for that small blessing.

And then he watched in mute surprise while Tega studied the body and cut samples of the hair and the skin from it.

Drask watched the fight in absolute silence. He did not move. He did not consider helping either side. Instead he studied every move the Fellein made and filed the information away. Better to know an enemy than to guess what might be in their hearts.

The Broken they fought was not very skilled. They killed it with ease and all of them lived through it. Still, he stayed where he was as the girl – he thought it might be the sorcerer’s apprentice, Tega, but could not be certain from this distance – first looked the corpse over and then began cutting.

If she planned to eat the flesh it would go poorly for her. The Broken had poisoned flesh. That was part of the punishment the Daxar Taalor rewarded them with for their failures.

They could no longer offer anything to anyone. They were useless. They were broken.

They were godless.

The men with the blonde girl stepped away as she started her examination, and shortly entered the tent and came out with the body of a man who was older than the rest of them and flabby besides. Drask shook his head. He had seen several people in Tyrne who were overweight and the notion horrified him. That anyone could consider themselves capable of fighting when they weighed so much… Still, there were a few among the Sa’ba Taalor who were as large and carried extra flesh and they were only alive because they were skilled combatants. Physical prowess alone did not make a warrior.

After a bit of discussion, the group decided the man needed to be burned. They managed to start a small fire and lit the man’s clothes, which smoldered and sputtered and finally burned. When his remains were burning well enough, they dragged the Broken over and cast it into the flames.

Through it all, Drask stayed on his perch, moving his legs from time to time and carefully stretching to avoid letting his muscles cramp or his joints lock.

And that was how they spent the day, killing a Broken and burning corpses.

It was a wonder to him that the Fellein ever managed to accomplish anything.

From his perspective Drask saw the troops moving from the Seven Forges toward the place the Fellein called the Temmis Pass. He nodded his satisfaction at the careful movement of the soldiers. He did not know exactly what Tarag Paedori was planning, but he also understood that there were no better tacticians for a land battle among his people.

They moved at night, and from this distance they were little more than a smudge on the horizon. He doubted that any of the people below him would have spotted the army moving.

He could not guess how many of the Sa’ba Taalor were moving in that column, but part of him longed to walk with them.

Andover Lashk stepped from the castle at Prydiria and moved into the daylight. The skies above were mostly clear, and the temperature was pleasant. His skin felt dry after what seemed like days in the intense heat of the god’s heart. Seemed like days. In truth he could not begin to guess how long he had been in the presence of the Iron God.

All he truly knew was that he was changed. Again.

Some truths seemed to remain constant no matter what. One did not face a god and come away unchanged.

The second Great Scar on his face was larger, and bisected his mouth. He could feel the changes in his flesh far more easily this time. Below his nose to just above his chin there was a line of flesh that split his mouth in half. That line could move and could open, and when it did he suspected he looked like a monster. He understood now why the veils were important. Anyone not prepared for the ways of the Sa’ba Taalor would have been terrified by what they saw when they looked upon the warriors.

Andover knew that he should have been horrified, but he was not. The culture he was with admired scars as signs of achievement. Great Scars even more so. A person with no Great Scars was either young or, in the eyes of the people of the valley, godless. What could be worse for them?

He had never cared much for the gods when he was growing up. The gods, it seemed, had never much cared for him, either. But here, in the Taalor Valley, the people and the gods had a relationship that was extremely different. He was only beginning to understand it, but it seemed to him that it might be something wondrous.

He looked at his hands and the iron rings that he held in his grip. The rings, like the scar, were a gift from the god of the mountain. He suspected he knew what they were for.

Delil waited nearby, sitting on a flat stone that had been carved, smoothed, sanded and polished until it was as flawless as still water and almost as reflective. The woman was sharpening one of her swords and had several other weapons nearby. There were daggers and throwing knives and several long, thin darts that looked like they should have been harmless. He’d seen her use them and knew better.

She smiled at him as he approached and he smiled back. Her face was revealed to him. Andover felt like she and the rest of her people had given him a great honor by taking their veils away around him.

She looked at his face and saw the new scar and as he came closer she stood up and ran one callused fingertip across it gently.

“You are blessed indeed, Andover. Two gods have favored you in less than a week. That is very rare.”

He looked into her eyes and smiled. “Where did everyone go?” The last time he’d been outside there had been crowds of armored Sa’ba Taalor around, most of them with weapons and supplies aplenty.

“They have gone to meet with your rulers to discuss whether or not a war will happen.”

He felt oddly relieved. He’d felt a certain dread that the King would make him go along. He was supposed to be an ambassador, according to Drask. “Is there anyone left here?”

“Oh, yes, there are many people left here. But they are training.”

“Training for what?”

“If there is to be a war, everyone must be prepared.” Her voice carried an odd tone to it. He couldn’t decide if she was disappointed that she was still with him instead of with the rest of her people. He also wasn't quite brave enough to ask her. Andover had dreamed of being with a woman and Delil had made that dream come true, but he didn’t know the intricacies of what happened next. He had never been close to a woman before this journey.

Delil stood up and started putting away her weapons. He was amazed even after months of being with her by how quickly she could slip the various blades into their sheaths. “We should go now. There are places we have to take you yet and time is short.”

“It is?”

Delil looked at him and nodded, her expression solemn. Behind the scars and the gray skin and the odd silvery light of her eyes she was rather average in looks, but that did not matter. He’d grown very fond of her and knew he could trust her and the lingering memories of what they had done together made her lovely.

He pushed away thoughts of what they had done, how her flesh had felt in his hands, and touched by his lips, and made himself focus as she started to speak. “Time here is short. There are places you must see within this valley and there are other places you must go as well, Andover Lashk.”

“How do you know that, Delil? How do you know what I must do?”

She tilted her head in that odd way of hers. He understood what it meant now. The way she looked at him sometimes was both an expression of surprise at how naïve he was and exasperation that he could ask so foolish a question. “I know because Wrommish tells me. You have been marked by the Daxar Taalor, Andover Lashk. You should start listening when they speak to you.”

Shame washed through him quickly but was shoved aside by irritation. “This is new to me, Delil. You have had a lifetime to learn how to listen to your gods. I have not.”

“And that is why I am here. I am here to help you listen.” Her voice was surprisingly light. She finished strapping her weapons in place and grabbed the bundle of clothing she’d been carrying. Somewhere along the way he had left his behind. He was about to start cursing when she reached to the side of her perch and lifted his supplies. “Come.”

“Not yet.” He shook his head.

“What?”

“The Daxar Taalor have spoken to you and they have spoken to me, too. I was told to finish this before I go further.” He unrolled the bundled goods and took out the separate sections of obsidian. Putting them back together was easy. They fit as if they had always belonged together.

Andover stared at the assembled axe with a critical eye and considered how best to make sure the pieces would stay together. Delil looked with him and finally nodded her head.

“You need hide.”

“Hide?”

“You killed Pra-Moresh. You took their fur for your own. The skin of the beasts is good, tough leather. A little and you can tie it. Or better still, you could use metal wire.” Her fingers touched the edges where the two pieces joined and she ran a line of imaginary wire, showing him how she would secure the two segments.

Andover nodded again and then rolled the iron rings between his thumb and forefinger. They were just the right size to wedge into the obsidian and lock the parts together. “I think maybe the gods have plans for me and though they may not speak as clearly to me as they do to you, the Daxar Taalor are still telling me things.”

The rings locked into the socket of the obsidian blade, above and below. Once in place the blade that had wobbled was properly secured.

Delil squatted and watched as he worked the metal and the volcanic substances together. She spoke very softly. “Never have I seen the like.”

“What? An axe?”

“No,” she responded. “Two gods working together on one weapon.”

That was all she said on the matter. When she stood again she started walking, moving down the path away from where they had already been and moving deeper into the valley.

Without another word Andover followed her. There were places to go and according to her they were running out of time.

“What did Wrommish tell you, Delil?”

“That we must visit each of the mountains before the time comes to leave the valley.”

“What? I thought I was supposed to stay here with the Sa’ba Taalor.”

“No, you are supposed to stay with my people, but you are not supposed to stay in this valley. We are not staying in the valley forever. It has almost served its purpose.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what I say, Andover.” She was growing tired of his questions and so he shut his mouth. He would wait a while for more answers. Still, he looked around as they continued walking and wondered why the people would leave.

And, of course, he wondered where they would go. There seemed only one possible answer and he found that answer lay uneasy within him.

The streets in Tyrne were crowded with people and supplies. Many of the people looked shocked to find themselves on the streets and moving away from their homes, but more were angered by the idea.

At first, when the announcement came that the Empress would be leaving Tyrne and heading for Old Canhoon, there was shock and disappointment. Several times gatherings of citizens attempted to reach the palace and ask their new ruler to change her mind, but they were turned back. Surprise was the usual response to that. Pathra Krous had almost always managed to find time for concerned citizens of the city. Pathra Krous was well thought of, and had been a boon to Tyrne.

And now his replacement came along and changed everything without warning. At first it was just the increased military strength in the city, which, after the murder of the Emperor most people could understand. Then came the decision to leave Tyrne. And then, oh, the madness, the latest insanity.

Town criers had been about, announcing the Imperial order to leave the city within days. There were a few people who scoffed. No one wanted to believe the decrees. That was when the madness began.

Libari Welliso had been warned to expect trouble, but this? He shook his head at the reports coming into his command center.

In the Gardens district, where many of the fine old homes had walls and gates and guards to keep the families safe from intruders, a few families were refusing to vacate. That was to be expected, really, as many had been situated in the same place for generations and had more invested in the property than merely possessions.

Libari sent guards to explain the position of the City Guard: if the people in those palatial homes wished to stay, there would be no one to assist them. Their guards were being told to leave as well, and the families of their guards. That seemed to make it through a few people’s heads and several families prepared to move their possessions to other places or at least to lock up their homes. Some of the newer inhabitants had already left, which was a pleasant surprise.

To the south, where the largest collection of immigrants congregated, he had less trouble and more chaos. The Roathians who’d made it to the area were already homeless and few of them had possessions. The families he saw looked wounded at the idea of moving on, but few of them protested.

The biggest problem in that part of town was caused by his own guards, some of whom felt that they should be allowed to take out their frustrations on the poor wretches who were already lost and abandoned. He was doing what he could. Currently seventeen of his City Guard were awaiting his punishment for complaints ranging from abuse of authority to rape and murder. Welliso ground his teeth at the thought of administering justice, but he would do it, if only to guarantee that others were not foolish enough to think they could get away with breaking the rules.

Still, he’d never gelded a man before. It was not a task he looked forward to performing.

Around the palace, where the majority of houses and apartments were used by the people who served at the palace, the city was calmer. When the Empress and her entourage had moved on to handle the parley, those who served at the palace began the massive task of moving the offices of the Empire to Canhoon. Many of those very same people were moving too, preferring to keep their jobs and relocate to the old capital.

There were entire streets that were abandoned. Walking the same places he had walked for most of his life, Welliso felt his skin crawl and his hackles rise at the unsettling silences.

But mostly, in the other parts of the town, there was chaos. It took time to pack belongings and most did not want to leave behind anything that might be important. Wagons that were overloaded with worldly goods lumbered onto streets never meant to accommodate the sheer volume of traffic trying to leave Tyrne, and in short order tempers flared and the fighting began.

The City Guard and the Imperial Guard worked together to clear the streets. The situation was growing worse, despite their efforts.

In the westernmost part of the city someone had either been careless or had deliberately set a fire. The blaze was growing and there seemed little that could be done to quell it. Soldiers were attempting to put the fire out with buckets of water run up from the Freeholdt River, but with little success. The river was too far away and the way to the wells in the area were blocked by the growing blaze.

The people there were going out of the city by heading either south or directly across the city to the Eastern Gate, the main access to the river. The only obstacle in their way was, of course, the palace, which lead to a lot of name calling, stone throwing, and worse forms of civil disobedience. The congestion had reached a level where no one was moving anymore and the City Guard were doing what they could to break up skirmishes and calm down the already angry and distressed citizens.

And the Imperial Army was doing what it could to back up the City Guard.

And ultimately, nothing was getting accomplished.

Libari Welliso had no choice, not in his own opinion. He brought the combined forces down to hammer out the problems quickly and efficiently.

The clusters of traffic that blocked the roads were broken apart. The soldiers under Welliso’s command pushed carts from the road and ushered people and their draft horses out of the city, often insisting that the ruined wagons be left behind. A few fools tried to grab at the remaining supplies and the soldiers put an end to that action as soon as it started. The damaged wagons were confiscated, either dragged away completely or rolled far enough off the road to allow more evacuees through.

A few of the first people who encountered troubles tried to protest the rough treatment, but Welliso had his orders and he intended to keep them. The first time he whipped a man in public was enough to stop most of the protests. He took no satisfaction from his task, but he did it.

He would do all that he could to see Tyrne cleared of people as effectively and quickly as possible, regardless of how that made him look in the eyes of the people. The City Guard had been feared and loathed by a good number of people over the years and some things simply did not change.

Of course some reputations are earned, even if they are earned for all the right reasons.

Several skirmishes broke out along the road to the Summer Palace.

Had Merros Dulver been there to discuss the matter with Welliso Libari he’d have likely told the older man to let them stay if their lives meant less than their possessions. But Merros was not there; he had his own troubles to deal with at the edge of the Empire.

Instead, Welliso did what he thought best. His people followed orders and the Imperial Guard followed his orders as well. It was only a matter of hours before the city’s cells were filled with angry citizens who’d attempted to fight. There had been no fatalities because Welliso refused his forces the right to attack with swords, but there were broken bones and busted skulls aplenty, and that was on both sides of the law. More than one of the aggressors were either soldiers themselves or had trained to defend their homes. Tempers flared and fights broke out, and in the end peace was restored again and again, only to face another disruption.

And that was only on the first day of the forced evacuation of Tyrne. There were plans in place to start sweeps of all the streets after the majority left the city. City Guard walked the areas where people had already moved on, making sure that homes were left abandoned and did not become victims of looting.

Libari Welliso came home from his first day of the evacuation in a state of exhaustion unlike any he had dealt with in his career. Tyrne had always been a peaceful town, regardless of its size, and he had never run across the sheer volume of people in motion, the large number of angry citizens or the massive swell of traffic at any point in his life. Dealing with all of that together was enough to make him consider moving on and forgoing the rest of his career with the Guard.

Of course his wife, Annushi, would have put an end to that notion. He smiled when he thought of her. Annushi was more than he had ever hoped for when he’d agreed to the arranged marriage. She was smart, funny, lovely and strong of will. All things that he admired.

They were fighting just now, because, after sending the children on to Canhoon, she had insisted on staying in the town with him until he was ready to leave with her. She was a stubborn woman and he loved her for it, even when the risk to her life made him nervous.

He opened the door to his apartment and started to call for her when he saw her corpse on the ground.

Annushi. Dead. He walked into the room and looked down, his eyes staring at the ruin of his beloved, uncomprehending.

There was no moment when he thought it was a joke. There was no time when he expected his wife to get up. She was dead and there was no denying it. Her throat was cut. He could see that as soon as he entered the room. She had been bathing, perhaps, or she had planned to bathe, because her body was naked and Annushi was nothing if not modest. She seldom let him see her without clothes unless they were making love.

“Annu?” She did not respond. She could not. She was dead. He knew that. But even though he could see she was dead – murdered, surely – he could not make his mind accept it. “Annu, what are you doing down there?”

All thoughts of the City Guard he had to punish, the people he had to let free from their cells when they had calmed down and the evacuation of the city were gone. What little they planned to take with them from the city was already packed into several bundles; Annushi had been busy preparing for their journey. She’d been optimistic about his promotion and looked forward to seeing new places. Like Welliso she had spent most of her life in Tyrne and had considered Canhoon only as a place where powerful people lived. The thought that they would move there had excited her and her enthusiasm had been infectious enough to make him look forward to the idea.

Annushi did not answer him.

Could not.

He stepped into the room properly and walked toward her body. Annushi stared past him at the wall near the door. There was nothing particularly exciting about that spot. He had looked at it many times. It hardly seemed like a thing she should have been stuck with as her last sight in her life. He would have hoped she could see a thing of beauty as she died.

Libari did not believe in the gods or in any sort of afterlife. He had always believed solely in what he could see with his own eyes.

There was a dryness in his mouth. His eyes felt wrong. His heart had gone still, near as he could tell, and his ears rang with a light note that took away all other sounds.

Annushi still stared at the wall, dead, as he moved closer to her and crouched beside her, reached to touch her face. Maybe she was injured, but alive. Perhaps there was a chance that she could still be mended, saved from death. He did not truly believe that, but he had to try because the thought that she was gone from his life was simply too large for him to consider.

His hand touched her lips, felt for a hint of breath. Her skin was cold. She was not freshly dead, but had been killed at least a few hours earlier. He had seen enough dead bodies to know that much.

Libari tried to stand but his legs did not work.

“Annu?” How had his voice gotten so small? He wasn't quite sure.

“She will not answer you. She is dead.”

Libari turned his head and looked to the voice that spoke. A woman looked back at him, her eyes studying his face.

“Did you do this?” Blood surged in him as he stared. She had dark hair and dark eyes and was dressed for the road. He had seen a hundred or more just like her through the course of the day and wondered if the woman he looked at was one he had offended somehow through his actions.

She did not seem offended. She looked at him without much expression on her face at all.

“She had to die. Just as you have to die.”

When Libari tried to move again it was easy. He thought of Annushi and the woman who had killed her and he thought of how much she would suffer at his hands. He was not angry, not really. He merely knew that she would be dead soon and then he would allow anger and grief to take better rein of his heart.

He had ordered his men not to draw their swords against the citizens of Tyrne. Libari Welliso did not follow that rule himself. His blade slid from the scabbard with a whisper and then sang as it cut the air and sliced toward the bitch who’d murdered his wife.

She was not there.

The blade clattered and rang out against the wall where she had been leaning, but struck nothing aside from the plaster over the stone of the wall itself.

He looked around, eyes rolling with a sort of madness all their own, and heard himself growl as he sought the woman out.

She crouched on the other side of Annushi’s body, her left foot resting in the blood that was congealing into the floor.

Her face was still calm and she continued to look at him.

“Kill you. I. Will. Kill. You.” He spoke the vow softly and adjusted his grip on the blade.

“No. You will not. You are already dead.”

Libari moved one step forward and his leg collapsed under him. He fell to his knee and grunted, puzzled by the lack of strength.

It was only then that he felt the pain of the cut. As he had tried to strike, she had done the same, but she had been successful. The blood flowed down his side, from a deep incision in his stomach.

A cut, yes, but not enough to stop him from his revenge.

Libari tried to rise a second time and moaned instead. His legs would not hold him, would not move. His arms felt too heavy to lift. The sword dropped down, cutting a bloodless wound into Annushi’s calf.

He looked down at his wife’s new wound and felt his eyes water. Never in his life had he ever meant to cause her harm.

Libari toppled, then, falling across his dead wife’s body.

The poison in his system was quick but not quite fast enough to prevent his suffering. The last thing he ever saw was the floor beside Annushi’s cold hip. He had hoped his last sight would be something more beautiful.

Swech searched the man’s corpse and found the key she was looking for around his neck. There were things she needed from the palace and without a key it would have taken too long to get to them.

Time was becoming a rare commodity and she had spent too much of it already in the city of Tyrne. She had places she needed to be that had nothing to do with the place.

The blade went back into the sheath along her left hip. Moments later she was gone from the building and heading for the offices of the General of the City Guard.

The gods made demands and Swech obeyed, grateful for the chance to please the Daxar Taalor.

Seventeen

Tuskandru looked down from the top of Durhallem and studied the Blasted Lands. The air was thin here and the cloud that usually hid away the devastation beyond the Seven Forges was sparser than he had ever seen it. He could see the Mounds from where he stood and he could see the distant wall of the barrier that separated the Blasted Lands from the Fellein Empire. Somewhere in that vast distance an army moved and prepared themselves for parley.

A thin smile crossed his lips as he considered that notion.

Beyond him, the rest of the mountains stood silent guard over the valley. The gods were generous with their protection. How then could the Sa’ba Taalor be any less than obedient to the wishes of their benefactors?

Durhallem touched him, allowed him to see further than should have been possible. It was almost time. Before the sun set, the world would be changed by the Daxar Taalor and he would be prepared for his part in that change. He had to be. It was what he was meant to do and what his god demanded of him.

He reached down and grabbed the helmet resting by his foot. The great skull-shaped helm slipped over his head and fit as perfectly as it ever had. The teeth of his foes moved around his neck and along the edges of his vision. The teeth were reminders to him, yes, but mostly they were simple adornment. The enemies of his people were odd indeed and many of them looked upon death as something to fear. He did not share in that sentiment. Death merely was. It held no power over the gods and therefore held no power over the faithful.

Stastha came up from behind him, the horns of her helmet pointing toward the ground as she stepped closer.

“We are ready when you call us, Tusk.”

He nodded his head without answering. Tusk did not like to speak at times like this. He preferred the silence. Stastha knew that and slapped his shoulder with her hand as she turned to walk away.

“Sound the horns, Stastha. Call them all home. It is time.” He did not have to turn his head to know that she was smiling. Stastha was a warrior, one of the best he knew, and, like him, she thrived on the smell of blood and the sound of battle.

Stastha raised her horn to her lips and blew a long harsh note that echoed down the side of Durhallem and carried across the valley before coming back as a whisper. Long before that soft sound returned, the other horns called, demanding that the followers of Durhallem join together in the time of war. The Wounder called to his children and they obeyed.

It did Tuskandru proud. “Brodem! Come to me!” Tusk’s voice called out and was answered a moment later by the content rumble of his mount. The great beast rose from the rocks where he had been staring into Durhallem’s blazing heart and leapt down to where Tusk waited. Tusk climbed aboard Brodem’s broad back and checked that his weapons were in place. The beast roared and he roared as well, his blood rising in preparation.

The sun would soon set and, before that happened, the world would change. He intended to make the Wounder proud.

Along the Mounds the air was surprisingly calm. The clouds were a thin scrim above, and the sun almost managed to show through. Tega looked at her target and sighed. There would be no better time.

Not far away the fires still burned. She tried not to think about them or about the smell of roasting meat. Her stomach rumbled in appreciation of the odor but the notion of eating that particular flesh repulsed her. Maun had not been a friend, but he had been a companion, and both he, and his partner in the flames, Darus Leeds, deserved better than a funeral pyre in the Blasted Lands.

Still, they were dead and she had been given a mission by Desh Krohan. It was time to fulfill her orders.

Nolan March let out a small cheer and Vonders Orly joined him. The fourth arrow that Tolpen Hart fired into the wall of the Mound stuck true and the rope dangling from it swayed enticingly in the breeze.

Now, finally, was the time for her to prove her worth.

Tega concentrated on the arrow and the rope and focused her will. This was a subtle thing, not a harsh assault, and her faith in her abilities was high. Still, it would not do to allow herself to lose control, and so she settled herself on the ground and cleared her mind of distractions.

Her hand touched the rope, felt its coarse texture and the thickness of it. Then she let her senses follow the rope to the anchoring arrow and to the surface where it had stuck precariously.

A gentle touch, a strong will, and she forced the change to occur.

The rope sang beneath her touch and the arrow’s head pulsed where it broke the surface of the stone. All three men with her let out small noises as the fibers surged and changed and the arrow changed with it.

“Done. It is done.” She looked at the finished result of her spell and smiled.

Nolan was the first to touch the silk. It was thick and would hold them with ease.

“Where is the arrow?”

“It’s still there. It has just become something stronger than it was. It will hold us. Have no doubt of that.” She tried not to sound smug. It wasn’t easy.

Tolpen grabbed the silk chord and pulled, throwing his weight into the maneuver, as well he should. After too much time spent searching and hoping for a better entrance into the Mounds, they had finally accepted that the hole high in the side of one malformed column was their best bet.

They had to climb to use it. The first two arrows Vonders had managed to use had broken against the stone. The third had held but only until he pulled with his body weight. After that Tega said she would try to help with the anchoring of their only hope of reaching the proper entrance and now, finally she had succeeded.

Vonders pulled several times, making certain for himself, and then he started climbing the side of the column. His grip on the heavy silk was solid, but he moved it around his waist for extra support as he climbed, careful to place his feet firmly with each step he took on the slippery surface.

The rest of them waited below until he reached the hole in the side of their target. It had seemed a small area when viewed without perspective, but the higher Vonders scaled, the more Tega realized the opening was anything but. She wouldn’t quite manage to park the wagon inside of that opening, but it was a close thing.

“This is madness.” Tolpen spat and watched the other man climbing. “What if he falls?”

“Then we know this was a bad idea.” Nolan shrugged and stepped closer to the silk cord. “We have been told to handle this. We must.” Vonders slipped his leg over the lip of the breach in the side of their target and settled his weight, panting as he recovered from the climb.

“It’s a tricky climb!” Vonders’svoice called down to them, and he settled himself as best he could within the spot.

“Can you see anything in there?” Tega wanted to know what they were in for if it was possible.

He nodded. “It’s hollow. Hard to say how far it goes down. I can’t very well climb it until the rest of you are up here.”

“Or you could take another rope, tie it in place, and then climb down.” Nolan spoke as he started up the cord himself. He had a bundle of rope around his waist. Vonders did not.

Nolan made the climb look easy until a little over half the distance to the top. That was when he slipped and nearly fell to his death. He caught himself and bounced along the side of the tower a couple of times, cursing and spinning before he managed to regain control and his composure.

When he finally settled himself, one leg on either side of the entrance into whatever lay inside, he carefully unwound the rope from around his waist and looked for something to anchor it with. Finally he tied it to the rope they’d scaled to reach the spot.

Tolpen looked at Tega for a moment and cleared his throat. “Do you know how to climb, milady?”

Truthfully, she did not. Because she had been trained to know that pride is often a waste of breath, she confessed her ignorance.

“Would it be best if you waited here?” The man meant no insult. He was simply trying to figure out what to do about the matter.

“Can you teach me to climb?”

“No more than I can teach you to properly hunt. That is to say it would take more time than we have. Perhaps after I’ve scaled the side we can pull you up with the rope.” He sounded doubtful. It wasn’t her weight and she knew that. It was that there was little enough for them to hold on to as it was and carrying a person’s weight would make their perch even more dangerous.

Vonders said something from above and Nolan cursed softly.

“What is it?” They had a much higher vantage point. Whatever it was they saw, Tega saw nothing when she looked in the same direction.

“Don’t know, but it looks like foot soldiers. A very large number of them. Hundreds at the least.”

Tega felt her heart drop. Secrecy was the key to what they were doing. As far as they knew, the Sa’ba Taalor could not come to the Mounds, were forbidden from entering the area, but that was only what they had been told, and the truth of the matter simply had not been tested.

“Where are they? Are they coming closer?”

“No.” Nolan looked down at her. His face from this range was unreadable, not that he was normally very expressive.

“Well? Where are they going?” Tolpen’s voice was edged with frustration.

“They head for the Temmis Pass, near as I can figure.”

“So they are Sa’ba Taalor.” Tega shook her head. Even if they got the information they needed, getting it back to Desh Krohan was looking to be more and more of a problem. She knew that people could walk the Blasted Lands. At least she thought they could. She knew that Andover Lashk had left into the area with a few of the Sa’ba Taalor, but they had been prepared with mounts and supplies.

“I can’t say how many. I think it could be hundreds, as I said, but it’s impossible to tell. There’s too much of this damned filth between us.” He gestured to indicate the air. Though the day was calmer and they could almost see the sun in the sky, it was still overcast and the air still tasted foul.

“We can’t concern ourselves with them.”

Tolpen looked at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted wings on the sides of her head. “What?”

“They are there. We are here. This is where we have to be. We must do as Desh Krohan has commanded. We have to know what is here.” As she spoke she glared at the hunter. He was as polite as he felt he had to be, but she also knew that of the three men still with her he was the one who thought the least of her. His expression said he felt she was pampered. His eyes tended to look anywhere but into her eyes when he spoke.

Tolpen’s eyes looked at hers now, as if to prove her wrong. “Then we best get to it.”

Without another word he grabbed the silken cord and started hauling his body upward, his arms bulging with corded muscle and his legs kicking furiously against the side of the Mound. He scaled at almost twice the speed of the other two, the better to get away from her, it seemed.

She watched his movements and nodded to herself.

He did not understand how sorcery worked or what was required. He did not begin to know how much time was afforded to studying the ways of the world before one considered trying to change it. First came examination, then comprehension, and then experimentation; then and only then did a person hope to begin the proper focus required.

Tega had never climbed a rope in her life. She grabbed the cord and slipped it loosely around her waist as she had seen Vonders do. Her arms moved through the cord and she pulled herself up and off the ground. A moment later, her legs found the side of the Mound’s wall and she balanced herself. One arm pulled, and then the other. She slid upward. Her left leg pushed and she stepped up the side of the Mound. Her right foot followed. Her arms shifted and pulled and her body already ached, but she climbed, one step at a time, and forced herself upward, looking at the men above her and determined not to let them think her foolish or weak.

Her arms shook. Her legs shook. The effort was immense. She made herself breathe, and pulled and stepped and pulled and stepped, and when her right foot slipped she shifted her weight quickly to compensate and caught herself before she could spin as Nolan had before.

Above her Nolan’s eyes studied her and he nodded silent encouragement. Vonders did not look at her. His teeth worried at his lower lip as he carefully set about tying the other rope in place. Tolpen watched her, but his expression was impossible to read.

He did not matter. There was only the climbing. Until she reached the lip of the opening and Nolan’s hand was gripping her wrist and her elbow as he steadied her and she swung one leg over the side of the entrance and straddled the cold stone.

The wall they rested on was thick, at least as thick as her waist, and unyielding.

She looked out toward the horizon as her pulse calmed down and her breathing returned to normal. Her body shook not only with exertion but also with a hint of fear. She had never climbed so high in her life and the notion of falling had never quite seemed so real.

Out in the distance there were shapes moving, and yes, they looked like troops on the march. She had certainly seen enough soldiers marching in her time at the palace.

It was more than a few hundred if she had to guess, but from this range it was hard to say. They were just small shapes. For all she could truly see there might well have been a dust storm running along the side of the distant cliffs.

No. Dust storms seldom stayed consistent in their height.

“Do you see them?” Vonders looked up from his business and yanked hard on the rope he’d been tying in place. The rope stayed where it was and so did he. That was as good a sign as she could expect.

“Oh, yes. I see them. Now we have even more reason to go about this. If those are the soldiers of the Sa’ba Taalor it is possible that war comes even sooner than we feared.”

“Are we not already at war?” Nolan frowned and continued to look at the distant column.

His father, of course, had already died. She’d let herself forget that fact.

“We are engaged. I do not know if they call this a skirmish or a war yet, but I think wars are bigger.”

She nodded to Vonders. “Are you ready?”

“No. But I’m going anyway.” Without another word he started down the inside of the cavernous darkness. They had no light, no torches, nothing of the sort.

“Wait. We need light.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Tolpen spoke softly and pointed down into the depths of the Mound. Tega looked and frowned.

It was faint, but there was something down there. She could see Vonders, though he was now well below the light from the entrance. And below him, below the level of the ground even, she could see luminescence. It was a cold light, and it set off a winter storm within her heart and her stomach alike.

Vonders kept sliding down the rope, carefully descending. Below the ground, now, and deeper still. From time to time he looked up, but mostly he panted and made his slow drop into the place where the gray-skinned Sa’ba Taalor were forbidden to journey.

Drask watched them scale the side of the tower and then slip inside. It took them a very long time to manage it.

When they were gone he finally let himself move, sliding one leg and then the other from where they had been resting and stretching the muscles that had spent far too long in the same position. His practice of moving and keeping his circulation steady had been halted when there was a chance that they would notice him. Patience was one of the hardest things to learn, for him. It had always gone against his nature. He was born and raised to fight and to kill and those were situations that required speed and skill and strength of body and mind.

Patience required only patience.

It was not his strongest characteristic.

When they had finally dropped completely from sight Drask climbed down from where he had been waiting and stretched, rewarding his body’s patience with relief from threatened cramps.

And then he squatted low to the ground, stared toward the Seven Forges and prayed silently to Ydramil. He had been told to come here. He had not yet been told why.

The world around him was nearly silent. There was the wind, and the sound of grit and dust skittering along the ground, and there was the slow and steady sound of his breathing.

And then there was the voice of Great Ydramil speaking to him, into his very heart.

Drask looked around at the Mounds, the forbidden territory that always waited. His feet touched the forbidden. He breathed in the air of the same.

And now he would once more break the rules he had been taught for as long as he had been alive.

He nodded and waved one hand and Brackka came closer. The mount had never been far away. His place was where Drask could call on him and he knew that well enough.

“I go after them.” Brackka panted and pushed his face closer to Drask’s. His hands moved behind Brackka’s ears and scratched and the great face pushed against him. “Wait here. I will be back as soon as I can. Or I will not, as Ydramil decides.” When he let go of his mount his hands reached out and took a small selection of weapons. His long bow stayed where it was. The shorter one he took with him, along with a quiver. One sword. Four axes and an assortment of knives. Anything else would have to wait with Brackka for when he came back.

The mount let out a grunt and moved away, circling the area slowly. He would wait and he would hunt when he needed food. That was the price he paid for his past sins. He would be faithful, because that was all that was left to him.

Drask would be faithful, too. He moved to where the people from Fellein had left a gift for him, a rope that dangled down and made his climb easier than he’d expected.

From the top of the climb he could see the columns moving toward the Temmis Pass.

There were so many more than he had expected to see.

Drask waited only a moment before he started down the rope that was, once again, foolishly left to allow him an easy descent.

In his heart there was no fear. He went where his god commanded. There was nothing for him to be afraid of.

The sun set.

King Tuskandru, Chosen of the Forge of Durhallem and King in Obsidian, called to his people and began their sacred journey.

The sun rose in the east and as the first light of the day made itself known, Merros Dulver stepped from the tent where he’d slept, dressed in his uniform and ready to deal with whatever came his way.

Well, as ready as he could manage when he felt like he was going to his death.

A quick gesture and the troops were called to order. He would inspect them soon, but first he wanted to see if there were any signs that the Sa’ba Taalor were ready to discuss grave matters.

The Sa’ba Taalor wanted to parley, and he hoped and prayed that was a good thing, but he was not one hundred percent sure. He wanted all to go well. He wanted peace between their people.

He wanted to cut the throat of whichever bastard king had ordered Swech to kill the Emperor. He wanted to see justice for Wollis March.

He wanted not to feel shame because he enjoyed his talks with Dretta March.

He wanted a thousand different things that he suspected would not be a part of the day’s work.

Desh Krohan was already waiting near the Temmis Pass. It looked much like all of the other spots until you looked past the edge and saw the wide span of rock that gradually wound down to the floor of the Edge.

Desh stared out, his cloak drawn around him and his hood up. He looked scarcely human. He was an intimidating figure.

“Well. Here we are.” Merros looked at the start of the pass himself. There was no sign of anyone.

With the cowl over his face the man sounded different. Merros had to remind himself that the same man he’d had a few pleasant meals with was under that thing. “There’s something odd going on.”

“What do you mean?” said Merros.

“The cloud cover. Look at it.”

Merros looked out toward the Blasted Lands and frowned. The mists seemed lower.

“Is it calm in there? That seems unlikely.”

“It’s calmer. The storm seems to have weakened and, while it has been a few decades since I was here, I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Neither have I.”

It was at that moment that the first shape started rising from the mists where the pass lay. It only took one look for Merros to recognize the man. He struck a powerful figure, dressed as he was in his red tunic and dark armor. His thick hair ran in the same curls as before, but this time the body was hidden behind a full suit of plate mail armor. The cloak he wore was the same as before: black with scrollwork of silver and gold, and a heavy cord of gold that held it in place. A sword that should have looked preposterous rested at one hip. On any other man it would have seemed a man’s sword worn by a child. Paedori was large enough to carry it with ease.

The iron crown sat on Tarag Paedori’s brow. His eyes looked coldly at each of the people before him, his face once again hidden by the veil that obscured most of his features. Still, there was no mistaking the man.

“We meet again, Merros Dulver.” He nodded. If he was at all put out by Merros not bowing to him he hid it well.

“I wish we were meeting under different circumstances, Majesty.”

The Iron King nodded his head slightly and gestured. “I bring with me your charge, Kallir Lundt.”

Merros blinked and felt a heat of shame bloom in his chest. He’d forgotten the man again. A charge that he should have never forgotten, now returned to him by the King who had promised to do what he could to mend the injured wretch.

Kallir Lundt stepped from up from the edge of the Temmis Pass when his name was called. He was a tall man, but small in comparison to the king. To be fair, most men were dwarfed by him and that included all but a handful of the Sa’ba Taalor Merros had met.

Kallir Lundt wore an iron mask over the ruin of his face. There was a twinge of guilt there again. The Pra-Moresh had attacked and torn the bastard’s face away. That he had lived at all was an accomplishment.

And then Kallir spoke, his mouth moving, his iron face changing as he spoke and Merros felt his knees go weak.

“It is my pleasure to see you again, Merros.” He smiled and showed teeth – some of white enamel and some that seemed cast in iron – and gums of red flesh beneath the moving iron.

“How?” It was the only word Merros could manage. Desh Krohan said nothing, but merely stood where he was and watched in silence.

“The Sa’ba Taalor are generous and their gods can be merciful. I am here as proof of that, Merros.”

He felt himself staring, but could not stop. The face moved. It was impossible, of course, but so were the hands of Drask and Andover Lashk. Still, this was different, or it should have been. By the gods, how had the man endured having the metal cast upon his flesh?

“I am still Kallir Lundt, Captain Dulver.”

“I know.” He managed to look at the darkness where the eyes should have been visible. There had to be eyes, of course. It was merely hard to see them through the rest of the black iron face. Merros shook his head. “I know and I am truly grateful to see you again, my friend.”

He reached out and took Kallir’s hand in both of his, shaking it warmly. The tint of his skin was wrong. He had a sickly cast to his flesh. Still, he was alive, and he moved and saw and spoke. That seemed nearly impossible.

“Are you here for the parley, Captain?”

Merros nodded. “General. I’m General Dulver these days.”

Kallir looked at him and slowly nodded.

The King in Iron stepped forward. “Is it you I am here to speak with, Merros Dulver? Or does your Emperor’s replacement come to speak as well?” He looked at Desh Krohan as he spoke.

Desh replied in the language that Merros had learned through sorcery. He spoke softly, but carefully. “Nachia Krous, Rightful Empress of Fellein and Ruler of the Twelve Kingdoms, is here to negotiate with you. She will join us soon, Majesty.”

Tarag Paedori nodded again and crossed his arms.

Desh stayed nearly motionless, but Merros doubted that anything remotely like calm was going on under that cowl.

The Sisters came out from the main tent and with them came Nachia Krous, dressed not in finery, but in armor of her own. Merros tried to hide his surprise. He had no idea she owned armor, let alone knew how to wear it. The armor was functional and fit her like a second skin. That was for the best when wearing the stuff. It stopped a body from getting battered and reduced the encumbrance caused.

She wore a crown, but not the one she given to her at her coronation. The simple band was as unadorned as the Iron King’s though made of finer metals.

Merros Dulver called his men to attention and they listened, moving quickly to form a rank along the passage the Empress would walk. The men were in armor as well, each of them bearing a heavy sword and a light spear. They stood at attention and faced the Iron King and Kallir Lundt. The two men scarcely seemed to notice.

As Empress Nachia Krous stopped before him – looking really quite tiny in comparison, but holding her head and posture as she had been trained to for her entire life – the King in Iron offered a formal bow. His eyes did not leave her face.

After just exactly enough time to avoid insult, Nachia Krous returned the bow.

Desh Krohan spoke. “Empress Nachia Krous of Fellein, ruler of the Twelve Kingdoms, this is Tarag Paedori, Chosen of the Forge Truska-Pren and King in Iron.” He stepped forward and moved next to the Empress. “We meet here on this morning to discuss the difficulties between the Sa’ba Taalor and the Empire.”

Nachia Krous spoke clearly. “You have called for parley, is that what you and the other kings seek?”

Tarag Paedori spoke just as clearly, his voice holding that odd echoing quality that all of the Sa’ba Taalor shared. “Empress Nachia Krous of the Fellein Empire, your representatives sought to capture and hold a King of the Seven Forges against his will. He was within his rights to defend his honor and struck down the agents sent against him.”

He looked to Merros. “We had your men delivered back to you. Should we see more of them we will do the same.”

Nachia’s face remained calm, but Merros could see the tension under the surface as it rose. “Your people came to us as guests. One of them, a woman called Swech, murdered the Emperor, my cousin, and killed several others before fleeing the palace and the city. At the very least we demand her return to us, so that she may be punished in accordance with our laws.”

The man loomed over her and let his arms rest at his sides, far too close to that insane sword of his for Merros’s comfort. “Swech Tothis Durwrae followed the orders given to her by the Daxar Taalor. If she killed your cousin it was because the gods decreed it was his time to die. In addition she has not been within the Taalor Valley or within the Seven Kingdoms of the Seven Forges in well over a month.”

“Then where is she?”

He could not see the King smile, but Merros could hear it in the man’s voice. “She remains among your people.”

Nachia lost a bit of her composure. “Should we find her, we will kill her. She will suffer for what she did.”

“You will not find her unless she wishes to be found.” A gesture with one hand, a dismissal of the conversation and just exactly casual enough to be insulting. No one missed it, least of all Nachia.

“If you do not seek parley, why do you come here, Tarag Paedori?”

“I offer you the mercy of a surrender. Should you offer yourself to me as a bride, your Empire will be spared the pain of being destroyed by the Sa’ba Taalor.”

Desh Krohan made a noise. Merros made a noise of his own. Neither was precisely polite.

Nachia Krous shook her head. “Go back to your Seven Forges and your kingdom in the dust.” She turned her back on him, the insult very clear in her dismissal. “You and your filth are no longer welcome here.”

The behemoth laughed at her, and Merros felt winter bloom in his guts.

“Tuskandru said you were a fool, Nachia Krous. He was right. I have offered you the only mercy possible and you have denied it.”

“You have offered nothing!” She jammed one finger toward the King in Iron. “You have offered me a chance to grovel at your feet! I should have my men kill you where you stand as a lesson to your people. We are an Empire! Run back to your foolish gods and hide in the cold and dust, you swine!”

Merros stepped closer to his Empress and let his hand rest on his sword’s pommel. If there were bloodshed, he would die defending her.

Behind her, the priests and the soldiers and the entourage that had come along stood and watched. The soldiers at least were prepared to stand with him and kill, or die as their Empress demanded.

“Here is my offer to you, Tarag Paedori.” She stepped closer to him and Merros moved with her. Desh Krohan watched on, but there was a presence about him that rivaled that of the Iron King and even the monarch noticed it. For the Empress herself, she held her temper at bay and stared coldly at the man who stood before her without an army, without support of any kind. “Lay down your sword and surrender. Offer me your fealty and I will spare your life and that of your people when the rest of your kingdoms are foolish enough to attack my Empire. That is the one mercy I will offer you.”

When Tarag Paedori spoke again his voice was calm, but low with menace. “Mock me if you will. Mock my fellow kings and our people, but mock the Daxar Taalor and you risk their wrath.”

The King in Iron drew his sword and raised it high above his head with both hands. Merros stepped toward him, pulling his weapon, looking for any weakness in the heavy armor the man wore. He prepared to strike and stepped between Empress and King.

And Tarag Paedori drove his sword into the ground before him, breaking the hard soil with ease.

The King in Iron spoke in his own language, but the words were understood by Merros and Desh Krohan. “The Daxar Taalor are not kind to their enemies.”

The ground shook.

Not close by, but far away.

Tarag Paedori pulled his blade from the ground. If he so much as noticed Merros standing before him and ready to fight, he hid it well. He stepped back four paces and Kallir Lundt moved with him.

Kallir Lundt said, “I am sorry for this, Merros Dulver, but they gave me back my life.” His voice was heavy with regret.

And the ground shook on, a growing vibration that reminded Merros of the Mounds deep within the Blasted Lands, though the vibration came from the wrong direction.

“By the gods, no!”

He turned his back on Tarag Paedori and stared at the column of clouds rising into the sky in the distance.

He did not need a map to know, of course. He knew even before he looked, knew it in his heart and felt a sorrow that could not be turned back.

Great gouts of flame and smoke ripped into the sky, but from several days’ march away.

From the direction of Tyrne.

The ground shook only once and then exploded.

The black rock punched through the ground as easily as a dagger through a heart. Tyrne screamed as it died and burned.

The Summer Palace shuddered and the stone and mortar that had formed the walls broke, falling and crumbling even as the first tide of magma boiled from below. The heat was enough to melt steel, to incinerate paper and to boil flesh from bones. There were many people left in Tyrne when the eruption started, but for most of them death was quick.

It was the people beyond the outer wall of Tyrne who suffered. The great clouds of burning ash and fiery gasses scorched flesh and lungs, seared eyes in their sockets and burned hair to scalps. Those who thought to breathe in, the better to scream, filled their lungs with smoldering soot and died quickly before the ash buried them.

Still the ground shook and the skies screamed and the black rocks rammed their way from the ground, rising higher and higher, pushing aside the accomplishments of men and nature alike, even as those monuments were incinerated or crushed.

Fire. Ash. Fury. The lands around Tyrne had not been marked by anything so violent since the Great Cataclysm.

The mountain rose slowly, pushing itself from the ground, forcing itself upon the Fellein Empire with no regard for the history, for the city or the people who had once lived there.

Tyrne died, and the skies above wept lightning and thunder on the growing mountain to mourn the city’s passing.

On the Imperial Highway many people screamed when the eruption took place, and just as many found themselves praying to the gods.

Swech rode among them and prayed, but not to the same deities.

On the Jeurgis River the boats that carried passengers from Tyrne rode on, and Captain Callan thought about how very fortunate he was to be on the water when the fires started. The heat was fearsome but not enough to stop them.

Later he would hear tales of the birds that fell from the sky, poisoned by the very air they breathed, and he would feel a deep and abiding fear creep through him. The closest bird fell dead only half a day from where he was traveling when the city died.

Far to the east of Tyrne the Pilgrim stopped in his tracks when the ground split and the fires tore the skies asunder. He was too far away to hear the sounds or to feel the ground shudder, but still he knew.

It was his place to know these things.

It was his place to try to stop these things.

He hoped, briefly, that he was not too late and then lowered his head and moved on.

There was no time left. No time at all and he had so very far to travel.

Desh Krohan shuddered within his cloak. The winds picked up and whipped furiously at every single one of them as he watched the Sooth’s warning come true.

He stepped closer to Nachia Krous even as the Sisters moved closer to him. The same instinct drove them all: there were loved ones who needed protecting.

Merros Dulver looked back toward the King in Iron with a horrified expression. He did not speak. There were no words left in him at that moment.

The winds lashed harder still and several people staggered as the heated air came in a rush.

Nachia Krous was not staggered. She looked at the sky and looked at the place where Tyrne had been and felt her heart clutched in a gigantic fist of sorrow, but she did not flinch.

When she turned back to look at the Tarag Paedori she did not make threats. She marked him in her mind and studied him carefully.

And she vowed to herself that she would see him dead at her feet before she died, no matter how long that might take.

The winds pushed harder still and caught the veil of clouds over the Blasted Lands pushing them aside, scattering them and revealing the land below for the first time since the Cataclysm.

And revealing the vast forces waiting on the fields below.

Tarag Paedori swept one hand back to gesture toward his armies.

Merros Dulver looked down and saw the people that he would be asked to defend his nation from.

There were so many more than he had expected.

They were small from here. They were far enough below that they looked like ants, really. Ants with banners and sigils and weapons and armor. Ants regimented into companies, and battalions and legions.

He could not count them all. There were simply too many.

Even as he stared, the clouds took back what was theirs, fighting against the winds and winning. The veil of mists that hid away the Blasted Lands thickened quickly, boiling his view of the enemy into obscurity.

When Tarag Paedori spoke again his voice was bereft of all humor. His tone was a lash across the back, a vicious cutting hiss. He had to bellow to be heard over the roaring winds and the death of Tyrne. “For one thousand years we have trained ourselves. We have dedicated our lives to our gods in preparation for this day.” His eyes sought out Nachia Krous and narrowed with barely restrained hatred. “Your Empire rose on the ashes of our people, on the blood and bones of Korwa and the First Empire. You killed us a thousand years ago, but you did not kill us all.”

He sheathed his sword.

“Gather your armies. Prepare your weapons. If you can even remember your gods, find them and pray to them. You will find the Sa’ba Taalor are ready for you and you will find the Daxar Taalor are unforgiving.”

He stepped toward the Temmis Pass and looked at Merros Dulver. “Like your people before, we came to you and offered gifts. Like your people before, we offered friendship and a promise of peace. And like your people before, we have drawn first blood. As our ancestors were betrayed by the Fellein, so we have betrayed.”

Finally he looked back to Nachia Krous. “Prepare yourselves. We will destroy your nation, your twelve kingdoms and you.”

Seven Forges Book III

City of Wonders

This book is for Caroline’s Ellie. May you always know joy, little one.

This book is also dedicated to the memory of Tom Piccirilli, gone far too soon, missed, loved and remembered.

Special thanks to my Robot Overlords for their amazing patience, to Charles R Rutledge and Chris and Connie Golden, Scott Goudsward, Amy Young, Paul McNamee, Jonathan Maberry, Sara Jo West, Dan Brereton, Cliff Biggers, Allison Pang, Linda Robertson and Martel Sardina. You all know why.

Prologue

Teagus stared at the smoke that pointed down toward the ruins of Tyrne like an accusatory finger.

He could not seem to catch his breath.

Not a hundred feet away from him, the Empress stood in consultation with her wizard and her general. It was the general that caught his eye right then. Merros Dulver. His lip curled. Dulver was the one who’d ordered him from Tyrne.

“Etrilla.” The word crept past his lips.

Etrilla, the god of the cities. Etrilla, who demanded that the priests of his faith dwell within their cities for life, as they were the eyes and soul of the city. As the head of the Church of Etrilla in Tyrne, Teagus should have been there, should have protected the city as best he could from the disaster that fell upon it.

Merros Dulver would likely claim that he had saved Teagus’s life.

Blasphemy.

The man was godless.

Teagus had a god. Teagus had Etrilla, whom he had now betrayed because of Merros Dulver.

He walked toward the general even as he took in a deep breath that tasted of ashes and loss.

Merros Dulver looked around the area and forced his hands to relax. They had a powerful desire to ball into fists, but there was nothing to hit, no one to hurt.

Tyrne was gone. He needed only look toward the south and east to know that.

The winds from the Blasted Lands grew stronger and brought with them the taste of ancient ruination. Ash and grit from the great crater rose past the Edge and spilled toward the gathered forces.

For some insane reason Merros had believed, however briefly, that the men with him would be enough to protect the Empress. All that had saved her in the end was that the King in Iron turned and walked away.

Somewhere below in the Blasted Lands an army waded through the raging storm. His men would have been broken by the force of that fury. The Sa’ba Taalor were not broken. Instead they were honed by the savage winds and the endless dust storm.

One of the priests was coming toward him. Merros saw the man and read the expression on his face with ease. He was enraged and shocked and hurt by the death of Tyrne.

They all were.

Desh Krohan was speaking, trying to calm the Empress. Nachia Krous was angry. She had been challenged when they had come to parley for peace. The first of seven kings of the Sa’ba Taalor had scoffed at her, looked down upon her and then had driven his sword into the ground and murdered an entire city.

She was not merely angry. She was tortured by guilt for every life ripped away by the roaring fire that had swallowed the Summer City.

Teagus came toward him. His demeanor was not what it had been before. He did not duck or bow or cringe. Instead he walked with purpose, his eyes locked on Merros and his wide face set in an expression of righteous rage.

“This will go poorly.” Merros mumbled the words, but Desh Krohan heard them and looked his way and then toward the Elder of Etrilla.

“Do you want–” Merros cut off the wizard’s words with one sharp wave of his hand.

This would be his battle alone. He had to make clear to the priests that they served the Empire, not the other way around.

Still. He did not have to enjoy the task.

“They are all dead!” Teagus’s voice cracked as he came closer. His eyes were wide and teary, but his expression was not one of sorrow. It was rage and hatred that made his face an ugly mask.

One nearly delicate hand pointed a long finger toward Merros. “They are all dead! You forced me from Tyrne and Etrilla has punished us all for your arrogance!”

His teeth ground together as he listened to the accusation. “Don’t start your ramblings, priest. I have enough weight to carry.”

“You have the blood of thousands to wallow through, you swine!”

Merros looked at the man for a dozen heartbeats and Teagus matched his stare. A day earlier and the soldier would have thought the priest incapable of anything that didn’t involve cringing.

“You are grieving.” Merros took one step toward the priest. “For that reason I will forgive your insult. Go back to the other priests and leave me to my duties.”

Teagus spat at him. A wad of phlegm soared toward his face and Merros avoided it with ease, even as he drew back his hand and stepped toward the smaller man. Teagus was short. He was not in good shape. He was older and heavier than he should have been and if the rumors were true his only real exercise came from chasing girls who were not yet women.

Merros’s gloved fist slammed into the older man’s face and sent him staggering backward. “We are done now.”

Desh Krohan looked his way, past the shoulder of the Empress.

Merros pointed to one of his soldiers. At that precise moment he could not have guessed a name. “Lock him in chains. Let him walk behind the wagons and consider his actions.”

There were some that might have considered the punishment harsh. Merros considered it a kindness as he had not drawn his sword and killed the man on the spot.

The soldier came forward and hauled the old priest to his feet. Teagus’s lip was split and bled freely. The anger had faded and grief took its place. The man cried silently.

Merros understood exactly how he felt. Just the same, the man was locked in chains and made to follow the rest.

Some decisions haunt a person.

The winds below hissed and scathed the walls of the deep valley. Jost paid them no mind. They were not important. Above her the land was smooth and free of the worst of the toxic storm that forever marred the Blasted Lands. Her gods demanded that she leave her home behind and that she lead a small army, the likes of which had never been seen before.

Some armies are easy to command and some are not. Hers was not.

The beasts were not soldiers. They lived solely to kill and to eat. The Pra-Moresh were great, hulking things, larger than most predators that walked the skin of the world, and they were always desperately hungry, just as the Daxar Taalor had designed them to be.

Everything in the Taalor Valley and the surrounding lands served a purpose. Nothing was wasted, not ever.

The gods of the Seven Forges had saved her people after the Cataclysm, helping the wretched and burned, the starving and diseased to live and to thrive, and in exchange, they demanded fealty. The Sa’ba Taalor, the people of the valley, were glad to serve, grateful for the chance to prove themselves.

Three weeks earlier, as Jost was sharpening her weapons and contemplating the possible war against the people of Fellein, Wheklam spoke to her.

Wheklam was not one of her chosen gods. She followed Paedle and she followed Wrommish. They taught her well and she served them well.

There are simple rules in this world: when a god calls you to a task, only a fool questions that god’s orders.

Wheklam was the God of the Sea, of Lead and of group conflicts. Not the god of armies, but the god of combat that embraced numerous opponents.

When Wheklam spoke into Jost’s mind, the sound was like the crash of angry waves upon a rocky shore. Jost listened to the voice and obeyed, for that was her sacred promise to the Daxar Taalor.

As they spoke, a searing agony cut into the right side of Jost’s face, from her high cheek down to her jaw, and she carefully set her sword aside and waited for the words and the pain to end.

She had been given a gift that came with a price: She had been marked as favored by the god. In exchange, Jost had but to finish one task.

When that was finished, she followed Wheklam’s commands, adjusting to the Great Scar on her face and moving into the woods in the shadow of Wheklam’s great mountain. For two days she walked without sleeping and carefully stalked one of the great rams that frequented the mountain.

The rams were aggressive and powerful, many of them standing nearly as tall as Jost and weighing several hundred pounds more. They were fat beasts, well fed and capable of killing a fighter without much effort.

Her fight with the ram left her bruised across her ribs, both legs and her right arm, and aching from her thigh to her neck on the left side of her body. Four deep gashes ran across her stomach, so she took the gold from her gear and asked favors of Wrommish, who let the gold sear into her flesh and stopped her death. The gods were kind that day.

When she had recovered enough, she cut the great horns from the ram and then cleaned the carcass. There was no food in the area and no heat. She ate the meat raw but set aside the entrails, as Wheklam had instructed. When her belly was full the rest of the carcass was set with the entrails.

The right horn of the ram was ideal and she set to carving it, carefully listening to the details offered by Wheklam and cutting the holes where the god demanded as she hollowed out the horn and cut away the raw flesh still attached.

When she was done and the god was pleased, Jost collected the meat of the ram, tied the horn to her belt with a slice of hide stretched and braided into a proper band, and then headed away from the valley.

She walked, as she had not yet earned a chance to hunt and capture a mount.

The storms outside the valley were as powerful as ever and the winds scoured her and carried the scent of the carcass she hauled behind her.

The meat did not rot. The Daxar Taalor did not want it to rot. She ate what she had to in order to survive. The rest she pulled along in her wake as a ship might haul along a fishing net.

Jost had never been on a boat. She had never spoken to Wheklam before the god spoke to her. It was not a matter of disrespect; so much as the situation had never arisen before. Many of the people she’d met when she was in Fellein would have been surprised by the notion of a god speaking to a person, but Jost and her people knew better.

The gods spoke. The Sa’ba Taalor listened and learned and obeyed.

At the end of her long journey Jost reached the great wall of the divide between the Blasted Lands and the Fellein Empire.

By the time she reached her destination, the vast armies of the Sa’ba Taalor were on the move, following the commands of Tarag Paedori, Chosen of Truska-Pren and the King in Iron. All of the kings ruled their kingdoms, but at this time, in this place, they also obeyed Tarag Paedori, as the Daxar Taalor willed it.

She did not know where the armies of the Sa’ba Taalor were moving. That was not her place. She had been told by a god to kill a ram, carve one of the horns in just the right way and drag the great carcass behind her to the area called the Edge by the people of Fellein.

Jost listened to Wheklam and was told to bathe herself in the remains of the ram and scale the great wall of stone. She cut the hide from the carcass and wrapped it around her body, soaking in the viscera. She was not shamed or repulsed by the feeling. Jost was Sa’ba Taalor, and it was not the first time she had bathed herself in the blood of her victims, intentionally or no.

There were no paths. The stone had been scoured by endless winds and storms for a thousand years and the surface was often as smooth as the ice that coated it. That was not important. The gods made demands and she obeyed. That was the way of the world.

So she scaled the Edge and she did not fall to her death though there were a few close calls.

Far below her the carcass she had carried still waited, the offal from the great thing covering her body. She slipped free of her cloak of bloodied hide and dropped it on the ground. The skin was still covered in the blood and remains that she had smeared it with. Perhaps the winds should have washed the scent away, but the gods have their ways.

When Jost was done stripping off the hide of the ram she untied the horn that she had carried throughout her journey. Wheklam told her what to do and she obeyed, blowing through the great horn, though she heard no noise come from it. She heard no noise, but she felt the vibrations of the sound that escaped. The note was too high for her to hear, and so powerful that most of her body shivered with the ringing that touched her flesh.

Far below, deep in the Blasted Lands, that single note carried, traveling farther than should have been possible over the roaring winds and endless ice storm that covered the land.

Thus was her army summoned.

Jost did not wait around for them to come, but instead rose from her seat on the rough, flat lands of the Wellish Steppes – where once, long ago, her people had fought the Overlords and weakened their enemies greatly before being driven away – and headed for the distant shadows on the horizon. She was not done traveling. She had a trail to mark and she intended to do just that.

The ram’s hide still bled heavily, far more than should have been possible. She knew that, but did not question it. The Daxar Taalor performed miracles every day. This was merely one more among the many she had witnessed in her life.

The trail she left behind was bloody and refused to dry.

Jost walked many miles before she reached the forest and the great trees that marked it as unique. Massive oak trees and great willows, hardwoods that she had never seen in her life, as she had never seen so very many trees in one place. Once in the forest she found a vine, green and fat and hard as stone, which rose from the ground into the trees themselves, and she carefully placed her feet and started walking the path the vine offered to her. The ram’s skin bled freely behind her and painted the vine as red as a setting sun.

Wheklam told her that she had done well and commanded her to follow a path he offered to her deeper into the woods.

Being a faithful servant, she obeyed without question.

One

Trecharch lived. That was more than could be said for most kingdoms.

The walls in Trecharch were made of wood that was thick, very solid and very much alive. The trees of the region were walls, homes and barriers against enemies. No one had ever successfully invaded Trecharch in the time of the Fellein Empire, though, in the past, a few had foolishly tried.

The trees at the center of the Great Green – as the area was often called by the poets and scribes – were monumental. They towered higher than should have seemed possible. Most of them were well over a thousand years of age, and joined to the outer levels of the forest by the Mother-Vine that connected all of the Sentinels, the hardest and heartiest of the monolithic hardwoods.

If the people of Trecharch could be said to worship any deities, they would be the Mother-Vine and the Walking Trees.

The Walking Trees were all of the vast Sentinels in the area. Though they did not move far, they did move, and their motion was part of the reason that the people were safe. On several occasions through their long history, the Sentinels had moved themselves across the ground and blocked passages that might have let attackers past their natural barriers.

The Mother-Vine was a tapestry woven across the area: a vine as thick as a fat man’s waist that wrapped around tree trunks, spiraling out between the Sentinels, sometimes at the level of the ground and sometimes hundreds of feet above. In the latter case the people of Trecharch often built guide lines and rope railings, making bridges to move from one tree to the next, allowing them to look at all of their land from above and from the level of the ground.

Not surprisingly, the guards from Trecharch were adept archers.

“It should be warmer by now.” Deltrea’s voice was edging toward petulant. The woman hated working the higher levels, where she could not so easily find a man to flirt with.

Cullen, already in a mood because of the endless, pissing drizzle, pressed her lips together rather than start another argument with the other sentry. They were friends and they worked together well, but the miserable weather and the stench coming from the Blasted Lands had put them both in foul moods. Best to keep a silent tongue when dread whispered in the mind that something was wrong.

In her guts, Cullen knew that something dark was going to happen. She tried to deny it with her head, but her innards knew better.

Only days earlier Tyrne had died in flames. The city was gone and it hadn’t taken long to know it. The birds all left the forest at the same time, rising above the woods and heading east. One bird makes a whisper. A thousand make a sigh. All the birds at once make for screaming nerves.

Within a day the feathered denizens had returned as if nothing had happened, but the omen had been noticed by one and all.

Scarcely half an hour earlier, the birds rose up again, a cloud of different colors against a backdrop of dark storm front. They had not returned. Cullen’s guts said it was trouble. She tended to listen when her body told her things. She knew people who had not and they had paid the ultimate price for their arrogance.

“Winter is stubborn this year, that’s all.” Cullen made dismissive noises that even she did not believe. She stood at her post, looking out toward the distant Blasted Lands and admiring the amazing view offered by their position on the far edge of the Trecharch Forest, near the top of Old Root, the last of the Sentinels before the trees rose only a hundred feet at the highest levels.

The filthy air from the Blasted Lands had been creeping into the area since Tyrne had become a burning mountain, and the Edge no longer seemed capable of holding back the dark winds that had always been locked away in the past.

“I think it’s more than that.” Deltrea shook her head. “Lurne says…” Just that quickly Cullen tuned the other woman out. Once she spoke of Lurne, her sometimes lover, the talk inevitably went to how much he wanted to rut with her. Lurne was a pig. Rutting was his constant desire.

Sometimes she envied Deltrea her freedom when it came to mating. Sometimes she did not. There had been men in the past. A few of them had been demanding. Two of their bodies were lost in the woods and would never be found. She pushed that thought away.

She wasn't quite sure what at first, but something caught her attention. A motion, perhaps, or a sound. Maybe, she hoped, it was the damned birds coming back, signaling that all was well.

Before the eruption in Tyrne no one had truly considered the possibility of a disaster reaching into Trecharch. Since then, however, the guards were stationed in twice as many places and they were doubled.

Deltrea was still going on about her man, which sometimes seemed the only thing the woman ever wanted to talk about. “Lurne can’t help himself. As soon as we’re together and the curtains are closed, he’s ready to couple.”

Cullen, who had seen Lurne and knew the man was hardly a stallion, was about to make a rude comment when the sounds came to her.

Distant, soft, echoing up from far below, the sounds of laughter and weeping came together. Children mumbled, adults cried: a constant gathering of noises that should not have been together in a cold and lonely forest.

She held up one hand and Deltrea stopped talking immediately. Gossip was a fine thing, but work came before pleasure when one was guarding the area.

“What is it?” Deltrea leaned closer, and craned her head in an effort to hear better.

“Noises. Too many noises.”

To prove her point the sounds grew louder, a cacophony of moans and sighs and broken sobs, now mingling with insane cackles.

Deltrea looked her way. “Is that a Pra-Moresh?” Her voice rose to a higher pitch, evidence of her shock at the notion.

Cullen frowned. “More than one, I’d think.” The great beasts didn’t usually come this far north, but it had happened on a few occasions. When she was a child she’d seen the carcass of one hauled out for everyone to see. The thick teeth, the long claws, and the sheer size of the brute had focused her nightmares for a few weeks afterward.

In the distance, at the very edge of the forest, she saw movement and shook her head. She should not have been able to see movement there. They were far enough away that anything she saw should have barely been noticeable.

Without bothering to consider the consequences if she were mistaken, Cullen reached for her horn and sounded the alarm. The note was low and deep, and for a moment it consumed all other sounds.

Deltrea stared at her with a querulous expression: to call everyone to arms was a serious action. Likely the other woman thought she was acting irrationally. That hardly mattered. There were Pra-Moresh in the area, several if her eyes weren’t playing tricks.

Within seven seconds the next horn sounded further into the territory and after that the sound echoed again and again from different stations.

For a moment she wondered if she had made a mistake.

Then the sounds of screams reached her ears from the edge of the forest and Cullen was glad she’d made the call.

Prill was not a coward, but he saw the demons and he ran.

They were nightmares made flesh and there were dozens of them. They came toward Western Point from the edge of the Blasted Lands and the Wellish Steppes, and they came en masse, a wave of fur and claws that cackled and sobbed as it moved forward.

There had been a few noises, enough to make him look in that direction, but when the horn sounded from Old Root, the Pra-Moresh treated it as a summons and came with a vengeance.

Prill was the guard at the edge of the territory and he took one look and thought only of his family in the small town. Merra had to be warned. The children had to be collected and all of them had to make it to the forest proper and the closest Sentinel. Old Root was a distance off, but they could make it if they were fast. The great trees were nearly impervious, surely enough to hold off the claws of even the Pra-Moresh.

Behind him the unholy tides rolled in; great, shambling bodies with teeth and claws and eyes that seemed too large to be real.

Borrogun had been standing next to him and grabbed his spear, prepared to fight the things. Prill ran.

He felt no shame, not even when he heard his fellow guard’s screams. Not even when the growls and laughter swallowed the guard’s desperate cries for help.

Not but a thousand feet to the proper edge of the Western Point. Once past the clearing he would be able to get to safety and help everyone.

Prill’s horn bounced at his hip, as completely forgotten as the spear he’d dropped and the short sword slapping against his other flank.

Perhaps if he had remembered either of them he could have made a difference to the outcome. Instead Prill ran, and in so doing, sealed the fate of all the people he knew in Western Point. No alarm was sounded save the screams of Borrugun, who was too distant for his cries to carry that far.

Prill did not scream. He never had a chance to. The powerful teeth of the Pra-Moresh slammed down on the back of his head and ended his life and any attempt to warn his loved ones.

Some people should not be guards.

The Western Point was called by that name as a formality. There were no proper barriers. The town was small, and served mostly as a guidepost. Travelers coming to Trecharch from the Wellish Steppes would easily get lost in the vast forest if they didn’t know the proper routes. For a few coins a good number of the local youth would work as guides. Naturally there were some in the small town who made a profit in the process. Some of the finest wood carvers in Fellein lived in Western Point. From trinkets to fine and elegant furniture, the locals managed to sell their wares and in a few cases were well sought after for additional work.

Prill would have been the first to admit that the skills in the area dealt more with carving wood than with carving flesh. Still, a proper alarm might have made a difference. Though the predators came fast, and though they made noise, there might have been a chance.

The Pra-Moresh moved into the town and feasted as they seldom had before. There had never been a time when the beasts roamed in so large a pack. There had never been a time when they found so very much to feed on.

The people in Western Point were barely aware that they were being attacked before it was over. The only positive note was that they screamed a great deal and in their deaths they warned the rest of their people.

The Pra-Moresh came into the territory in a rush, pushing through the trees and attacking anything that was on the same level as they were. Livestock died quickly. Cattle and geese and swine all tried to escape the lumbering monsters, but there simply was nowhere for them to go in their pens. The birds that had not been pinioned had already made good their escapes, but the larger animals found themselves the victims of the insatiable hunger of the monsters.

Had there only been one, or even a dozen, it was possible that most of the animals would have been saved, but the numbers were much larger, more than could be counted in the sudden chaos of their attacks.

Cullen stood at her position on the Mother-Vine and readied her bow.

Both she and Deltrea had moved much closer to the ground and both had a large supply of arrows. Should those fail them, there were also short spears. If the spears did not do the job, they were ready with swords.

They were not alone. Their fellows stood at the ready, in different locations and on different trees. The young, the frail and those with babies in their bellies were hidden in the Sentinel trees. Everyone else would fight. That was the way in Trecharch: those that could, did. Those that couldn’t, prayed.

The Mother-Vine provided.

Cullen was only thirty feet off the ground, standing on the Mother-Vine and holding her place. Fear fluttered in her guts, but that was to be expected. It wasn't every day one faced a childhood nightmare.

The first of the Pra-Moresh came into the area, muzzle and arms covered in gore. It giggled like a happy child and screeched like a wounded cat as it moved forward. Her arrow was true and sank into the left eye of the monster all the way to the fletching.

The beast let out a shriek of pain and shook its head before falling backward and smashing into the ground. It shit itself as it died.

She allowed herself half a heartbeat of celebration, but that faded when four more of the things came forward, drawn by the sound.

The demons attacked the trees, shaking them, clawing the thick bark, and in a few cases trying to climb higher. Cullen trembled inside but calmed herself and grabbed more arrows. Her aim was good but not perfect. She fired and missed, fired and struck one of the damned things in its back, and fired again, not bothering to see where the arrow struck before she reached for more.

The Pra-Moresh could not reach as high as her position. Try though they did, the beasts were, ultimately, just large beasts and not very bright. She felt a thrill as her arrows rained down, some wounding and others killing. A second of the monsters fell, and then a third. The fourth proved a better climber; Deltrea stood above it and aimed half a dozen arrows into the beast’s face before it fell back and sought easier food elsewhere. Still more of them came, pushing between the trees and seeking more meat to cram into their mouths. A few fell on their own dead and ripped into the fresh kills with no regard for their fallen brethren. Meat was meat and they were always ravenous.

All around Cullen the archers worked their bows and those without bows grabbed spears and took careful aim. The Pra-Moresh kept coming, some stopping to feast, others moving through the hail of missiles and continuing on, deeper into the Great Green and the center of the Mother-Vine’s domain. More guards were waiting there. She did not let herself worry about the ones that got past her. There were other considerations. There were more nightmares still coming.

Cullen wished she could have climbed higher, could have seen for certain how many of the things were there, because there seemed to be an endless tide of them washing through the forest floor below.

Sometimes it’s best not to know.

The sounds of laughter, of sobbing fear, and wailing sorrow filled the air as the Pra-Moresh continued on their odd exodus from the Blasted Lands. She had seen them and sounded the alarm but she had never guessed there could be so many.

Her arms ached and before she knew what was happening the last of her arrows was gone.

She was not the only one. Most of the archers had used up their supplies yet still the damned things came out of the woods and into the area where she lived. The air was heavy with the stench of blood and other bodily fluids. The only blessing they had at that moment was that most of the Pra-Moresh didn’t seem capable of scaling the Sentinels.

She had four spears. Cullen grabbed the first of them and looked down at the gradually dwindling stream of nightmares.

Next to her Deltrea called out, “Save them, Cullen. Tremm says there might be more of them coming. Let these pass and we’ll gather more supplies.”

Tremm was an ass. A little mead in his system and he tried to grope any female within range, but he was also one of the commanders. She might have argued but her arms ached and her belly still felt cold and shaky.

Down below the last of the migrating things lumbered past.

“How in the name of the gods could there be more of these things?”

Something roared in the distance. Not the maddening noises of the Pra-Moresh with their endless mimicry of human sounds, but a full-on sound like a short bark of thunder.

The sound was unsettling by its own right but where it came from was far worse.

Cullen and Deltrea looked toward the sky and the strand of the Mother-Vine made tiny by distance.

“At arms!” Deltrea screamed, her voice breaking harshly. “We are attacked from above!”

The arrow that took her life came from a height that made the archer look tiny. The point jammed through the top of Deltrea’s skull and rammed into the Sentinel behind her with enough force to leave her standing even after her legs failed and she should have fallen to the ground.

Cullen ducked around the side of the tree as quickly as she could when she saw the arrow falling from the sky. The black rain came down and sent several others to their deaths. Those less fortunate lived through the impacts, the missiles hitting with enough force to punch through bone and meat alike.

Not far away, Tremm screamed in pain, his bicep shattered by the impact of the weapon that forced him to drop his horn before he could call another alarm.

Grit rained down from above, and Cullen squinted against it, looking toward the Sentinel above her and gasping as she saw the shape sliding down the vast side of the tree.

Thick claws hooked into the bark and slowed what should have been a high-speed descent. The form was enormous, and worse still there was another shape atop it. With fifteen or so feet to go the shape that was mounted, hanging half free from the dropping mass, let go and fell toward her, with a sound that might have been a scream or possibly a laugh.

She wanted to move, but shock froze her body.

It was a man falling toward her. His weight tapped against the Sentinel and he skidded a bit, his descent not slowed so much as directed.

Landing on her body was what slowed him.

His boots drove into her side as she tried to get away. The pain was a powerful thing and she staggered backward, bouncing against the Sentinel before dropping from the bridge where she’d watched the Pra-Moresh feast and die. As her body had possibly slowed the stranger’s descent, the corpse of a great, stinking predator slowed hers. It would be a lie to say her landing was cushioned.

She’d been raised in the woods of Trecharch. Her father had taught her to climb and how best to fall. She had managed a hundred falls without hurting herself too severely, but this? This was not a fall so much as a hard push at the earth below.

The world flipped around several times before she slammed into the bloodied remains of the beast. A bone snapped loudly. She could not tell if it was hers, or the monster’s. Either way Cullen felt the world fade away in a gray wash that covered her senses completely.

For a moment, perhaps longer, there was blessed silence and then the screams came to her. People, her people, were crying out. Metal sang as it clashed against metal and warmth washed over her, wet and sticky and reeking of blood strongly enough for her to notice it past the stench of the dead thing beneath her.

Pain came back to visit her and Cullen groaned, the noise lost in the sounds of combat. She had never heard combat before, not really. She had heard instructors yelling commands as she and the others practiced their swordsmanship or worked the bows, improving their strength and their accuracy. This was different. This was cacophony, madness and screams and the sounds of people falling to their deaths. Somewhere up above another roar came her way and a man screamed. The sound was cut short, fading into a gurgling cough.

She looked up to see the demon that had slid down the tree running along the Mother-Vine and swatting at people, knocking them through the air to rain down around her, most of them, dead before they hit the ground. Not far away the shadow of a person danced across the Mother-Vine in the opposite direction, sweeping a sword around it in a flurry of activity. Wherever that metal tongue licked flesh it tasted blood.

Both the rider and the mount had eyes that blazed like candle flames.

Cullen tried to sit up and reach for her sword and the gray claimed her a second time, sweeping her into darkness.

The Walking Trees walked.

For over three hundred years the great Sentinels had moved themselves occasionally, but never very far and not as one unit. There had simply been no need. No one had invaded the Trecharch in all that time and the Sentinels had simply stood their ground, never needing to offer a unified front. Now and again for whatever reason a tree might think wise, this or that of the monoliths had cracked the ground and shuffled a few inches or even a foot or two, and then settled again. It was a noise that was unique to Trecharch, a sound impossible to ignore, and one that caused a certain level of panic when it was first encountered by anyone who had ever seen a towering tree fall to the ground. Wood creaked and sighed and moaned as it moved.

Now the Sentinels moved, shifting and sliding through solid ground, breaking stones and well-packed soil alike as they drew closer together and closed the gaps between trees.

Four of the great Pra-Moresh, the very stuff of nightmares for more people than could be easily counted, were crushed in an instant. Bones shattered, bodies pulped and blood fell down to feed the roots of the Sentinels.

Close to the level of the ground the barrier formed by the Sentinels was a dense wall that could not be easily ignored. Squirrels might squeeze between the Walking Trees, but nothing much larger would manage the feat.

Higher in the air was a different tale. The Mother-Vine was set in her ways and while she offered a little yield, she did not easily change her shape.

The Sa’ba Taalor took advantage of that.

Glo’Hosht walked the Mother-Vine with grace, and brought death along for companionship.

How many prayers can be said in the dark? Medba did not know, but he said more of them and tried to find a limit.

Old Root surrounded them and most of the people around him were calm, save a few of the children who were scared and uncertain how to act in the hidden chamber that the Sentinel provided.

When he was younger, he’d asked his father about the chamber, wanting to know how it was that the cavernous area could exist without killing the Walking Tree.

“Mother-Vine feeds the Sentinels and provides,” his father had said. “That is her way.” He’d thought as a young lad that the place was carved into the great tree. It was only later that he learned the hidden places locked away within the trees grew naturally.

The Mother-Vine provides. The words were true all his life but now he feared otherwise.

The sounds from outside the great tree were horrid. There were roars and screams and then, possibly worst of all, there was silence.

He had lived over seventy years in the world, and Medba was not afraid of much, but the silence left his senses stretched, and every noise, every breath of air that moved across his skin was a reason to wonder what would happen next.

The air inside the chamber was heavy. Too many bodies crushed into the area. There was air to breathe, but it grew as humid and hot as the worst part of the summer in the chamber.

Babies and little ones fidgeted and then one started crying, a sputtering, frustrated noise, and others followed suit.

The Mother-Vine provides, but damn, the sounds would surely draw someone to them if they did not abate.

A great rapping struck against the wall behind him and continued on, moving slowly along the edge of the wood, a notice to all inside that someone had found them.

His stomach clenched.

Not far away a boy hollered into the darkness, “We’re here!” His voice was panicked. Like as not he thought whoever heard them was there to save them from the darkness. Somebody slapped the child hard, a loud report that cut off the boy’s screams and replaced them with shocked sobs.

Through the walls of their shelter a voice spoke in a language that made no sense. The voice echoed impossibly.

A moment later the hidden door of the chamber shook violently. Several blows hit the thick wood and then the impossible happened. The wooden barrier, strong as any shield ever made, broke under the repeated impacts.

This time when the boy screamed, several other voices joined in.

Medba rose on shaky legs and held his weight for a moment with his arm as well as his legs while he leaned against the rounded wall. The wood was warm and soft to his touch, nowhere near as harsh as he knew the outer bark of the tree to be. Inside the nurturing shelter. Outside the wall of protection.

And then the outside found its way in. The blow was enough to split the protection of the door completely and flinders of the remains bounced throughout the interior.

For one moment there was light from outside, and then the forms moving in blocked it.

Medba was not a fighter, but he saw the weapons and knew them for what they were. The first ones in carried axes and hammers. The others might have carried different weapons, but that hardly mattered.

The first through the door looked down at the woman near his feet and swept his hammer around. Medba knew the girl, young, too young to be with child, but her belly was heavy just the same. The head of the hammer was stronger than the head of the woman. She died quickly. That was the last mercy the invaders showed.

Further into the forest the Pra-Moresh stalked, seeking and often finding tender prey.

Alarms were sounded and soldiers gathered.

Carnage followed, and then retribution.

And higher in the trees, the Sa’ba Taalor walked, ignoring the violence below. Glo’Hosht walked among them, silent, lost in shadows, and at the appropriate spots the King in Mercury whispered orders to those who followed.

This practice lasted well into the night, only ending when the king met up with Jost, who had marked the path with blood.

The king looked at her face and smiled. “You have been blessed, again.”

Jost lowered her head in respect, the still bleeding ram’s hide at her feet, slowly dripping its blood across the Mother-Vine and down a tree below.

“Wheklam has been kind to me.” She shook her head and her voice trailed off in wonder. “I had never spoken to Wheklam before.”

“It is a time of change, Jost. Wheklam has made demands and you have obeyed, as you should. I think Wheklam is not yet done with you, but for now you are done with this task. Now it is my turn to strike for the Daxar Taalor.”

She turned her head and listened to the wind, even as a king spoke to her. Paedle talked now, and Glo’Hosht’s voice mirrored the god’s. “Go now. Move carefully and find your way south and east. Swech waits in the City of Wonders and might yet need your help.”

Jost smiled at the thought of the older woman. Swech had trained her and worked with her on many occasions.

“I find I miss her as well.” The king looked toward the ground and a skirmish started below them. The Sa’ba Taalor on the ground were not followers of Paedle. They obeyed a different king. They fought a different battle but the same war.

Their weapons were bloodied and efficient. And loud. So very loud.

Glo’Hosht preferred silent weapons.

The junction of three different roots spread out before the king.

“Here, I think,” said Glo’Hosht.

Jost stepped back, letting the king strike where she had been standing.

The long needle-like dagger struck deep, and punctured the tough outer layers of the Mother-Vine.

Jost did not know what the fluid that spilled into that wound would do. She only knew it would serve the Daxar Taalor. That was enough.

She nodded once more to her King in Mercury and then slipped away, climbing carefully down the thick trunk of the tree nearest to her and after she touched the ground she turned to the south and the east.

She had a long ways to travel. There would likely be many obstacles.

Two

Canhoon spread before them, a vast place that looked enough like Tyrne to unsettle for a moment.

Well, parts looked like Tyrne, or rather looked like Tyrne had looked, before it was destroyed. Desh Krohan walked beside the wagon where his Sisters traveled and stared at the city.

Canhoon consisted of two cities, really. The first was Old Canhoon, with the older buildings, structures that had survived centuries and empires alike. Old Canhoon had been the capital of the Fellein Empire since it was founded, and even then it had been ancient.

There were structures there that had fallen, burned, been destroyed and then had been reformed from the very land, growing from the ruins of what went before. The roads were cobblestone and the statues of luminaries past graced the rooftops of a number of the buildings, looking out over the city like guardians.

Once, centuries ago, the Silent Army had moved through the city as it lay in ruins. Desh Krohan and his brethren had summoned them and though the stone soldiers had saved Canhoon the cost had been monumental. There were not enough of the wizards left these days to ever attempt that feat again.

To look at the sprawling affair as it stood now, one had to squint just so to see Old Canhoon at the very heart of the vast expanse. Well, no, but it sometimes seemed that way. The buildings at the center were all of a similar color and age. Once past the Mid-Wall, which had been the outer barrier around the city when Desh was younger, there was less organization, less… majesty. The newer structures were not as grand, though they were certainly functional enough.

The Jeurgis River cut across the new city and ran around the heart of Old Canhoon, a vast moat that was connected to the rest of the city by six bridges built of heavy stone and designed to withstand the weight of an army with ease.

Desh Krohan, the wizard who had been advisor to generations of the Empire’s leaders, looked to where one of the bridges spanned the water and shook his head. “Might well have to block those.”

“You are already planning the defenses of the city?” Merros Dulver’s voice came from his left and the sorcerer looked over and up. Dulver was currently riding on a rather magnificent charger. It was very nearly a requirement of being a general of the Imperial forces. He was also resplendent in a uniform that Desh knew the man disliked intensely.

For almost two days Merros had not spoken, focusing instead on the journey to Canhoon and on protecting the Empress from harm. He was also torturing himself for every life lost in Tyrne, as if he could possibly have prevented them.

That was one advantage of being several hundred years old: Desh Krohan could allow himself a little more callousness of nature than most. He had long since accepted that he could not possibly save everyone. At least that was what he told himself with surprising regularity.

Merros looked his way with a disapproving frown. “I believe the defense of the city falls under my jurisdiction these days.”

“Indeed it does, but as First Advisor I’m allowed to make suggestions.” He managed a smile for the man. The comments were meant as a jest and he took them in the proper spirit.

“I’m fairly certain if you were a pauper on the street you’d still be stating your suggestions.”

“Wisdom often comes from those with the least to lose, Merros.”

“You think so?”

“Well, if not wisdom then certainly truth. If you’ve nothing to lose you’ve nothing to fear losing.”

Merros looked like he was ready to get into a proper debate about that. The discussion was delayed when a courier rode up to him, winded from a long ride, and handed the general a rolled scroll bearing a regimental seal.

Desh walked closer, looking on as Merros broke the wax and then opened the document, reading quickly.

“What is it?”

“The Sa’ba Taalor have wasted no time, Desh. They’re attacking Trecharch.”

“Trecharch? Why in the name of the gods would they attack there? The forest is nearly impenetrable.”

Merros held the paper out to him. “Apparently not.”

The message was coded. “I can’t read this.”

The general nodded, fully aware of that fact. “You study magic. I study military codes. Of course you can’t read it. The information is grim. We shouldn’t speak of this until we’re in the city proper.”

“Tell me this much, have they reached Orrander’s Tower?”

“No. They haven’t even reached the Norhaun yet.”

“Then why are you so grim?” The general’s mood was somber indeed, especially since the Sa’ba Taalor hadn’t even made it to the river that fed most of Trecharch. “It sounds like they’ve barely managed entry into the woods.”

Merros waved the note again and then shoved it into his jacket’s inner pocket. “Because they’re destroying everything, Desh. They’re not just attacking, they’re ruining everything they go past. It says here that the Mother-Vine is wounded.”

Desh leaned his head back and considered the implications.

“Desh, they’re doing something to the Mother-Vine that’s killing it as they go.”

He pulled muscles in his neck when he turned his head so sharply.

“What?”

“They’re killing the Mother-Vine.”

Just that quickly the bearer of bad news was out of the sorcerer’s mind. “Sisters! To me!”

It was seldom that he summoned the Sisters with a command. They responded to the urgency in his voice, moving from the wagon where they rode, like children called by their mother.

Tataya, Goriah and Pella walked quickly to keep pace with him, barely even acknowledging the general. Pella’s dark hair flowed freely. Tataya had her heavy red hair tied in a thick braid. Goriah’s face was almost completely hidden by her hood and no sign of her golden hair was visible.

“Pella, I need you. It’s urgent that you get to Orrander’s Tower. The grayskins are on the march and they head for the source of the Mother-Vine. They are killing her. Do you understand me?”

Pella nodded and moved, running forward and then lifting from the ground. It was seldom that any of the Sisters actively displayed their abilities and there was a reason for that. Merros Dulver nearly fell from his saddle as the woman rose into the air, her cloak changing shape, pulling into her body even as she became something else. “Gods!”

“Goriah, my dear, I need you to reach the Norhaun River before the Sa’ba Taalor make it there. They need to be warned and the river needs to be defended. Do not be seen by the Sa’ba Taalor. Do not engage them. Just make their lives more difficult.”

Goriah did not change shape. Instead she lifted high above them, at a speed that should have been impossible, and then tore across the sky, her hood falling back, revealing the hair she had hidden away.

For the second time Merros Dulver stared with wide eyes, shocked by the display. In all the time he had known the women they had never used their powers in his presence. He stared after the tiny spot that was Goriah until she vanished into the clouds.

When he opened his mouth to speak, Desh shook his head. “They’re sorcerers and shapeshifters, General. They’re not my consorts, they’re my peers.”

“I never… They’ve never…”

He could see the poor bastard trying to work out what had just happened before his eyes. Like a child seeing a thunderstorm for the first time, he was a bit stunned. He would recover.

“I know. Now is the time to set aside a bit of caution. They do what they must.” Desh shook his head. “We have to delay the Sa’ba Taalor long enough for your response, after all.”

“My response?”

“We’re attacked. We are at war. You have troops to move.”

Merros blushed slightly, his expression angry.

“Forgive me, Merros. I don’t challenge your right to lead. I’m just stating the obvious. We have been caught in a dangerous situation, but we need to move troops to deal with the Sa’ba Taalor in Trecharch, before they can push in any further. I also know you’ve a great deal on your mind and, to be fair, you’ve just seen more than you have ever seen before of what me and mine can do. It can unsettle at the best of times.”

“Nothing to forgive, Desh.” It was gracious of the man to say so. He hadn’t meant to offend, but sometimes he forgot himself.

“Tataya, keep contact with the Sisters. Let me know what they see and what they suggest.”

“Of course, Desh.” Merros studied her for a few seconds, eyes narrowed, and finally relaxed when she looked his way, smiled, and continued walking toward Old Canhoon and the palace.

As the caravan moved on, Desh headed for Nachia Krous’s wagon. He knocked quickly and expected one of her ladies-in-waiting to let him in. Instead it was the Empress herself that called him.

The wagon seated half a dozen with plenty of room to spare. Currently there was one occupant. “Where are your ladies-in-waiting?” Desh asked.

Her eyes regarded him for a long moment in silence, while he looked her over in return. Nachia was dressed, as she often was, in riding clothes. Her hair was pulled back in a functional tail, her clothes were disheveled and he could tell she’d worn them to bed. Overall she looked as stately and regal as a street urchin.

“Don’t start on me, Desh!”

“I merely asked where your ladies-in-waiting are. I would hardly call that ‘starting on you’.”

She eyed him with as much suspicion as Merros had used when looking at Tataya.

“Oh, please, Nachia, calm down. I’m not here to scold you about your wardrobe or kicking out your ladies-in-waiting again. I’m here to tell you Trecharch has been attacked and to suggest a war council meeting when we reach the palace.”

She actually relaxed. “How many people would attend this war council of yours?”

“You, me, Merros, Tataya, and a few others as we see necessary. And the head of the City Guard.”

“So let’s meet here and now. You can give our decisions to the head of the watch.”

“If that’s your preference.”

“Find the people you need, Desh.” She waved him away. “And give me ten minutes to change into something cleaner.”

Desh lowered his head in a minor bow as he departed. “As you wish, Majesty.”

Finding Merros and Tataya was easy. “Merros, we meet in fifteen minutes in the Empress’s coach.”

Merros nodded. “Who else should we gather?”

“Find one of the faithful to join us. Not all of them, just one. I can only handle them glaring at each other for so long. Bring someone to take notes for you. We’re going to be very busy.” Merros nodded and spurred his charger forward.

Behind them the Blasted Lands was a memory. To their south, the Summer Palace and Tyrne were ashes. Ahead of them the greatest city in the Empire sprawled out in organized patterns of roads and buildings and defensive walls. Unlike Tyrne the barriers were in far better shape and the City Guard were trained in combat and capable of working to defend the city from enemies within and without.

The Sooth had warned of Tyrne’s destruction and while some died, it could have been much worse.

Looking to the Southern Road that ran alongside the Jeurgis River, shapes moved slowly along the visible paved stretch. All he could see were pedestrians, horsemen and a few wagons. The road itself was buried under moving flesh. Vast numbers of refugees, thousands and thousands, were moving toward the City of Wonders right now, he suspected.

“We’re going to be very crowded when we get there.” He did not need to visit with the Sooth to know he was right on that one.

Swech wore her hood drawn down and squinted against the breeze from the Jeurgis River. She cut a slice of pabba fruit – possibly the most amazing fruit that the gods had ever created – and sucked the juices from the succulent flesh before chewing and swallowing.

The Empress and her retinue were coming back. She could see them as they marched across the bridge and into Canhoon. They did not look happy. They had no reason for joy.

A day away, the clouds of ash rose higher into the air and belched lightning bright enough to be seen at night in the City of Wonders. She’d moved along the rooftops the night before and watched, mesmerized by the pyrotechnic displays.

She had grown used to her borrowed body. It fit her now. Vigorous hours of exercise and stretching had made her feel, if not at home, then at least comfortable in the other woman’s body.

Since coming to Canhoon she had been busy. Several scrapes and nicks had left their marks on her forearms and legs. Her clothes had taken the worst of it, of course. Good leathers could prevent a great deal of discomfort.

There were some, like Tuskandru, who would have teased her about the lack of scars her new body had, but she would have easily countered with the notion that borrowed flesh didn’t count and that fresh scars would make it harder for her to hide in the masses around her. She had to fit in. That was her duty.

The man who came to her seemed to simply materialize, walking out of the air toward her. That marked him as surely as the four quick hand gestures he made.

She nodded her head and offered him a wedge of her fruit. He took it without hesitation and chewed, smiling. Handsome, but a bit young.

“You are Swech.” It wasn't a question.

She nodded. “Have you a name?”

“I am Kallider. I walk in Paedle’s wake.”

She nodded. “I was told to expect you. Do you know why we meet?”

They had met before, she suspected. There were others who had thrown themselves into the heart of Wrommish’s forge and taken new shapes at the end of a fiery journey. She had not looked at them for long. People were people, and she had been aware of them, but she had also been in the presence of her king and her god and they took precedence.

“I am to serve you. Should you call, I will answer.” Kallider’s answer was exactly as it should have been, direct.

She spoke in the tongue of her people, softly to avoid being heard as more than a murmur in the crowd. And there was a crowd, indeed, for most had not seen the Empress or her pet wizard and wanted to know who ruled them.

Merros Dulver rode past and she made herself look away, much as she wanted to stare. Strange that he should generate such feelings, but then, he had already made her show mercy on one occasion, had he not?

“For now be nearby if I need you. I will find a reason for you to be near.”

He nodded his head.

“Kallider?”

“Yes, Swech?”

“Do not speak my name again. Not in this land. I am wanted here.”

“As you wish.” A moment later he was gone and she lowered her head as the Empress rode past.

There were four blades in easy reach. She could have killed the young woman without any trouble at all.

That was not what the gods wanted. For now the Daxar Taalor preferred the Empress be alive and to that end Swech let the ruler of Fellein pass.

A moment later her reason for waiting in this spot and at this time came past. The man was heavyset and sweating heavily despite the relatively mild weather. He looked around with narrowed, suspicious eyes. Waiting for an attack.

The thin dart scraped across the back of his neck and he swatted at the irritation, scowling. A great number of insects swarmed the area and the winds had died for the moment.

Insects were known to bite.

He carried on for almost a hundred paces before he collapsed. Swech looked in his direction only because of the noises made by the people around him. She knew he was dead. She had killed him, after all.

While the people around him called for some form of assistance, or stole from the fat corpse in the case of one street child, Swech put the last of her Pabba fruit wedges in her mouth and sucked at the sweet juices.

The gods asked that she kill and so she did. She did not have to know why. The gods knew. That was enough.

Three

The air was colder as they scaled the side of Wheklam. There was little to hold on to and the rich veins of lead that ran through the mountain guaranteed that there would be few interruptions. Nothing grew at this height and according to Delil the lead was poisonous to the plants that might have been growing at this height in any event.

Andover Lashk did not question the girl. He had learned to have faith in her words.

He did not speak much as he climbed. Instead he focused on the task ahead of him. Delil was moving alongside him, his only constant companion since he had reached the Taalor Valley.

Down below the valley was rich with life. A thick forest of trees grew, and from a distance they were a beautiful, amazing sight. However, from up close they had been a hellish nightmare of thorns and odd creatures that lived among the twisted, gnarled branches. He could count seventeen bite marks on his left arm alone. Those were interspersed with a few dozen scratches from thorns and claws alike.

The discomfort was minor.

He looked to his left and saw Delil looking back his way, her face uncovered, her mouths smiling.

“Another hour, Andover, and you will meet with another of the Daxar Taalor.”

“Where are all the people?” He knew the answer but asked anyway.

“They have moved on. Wheklam is the God of Lead and the Sea. They have taken their ships into the waters.”

“Have you ever been on one of their ships?” He had never so much as seen the ocean, though he had heard it was an impressive sight.

“No.” She shook her head and wiped at the sweat on her brow. The weather was colder, yes, but the work of climbing was hot. “I am not close with Wheklam. I will be meeting with the god as well.”

Andover frowned at that. Not because he did not like her company – he most certainly did – but because of what he had been told before. “I thought every person faced the Daxar Taalor alone.”

Delil laughed. It was not a mocking sound, but one of simple surprise. “You have met two of the Daxar Taalor, Andover. Have you not yet realized that they are gods? If a thousand walked before Wheklam at the same time, in the same place, the god could make certain that each faced their destinies alone.”

Andover thought long on that and then nodded.

“What happens if someone does not meet a god’s approval, Delil? What happens if Wheklam finds me… unsatisfactory?”

Delil looked at him for a long time, her eyes moving over his face as if trying to memorize him. The night before, after they had climbed free of the forest and helped patch each other’s wounds as best they could, they had rutted under the stars. They had been together twice before but this time felt different, felt more like they belonged together. He had come to understand the ways in which her body moved, another mystery at least partially solved, and the feelings had been glorious.

Watching her as she climbed, he forced himself not to be distracted by those memories. As lovely as they were, dwelling on their past or on possible futures would likely lead to his death along the slope.

“You met my brother, Ventdril. Do you remember him?”

“Yes.” He could hardly forget the man. Another of the Sa’ba Taalor that made him feel like a boy not yet old enough to shave. The man was enormous and swung his sister like she weighed as much as a toddler.

“My brother was judged unworthy by the Daxar Taalor. The reasons are his to discuss, but perhaps he will share them in time.” She shrugged. “Possibly he acted in a cowardly fashion. Just as likely he disobeyed the gods. Whatever the reason, they broke him.”

“Broke him?”

“The Daxar Taalor offer us many chances, Andover. They can be very forgiving, but they are not merciful. Mercy does not make us stronger. So when my brother offended the gods one time too many, they broke him. They bent his body into a new shape; they took his mind and bent that, too. And they took from him all possibility that he could be seen as a Sa’ba Taalor.

“I saw him when he was punished.” She shook her head. “It was a just punishment. The Daxar Taalor are not like us. They do not make mistakes. They found him weak and broke him, the better for him to find his flaws. The better for him to find his way back. Sometimes the Broken return to us. Sometimes they die.”

She sighed and looked his way, smiling again. “Ventdril passed the tests set before him. He has earned the name Unbroken and been taken back into his people. He is strong and he is stronger than before.”

“So if you disappoint the Daxar Taalor, they ruin you?”

“No. They offer punishments to learn from. There are other punishments as well.”

“Like what?”

“The mounts.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The mounts that some people ride are Sa’ba Taalor. Or they were. They are the ones who will not learn.”

“What do you mean?”

“If a person will not learn or cannot learn it is because of pride or a stubbornness. The Broken are punished because they have committed great crimes in the eyes of the gods. The mounts are different. They either will not learn or must be taught a harder lesson than most. They are changed and made to serve while they contemplate their actions.”

Andover was shocked. “Those great monsters are your people?”

“No. They were and they might be again. But they are being taught important lessons by the gods.”

Andover looked at the ground close to his face and nodded, trying to grasp the implications of what she said.

“Andover!”

He looked toward Delil as she called and watched her arm point upward. There was an obstacle, something different on the slope. Something different, large, and moving.

“What is that?” he asked, but the answer did not matter. It had a shape not at all human. It was coming for them. That was all that mattered.

“That is a Broken. Prepare yourself. They are mad beasts.”

The two of them were half-prone on the mountainside, but the angle meant they were almost standing. The slope of the mountain was rough, and while his feet were aimed toward the ground far below, his knees and his hands alike were carrying most of his weight.

In order to fight the damned thing he would have to risk falling to his death.

There would be no running from the slavering thing coming at him.

The creature had a face, but it was uneven, as if someone had taken a sculpture shattered on the ground and reassembled it using mud and clay from the river. Most of the body was equally off-kilter, but much worse. The torso was stretched and too long. The limbs were functional enough, but none of them came close to matching and there seemed to be a few too many.

While he was contemplating the approaching enemy, Delil reached into her garb and pulled out one of the long, deadly daggers she had sheathed on her body. He heard the sound of her exhaling and then saw the blade cut through the air on its way to her target.

The dagger cut the gray flesh of the thing, slicing into the oddly sinuous neck of the monster and stopping its forward charge.

One malformed hand reached for the dagger and fumbled it free of the wound. The blood flow from that cut immediately increased and the thing looked toward Delil with murder in its bulging eyes.

The sound it made was a war cry, a bellow for Ordna. Andover recognized the name of the Bronze God, though he knew almost nothing of what the deity demanded of its followers. Whatever the case, apparently the nightmare in front of him had failed the god.

And now the Broken sought a way to right that wrong.

The misshapen thing charged again, dropping to all fours, as the slope of Wheklam grew more extreme.

Delil was ready. Andover prayed that he was.

His left hand held tight to the side of the mountain, fingers clutching for purchase. His right reached around to slip his great hammer from where he held it.

And the hammer fell away, lost from his grip in an instant as the Broken pounced and smashed into him with its full weight.

Andover grunted and let go of the mountain, not by choice but because he was thrown free of the surface. Gravity and his enemy’s weight did the rest. For a sickening moment he was falling backward through the air. Broad, warped fists pummeled into him and did their best to break his body, but his furs took a great deal of the impact.

There was no time to think. Had there been that sort of luxury, he’d have surely screamed himself to death. Instead Andover reached out with his iron hands and caught the flesh of his enemy, hooking his metallic fingers into the gray folds of scarred, stretched skin and doing his best to rip into the muscles underneath. There was no conscious thought, only a need to kill his enemy before the favor could be returned.

The world rolled in a half circle and Andover felt his body turning. He could make no claim of having chosen to move his body but it moved just the same, and a moment later the gods themselves smiled down on him as both he and the beast landed against Wheklam’s surface, skidding and scraping as they bounced twice.

How far had they fallen? He did not know. He only knew that he was fortunate enough to be on top when they crashed into the ground.

Something in the body under him broke; the warped face opened a bloodied mouth and shrieked in pain. The folds of skin he held so tightly in his grip did not slip, but instead split, and he felt his fingers slide through the ruined hide of the thing and clutch into meat and gristle.

Then they were sliding again, falling further down the slope, rolling apart from each other as his fingers pulled free of their prize.

Drask Silver Hand, Delil and Bromt had told him how to take a blow and how to recover from falling down. They’d explained the principles and then they had thrown him again and again until he learned.

Those torturous encounters as they wandered slowly through the Blasted Lands very likely saved his life.

The ground blurred as he fell and bounced and ricocheted off rocks and deep cuts in the face of the mountain, and through it, he let himself roll and absorb the blows over the least vulnerable parts of his body.

So he was beaten senseless by the rocks and not killed by them.

The thing he’d been fighting was not as lucky. A rock met with its face and came out the victor. Parts of the face were stuck to the rock. The rest of the Broken rolled away and flopped lifelessly against the slope of Wheklam.

Andover stood up slowly and checked himself. Nothing was broken.

Far above, roughly at the same height he’d been at before falling, Delil waved to him.

He carefully nodded his head and looked her way. It was a long climb and he had a ways to go.

He did not find his hammer on the way up.

Depending on the day and the whim of the Daxar Taalor, the Mounds could be as close as a week away from the Seven Forges, or could take a lifetime to find.

It had not been much more than a week for Drask Silver Hand as he rode his mount, Brackka, to the forbidden territory.

A lifetime of rules still rolled in his head as he violated the orders of his gods in order to obey them. None were ever allowed to enter the Mounds. None dared explore them. That had been the truth for as long as he had been alive, and yet he now crouched on the edge of a massive stone structure covered in ice and looked down into a faintly lit tunnel that descended well below the ground and into the very heart of the forbidden.

What the gods demand must be done. That, too, was the simple truth of the matter. Ydramil, the God in Silver, made demands. Drask obeyed all of the gods, but as his chosen deity, he listened even more carefully when Ydramil spoke.

Ydramil was sometimes called the God of Reflection and demanded a certain level of calm from his warriors. Drask would never have said it himself, but more than one of the Sa’ba Taalor had commented on his dedication to the god’s demands. It was rare for him to lose his temper. In comparison to some his patience was a truly staggering achievement.

He waited in the raging winds of the Blasted Lands, a growing storm – a Ta-Wren, a Cutting Wind, to be sure – until he knew that his prey had moved on, and then, finally, he descended into the darkness below.

The people of the Fellein had advantages. They were greater in numbers. They had not, however, spent lifetimes adapting to the Blasted Lands.

Drask slipped easily down the rope his prey had left behind; his silver hand holding his weight with ease and resisting any possible rope burns.

When he landed in the dust of endless ages, he did so softly, despite his size.

Drask was not the largest of the Sa’ba Taalor; still, he knew, he towered over the foreigners.

None of that mattered as he slipped lower into the tunnel, listening for the sounds of the people ahead of him, their footprints obvious in the narrow passage.

The tunnel was not for traveling. It was little more than a path that hot gasses had once used to escape the destruction of Korwa, the great seat of the First Empire.

The ground was uneven and often rounded, making walking upright nearly impossible. One had to move with feet far from the base of the tunnel, often crouching and leaning on the wall for support in order to move forward.

Drask was not bothered by this. Great Ydramil believed that reflection was best learned by overcoming diversity, and adapting. Countless times in his life he had crawled over, under or through the obstacles placed before him by the gods in an effort to train him.

Up ahead of him, not far away, he could hear the Fellein as they stumbled, fell, cursed and barked at each other, impatient to reach their destination, even though they surely had no more idea than he did as to where it was they were going.

Behind him, above him, the air caught the opening they had all used to descend and sent a whining note tumbling down the way they had come.

Drask stood perfectly still and listened to the sounds of the people ahead of him.

“What is that?” A man’s voice. He sounded nervous. He had every reason to be nervous. Any place forbidden by gods must surely be a cause of anxiety.

The female – he was almost certain it was Tega, the student of Desh Krohan, the sorcerer, a cause of some trepidation – spoke softly, but he heard her well enough. “It’s the wind. The sound started a moment before the winds behind us picked up.”

“Aye. Makes sense.” A different male.

They continued on and Drask observed his surroundings. The walls cast a pale light. He had thought at first it might come from lichen growing along the walls, but there was no lichen. Nothing seemed to grow here, though he had seen some of the atrocities that came from the Mounds. No, the pale luminescence came from crystals in the walls. The light would be useless in the Blasted Lands proper, where perpetual twilight and endless storms would have muted them to nothing, but here, in the calm of the labyrinthine tunnels, a patient soul could use the light to guide the way.

As has been stated before, among his people Drask was known for his uncanny patience.

He followed, and he listened.

Tolpen Hart spat as he crouched low to the ground and studied the tracks in front of them.

“Hard to say.”

Tega looked at the hunter and shook her head.

Nolan looked too, and sighed. “We know it isn’t a deer, man. You only have to look at the size of the print.”

“Yes, Nolan.” Tolpen looked at him and scowled. “But is it one track or a dozen crossing over each other? I can’t tell without more light.”

Nolan bit back an angry remark. The man was right. He was simply growing impatient. The world he knew was somewhere above him. Here, down in these maddening depths, there was only dirt, rock and glowing stones that hurt his eyes if he looked at them for too long.

He had not signed up for the Imperial Army to walk where the ground was above him. It felt too much like being buried in a grave. That notion alone was enough to make his skin shiver. Bodies should be burned, not buried. It wasn't natural.

Nolan pushed the thought away. He had signed on to the army because it was his duty. He had been chosen for this particular mission because the Empress herself thought him worthy. His father would have surely taken him outside and cleared his mind of any notions of what he was supposed to do in the Imperial Guard. His was a position of great honor and he would do well to remember it.

“We’ve torches.” Vonders Orly was, in Nolan’s opinion, the only reason the sorry lot of them were still alive. The man’s family had sought fortunes in the Blasted Lands for years, and had located enough baubles and treasures to live a life of ease. There were few in the Fellein Empire who could have predicted what would happen when they started their quest to examine the Mounds, but Orly was the one who warned them against the worst of the storms and saved them from foolish errors again and again.

“We do,” Tega agreed. “But if we use them, what might we attract to us?” The passage they were moving through had slowly opened up until the light from the crystals faded into a haze. They could see scant inches in front of their faces and the gloom was not something they were adjusting to. It was simply there, a palpable darkness that swallowed their vision.

“We have to take our chances,” Tolpen said. “We can’t see anything without more light.”

It took Nolan three tries before the torch lit properly. He slid his flint away and made sure it was secure. If he had learned anything at all in the Blasted Lands it was that warmth was a commodity. When he left here, if he left here, he had every intention of moving to a place where the winters were mild.

The torch took a few moments to catch properly, spitting fitfully and smoking before the flame blazed. During that time Nolan looked away from the fire to let his eyes adjust. The light revealed much more than he’d expected.

The area widened out a great deal from the narrow passage they’d been in initially, but that did not mean it was an open area. There were obstacles everywhere.

Warped remains of what had once been were everywhere. Vonders let out a strangled sound that might have been joy or fear. The scavenger and his family had looked for years and could have continued on for decades and never have found the level of treasures that surrounded them. Nolan had never much cared for sparkling treasures, though he knew why so many did. Still, he took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as he marveled. Columns of what had possibly been buildings before the Cataclysm stood impossibly tall and faded away into darkness. Some were upright and others tilted precariously. He looked at one of the closest and wondered how it was that they had not been crushed beneath the weight. The surface was nearly smooth, and parts of it were translucent. Striations of color ran through the entire thing and though he could not see them clearly – for which he thanked the gods – there seemed to be the remains of people frozen in the clear areas, like flies in tree sap.

Nolan March walked closer to the column, which was fifty feet or more in width, and tried to make out the features of what looked like a burnt man holding a small child in his arms. The tower was too murky. Still, his stomach twisted at the thought and his heart raced. How long had that poor wretch been frozen within the depths of the crystal? Was he dead, or did he suffer some eternal half-sleep?

Not far away Tega made a noise in her throat that was more whimper than sigh, and stepped further into the depths as if to escape the sight revealed by Nolan’s torch. He could not blame her for seeking the darkness, but he had to follow her.

The light went with him and revealed even more.

The pillars of ruination rose into the darkness above them, thrusting in different directions and in some cases sagging until they touched the ground. There were places where they would surely have to climb over columns of the burnt and broken remains of what the empress and her pet sorcerer told him was likely Korwa.

How could they know? How could anyone know, for certain, what it was they looked at?

Before he could catch up with Tega, Tolpen Hart stepped in front of him and blocked his path. The man had one hand held out toward Nolan and was facing away, looking down.

“Wait. Don’t move yet.” The hunter stared at the soft, sandy ground ahead of him, and Nolan followed suit, frowning.

There were more tracks. He could clearly see where Tega’s footsteps had passed a moment before, but under that, a deeper tread marred the ground. If it was a paw print, the paw was immense, larger than a great shield like those the Lancers used when charging their enemies. Several deep punctures dug the sand around it. Nolan was not as skilled at tracking as Tolpen, but he understood that the indentations were likely from claws.

Tega spoke, her voice carrying through the vast area and echoing into a dozen whispers. “We have a long trek ahead of us, I think.”

Nolan frowned and walked toward her, carefully stepping into unmarked sand. The torch went with him, but he suspected it cast enough light to let Tolpen see what he needed to see.

Tega stood still, looking at the darkness ahead of her. As before, the darkness was not complete.

This time the illumination was better, and clearly defined what lay ahead of them.

Past a forest of broken, twisted columns like those already surrounding them, Nolan could see the cause of Tega’s words. There was a long, deep chasm ahead and it seemed to fall for hundreds of feet at least.

Deep in that chasm, below more ruination and ancient debris, he could see a light source brighter than the torch.

The light moved, crawling like ants seen at a distance.

“Is it alive?” He did not look to Tega as he spoke.

“I think we must find out, yes?”

Damn. “Yes. I expect we must.”

And was there an easy path to follow? Well lit and gently sloping down to this distant nest of moving lights?

No. Instead there was darkness and cliffs and gigantic paw prints.

Not at all why he had joined the Imperial Army.

Four

Captain Callan sat on a three-legged chair and looked at his ship through drink-blurred eyes.

There was a lot that needed doing and he had the spare coin to let him do most of it.

The boat was a good one, fast and true, but very large and in need of minor repairs and a bit of clean up. It was okay for a boat to look poor, but not okay for the boat to suffer for those looks.. The holds were currently empty and he hated that part. Empty holds did not make money.

On the other hand, he had a commission to consider. He’d been paid handsomely for finding the Brellar and negotiating with them. The red-haired woman, Tataya, had seen to his financial needs and promised him more work. Being as he was mostly honest, he’d taken her where she wanted to go and not been foolish enough to try anything like selling her to the highest bidder. Knowing she worked with a sorcerer helped keep him honest, he supposed, but he wasn’t much for slavers anyway.

Still, the Brellar were an interesting lot. Had he made a poor choice in negotiations it likely would have cost him his ship and very possibly his head. Instead he was wealthy enough that he could settle in Canhoon if he was inclined and live a comfortable life of idle days and drunken nights.

Instead he looked at his poor, battered boat and nodded his head. The repairs would start in the morning. Nothing too substantial, a board here, a nail there but if she was going to remain seaworthy the work had to be done and paid for.

He had been drinking. He was not blind drunk, nor in any true danger of it.

Still, he started when he heard the voice coming from his left.

“Captain Callan?”

He looked at the man for moment.

Dressed in finery, but definitely local. He had a plain face and a soft manner. He was unremarkable, but Callan had no doubt that was because he chose to be.

“If you are looking for Captain Callan, you’ve found him. What can I do for you?”

“My name is Losla Foster and I have a need for a good, fast ship. I have heard you have one for hire.”

Callan looked his way more carefully. His clothes were fashionable. More importantly, they were clean and needed no mending. That spoke to a certain degree of money.

Money, it should be noted, was always one of Callan’s weaknesses, along with a beautiful woman. And food. Wine, of course. Truly, he had to admit, he was a man with many weaknesses.

“What did you need shipped, and to where?”

“I have a group of men who need to enter the city. They do not wish to be seen.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Men who need to not be seen are often a costly cargo.”

“They are. I know this.”

The small sack the man dropped on the table next to his wine landed with a deep, lovely thump. Gold, Callan knew, sounded different than copper or silver when it rattled. That was the rattle of gold. He’d have known it anywhere.

“That is one half of your payment. The rest upon delivery.”

“Agreed.” Callan did not care what men he was carrying. He was a man with scruples, yes, but they were not very strong and easily purchased.

Later, he would regret that fact about himself.

The land was lush, ripe and green.

Trees rose as high as mountains here, it seemed, and Tusk admired their strength, their beauty. There was power in this place. He could feel it in the ground beneath him and in the trees around him. This was the land where the Fellein held sway without fear of conquest for as long as there had been a Fellein Empire.

The only threat they had ever known that was worthy were the Wellish Overlords and though few knew it, the Sa’ba Taalor had handled that matter a long time back and buried the undying bastards deep in the ground. He wondered what stories the Fellein told themselves to explain why the Overlords had gone away.

It was an idle consideration and one he brushed aside as a man might cast away a gnat.

The great forest of Trecharch had been a part of the Empire since it had been founded on the remains of Korwa. The land ahead of them sloped gently into a valley where three separate rivers ran from the north and flowed toward the great trees in the center. Around those trees, between them, and in some cases built against them, great stone edifices rose in pale imitation of the trees themselves. There were people there, great numbers of them. This was Norhaun, according to the maps they had been given. It was the seat of power in the entire area. At the center, rising like a sapling splitting from one of the great trees, was a castle that took Tusk’s breath away.

Orrander’s Tower rose toward the skies and would have been impressive in any other setting. Here it seemed small, a pale shadow of the monolithic trees that surrounded it and sheltered it. The trees themselves were almost as great as the Seven Forges in height. They were ancient before the Forges rose from the ground and they continued on.

“Stastha!” He did not look away from the incredible vista as he called for one of his most trusted aides. Instead he savored the view.

Stastha rode forward, her dark furred mount, Loarhun, moving with smooth grace. Stastha’s face could not be seen under the great horned helmet she sported, but her eyes glimmered with silvery light as she looked at him.

“Yes, my king?”

She already knew what he would say. They had discussed the matter repeatedly as they moved across the Blasted Lands and traveled over the Wellish Steppes on their way to this place, cutting a bloody path through the people of Trecharch on their way.

“Burn it. All of it. Nothing survives us!”

She did not raise her horn to sound the alarm. Instead she offered a simple battle cry that all with them would understand. “Durhallem!”

“Durhallem!” A hundred voices mirrored the call, and then the armies of the Wounder moved forward, riding into the valley to destroy all that crossed their paths.

Far above them, moving through the trees of the Trecharch, the other warriors moved in silence. They would continue their own ways and follow their own god. Tusk knew their plans and agreed with them.

Brodem roared under him and the other mounts added their own cries to arms. He and his cavalry charged into the heavy woods, moving across the established paths.

They had already learned the hard way why the trees were said to walk. The Sa’ba Taalor above them had already crippled many of the trees by weakening the great vine that wrapped around the mightiest of the hardwoods.

Somewhere ahead of him Glo’Hosht moved silently through the trees and killed them in passing. He could see the great vine, the damage done to it. That was the King in Mercury’s sacred order. The Mother-Vine would die at the king’s hand.

Tuskandru suppressed the faintest of shivers. Glo’Hosht was a deadly enemy to have. Tusk would fight anyone, anything that he had to fight in order to survive. The King in Mercury would kill just as easily, without ever touching an opponent.

He pushed the thought aside. This was a time for combat and glory. Glo’Hosht had made certain the traps of the area remained empty of Sa’ba Taalor. Tusk would see to the rest.

Brodem rode faster and Tusk felt himself grin, felt his blood surge. The axe in his left hand was well balanced and sharp enough to manage most any target he struck. The chain in his other hand would handle anything that came his way.

Up ahead he could see buildings and people. Just as importantly, they could see him.

“Durhallem!” He called out his god’s name in joy. It was time at last to fight.

The chain rattled and sang as it cut the air. The blades at the end of the long links found flesh and cut that, too. The man who had been posted to guard against attacks died a moment later, a look of shock on his face as the flayed remains of his neck rained blood across his chest.

Sometimes the gods were kind.

She dreamed of her father. When she had been a child he used to walk with her along the Mother-Vine and show her the wonders of Trecharch. She had fished the different rivers, climbed every imaginable type of tree, and learned how to forage the woods when it seemed there was no food to be found.

She missed the old man. His smile, his gentle ways, and the smell of his pipe smoke. He had carved a hundred pipes in his time and given them away more often than sold them. She considered his whittling blades among her most prized possessions.

Cullen opened her eyes and looked at the world around her. The air stank of wood smoke and offal. She turned her head to the side and stifled a cough, barely suppressing the need. Moving hurt her neck, her shoulders, and her back.

People moved around her, and they spoke a language unknown to her ears.

She looked to her left, then to her right and carefully assessed the situation.

There were people, yes, but there were not many. While she watched a gathering of children – they had to be children as the corpses they were near seemed gigantic in comparison – dragged the body of Tremm from where he’d fallen and pulled his weight toward a wagon. Several bodies were already on the open cart. Whatever the bodies carried or wore was left with them.

The children wore hides and leathers and each and every one of them sported weapons. Some carried swords, most sported clubs or axes.

One of the children – possibly as old as ten years, but she had her doubts – spoke in their tongue and gestured at the wagon. It was full. There was no way around that fact.

Just the same, an older one, closer to adulthood, argued back.

While she watched the younger of the two delivered a brutal open-handed blow across the older one’s face and sent the boy rocking on his heels. He started to respond and the younger one drew two daggers from sheaths at his hips. Cullen thought they were male. She couldn’t truly tell; they were at that age. Her father used to say that all children are beautiful until they grow up. Looking on these children, that statement made sense. They were androgynous.

They were also vicious. The fight happened quickly and ended with the young one drawing a deep cut across the older one’s abdomen. Around them the other children looked on and did nothing to help until the fight was finished. The older sat down while two more tended to the wounds, called to do so by the victor. Two more grabbed at the wagon. It was designed to be pulled by hand, and though the children were young, they were impressively strong and wrestled the weight of the wagon and its cargo with ease.

While they were all distracted, Cullen rolled to her hands and knees and carefully looked around. For the moment no one was watching her. She moved as quietly as she could, wincing, because the pain in her neck was moving through most of her muscles, sliding between two of the trees and getting distance from the invaders. Children or not, they were in better shape that she was at the moment, and they had weapons.

She would fix that just as soon as she could, but for the moment she had to understand her surroundings and what had happened.

When she was properly hidden from easy sight, Cullen stopped and took stock further. The scent of smoke was still prevalent.

To the west she saw why. They were burning the great forest. So far only a few of the younger trees, but she could see more of them – more children! – adding fuel to the fires they had already set. The winds from the Blasted Lands only aided them in their actions. The flames were already too high for her to consider putting them out.

As she watched, one of the trees that had been a landmark in her life begin to burn. The bark had already been smoldering but now it caught ablaze. Tongues of fire licked greedily at the heavy bark, blackening the wood and dancing higher.

Cullen looked up, her eyes trying to orient on the familiar, and felt a cold wind sigh through her body.

Above her the Mother-Vine was gray and lifeless. The leaves had wilted and fallen away; the tendrils that should have held onto the trees around the great vine were withered and tucked in close to the main trunk of the vine.

The Mother-Vine was dead here, or so close to death that it hardly mattered.

What she saw simply could not be. Her mouth was dry and breathing seemed an impossibility. That last was probably because of the smoke that was thickening even as she looked around.

Cullen crouched for a moment, cursing silently and wishing that Deltrea were alive to talk of rutting and boredom. Her eyes stung with unshed tears that eased the burning just the same.

She looked around carefully once more, making sure she was not observed. She had no weapons left. If she were going to arm herself, it would be by taking from one of the children.

They were moving around her. It was only a matter of time before she ran across one or more of them. Not twenty feet away she could hear the tiny terror that had won the earlier fight bellowing at the others in that devil tongue that hurt her ears.

She risked a look around the side of the tree that she was using for shelter and saw one of the children looking directly at her.

The recognition was immediate and Cullen clenched her jaw. If the whelp cried out or called an alarm…

Instead the child – no more than twelve at the oldest, or an absolute runt – started in her direction with a smile that would have scared a Pra-Moresh.

There were no words, just motion.

The girl reached inside her loose blouse – the shirt opening enough to reveal that she fought a female – and came out with a long dagger. The blade was curved and serrated. The hilt of the thing had spikes running over the hand guard and Cullen wondered for half a heartbeat how the girl carried the damned thing without cutting herself to ribbons.

From a distance she thought the smoke was distorting her sight, but closer up she realized the child had pale gray skin.

Her stomach dropped again.

One of the demons from the Blasted lands. No matter the age, she had to assume the bitch was dangerous.

It was a good assumption. Without speaking a word the girl came in low and fast, holding one hand to ward off any possible blows and carrying the dagger with deadly intent.

Cullen did not try pleading. There was no time for anything but action. The girl came in fast and feinted.

Cullen moved in closer still, remembering her training and getting inside the range of the dagger. The girl stepped back to compensate and Cullen stepped in again, bringing her elbow around and slamming it into her younger opponent’s sternum with all her strength.

Full-grown men who’d been foolish enough to try their luck with her had been dropped by the maneuver. Cullen was stronger than she looked and faster, too.

The girl grunted, grinned and attacked, driving the blade up toward Cullen’s innards. She backed away fast and narrowly avoided losing her insides.

No delays on the other side. The girl charged forward, the weaponless hand landing a powerful blow on Cullen’s temple. She saw black stars for a second and fell back.

The trees saved her. Cullen fell over a thick root and landed on her ass. Even as she was falling she saw the blade cut across where her throat should have been. The little bitch meant business.

From her prone position Cullen kicked out and slammed her heel into the inside of the girl’s thigh. The move worked, and knocked her enemy from her feet. She was mean, she was tough but she was still a child. Cullen was twice her weight and that alone saved her.

The girl fell and caught herself on her hand. While she was trying to get her balance, Cullen slammed her heel into the girl’s jaw and neck. She felt the bones break. The child died instantly.

Her body ached everywhere. She’d fallen from a tree and landed on a monster. She was alive, but most of her body felt bruised.

Still, she was alive. Lucky, lucky.

There was no hesitation. She stole the girl’s dagger. A quick search found several more weapons. A long, thin club made of metal, with a weighted end and a leather grip, and two smaller blades. She took all of them.

And then she ran away from the children, away from the fire, and toward Norhaun. There was no time to contemplate pain. She had to do what she could to get ahead of the invaders and warn the rest of her people.

The ground was uneven and the pathways were littered with the bodies of her people and, occasionally, with a dead Pra-Moresh. She saw no bodies from the enemy. They had brought monsters with them to soften up the Trecharch and it had worked well.

Cullen did not cry. She did not wallow in her grief. She focused on what mattered instead. The dead were dead. The living still had a chance.

A great peal of thunder shook the world and a moment later rains came from the east, washing through the canopy of leaves above. She thanked the gods for the good fortune of unseasonal storms.

The Norhaun River ran placidly across the land, cutting a deep path. Centuries of runoff from the north had allowed a deep ravine and several small waterfalls made certain the area had a pristine beauty.

Goriah looked at the river and the bridges across it and shook her head. The bridges, like the rest of the area, were nearly invisible. The Mother-Vine provides. The thick vine ran across the distance in several locations and the people of the area had used that to their advantage, carefully manipulating offshoots of the vine to use as guiderails along the way. Wherever possible they had avoided adding anything more than ropes or occasional platforms where the Mother-Vine sagged too heavily to allow easy access.

Here the vines were still healthy. To the west she could see the smoke, the growing blaze. The fires were getting stronger.

Goriah considered the environment carefully and settled herself against a tree limb almost a hundred feet from the floor of the heavily wooded area.

Decades of study and careful evaluation went into her decisions. Most people would have seen nothing out of the ordinary unless they were looking toward the skies far above.

The storms of the Blasted Lands were dark, dry and cold. The storm she summoned was just as violent, it had to be, but it was vibrant with water and warmer than the air around her.

When the rains came they were hard, and the winds blew the waters to the west, aiming at extinguishing the growing blaze and saving Trecharch from the flames.

Eyes closed, she felt the world around her and allowed herself a very small victorious smile.

The rains were harsh, but they were doing their work and the fires were faltering in the distance. There was still an invading force to consider but there was hope that the great forest could be spared.

Satisfied that the rains would do their work, Goriah rose from where she had rested and looked toward the bridges of the Mother-Vine. They were the only way across the Norhaun for a hundred miles or more. If she worked quickly she might be able to prevent the enemy from using the bridges to reach the great city.

Hurting the Mother-Vine was not what she wanted, but if she had to, she would. Sometimes a limb must be removed to save the body.

Still, it was a very large move to make and Desh would want to know before she ruined the bridges.

Once more she closed her eyes and prepared to reach across the distance to speak with the greatest of the sorcerers.

And in that moment, Glo’Hosht drove the blade through her skull and ended her life.

Pella fell. Had she been in flight she would surely have fallen to her death. Instead she merely crashed to her knees, skinning them both, and never even noticing.

The pain was immense. A needle through her eyes and deep into her brain. She felt her Sister die.

Deep within the confines of Orrander’s Tower, where she waited to speak with Queen Parlu, Pella fell to the ground and into a deep, restless darkness.

The storms were violent and sent shivers through the trees themselves.

The Sa’ba Taalor noticed, but did not stay their path. In comparison to the Blasted Lands the storms were only a minor inconvenience.

Tusk looked at the tower ahead and reached for his horn. It was a massive tower, the thing he had seen in the distance. True to his earlier thoughts it grew alongside a tree that was as tall as a mountain. He could not hope to understand the size of the tree until he was upon it.

No. He frowned and looked a second time. Not a tree at all. This was the Mother-Vine. He had seen the many strands of the great thing as it sprawled across the land. The vines ran everywhere. They had actually crossed thick strands of the vine as they moved over the river that cut through the valley.

The map called it the Mother-Vine and Durhallem had spoken to him of the great serpentine thing. His god claimed that many of the people in the area nearly thought of the Mother-Vine as a god as well.

He patted Brodem’s neck and his mount slowed his pace. Mount and rider alike surveyed the area. There were soldiers ahead. Not as many as he had expected, but still they were there and they were likely very well trained. They had to protect not only their queen, but also their god.

That thought amused him.

“Why are you smiling, Tusk?” Stastha’s voice came from his left.

He looked to her and winked. “In that tower is a ‘queen.’” He frowned for a moment. Not because he was sad, but merely confused by the cultural differences. “For some reason they call their kings by that name when they have breasts. In any event, I must go meet this queen and kill her.”

“And that makes you smile?”

Tusk nodded. “Yes, but I smile for a different reason. This queen, she is the protector of the Mother-Vine. That is the god of these people. It is all around us.” He gestured and she looked, nodding.

“Yes.” She paused a moment. “And?”

“If she must protect her god, either she is a very powerful warrior, or her god is very weak.”

Stastha looked at him for a moment and then threw her head back, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.

Tusk looked around again to make sure that no one was waiting to kill them in the trees. One could never be too careful.

When his second had finished her fit he swatted her affectionately on the shoulder. “We go our separate ways now. You should kill everyone you encounter. All of them.”

“And you, Tuskandru?” Her eyes blazed under her helmet. The great horns were intact, but the helm itself was bloodied and dented.

“Durhallem has told me to kill this ‘queen’ and then, apparently I am to slay a god.”

“What blade does one use to slay a god, Tuskandru?” She shook her head. To be fair the Mother-Vine was very large. He wasn't so sure his axe would do much damage.

He grinned again and urged Brodem forward. The great mount let out a roar of impatience and prepared for running.

Just as the beast started moving, Tusk gave Stastha his answer, “It might take more than one!”

As he rode, Stastha sounded her horn. The armies of Durhallem moved again, riding through the forests of Trecharch on their way to introduce new deities to the region.

Cullen did not have a horse, nor did she have a great beast like the invaders rode. She only had her feet and they were sore and the legs attached to them were weak and felt ruined.

Still, one does what one must. Her father had always said that to her when she was growing and her mother had nodded her agreement. Good people the both of them and as much as she missed them she was glad they were dead. They’d have been ruined by the burning of the forest they’d both loved so dearly.

She moved along the pathways that most would never have seen and cursed the fact that no one had ever thought to lay traps along the main routes to prevent invaders.

When she came to the bridge over the river there was no choice but to run it. She dared not walk. The longer she was on the bridge the greater the chance that she would be spotted by the invaders and she dreaded that notion. Though she had fought for her life, Cullen could not overlook the fact that she had killed a child. The swelling above her eye where the girl had nearly cracked her skull open helped a bit, but guilt still cut at her conscience.

After she crossed the bridge it was back to moving, running, doing all she could to reach Orrander’s Tower though she knew she would be too late.

The bodies she found told her that much. The forest hid little from the ground. The trails were evident and even the less traveled ones were visible if you knew where to look.

The invaders knew how to look and they were thorough. Willist was ruined. Every house, every structure, even the Sanctuaries within the trees, all were broken open and gutted. The people inside dragged out and cut down like fresh kill at a slaughterhouse.

The ground was saturated with blood and the runoff from the rains were stained with varying shades of red.

Cullen did not have time to consider the deaths. In truth she suspected her mind might have broken. She was running toward the danger instead of away from it.

There was no possibility that she could reach Orrander’s Tower before the attack and even if she did there was nothing that she could do against the invaders by herself.

Still, she had to try.

So she ran when she could and walked the rest of the time. Along the way she gathered a good bow and some arrows. Weapons she knew how to use properly.

No denying it; a time to kill was upon her. She might die and soon, but she’d take as many as she could with her into the dark.

Five

The differences between the Summer Palace and the Winter Palace were negligible. Had anyone placed a schematic for one over the other they would have been hard pressed to tell them apart. There were differences in the furniture, to be sure, but not much beyond that.

That meant Desh Krohan felt like he was coming home when he walked into his private chambers. The bed was the same. The walls were very close. There were fewer distractions.

A war was going on to the north. He hated that. He wanted peace in his world. That was what he had always wanted and what he had strived to achieve over the centuries. Save for a few skirmishes, he had been successful for the last few generations.

Now that had changed and there was nothing to be done about it.

He founds Tataya in his chambers.

“Goriah is dead.”

Desh nodded his head. “I felt it, too. I am so very sorry, my dear.” There was nothing else to be said, really. Much as he wanted to take his revenge against the Sa’ba Taalor, he was not prepared for that yet. There was too much to do, too many depended on him.

Tataya closed her eyes and leaned back until her face was pointed toward the heavens. “I feel her death, Desh. It’s echoing through my head.”

“You are Sisters. Of course it echoes. It will continue for some time yet.” He walked closer and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Is Pella safe?”

“For the moment. She stirs. She was so close when it happened. I’m watching over her. If anyone comes for her, I will act.”

“How do they fare in Trecharch?”

“You already know, Desh.”

“I am close to you, all of you, but your connection is greater than mine of necessity. If I felt all that you do, I would not be able to do what I must.”

He closed his eyes as well, and reached out with his mind, using Tataya as a connection point to find Goriah’s corpse with greater ease. “Don’t move, Tataya. I’m bringing her back.”

Hundreds of miles away the body of his Sister moved, and then rose into the air. Her corpse had been gathered with others, but it was of little consequence. He moved it just the same, taking her from the mountainous pile of the dead and carrying her aloft.

Any who had seen him would have thought he was merely resting his head. Only Tataya understood the strain of moving Goriah from so great a distance. Few would have been capable.

Few had ever been as powerful as Desh Krohan.

“Will you kill their king for this, Desh?”

He did not answer immediately. Several minutes passed before he finally opened his eyes and looked to Tataya. Her eyes were still closed. Her hair fell in a crimson cascade and her face, as lovely as ever, was as pale as marble.

“I may yet. But as you know there is always a price. Even bringing Goriah back is a strain.”

“I am grateful. Thank you for bringing her to me.” Tataya’s voice was distant, dreamy. Goriah’s journey had only started, but Tataya knew the course her Sister would take.

“How could I not? I loved her as I love you and Pella.” He swallowed back the tears. “How could I not?”

“How will this end, Desh?” Tataya opened her eyes and stared at him.

He made himself look back as he answered. “I do not know. I wish I did.” He kept to himself that he felt the entire situation would grow far worse before it was resolved. In the past he could have done so much more.

Merros Dulver’s new home was a short distance from the palace. Short enough that he walked, rather than ride his horse. That did not stop him from going a bit out of his way to find the house of Dretta March.

Her new domicile looked nothing like the last she had lived in, save that it was a house and surrounded by a strong stone wall. The gardens were better tended and smaller, though he knew she had not been living there long enough to manage much by way of gardening. There was a small orchard on the estate and the trees were blooming.

It was near those trees that Dretta waited for him at a stone table with benches rather than chairs.

“You’ve taken your time in finding me.” She looked at him with her dark eyes and he tried not to get lost in their depths.

“Yes, well, there’s the war to take care of.”

Dretta nodded. “You’ve not managed to get yourself killed. I was worried along those lines.”

It was meant as a jest and he knew it, but considering how her husband had died, it was a bit too fresh a wound for either of them to find the situation amusing. Still, he managed a small smile for her.

“I’ve decided I’ve too much to do to allow any form of death for a while.”

“For the best, really. Who else will run things?”

“Desh Krohan, the First Advisor, very likely has a hundred more waiting in the ranks.”

“It’s his job, yes? To handle such affairs for the Empress?” There was something about the way she said those words that he found particularly amusing.

“Have you met the man? I believe he takes his duties rather seriously.”

“One should when running an empire.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that. He’d likely deny it and then appoint you to run the palace, or possibly the Imperial Navy.”

Dretta knew his situation well enough to appreciate the comment. He’d been a captain less than a year ago, and retired before that. Now he found himself in charge of the Imperial Army and he dreaded it. The responsibilities seemed endless. It was these brief visits with the widow of his best friend and second-in-command that left him feeling anchored enough to continue in his new duties.

Dretta smiled and pushed a plate full of fruit and cheese in his direction. The cheeses were varied and the fruit was fresh and ripe. She’d brewed a potent tea – one she favored from the north, where winters were colder and a hot drink was nearly a necessity – and he sipped at it happily. He had acquired a taste for the stuff.

“There are many newcomers entering the city every day.” Her tone was conversational.

“There are indeed. I have no idea where we will put them. I know the Empress has ordered a great number of the older properties converted to accommodate them, but there are still more coming from, well, from everywhere. The refugees from Tyrne and Roathes, and I expect we’ll have more coming from Trecharch before long.”

“How goes the fight for Trecharch?”

“I’ve only just sent troops. They won’t reach the area for days yet, but the fighting has moved on.” He shook his head. “They’re brutal, the Sa’ba Taalor.”

“They aren’t that many in number are they?”

Merros bit back a hysterical laugh. “I’d hoped that was the case, but after meeting with their King in Iron, I don’t think I was right in my assessments.”

Dretta continued to study him and he wasn’t certain it was a sensation he liked. She had a very direct stare and he was never sure whether or not she found him up to the standards she demanded in her world.

Just to let himself recover from her eyes, he ate a slice of apple and a sharp hard cheese he couldn’t identify. He barely tasted them.

“There are a lot more of them than I first thought, Dretta, and they’re savage. I can’t explain that well enough. I have seen them in combat and I don’t know many soldiers who would have a chance against them.”

“You’ve been training them, yes?”

“Yes, of course. But the training doesn’t happen quickly and our enemies have spent their entire lives preparing for this.” He shook his head. “I have soldiers trained with swords and I have lancers and I have archers. But they have different weapons. Things I’ve never even imagined before.”

“So you intend to surrender?” The look she threw his way made clear she was scolding him for his doubts.

“Of course not.”

“That is good. Wollis would approve.”

“With a thousand like Wollis I feel I would have a chance.” He picked at a cluster of grapes. “He could train anyone. He could use almost any weapon.”

“So find them. Out there, among your soldiers. Find the ones like him and make them count.”

“You always make it sound easy.”

“There is no easy, Merros Dulver. There is only what must be done.”

She smiled at him then, and the possibility that he might actually accomplish some of his goals seemed more achievable for the moment. He tried to memorize that smile for when he was alone and she was not there to remind him of possibilities.

They came before her on the throne.

The throne room in Canhoon was nearly cavernous. Most of the rooms in the Winter Palace were mirrors of the ones that had stood in Tyrne, but not so the room where the Empress held court. The ceiling was over fifty feet in height, with great marble columns supporting the entire affair. The walls were adorned with the coat of arms for every royal family in the whole of the Fellein Empire, including a few that were nearly lost in obscurity. “Nearly” because, Nachia had no doubt, Desh Krohan could likely quote the entire history of each and every one of those families, no matter how obscure or ancient.

Before this day there had been a few who did not bother to deal with the new Empress. They sent emissaries if they responded at all. Now? Now was different. Tyrne had been destroyed. It wasn’t a collection of islands out in the sea that had gone. It wasn’t a gathering of savages living in huts along the shoreline of the fishing villages who had been annihilated. It was Tyrne, the Summer City, that had been leveled.

They knew Tyrne. They cared that Tyrne was gone. Tyrne mattered in their eyes and so when the Empress demanded the presence of the royal families of the Empire, this time they listened.

Now, Trecharch was falling. It was not gone yet, of course, but in less than two days the fighting had spread through the greatest forest in the Empire and the sadistic enemy was actually burning everything they could.

Nachia Krous, Empress of the Fellein Empire, was not in a good mood.

She’d hoped, prayed, that the parley between her empire and the Sa’ba Taalor would go well. That they might come to an accord and end their skirmish before it became a war.

Not because she wanted it to end. That wasn’t the case at all. She wanted to find the bitch who’d killed her cousin and flay the flesh from her diseased, gray hide in thin strips. She wanted to kill any and all who had taken her cousin’s life, no matter how minor their part in the decision.

She would have accepted peace just the same, because as the ruler of the Empire it was her duty to seek the best possible solution for her people.

Now the families she had asked to attend before suddenly found they had time for dealing with the upstart Empress and discovered that the peace they had all assumed would always last was crumbling away.

Part of her enjoyed the notion, just because of the looks on their faces.

Next to her, to the left side of her throne, Merros Dulver looked on, his face as hard as stone. There were few people she knew who could grow so cold in an instant.

To her right, Desh Krohan was currently not in his place. That made her nervous. He’d planned to be here for this assembly.

There were many faces in the gathering ahead of her that were familiar, but the unknown outweighed those she knew by a substantial margin. Unlike her cousin Pathra, the former Emperor, she had traveled all of the Empire at one time or another, but many of the places she’d visited had been over half her lifetime ago, and she had seen so many faces between that recognition was a challenge. Desh knew them all, of course. That was why she wanted him here.

Still, the people before her were growing restless and irritated.

Merros leaned over and spoke softly. She knew without having to consider it that no one but she was close enough to hear his words.

“Let them wait a bit longer, milady.” He had an amused tone that belied the expression on his face. “Let them understand that you are in command and that they must answer to you. Look at each of them in the eyes, find the ones you like the least and stare hardest at them. Should they look away before you do, you will always have them at a disadvantage.”

He waited three seconds exactly and then spoke again. “Of course, you already know that. It is merely a suggestion on my part.”

“One that is appreciated,” she said, while her eyes skewered Prince Torrain of Louron, whose father had not appeared and who failed to make apologies for that situation. Also, when she was much younger, Torrain had pulled her hair and gotten away with it. She still wasn’t sure if she intended to hold a grudge.

For one moment Torrain looked haughty. Then he looked away, nervously worrying his lower lip. She hoped he was remembering the hairpulling incident and how he’d run to his mother for protection when it happened.

Her eyes moved to Queen Lanaie, who was her guest on an extended basis for the present. She wasn't quite sure how to handle that matter. Lanaie was the queen of Roathes. The problem was that Roathes was only a name on a map now. Most of Lanaie’s people were either dead, living in Canhoon, or trying to find a place to live inside the city.

They had been among the first victims of the Sa’ba Taalor.

Her brother Brolley had affection for the girl. Then again, most men did. She was exotic, attractive and chesty. A combination that made most men and a good number of women look twice. That she was also nice only added complications.

Lanaie looked to her and smiled softly. Nachia knew she was worried about her people. That was, undoubtedly, one of the reasons she was here. She wished more assistance than had already been given. Roathes had a history of asking for help and offering remarkably little in return.

Of course, she was still a queen and had every right to be here. Just as importantly, there were others who understood that her status as a queen made her a perfect target for marriage proposals. That included Nachia’s uncle, Laister, who had already expressed his desire to marry Queen Lanaie. So far Lanaie had made no response. Nachia needed to make certain it stayed that way.

Her eyes went to her brother, Brolley, who was still recovering from his escape from Tyrne. He had planned to stay in the palace until she returned. He would have, too, had Merros not ordered the palace cleared and had his soldiers take him from the castle by force.

She reminded herself to thank Merros for that again. She had already done so on several occasions, but there was simply no way she could properly convey her gratitude.

Brolley looked toward Lanaie and his eyes cast over the rest of the crowd. They were important people. Because of their status, even he had to remember to behave.

No, that was unfair. He had learned his lesson on diplomacy already. She just tended to be harder on her brother. Somebody had to watch out for him and if she did not, who would? Laister? Not very likely.

As Nachia pondered, Desh Krohan came into the chamber from the far side, moving through the gathered crowd which parted before him.

She knew Desh Krohan, had known him since she was a toddler, had sat on his knee when she was much younger, had seen him at countless functions, had wept on his shoulder when her parents died.

That was a man.

Desh Krohan, the First Advisor and best-known sorcerer in the Empire, was a different figure to behold. As he moved through the room in his hooded cloak, the people around him backed away, suddenly aware of exactly how much power he wielded.

That was, of course, exactly why he wore the robe now and why he came into the room from the far side. He wanted all present to remember how striking a figure he could be, because that way, when he stood at her right side, they would remember how powerful the Empress of the Fellein Empire was.

He was doing her a favor. He was reminding them that she was in charge.

When Desh settled at her side, his great cloak continued to shift in the still air and the great cowl hid his face. He was a sinister presence.

Had she not known the man so very well, she might have been intimidated herself.

Nachia nodded her head, acknowledging the sorcerer, and then spoke. “We are at war. As an empire, we are at war.”

The emotions on the faces before her varied little. There was anger. There was fear. There was regret. The longer she looked, the more she saw of the fear.

“General Dulver can give you the details. He has studied the maps and can tell all of you what he needs from you.”

“What he needs from us?” The voice was sharp and tinged with desperation. Nachia saw the speaker and was moderately surprised. Kordon Neiller was the king of Goltha, decidedly one of the largest and most powerful of the Twelve Kingdoms. Goltha was both the name of the city that grew near Lake Gerhaim, and the kingdom that sprang from the same. Gerhaim was massive and all rivers ran to the lake in their time. Kordon Neiller was her distant cousin. He was also one of the best of the allies of the Imperial Throne.

Nachia smiled at him and the man melted just a bit. They had been friendly for all the time they’d known each other. Kordon was her senior by fifteen years. He had been crowned when he was twelve and had ruled well.

“We are at war, Kordon. No one wants this. No one. But it is what it must be.” She waved a hand and Merros stepped forward, looking resplendent in his uniform.

“The Imperial Army needs more soldiers. We will, of course, hire as we need to from the mercenary ranks, but that’s not the same thing. In the last few decades several countries have not enforced the laws of the Empire as well as they could when it comes to training soldiers. The time for allowing young adults to stay on the farm or tend to the family must now come to an end.”

Were there guilty faces? No, but there was guilt aplenty. The royal families were merely better at hiding their sins.

Merros continued, “It is requested by the throne that all present provide the appropriate numbers to the ranks of the Imperial Army.”

“And what numbers do you deem appropriate, General Dulver?” The question came from Theorio Krous. The man was Nachia’s relative in name, but only just. He was also the King of Morwhen far to the east. Morwhen was well known for the soldiers they trained. They were often among the elite. According to Merros, if all of the kingdoms trained soldiers as well as Morwhen, there might have been less to fear from the Sa’ba Taalor.

Theorio himself was a heavyset man, well muscled and dressed in black armor. He did not wear uniforms. He always wore, at the very least, leather armor, such as he sported currently.

Nachia lowered her head briefly, a sign of respect, and then looked him in the eyes. In comparison to the King in Iron, Theorio Krous was not an intimidating man.

Merros spoke again, answering the question. “The ledgers of the Imperial Army are very thorough. Numbers matching those offered by each of the Twelve Kingdoms one century ago are expected.”

The gathered families murmured and mumbled on that one. Most of the kingdoms had fallen far short of the appropriate numbers of conscripted soldiers over the last few decades. Most still offered up numbers, but few enforced the laws of conscription as they were supposed to.

Theorio Krous smiled. “You will have double that number from Morwhen.”

Merros offered a formal bow. “You have my thanks and the gratitude of the Empire, Majesty.”

The man looked at Merros and smiled. It was the sort of smile she expected from a member of the Sa’ba Taalor: a promise of bloodshed and joy in the shedding.

Perhaps Merros was right.

The crowd continued to mutter among themselves until Merros brought up Trecharch and the war going on there.

When it came to bad news, it seemed everyone was ready to pay attention.

Merros and Desh walked through the inner garden, in an area officially set aside solely for the Empress. They had access, of course, though being there had once been punishable by death.

Merros spoke softly just the same, his eyes looking around constantly. “You and your Sisters. You’ve shown in the past that you can communicate over great distances.”

Desh nodded.

“Can others do this? I mean other sorcerers or apprentices?”

“There are a few, Merros.” He allowed a small, tired smile. “We are hardly a vast army. I’d say there might be a hundred across the entire Empire.”

“I need them. I need you.”

“Whatever for?”

“I have couriers and I have a few trained storm crows. That is all. And I have a continent to protect.”

“That’s always been the case.”

Merros nodded. “True, but we have a war now, and a large one.”

Desh contemplated that. “Sorcery and war do not go well together, General Dulver. If we learned anything, ever, as a group, it is that.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s extremely possible that the Blasted Lands are a result of sorcery that got out of control.”

Merros looked his way with a dark expression.

“You think I jest?” Desh asked.

“No. I just didn’t think anyone capable of that sort of power.”

The sorcerer said nothing for a moment, but instead looked toward the window where Nachia could have easily looked down on them. He knew she was very likely listening to their words.

“There are only a few. I’m one of them.” He shrugged. “More than one sorcerer working together can perform even greater feats. The City of Wonders was raised from ruination and moved from one place to anther. The Silent Army was raised at the same time and fought against invaders that would have taken control of the Empire otherwise.”

Desh saw the changes in Merros’s expression and curbed the thoughts before they could go too far. “Those feats are long past. Many of the most powerful among us died in the process of working those feats. I could, perhaps, rebuild a city, but as I have said before, there is a price to pay for sorcery and I fear you would not much like the cost.”

The general looked at him differently from that moment on. It was a subtle thing, but Desh noticed.

“I’m not asking for any to get involved in the combat. I just need to have a better way to communicate between camps.”

“Between camps?”

“Desh, we have one empire. They have seven kingdoms. I do not believe for a moment that those seven kings will be joining together to offer a single front.” He sighed and shook his head. His arms moved behind is back and he clasped his hands there. “I have the First Lancers stationed at the Temmis Pass. No choice in that. It’s the likeliest place for the Sa’ba Taalor to use to reach us.”

Desh opened his mouth to speak and Merros silenced him with a gesture.

“I know. No one expected the bastards to attack Trecharch. That was an oversight caused because I thought they would have to come up through the Temmis Pass. They’ve found other ways, but I can’t risk leaving the pass unguarded. If I did, if I do, I can guarantee they’ll use it to their advantage.”

He sighed and looked at Desh straight on, as few men would do willingly.

“Desh, I need to be able to organize my troops across several fronts. I have no doubt at all that they will attack from different areas. They have great black ships waiting for the chance to move up the Jeurgis and into the waters outside of Canhoon. I have a fleet of mercenaries heading in to deal with them, but no way to communicate with them. We’ve promised gold and that’s a good motivator but not enough to guarantee any proper defense.”

Merros took in another deep breath, ready to continue making his point.

It was Desh who silenced the general with a gesture this time around. “I’ll arrange something. But, Merros, I mean what I said. None of them can aid you beyond speaking on your behalf. None of them will. I won’t permit it.”

“That is your decision to make. I will not question it.”

“Be certain that your soldiers understand that as well.”

Merros nodded his head. “I will. How soon can they be sent out?”

“Within two days I’ll have them on their way. Make certain that you have the proper letters of introduction for them, please.”

Merros offered a grim smile. “I’m grateful, Desh.”

“You have a war to win and I’ve placed that burden squarely at your feet. The least I can do is offer a little help with keeping things organized, I suppose.”

Six

The ground came up very quickly and punched Andover Lashk in his right side. Since he was much smaller than the ground, and softer besides, he came off worst from the impact.

It was a long time before he dared move. Every part of his body seemed to ache and his head felt broken. He took a few experimental breaths and decided he could still manage to gulp in air, but breathing was all he could manage for several minutes.

Each of the mountains, each of the Hearts of the Gods was different. He’d known that, but somehow Wheklam seemed more determined than the other mountains he’d visited to make sure he never reached his goal.

How long had he been climbing? He could not say. He knew only that he was cold, and that the sun had set and risen a few times since he’d lost his hammer. He still had his axe – he had finished locking together the obsidian he had been given by Durhallem and the iron rings he’d been offered by Truska-Pren. The axe the pieces made was incredibly sharp, perfectly balanced and currently jamming into his side. Happily the thing was sheathed properly or he’d have been cut in half instead of merely beaten severely by his own weapon.

Andover very carefully rolled himself over and began the slow process of standing back up. There was a time he’d have stayed where he was for a while, but he knew better now. He suspected Delil might well come down and beat him senseless if he let himself remain in the same place for too long.

He looked up the side of the steep slope toward the distant spot from where he’d fallen. He found the spots where he had bounced before finally rolling to a stop.

“On the lighter side of this, nothing seems broken,” he murmured to himself. Bruised and strained, yes. Broken? No.

Delil did not stop for him. He was on his journey, she was on her own. They were merely going in the same direction at the moment. Even so, part of him was almost certain that she might yet come down to beat on him if he waited too long. That alone was enough motivation. He started climbing.

Rather than let himself think of where he hurt or what lay ahead, he focused on putting one hand in front of the other. It was the distractions that kept getting him in trouble.

The ground was hard, and if he paid attention there were handholds. He had hands made of iron. They were more than capable of gripping the rock and supporting his weight. Delil did not have his advantages and yet she seemed to be managing well enough.

He started again, looking only as far ahead as the next potential area where fingers could find purchase.

The sun had almost set by the time he reached the top of the volcanic mountaintop.

The area was nearly as wide as the city of Tyrne, it seemed. The vast hollowed-out bowl of the great forge glowed with a warm light, but clouds of gasses rose from the depths stinking of molten metal and worse.

They were scents he knew well enough and in his way appreciated.

Far away from him, far enough that she was merely a speck in the distance, he thought he saw Delil sitting on the edge of the great pit. She had clearly decided not to concern herself with his condition after his fall.

He mirrored her action. He was not supposed to be with her. This was a personal quest, a private discussion between mortal and god.

Andover’s body shook from exertion, and he drew in deep breaths of the foul air. He had endured worse in the Blasted Lands.

Below him the glow of Wheklam’s Forge seemed to fluctuate. He looked down into the distant fire, and the smoke and gasses seethed, rising upward.

No. Andover frowned. Not smoke. Water. As he looked down into the heart of the forge he could still see the raging inferno that glowed below him, a literal lake of fire and molten stone, but above that, impossibly, water rose toward him, a greater body of water than he had ever seen before.

The waters seethed, forming waves that thrashed against the sides of the crater as if trying to escape. The scent changed; a potent odor came to him, and all he could think of was the stench of fish he’d smelled a few times at the river’s edge. This was different, but close enough that he felt a sense of familiarity.

Then the waters rose up in a vast wave that caught Andover unawares, washing him into the depths before he could even catch a breath.

In his entire life Andover Lashk had seen no body of water greater than the Freeholdt River and while that river was a substantial one, the most he had ever done was wade into the shallows and wash himself.

Put another way, he was not a swimmer. He thrashed madly for several moments, trying to find his way to any purchase at all. Ultimately he failed.

The water filled his lungs and he felt himself choking, fighting for breath.

He felt the darkness at the edges of his mind as surely as he saw the darkness stealing away his sight.

And then, beyond that dread, he felt the presence of a god.

He had already met with two gods, and in both cases the sheer power of those entities had overwhelmed his senses. This was no different. Wheklam moved through his body, a power impossible to deny. At that moment, as he was drowning in impossible waters, he had caught the attention of a deity.

He wasn’t sure precisely how he would make his point with Wheklam. He had been told to offer himself to each of the gods and he had done so before by speaking his piece. That was impossible here so he held his arms wide apart and did his best to bow underwater, as his body was cast this way and that by the tides.

On the left side of his face, at the very edge of the jaw line, he felt a searing pain and forced himself not to scream. A finger’s width of fire boiled across his skin. There was no light, no source for the pain, but it was real and he knew what it meant. Another god had accepted him.

Now all he had to do was live through the experience.

Far above him he could see the light from above the crater.

Far below he could see the light of Wheklam’s Heart.

In between there was water in endless supply and no air to breathe.

The burden of leadership was a constant thing in her life. From the moment she’d accepted the crown placed on her brow, Queen Parlu had felt the weight of more than a few ounces of silver.

Trecharch was burning. Far in the distance she could see the light on the western horizon. The sun was above her, barely noticeable through the rain, but she saw the light as bright as the most magnificent of sunsets on the western horizon.

The view from her tower had always been spectacular. It allowed her an uninterrupted examination of the end of her world.

Trecharch had been her home since she was born, and that had been a very long time ago.

Trecharch was not like the other kingdoms. She allowed the citizens a say in how things were run. Not a large say, true, but still they had a voice that she listened to.

Now all she could hear, as the day grew older, was the sound of screams.

Her world burned.

There had been a time, when she was younger, when the citizens of the nation had considered overthrowing her rule. Not because she was a bad ruler – at least she tended to think she was not, but suspected many might disagree – but because they wanted change. They wanted less taxation and more freedom to decide for themselves how the world should work. Some had claimed that the forests were too full of trees and that cutting down a portion of them would make Trecharch a better place. That the wood from the trees had great monetary value was merely a coincidence, of course.

Frah Molen, one of her finest advisors, knocked politely before entering the chamber. In the past he had been her lover. Now he was much more than that. He was her friend. He was beyond the age where the notion of rutting meant much to him. She was just as old, but her connection to the great forest had, as always, left her feeling invigorated.

“Frah.” She sighed his name. “The fires are coming. I thought the rain might offer us salvation, but the fires are growing again and the Mother-Vine is sickened by whatever they have done to her.”

Parlu was not a delicate woman, though many might have thought otherwise if they’d seen her. Her frame was thin, and her limbs were long. Her hair was graying from the deep browns it had been in her earlier years, but the gray only accented her mane these days. She was conscious that many men found her beautiful still. She saw the same beauty in her daughter, Lemilla, who would rule in her stead when she died – assuming there was anything left to rule.

“They come, Parlu. The invaders.” Frah’s voice was still as strong as ever. It was the rest of him that had weakened over the years. His back was bent by the decades and his magnificent red hair had first gone white and then fallen out completely. Still, she loved him.

He was one of the finest men she knew and it hurt her to think that he’d be dead before the day was over.

“I could hardly fail to notice them, Frah,” she chided him softly. “I’ve never seen the likes of the creatures they ride. Are they Pra-Moresh?”

“No.” He stepped closer. “They are smaller, but almost as deadly, and the people who ride them must surely be knights. I have never heard of fighters as brutal.”

“Desh Krohan says they do not have knights. He says that all of them are like that. Deadly and filled with hatred for all of us.”

“What a misery then.”

She did not look away from the window. Far below her, she could see the first of the invaders crossing the Field of Remembrance, where the likenesses of each past ruler looked out toward the forest.

“I suppose it is time, then, yes?”

“Parlu…You don’t have to do this.” He placed one hand on her thin shoulder. His flesh was cold now, not as warm and lovely as it had been once, and she could feel the swelling in the joints of each finger.

“Of course I do, Frah.” She settled her fine and strong hand over his gnarled paw and smiled softly. Far below, the archers fired volleys of arrows but the invaders kept coming. They wore armor, and they carried shields, and they sported heavy furs and helmets. The arrows struck but few seemed to do any real damage.

The people of Trecharch were renowned for their archery skills. For decades they had won archery competitions throughout the Twelve Kingdoms. When someone from a different country took the winning purse it was usually amid claims that they had cheated in one form or another, simply because the people of Trecharch were archers before they were soldiers.

The Sa’ba Taalor held their own with ease. The ones who were mounted rode with confidence and used great bows that had apparently been designed for use when riding. Most of the people in Trecharch could barely ride horses. They simply were not common among the great forest.

The enemy fired and nearly every one of their arrows found a home and maimed or killed.

“Parlu, please, don’t do this.”

“I accepted my crown, Frah. I knew the risks then, and I have long since reaped the benefits.” Still, she thought back to her earlier days and the lovers she had known, the friends she had known. Many of the other nations claimed that marriage was a sacred thing. They swore by the notion that one man and one woman were required to make a life and that they should be together for all time. Trecharch had never held to that notion. There were exceptions, of course. Many chose one lover and stayed with them for life.

Perhaps that was for the best. In hindsight, she rather liked the idea of having someone she could hold onto one last time before she climbed the last steps in Orrander’s Tower.

Frah was in the room with her. He had always been a wonderful friend. Ultimately he was enough.

“Watch over Lemilla. See her safely away, my friend. It is time.”

He would not question her orders. It was not his way.

The wooden stairs barely creaked under her weight as she started up the final flights to the chamber of the Mother-Vine, but far below her, the great doors of the tower shook with the impact of whatever the invaders used to attempt access.

Pella woke in a small room, on the covers of a bed filled with goose down.

She did not wake slowly or gently, but rather all at once and with the knowledge that she was in danger.

The Sa’ba Taalor had come. They were below her and attacking the tower, she knew that as surely as she breathed. The knowledge came from outside of her, sent as a gift from Tataya.

Goriah was dead. She knew that, too.

Her stomach twisted on itself at the thought. Her Sister had been a beautiful person and she loved her and missed her and always would.

Her grief, however, would have to wait.

Pella closed her eyes for a moment and cast her senses outside of her body, taking in the whole of the tower with ease. She was near the base of the great tower, on the third level.

Parlu was ascending into the Mother-Vine, at the apex of the tower, where it was swallowed by the Mother-Vine. She had no choice but to reach Queen Parlu’s personal chambers, where the final doorway into the Mother-Vine’s sacred interior was located. Pella’s abilities did not allow her to look into that final chamber. That was blocked from her by the power of the forest itself. All gods have their secrets, it seemed.

She had recently learned more of gods than she had ever wanted.

The guarding soldiers were preparing as best they could, setting barriers between the queen and the invaders. They understood exactly how bad the situation was.

Orrander’s Tower was a great feat of architecture. The stones and mortar that built the place had been carefully sculpted along the side of the Mother-Vine over the decades and centuries, and might well have never lasted if not for the fact that the Mother-Vine had accommodated the addition. Seen from outside, the tower was only remarkable in its height, but from inside it was easy to see how much of the tower had been swallowed and protected by the great vine. Chambers that were far larger than they appeared had been absorbed by the vine and become a part of the whole. They were not crushed, they were not broken; they were simply made stronger and protected. Those chambers held a large portion of Trecharch’s army. The soldiers had been called to protect their queen and the Mother-Vine alike and they were ready to die if necessary.

Fifty men with braces held the doors at the entrance. Thick logs had been cut and well seasoned, their bases shaped to fit slots in the stone floors. Metal gratings were pulled aside and the logs locked into those hidden slots, and then set against the great doors, bracing for any possible attack. A hundred men battering the doors would only be able to break through if they could shatter those logs, and the wood in question was carved from the Sentinels and as hard as stone.

Put simply, the Sa’ba Taalor would not gain access that way.

That didn’t mean they weren’t trying. A dozen or more of the brutes held on to a battering ram cut from one of the trees nearby and used it against the massive doors. The wood and metal of the door was damaged. Great gashes had been torn from the surface, and shreds of wood from both the ram and the doors fell to the ground as they continued the assault.

The doors would hold. The rest of the structure was a different case.

Pella could sense the other attackers. They were harder to find because they were so very high off the ground and she did not initially think to look for them there.

A dozen soldiers battered at the doors of the keep, with a gathering ready in case they got through. The rest climbed the walls, scaling the rough stone in some cases, climbing the Mother-Vine in others.

They were like ants, methodically swarming their way up the surfaces available to them and moving along similar lines. One or two found the pathways to climb and others followed after.

Far below, the battering ram knocked again and again, and a gathering of soldiers prepared for in case they got through. Most of the windows in the tower were small, and set high in the walls. They were more for ventilation than for looking out at the trees beyond. Most of the exceptions were high enough up that few would consider using them and those that did would not be able to see the attackers until it was far too late. The angle of Orrander’s Tower followed the curvature of the Mother-Vine and did not allow for an easy examination of the ground below.

Pella rose from the bed and moved toward the door, fully aware that she was far too late to call the alarm. The invasion had already begun.

The door to her chamber was unlocked. She would have been surprised to find otherwise.

To her left a hallway turned slowly toward the center of the tower, moving along a natural progression and deeper into the Mother-Vine. To her right a stairway angled up and down.

She took the stairs and moved upward, closer to the domain of Queen Parlu, hoping she could reach the woman in time to be of assistance.

Even as she moved she once more carefully spread her senses, seeking information that could help her and others deal with the attack of the Sa’ba Taalor. The people from the Seven Forges were above her and below her as well. As she climbed she saw the slender body of a young man sliding through one of the narrower windows just ahead of her.

She blew him back through the window with a thought. A portion of the wall crumbled away as well, but his screaming body sailed a great deal further from the tower. With luck his death screams would warn others of their plight before it was too late.

Pella called out to Desh and to Tataya alike, praying for assistance. A brief flash of sorrow cored her soul as she instinctively started to call for Goriah as well before memory returned. How long had passed? How long had her Sister been dead? Where was the murderous bastard that had driven a blade through her skull? She would find him if she could. She would destroy him.

The stairs continued in their long spiral and she moved as quickly as she could, alert for any sounds around her.

There was nothing, no one that she could see, at least.

By the time she reached the queen’s chambers her heart thudded at double the normal rate and her lungs burned with a demand for more air. None of that mattered as much as reaching Parlu before the Sa’ba Taalor.

The chambers were much as she remembered from previous visits. Parlu was a solitary woman at the best of times and she preferred to see visitors in private when she could. There had been several visits both formal and informal over the years. Once, long before she was apprenticed to Desh Krohan, she had come from the area and she had known Parlu better than most. She remembered the vast bed to the side of the chamber. She remembered the balcony that let Parlu see most of her kingdom with ease.

Frah Molen’s corpse lay on the floor near that balcony. He had been cut in half by one savage stroke of a blade. His death had likely been very fast. A small blessing, to be sure, but a blessing just the same.

The heavy door that led to the only part of the tower Pella had never seen before lay open. The wood was wrecked, shattered by several powerful blows. An axe lay broken at the side of the door, bespeaking the force needed to hack through to the area where Parlu communicated with her god.

Just inside that doorway, the corpse of Lemilla, Parlu’s only daughter, lay broken and bloody. Like Frah Molen, she had died quickly.

The stairway was narrow and barely allowed for one person to slide through easily. The wood of the Mother-Vine was exposed here, directly fused with the stone of the tower, and had swollen outward as if to seal the passage.

Bloodied footprints showed that whoever had passed had managed to get through easily enough, and that somebody was a very large figure.

Pella stared at the entranceway for a moment, uncertain if she should follow.

The laws of the people, of Trecharch, stated that none could enter the chamber save the queen. If she followed she was not certain if she would help or hinder the situation.

That hesitation very likely saved her life.

Viewed from outside, in the daylight, Orrander’s Tower was an amazing sight. It climbed so very high into the air, mating with the Mother-Vine in the process.

On previous occasions, Cullen had stared at the structure with awe, oftentimes spending several minutes examining the minutiae of the fusion of manmade tower and nature at its very finest. The Mother-Vine enveloped the tower, sheltering the structure within her embrace.

According to legend. Orrander, the first modern queen of Trecharch, had offered herself as a sacrifice to the Mother-Vine to save them all from the Wellish Overlords. She had cut herself and offered her blood to the roots of the Mother-Vine, and in response the great vine had moved around her, embraced her, and healed her wounds before moving to force the Overlords from the area.

The Overlords were nightmares of the distant past. The Mother-Vine was still here, still real, still pervasive in the lives of everyone in Trecharch.

And the Mother-Vine was dying. Madness lay where that thought wanted her to go.

Cullen stared at the massive trees around her, saw that they were still strong, and that the Mother-Vine was weakened and changing color as surely as autumn changed the trees. The leaves of the Mother-Vine were enormous here at her base. The shade from them was enough to cover wagons or, according to a few jests she’d heard in the past, large enough to work as the sails of ships in a crisis.

They were browning quickly, withering even as she watched. They were dying and the same death seemed to be creeping along the great vine itself, moving toward the heart of the Mother from several different strands that were all heading for the central core of the great plant.

The Mother-Vine was dying.

Cullen barely noticed on a conscious level any longer. She had run along the ground seeking to reach Orrander’s Tower. She had fought her way past the devastation in Norhaun, all in the hopes of reaching the tower in time to offer some form of assistance.

Too late.

Cullen stared in horror, her heart frozen deep in her chest, and looked at the invaders as they climbed over the tower and the Mother-Vine alike. In the distance a gathering of the enemy battered at the Great Gate. They would fail, of course. That was inevitable. It also did not matter. The door held, but the enemy still found a way. As she watched a portion of the wall high up along the tower crumbled outward and spilled a body into the Field of Remembrance and crashed into the likeness of King Corranst, the last of the kings to ever rule the area. The body and the statue both shattered on impact.

In her soul she hoped it was one of the enemy that died that horribly. From her distance Cullen could not say with any certainty.

A handful of the enemies climbed into the tower. Most focused on the Mother-Vine, cutting and hacking with their weapons. Alone none of those wounds would have affected the great vine, but who could say what so many small wounds would do? Her father had told her stories of the Overlords and their countless tortures. Some had been long ways to kill a soul that would take days or even months. A few had involved cutting tiny pieces away.

From one location a horn sounded and then from others. Two of the horns came from the Mother.

Moments later the cutting stopped and the vermin who wounded the Mother-Vine descended from her sides. Cullen would have wept in relief at the notion if their sudden mercy didn’t scare her so much. From what she had seen the grayskins did not believe in any form of kindness.

The notes from the horns had only started to fade away when the enemy stopped assaulting the Great Gate. Was it possible that all of them had decided to retreat? Had Queen Parlu managed to negotiate a peace with the enemy?

Cullen didn’t know, but she moved back and into the woods without waiting for an answer.

The ground trembled. Or perhaps that was her legs. She could not say for certain.

Since she was twelve and took the crown, Parlu had climbed the stairs to the room where she now stood at least once every season to make her offering to the Mother-Vine. It was symbolic, of course, a mere drop of blood placed against the thick hide of the great, eternal protector. A remembrance of promises made and kept.

The sliver of a blade made the cut on her left palm as it had every season for decades, and she placed her bloodied hand against the Mother-Vine. Instantly she felt the connection that had revitalized her countless times before.

Life flowed into her. Not merely the life of the Mother-Vine but the life of everything connected to the Mother.

She felt the trees, the forest, and the animals. She touched the energies of the soil, the insects crawling on the trees and in the dirt. Every person in the whole of Trecharch was there for her to sense.

And, like a cancer, she felt the Sa’ba Taalor.

Her mother had once told her that everything in the universe was connected. She had felt that for herself the very first time she had shared herself with the Mother-Vine. That connection fed the Mother-Vine, fed Parlu, and colored every decision she had ever made. There had been peace in the area for a very long time because of that awareness of the lives around her and connected to her through the Mother.

The Sa’ba Taalor were not connected. There was no peace within them. They did not accept the world around them. Instead they were connected to something else. Something dark and powerful, and as alien to her as the notion of being left without the Mother’s touch.

She could sense them, true enough, but they were a blight, a disease that moved among the strands of the Great Mother and killed her connection to everything else. Where the Sa’ba Taalor touched, there was a growing darkness that burned into her very soul.

She almost pulled her hand away from the Mother-Vine in an effort to escape the horrible chill left behind after each burning step the invaders took, but knew that to do so would be to abandon all she loved and cared for.

The Mother was injured and she had to guide the great plant in order to save them all.

Some of the horrid creatures must have sensed her, for they called to their brethren with horns and as a unit the vile presences started away, scurrying down from the Mother in an effort to escape the wrath she would cast upon them all.

The fingers of her left hand sank deep into the Mother-Vine as if into water, and she felt the potent energies of the Mother respond, filling her, offering her control of the Mother.

Parlu flexed her fingers and the world outside the tower moved, responded. The Mother-Vine shifted, but it moved slowly, without the usual liquid responses. For an instant she wondered if she had lost her connection to the Mother, but she knew better. It was the invaders. They had wounded the Mother and in so doing had weakened her as well.

Still, she would end them and the disease they brought with them.

Cullen felt the ground move again, and saw the great extensions of the Mother-Vine shift and break free of the earth. The ground shook, the dirt exploded, the vines seethed and whipped through the air, countless tendrils extending as they prepared to cut the enemies of Trecharch apart.

Cullen’s heart soared. She had heard of the Mother-Vine moving, of course. She understood that the Walking Trees did not walk without her; still, this was a different thing, a far greater challenge.

Several of the grayskins jumped and ran as thick vines thrashed and whipped toward them. As she watched one of the bastards cleaved a tendril away as if cutting a snake in half. Another was not as lucky and grunted as the vine captured him and squeezed. Bones broke, flesh soon followed and the attacker died without uttering another noise.

The Mother-Vine moved again, and more of the earth broke as the roots slipped from where they had rested comfortably for centuries, spraying dirt and rocks and anything else in their way through the air.

Cullen allowed herself a moment to smile.

The Mother-Vine provides, indeed.

The rain of arrows that came down initially was impressive. Tusk felt them thud against his shield and bounce off his helmet in a clatter that nearly deafened him. Beneath him Brodem roared and growled and ran harder, faster, covering territory in leaps almost strong enough to unseat him.

Brodem was wise. He ran hard and soon they were away from the worst of the volleys of arrows. Tusk’s arm was pierced in two separate spots where the shield was not enough. His helmet, made of bone and good steel, held up better.

Behind him his people returned fire, sending their own hail of arrows toward their enemies. That was what he commanded and that was what they did.

And through it all, his heart soared.

The Daxar Taalor had given him a command and he would obey or die trying. Durhallem said to kill a god and so he would go and kill a god. It was not for him to question how the deed would be done. He would take care of that when the time came.

He could see the god. The great “Mother-Vine” of the local people. He could also see that the vine was already dying. Glo’Hosht was a gifted murderer. The King in Mercury was moved on already, going toward the next stage of the Great Wave, leaving Mother-Vine to Tusk. Tusk was not a merciful man any more than Durhallem was a merciful god.

When he approached the vast tower he saw the gates had been sealed. He did not have time to batter down the gates himself, and he did not much care for the odds. The trees here were on a scale he had never seen before and the wood was likely as hard as iron.

That left him only one option. He muttered a command in Brodem’s ear and the great mount turned, charging toward the Mother-Vine and climbing quickly. Perhaps for the locals the notion of scaling a nearly sheer surface was something unheard of. Surely he saw no trails along the side of the mountainous column of green, but both Tuskandru and Brodem had scaled the side of Durhallem a thousand times, and while the texture was different, the climb itself was not so far from what they were used to. Brodem extended his claws and dug deep into the hard vine. Tusk clung to Brodem and called encouragement as the mount rose higher and higher into the heavy green foliage.

Further up he could see where the poisons were having their impact on the great vine. Here it still seemed healthy enough.

He would do what he could to handle that matter, though if he were completely honest Tusk had troubles deciding which of his weapons would serve him best.

Brodem let out a grunt and slid back a few paces. Tusk saw the arrow in his mount’s shoulder and sneered. A cowardly attack. His eyes surveyed the area and he saw the archer easily enough. He was suspended on one of the branches above them, and had already drawn another arrow.

Tusk rolled from Brodem’s back and caught himself on the angle of the vast plant’s surface. “Go, Brodem! Kill him!”

Brodem did not hesitate, but instead charged, moving faster than before now that he was unencumbered. The arrow the archer fired would have hit if Tusk had stayed with his friend, but unburdened, the mount was fast enough to dodge the bolt and, more importantly, clear the distance before the archer could draw again.

While the fool screamed and Brodem killed, Tusk looked at the stone wall not far away.

The Mother-Vine and the tower were mated. That was not an accident. He understood that instantly. In each of the Seven Forges the Daxar Taalor offered a place where their followers could join with them to communicate freely and feel the pure presence of the deities. That, too, was not an accident.

Tusk assessed the tower and the vine and moved, sliding sideways at first and then reaching the great tower itself. Where vine and stone met there were many footholds. He took advantage of them and began climbing in earnest.

Far below archers and warriors fought and died. Not far away Brodem killed and then ate and would have come to him if he’d called, but when a god makes demands it is often a personal challenge and best faced alone.

The climb was hard, but there were no challengers.

Below him his people climbed the tower and the vine alike and followed the orders they had been given. They cut the vine and made it bleed its clear sap. Then they descended again. He did not see Brodem. He did not look. The mount would do his part.

When Tusk climbed to the highest of the few balconies, he felt in his heart that this was the way, the right choice. It was not instinct alone that drove him, but the sure knowledge that Durhallem guided his actions. He was the King in Obsidian, Chosen of Durhallem. He was the divine sword of his god until such time as his god chose another.

He did not believe today would be the day his replacement was found.

The stone balcony held his weight with ease and he stepped inside a chamber filled with lovely decorations and exactly two people. There was an old man, who was currently aiming a spear at him, and a young girl who looked at him with terror in her eyes.

The situation was simple: the old man would die for the girl. He would fight and he would die in an effort to see her safe and protected.

Tusk moved quickly, drawing his heaviest axe in one swift motion and dancing past the spear thrust the man aimed toward him. It was a good attempt, but the man was old and unpracticed. He was soft in a way that Sa’ba Taalor had never been allowed to be soft and it cost him dearly.

The axe came down on the side of the man’s face and through him as if he were a log to split. The spear fell from a lifeless hand and clattered across the ground.

The girl opened her mouth to scream and ran for an open doorway.

Tusk followed her and struck the back of her skull with his axe. The blow was not perfect, but it was enough She fell atop the stairs with a hole in the back of her head. Just to be certain, he drove one of his daggers through her neck.

After that he headed up the stairs.

Durhallem told him which way to go and he obeyed.

The view was not remarkable.

A woman in a white gown stood in the small room and shuddered; her body twitched and danced as if she were poisoned and dying of fits.

Her arm was lost in the wood of the Mother-Vine and Tusk understood all he needed to know in that moment. This was the god he was meant to slay. The vine and the woman were one, at least at this time. He felt vibrations moving through the ground beneath his feet and knew that his time was limited.

Durhallem spoke to him, made clear that the God-Vine was attacking, would kill his people if he did not strike.

When he spoke, it was not with his tongue. Durhallem said, “We end this now. You die as you should have so long ago.”

The woman looked toward him. Her eyes were the same color green as the Mother-Vine’s most perfect foliage. There had been a time when he was younger that Durhallem had awarded him with an obsidian blade. The sword he’d made with it had killed many foes and had even helped him kill a Mound Crawler in his youth. It was that blade he used to hack the woman apart. His first blow cut her arm away from the rest of her body. The rest of his strikes severed her head, her arms, her legs, and her torso.

Each cut was directed by Durhallem.

Tuskandru was the Chosen of the Forge of Durhallem and King in Obsidian. He was the instrument of his god’s fury.

Durhallem was called the Wounder because of his lack of mercy.

Tusk was a perfect instrument.

Cullen felt the earth shake again and her smile fell away. This was not the same. This was so very different. The ground shook and seized and the great roots of the Mother-Vine tore free of the earth and shredded themselves in the process. Those roots had rested in the same spot for centuries, since before the fall of Korwa, since before the Cataclysm.

The mountains were constant. The rivers were eternal. The Mother-Vine was immortal.

And then, suddenly, the Mother-Vine was dead.

There could be no denying what she saw. The roots split as they came from the earth and pulled down structures and smaller trees alike. The other trees, the Sentinels, might well have fallen down, too, had they not been so deeply rooted themselves.

Above Cullen the trees screamed as the Mother-Vine that had fed them and provided, always provided, died. The great trunk blackened and rivers of sap flowed from the areas where the grayskins had cut her before.

The Mother-Vine died before her eyes.

Cullen watched it all with unseeing eyes. She stared at the impossible and her mind refused to accept it. A tree fell to her left and would have crushed her had it not rebounded off another tree instead.

The great storm clouds grew darker as the sun set and still Cullen did not move.

In the darkness of a night too impossible to believe, Cullen heard the sounds of the guards within Orrander’s Tower screaming as they died. When the gateway was opened it was not the guards who came out, but the grayskins. A hundred of them spilled out, likely the very ones she had earlier seen scaling the sides of the tower.

She should have helped her people.

She should have tried to save them.

Instead Cullen had merely watched as her god died and her people followed suit.

She was still watching when the grayskins dragged barrels of oil from the tower’s supplies to the base of the Mother-Vine. The fire did not take long to light.

She was still watching when the Mother burned.

She was not certain if she would ever move again.

Seven

When the sound came it was worse than Tega had ever imagined possible. Above, in the ruins of the Mounds, the roaring note was enough to nearly deafen and to shake her teeth in their sockets. Here, deep within the endless night of whatever it was they were exploring, all possible thought was blown from her by the noise. It was everywhere and pervasive, a deep note that made her body feel like water and her bones like twigs resting under a boulder. She closed her eyes for fear that if she left them open her eyes would leak out of her skull.

How long did the note sound? There was simply no way to know for certain. There was no reference beyond the overpowering vibration.

When the noise faded away she knew it mostly because her insides no longer trembled. Her ears felt packed with mud and no sound seemed capable of reaching her.

The ledge they were walking along did not seem to notice the noise at all, for which she was very grateful. They’d traveled for… hours? A day? A week? Certainly for some time now, and while they were making progress toward the great light source below, it was still far enough away that they could not make out exactly what it was they were descending toward.

Still, the more they moved, the more certain Tega grew that this was, indeed, the remains of Korwa. There were structures here. Not merely occasional formations, but actual structures. They were broken, they were burnt, they were fused with the sand and the endless columns of glass and other items, but there were structures. Even if it was not Korwa, something vast had been here once and the specters of the people were still suspended in prisons of melted sand.

From time to time she saw one of the dead in their half-hidden, shadowy tombs and could almost believe that the frozen, ruined things were looking back at her, their eyes following as she moved along.

Desh Krohan had long since taught her the importance of a rational mind; still, the skin along her neck crawled when she looked at the frozen dead.

Not far ahead of her Vonders Orly was muttering and shaking his head. She suspected he was still in awe. He and his kind had long been treasure seekers and now, when there were treasures aplenty, he had little time to dig for them. Among the numerous dead there seemed an endless supply of gems and gold locked forever in the pillars of glass.

When the hand grabbed her shoulder Tega did not flinch. She had been trained better than that. Instead she focused her attention and prepared to unleash a defense if she needed to.

Nolan March was yelling. She could tell by the way his mouth contorted, the cords in his neck standing out, and she was able to make out what he said, but just barely. “Be careful! You’re too close to the edge!”

Tega started. The man was right. She’d been looking at the columns, at the frozen dead, and had let herself get distracted.

Nolan gestured for her to move further from the edge and called for the others as well.

It was only then that she understood how dazed she was by the sound. It was like a physical beating. Her ears were ringing constantly, and her body ached.

Nolan gestured for all of them to sit and sorted through his bag until he found dried fruit for all of them to chew. The food was sweet and stuck to her teeth, but the act of eating seemed to help: her ears popped and her hearing was at least partially restored.

Tolpen worked his jaw a few times and seemed satisfied with whatever he was managing in the process. When he spoke it was too loud, but that was better than hearing nothing.

“This is madness. We’ve been traveling for… well, it’s got to be more than a day, and I don’t feel like we’re getting anywhere.”

“What else is there for it?” Nolan frowned. “We’ve orders and we need to follow through with them. Whatever is down there might be the only way to stop the Sa’ba Taalor.”

“It might also be a brilliant way to get ourselves killed.” Vonders spoke while using a small knife to worry at something stuck in the wall. Whatever it was shone with a dull metal glow in the dim light from below.

Tolpen sighed. “Same could be said of overburdening yourself with every shiny lump you find, and yet you keep going.”

Vonders shrugged and then sighed when the lump popped free from the wall. “Whatever it is, it’s gold. I’ll take that when I can find it.” He found a pocket in his cloak and hid his new nugget away.

“We have to continue on,” Tega said as clearly as she could through the ringing in her head. “We have to find out what is down there and report back to Desh and the Empress, because that is what we’ve been told to do. If there’s a chance we can find out what it is that so worries the Sa’ba Taalor, it’ll be worth what we’ve been through.”

She hoped that was true. There were deaths on her conscience. Three men were dead as a result of the expedition that she was in charge of.

“Even if we find the information, how will we get it to them?” Vonders eyed her warily. “Will you use your magic to contact them?”

There had been a few incidents with her sorcery. She would admit that easily; the result was that the men with her were understandably cautious about her attempting anything.

“I’ve communicated with Desh several times already. It’s not a difficult thing and, well, speaking with him from a distance doesn’t risk–”

“Causing anything to die a horrible, violent death?” Nolan’s voice held an edge and also taunted. He was doing his best to deal with what had happened, but she knew well enough that he wasn't fond of sorcery. He’d made that point clear a few times already.

“Just so.” She nodded her head.

“In any event, I think we are almost there,” Nolan continued. “Another day and we’ll find our way to the bottom of this chasm. Or at least we’ll be close enough to know what it is we are looking at.”

Tega thought she saw something from the corner of her eye and looked out toward the darkness beyond the ledge.

There was nothing to see but darkness and the dim light from below. She could almost make out the far side of the pit if she strained, but the illumination wasn't quite strong enough.

“You always talk like you’re in charge here, Nolan. You’re not. You know that don’t you?” Vonders spoke without any actual rancor, a smirk on his lips as he scrutinized another spot on the wall.

Nolan shook his head. “I never said I was. I’m just reminding you that we’re here because the Empress and her advisors demanded it.”

“Oh, I know, I just like giving you–”

Vonders stopped speaking and turned his head quickly, eyeing the darkness.

“Did you hear anything?”

Tolpen shook his head. “I can barely hear you blabbering on.”

Tega still looked into the darkness. Something flitted past too fast to see clearly and she shook her head and raised one hand. “There’s something moving out there.”

“Certainly we’re in an area where bats could be, I suppose.” Vonders frowned as he spoke. “Don’t know what time of day it is. If the sun’s setting I would expect bats to leave from a cave this deep.”

“There’re no bats here,” Nolan said. “If there were, we’d have seen them by now or at least heard them.”

When the dirt and rocks fell from above they all caught the motion this time. It wasn't an avalanche, only a scattering of debris, but it was real, and they all saw it.

“Gods, what if this place collapses?” Vonders stood quickly, his little carving knife clenched in his hand like a sword.

Tega made herself stand up, and Nolan and Tolpen followed suit. Tolpen took the time to lock a bolt into his crossbow. He was, without a doubt, the best of them with a ranged weapon, but a standard bow would be of no use in the area where they stood.

A heavier collection of dirt and pebbles cascaded past them, and Vonders wandered closer to the ledge, looking up.

“Damn me!” He jumped back quickly and something roared as it moved toward them.

“Shoot it! Shoot it, Tolpen!”

“Shoot what? Get out of the way!”

Vonders backed toward them and Nolan had to step out of his way or risk getting knocked off his feet.

Tolpen raised his crossbow and sighted properly, but there was nothing to see.

Until the moment that there was. Whatever the thing might be it was immense, and it had a mouth full of teeth that looked like they should be used as the blades of swords.

The first thing they saw was a hand-like paw complete with several heavy claws. Tega stared at those thin fingers for a second and shook her head because they made no sense whatsoever. To be sure the claws looked impressive enough with their long hooked ends, but they were really rather on the small side. When the second hand showed up she frowned. It was a perfect duplicate of the first. Not a mirror, not a left mate to go with the right hand, but a perfect duplicate.

When the third showed up – this one missing a finger and a half in an old wound that had long since healed – she shook her head and started to ask if the others were seeing the same thing. The rattling of the great noise earlier might have shaken a few of her senses loose.

Then the head came into view. It was a massive thing, easily as long as her wagon had been, with barbs thrusting away from a scaly mouth filled with teeth of preposterous size.

After the teeth she didn’t pay much attention to any other details, except that those teeth were bared and the mouth was making hungry noises.

Nothing that large should have been able to move at that speed. The entire head moved as fast as a freshly launched arrow and narrowly missed eating Vonders. The only reason the man lived was because Nolan hauled him backward as he retreated himself. Vonders, like Tega herself, was staring with wide eyes at the impossible sight.

Tolpen’s crossbow bolt bounced off the side of the thing’s face and sailed into the darkness beyond.

Nolan cursed and pulled his axe free. The motion was small, but enough to catch the beast’s attention. More of the immense thing crept into the resting area and Tega and Vonders retreated while Tolpen pulled a curved blade from his hip. He moved the opposite direction to Nolan and the head of the thing swayed left and right, looking at both of them as best it could. It had the eyes of a predator – two enormous eyes to match the rest of the head – but Tega couldn’t actually tell if it could see with those eyes or if it was, in fact, blind and was somehow registering their movements with another sense. The eyes had no color at all. They were as dead white as the rest of the thing.

A hideous rattling noise came from the throat of the beast as it slithered forward. There were more hands, far too many, and those hands sought out places to grip the stone as it moved more of its bulk onto their ledge.

Nolan ran hard at the thing, screaming, and it whipped its head toward him, opening that impossible maw. He brought down his axe with all of his body in the swing and roared as he chopped. The blade nearly bounced. For a second Tega thought it would surely be knocked aside as easily as the crossbow bolt had been, but the scaly hide bent a bit and then the skin broke and blood welled out of the wound.

Nolan danced back as the thing flinched and then shrieked. The noise seemed too loud to be real and too high-pitched for a brute that size. Spittle painted Nolan’s face and torso and his hair whipped back from his face. He moved as fast as he could manage and then blocked with his axe when the mouth came for him. The second axe blow had little effect save to stop him from being eaten alive.

Tolpen’s blade slashed across the neck of the thing and it let out another shriek as it was wounded.

Rather than retreat, however, the damned thing continued to spill onto their ledge from above.

Mound Crawler. She understood that intellectually, but Tega never expected to see one in reality. The arms of the thing were like the legs of a centipede. There were so many of them that they didn’t make sense. The body was semiserpentine. It had a backbone that moved too easily for any mammal she had ever seen and it had folds of loose, scaled hide that reminded her of several different species of lizard – but it was built the wrong way, like everything in the Blasted Lands seemed to be malformed.

Tolpen swept his sword around a second time and backed away as the thing came for him. More of it landed on the ledge, and Tega genuinely feared that the ledge would collapse under them if it kept coming.

Nolan brought his axe down on one of the arms and severed it completely. The limb flopped to the dirt and the Mound Crawler let out another shriek and swept several of the arms on that side toward him.

Nolan backed up and hissed as one of the claws ripped into the meat of his thigh.

Tolpen cut at the oversized face again, drawing blood.

And then the Mound Crawler lunged toward him and bit his arm and his head and his torso in one massive bite. The sound of those teeth coming together was a noise Tega would never forget. Tolpen never had a chance to scream. He surely died instantly. The sword in his hand punched through the roof of the demon’s mouth and through the nasal passage and it shook its head back and forth in an effort to escape the pain.

The first thrash of its head slapped the rest of Tolpen off the side of the ledge and spilled him toward the lights they had been seeking.

Nolan let out a shriek of his own and swung the axe again and again, hacking into the neck of the monster. Each blow opened a wound, but each wound seemed so damnably small. The thing kept coming and seemed like it would never stop.

Vonders stood next to Tega and looked at the Crawler, unable to draw his eyes from it. He did not move. He barely seemed to breathe.

Tega pushed at him. “Help Nolan!” her voice sounded too high, too tight in her throat.

Vonders nodded and moved forward, his hand still clutching his digging knife.

“Use your sword, man!”

Nolan was bleeding freely from his leg. He didn’t seem to notice. His hands held to his axe and he brought it around in a hard arc, swinging once more with his entire body. The blow would surely have killed a man but the Mound Crawler merely flinched and kept moving onto the ledge, an endless run of arm-legs carrying the impossible shape. Each ended in a hand that seemed so small in comparison to the body. Had they not been close to death, Tega might have laughed. She felt an edge of mad giddiness trying to start her giggling. She refused to let that madness have her, and instead focused on trying to summon her power without blowing the whole lot of them into bloody mist.

The last two times she’d done this, she’d wounded her own. That thought wrapped around her neck like a slaver’s collar and crushed her down.

Nolan danced aside as the great head of the beast whipped around and it came for him.

That little digging blade of Vonders’ punched through one of the great, colorless eyes of the Mound Crawler. Vile fluids blasted out from the wound and painted half of his body.

And the great beast slapped him aside as it screamed and did what it could to get free of the newest pain.

Vonders bounced across the floor of the ledge and clutched desperately at the edge, his eyes no longer wide, but closed in desperate prayer as the bulk of the monster moved toward him and the lower half of his body vanished over the edge, hanging into the darkness.

Drask watched the Mound Crawler as it moved, the seemingly infinite hands of the beast clutching at the wall and holding as well as a spider would.

The Fellein on the ledge reacted much as he would have expected, with screams and wild flailing swings of weapons.

It didn’t look like the ones he’d seen in the past. Then again, the damned things were like the Broken: no two were the same.

He did nothing. It was not his place to do anything. The gods had told him to watch and nothing else. If the Daxar Taalor told him to kill the beast he would do all that he could. If they told him to kill the Fellein the response would be the same.

Instead he watched as the first of the men was cut into pieces and cast aside. He allowed himself a small smile when the sword of the man who died impaled the roof of the Crawler’s mouth.

His head still ached from the last great noise. The air had shook before him. His eyes had grown blurry, as if he’d been watching vibrations in a previously still pond. There had been a moment when he’d thought his bones might grind themselves into powder and then Ydramil’s voice had soothed him and a moment later the pain had gone away.

Just in time to let him avoid the Mound Crawler. It had been descending the side of the chasm and had stopped for the great sound. Once the noise had run its course the thing had started moving again. Drask had slipped sideways along the narrow lip of stone where he’d been perched and watched as it moved past him and straight for the fools chattering away on the ledge.

Tega was in there. He knew the girl, knew she was apprentice to the wizard, Desh Krohan, but she did nothing to stop the Mound Crawler though he had seen her do tremendous damage to one of the Broken.

The one who kept picking at the dirt was knocked halfway from the ledge after striking the first significant blow against the Crawler. He did not try to crawl back up the ledge, but instead held on and closed his eyes.

Perhaps he was praying to one of his gods. If so, Drask doubted the effort would do him much good. The Daxar Taalor would have ignored that sort of desperation. You took care of your challenges yourself or you died. That was the way of the Sa’ba Taalor and their gods.

The other man in the group let out another scream and jumped on top of the Mound Crawler’s neck. He planted his feet wide apart and drove the axe’s narrower blade into the top of the Crawler’s head.

Then he got lucky, and as the Crawler reacted by driving its head upward in an effort to shake the pain loose, he fell to the side and rolled toward the distant wall instead of falling the other way and rolling off the ledge.

Lucky. There was no skill in the action. In fact the young man seemed less like a fighter and more like an animal. He was losing control of himself. Tuskandru and a few of his people would argue the advantage of going battle-mad, but Drask preferred to remain calm. Also, Tusk had the skill to carry off an occasional moment of berserk rage. This one? No. He was lucky.

Luck seldom lasts forever.

Drask watched on, assessing the skills of his enemies.

When the time came, if he had to, he would strike and he would kill using all that he learned by observing.

Assuming any of them were left to kill, of course.

Nolan felt no pain. He was too angry to feel much of anything.

His father, Wollis, had always warned him about losing control. All his life he had learned to use weapons on the rare occasions when his father was home and he’d practiced regularly, the better to show the man what he had learned when he came back to visit, and when they’d sparred, Wollis had easily beaten him again and again. There were words of encouragement and words of caution and the latter always focused on keeping his calm when he fought. It was a lesson Nolan had never really learned very well.

The problem was simple enough, really: there was no one to spar with on the farm, save his mother. And while Dretta March could hold a sword and fight well enough, she would always let her son win in their tests. She never quite had it in her to fight him with all she had.

So when Wollis came home, Nolan tended to expect an easy win and his father never let him win to soothe his ego. His father fought as if his life depended on it.

Nolan was beginning to appreciate his father’s philosophy. His axe was currently sticking from the scalp of the nightmare that had just thrown him. The handle, long enough to allow a proper two-handed swing, looked like a twig while sticking from the damned thing’s scalp.

He drew the short sword at his side. There was no choice. He preferred the axe, but it seemed unlikely that the beast would let him take it back without trying to kill him.

Vonders was slowly pulling himself back to the ledge, his eyes once again open and wide. His face was a shade of white that might have been from the nasty paste from the monster’s eye or simple shock from the combat, but either way the man was trying to gain his footing.

Nolan intended to help if he could.

He let out a battle cry and charged at the demon. It lunged and snapped at him with its bloodied maw.

Nolan managed a decent cut across the thing’s brow and it turned its head to better see him with its remaining eye. His position didn’t allow another effective sword stroke, so instead he drove his knee into the exposed eye of the thing as it moved toward him.

The thing let out a yowlp and he skipped back, swinging the sword. If he could blind it completely he might be able to do something with it.

Too fast, it was out of his way and that great head was coming for him again. Nolan dropped to the ground, his back slamming into the hard rock as the massive open mouth snapped shut where he had been standing.

A beard of heavy barbs ran under the chin, thick needles of cartilage and scales, and he rolled to the side rather than let himself get impaled on the points.

The thing let out a bellow of steaming hot air through its nostrils and blew a gout of bloodied mist out at the same time. Tolpen’s sword was still jammed through the inside of its mouth causing harm. Good. Let it fester and kill the bastardly thing.

Only let it happen sooner rather than later.

He crawled to his hands and knees and scrambled toward the back wall of the ledge, as the thing started coughing and then looked for him with its one good, if watery, eye.

Nolan stared at the wounded beast. Perspective was a curse in this case, not a blessing. The monster was wounded, yes, but the wounds were tiny in comparison. Though it had lost use of one eye, and was bleeding in several locations, there was no danger of the damned thing dying any time soon.

He looked toward Tega.

“Will you kindly kill this thing?” It was as close as he could be to polite at the moment. In response to his voice the great head of the thing shifted and the one working eye scanned around him. The functioning eye was half-closed and watering heavily. Still, that teary orb focused on him and the great mouth under it opened again.

Behind the great beast, Vonders finally managed to pull himself back to the ledge and scrabbled away from the precipice, eyeing the beast warily and saying nothing. He had no weapons left on him that Nolan could see.

He was alive. That was something.

Tega moved her hands in a gesture that looked almost like she was brushing crumbs from her blouse. A moment later the monster let out another tremendous shriek and backed away, shaking its head. The flesh on the thing’s muzzle was changing color, and parts of that altered skin were frozen, motionless despite the panicked expression on the rest of the vast face.

The thing backed further away and let out another loud noise as more of its bulk slipped from the ledge and it retreated, shaking its head from side to side in the narrow area. Vonders was knocked from his feet and sent stumbling but happily did not fall in the wrong direction this time.

Gravity might well have done the rest. The vast shape of the thing vanished from sight, and a cascade of rocks and dirt fell down again. Nolan couldn’t tell if it had fallen or merely retreated.

He looked into the darkness beyond the ledge but did not follow.

“What did you do to it?” Vonders asked as he rose to his feet. Nolan could now see that his body was covered in whatever passed for blood and the fluids from the monster’s eye.

Tega looked at him for a moment and shrugged. “The same thing I did to our rope anchor and arrow. I made it harder than it was.”

Nolan shuddered at the very notion. She’d turned the damned thing to stone, or close enough at least.

Vonders was staring at Tega as if she had answered all of his prayers – and perhaps she had.

Nolan chose not to look at her for a while and instead focused on what might come at them from the darkness. He wasn’t sure which scared him more, the girl or the unknown.

He wasn't completely certain there was a difference.

Eight

Desh Krohan looked around the chamber and struggled to remember why he was there.

Grief was a crippler, to be sure. He hadn’t felt completely himself since Pathra’s murder and now, with Pella gone, he felt drained of all vitality.

Mourning was a luxury he wasn’t certain he could afford.

“Desh?” Nachia’s voice cut through his clouded thought.

“Yes, Majesty?”

There were only a scattered few in the room. All of them were looking at him with expectant expressions.

“You were going to tell us of Trecharch?”

“Ah. Yes. The kingdom has fallen. Queen Parlu and Lemilla, her heir, are both dead. The Mother-Vine is gone. Destroyed. Pella is on her way back. She’ll have more details. She observed the entire affair.” His lips felt numb. He expected that was a bad thing, but couldn’t seem to make himself care.

Goriah was dead.

He’d have to see if he could do anything about that.

All around him the people in the room stirred, shocked by the news. They’d known it was a possibility, but, really, no one had expected the Sa’ba Taalor to be so damnably efficient at overthrowing an entire nation.

“My troops are still three days out at the very least, and that’s with a forced march.” Merros Dulver looked around the room at the other military leaders under him. None of them were happy with the current situation. How could they be? The first major campaign of their military careers had just ended in a savage defeat.

Nachia spoke from her seat on the throne. “This is unacceptable.” Her voice trembled with suppressed emotions. Rage, sorrow, shock. “Find the Sa’ba Taalor who did this. Destroy them.”

Her anger was enough to drag Desh from the grief that was pulling at him.

“There are other considerations, Majesty. We will soon have more refugees coming here. They’ll be running from the Sa’ba Taalor and they’ll come this way seeking safety and shelter.”

Merros spoke up. “They’ll also be followed by the enemy. There’s every reason to believe the war will come to us sooner rather than later.”

“Are you sure about that, Merros?” Desh frowned. “Aren’t there other areas they might consider?”

“They might very well, but why would they? Do they intend to cut off our food supplies? No. There are too many accesses to this city. They have black ships on the waters of the Freeholdt, according to the latest reports. I don’t know if their ships can actually ride the Freeholdt all the way to the Jeurgis, but even if they can’t, if those ships are carrying supplies, or even worse, troops, they’ll be able to come at us from at least two different directions.”

Merros stood up and spread his arms. “The nearest area we could draw reinforcements from was Tyrne, but those troops are already here. That would give us an advantage if I hadn’t been obligated to send so many to Trecharch. Even if they turn around now, they’ll only be a day or two ahead of the refugees and the enemy.”

Desh nodded.

Nachia frowned. “So what do we do now? You’re my advisors. Advise me.”

Merros answered immediately. “We have to prevent them from reaching us from every possible angle. If they lay siege to us, we can hold out for a very long time, but the people in the areas outside the city walls will not last, and while we have food for the city proper, we can’t feed refugees from three separate areas and the people of Canhoon, too.”

Desh interrupted, “We have… surprising levels of food supplies. I shouldn’t worry too much there. We are also doing what we can to prepare for extra people. A lot of extra people.”

“The city is large, Desh, but it is not large enough to accommodate all of Trecharch.”

Desh looked at the general for a while and suppressed a smile. “You’d be surprised, lad.”

Merros, who looked as old as Desh but knew better than to think he was anywhere close to the same age, bit his tongue at being called a lad.

Desh gave him credit for that, and also reminded himself to afford the man the proper respect, especially in front of his peers. It was all right to be friendly in private, but in public Merros Dulver was in charge of the entire Imperial Army. That afforded him a great deal of respect.

Nachia stood up and started pacing. Her hair was loose and moved like a cloud around her head in the high humidity. She was, once again, dressed for comfort. Part of the sorcerer wanted to chide her about appearances but he was wise enough to keep his opinions to himself. This was neither the right place nor time for it.

“Desh, find the latest news. Use your Sooth or whatever they are called. Merros, take his advice into consideration and prepare for a siege. I would rather avoid a siege, but we will prepare for it nonetheless.”

She skewered the general with her glance. “And while you are doing that, devise a good battle plan. If we’re at war I have no intention of sitting here and waiting for the bastards to come to us. Find out where they are. Find out where they are going. Find out how to kill them.”

She paced a few more small circuits in front of the throne and then looked at them. “Now. Do it now.”

That ended the meeting. Desh left to head for his chambers and to call upon the Sooth, dreading the very idea.

Merros wandered down the streets between the palace and Dretta’s place with his heart thumping too hard in his chest. The last time he’d been by to see her, he had not found her at home. He had no right to fret over such things. They had not made plans of any sort, and yet he found the idea of her not being home worrisome.

He found he thought about her far too often.

That was a problem.

He was supposed to be considering how best to repel the enemies of the Empire. He had armies to move and command and prepare for battle. The majority of the infantry he dealt with were hardly in any shape to fight and kill the Sa’ba Taalor. Most would more likely be cut down before they were old enough to grow full beards.

On that and a few other subjects he could not easily speak to Dretta. He had grown to trust her, of course, that was not the problem. The problem was that her son was one of the young men under his command, and neither Nolan March nor Tega had been reachable by any means, not even sorcerous, for over two days.

He wanted to see Dretta.

He wanted to be honest with her.

He also did not like the idea of being in the same room when she found out that she had effectively lost her only son.

The woman was enchanting – he pushed that thought down roughly. She was Wollis’s widow, after all – but she was also a bit on the terrifying side. He could take her in a fight. No worries there. After seeing Swech and Jost and Ehnole and a few other women of the Sa’ba Taalor, he understood all too well that the tendencies in Fellein to shelter women from harm were probably not the wisest. The enemy had twice as many soldiers automatically and their women fought as well as their male counterparts.

Dretta could handle herself. He had no doubt of it. She’d been with Wollis and he’d made his son learn to do so at an early age and his wife, too. The northerners from his area were brutal. Stonehaven raised only strong people, and when the army took the younger men it wasn't uncommon for the women in the area to work the quarries. Dretta was strong and capable.

The problem was not whether or not he could actually handle her in a skirmish if she decided he had taken enough from her with her husband. No, the problem was he didn’t think he could raise a hand against the woman no matter what the circumstance.

That notion merely made him more uncomfortable.

The hairs on his neck rose.

The air was not precisely cold, but his flesh goosepimpled just the same.

Likely he was being watched. First rule of surviving in a war or a skirmish was simple: trust your instincts.

Instead of moving toward Dretta’s house and checking on her, Merros moved on, his hand resting easily on the hilt of his sword.

It was possible that he was being paranoid. He might even be finding excuses for avoiding Dretta, though he doubted that.

It was just as likely that someone was waiting for a time when they could find the general alone and do him harm. There was a war going on and a lot of the people thought the war was his doing. They didn’t say it to his face, but he’d heard about it just the same. Merros brought the Sa’ba Taalor to Tyrne. The same grayskinned foreigners assassinated Emperor Pathra Krous. They were destroying Trecharch (had destroyed it already, though few knew that yet) and the victims of the Sa’ba Taalor were already overflowing the streets in some parts of Canhoon.

Merros was not popular with everyone and he knew it.

There just wasn't much he could do about it.

He moved away from Dretta’s place and felt his teeth grind together a bit. He’d planned to see her, to talk with her. The need to see her was almost as strong as the need to breathe. He tried not to notice that fact and instead moved a bit faster.

The slightest chance that someone would follow him and be led to her, putting her in danger, was unacceptable. It was his own desire to see her safe that kept him from her. He would not have anyone he cared for endangered because of his position. Better to keep away and be safe.

“Foolishness,” he said and walked faster.

It was just as well. He needed to get sleep.

The walk home was uneventful, but it took a while before the feeling that he was being watched faded away.

Swech watched Merros Dulver from the rooftops. There was an abundance of houses here, but few of them had much land. The city was old, and over time finances changed and people changed, too. Farmers no longer farmed here. Instead they sold off pieces of land and lived off the profits.

As a person who was now buying large pieces of property in the city herself, Swech had quickly come to understand the preposterous cost of a small hovel to call your own. The Fellein would need places to live while her people drove them from other areas. They would come here, at least according to the gods. The gods knew better than she. That was why they were gods.

Killing Merros would have been easy. Every time she saw him she was reminded of that fact. She remained thankful that the Daxar Taalor seemed to want him alive for now.

There were others, however, that they wanted dead. That was why she was moving along the roofs of the city long after the sun had set. Kallider came toward her. He was wise enough to make sure she spotted him. It was never in one’s best interest to startle a Sa’ba Taalor.

“They are coming.” He pointed with his chin toward the distant river.

“Our people? Or the ones we are supposed to kill?” Kallider seemed skilled enough in the ways of combat. He most assuredly would not have been chosen by the gods if he were not, but his ability to communicate concisely was questionable.

“What?” He frowned. “Oh. The ones we are supposed to kill.”

“Well then, we should be about that. Lead the way.”

One last glance down. Merros Dulver moved around a corner and faded from her view.

Kallider started along the roof, placing his feet carefully and stepping with the light grace of a natural hunter. Swech followed, very aware that a wrong move would topple her over the side of the four-story structure and down to the cobblestones below.

The jaunt was a short one and at the end of it Kallider scuttled down a corner of one of the buildings that had a preposterous amount of decorative work. She followed suit and made note of the location. It would make climbing easier if she had to reach the rooftops in the near future.

Initially Kallider had asked her why she chose to move along the rooftops but he understood quickly enough. No one else moved up there. No one else considered climbing to the tops of the angled roofs. The fall was deadly. There were advantages, however. With a little practice Swech had quickly learned the routes of several important figures that she was supposed to watch, and she had also learned the easiest access points to their homes.

She was rapidly becoming adept at walking where most of the Fellein would never consider going. There were exceptions, of course. One foolish man had spotted her and tried to sound an alarm. His body was found at the docks a few days later.

They moved quickly and as they moved the rains started again. That was a blessing and a curse alike, but one she took in her stride. The rains were cleansing. The rains also tended to make many of her targets run and hide as if they might melt were the water to strike them.

The men she was after this time would likely not care. They were cutthroats and scavengers. They were godless murderers who killed for profit.

In short, they were fighters.

She could respect that.

The rains came down harder, chilling the air and soaking her clothes to her body. The cloak she was wearing was light, but the water made it cumbersome. There were advantages to cloaks, but those were lost quickly if the fabric was sodden. The cloak came off and was set in the alleyway nearest their destination. Kallider kept his cloak on, shoving the watery wings of it back away from his arms.

Her skin was paler than his, and so she chose to hide most of it behind a thin veil. The fabric was little more than gauze, but hid her nose and mouth away. Shadows were a blessing of the gods, as were most things. Taking advantage of those blessings was part of a lifetime of training.

Kallider moved ahead of her and examined the ground carefully. While he did that she surveyed the alleys and streets along the edge of the docks. As expected, the rain had driven most people away.

The exceptions were the ones coming off the small ship that was currently unloading cargo and passengers alike.

A red-haired man with a predatory grin was holding court with the City Guard in the area. He had a hat in his left hand and she could see by the way he carried it that he was concealing something: very likely a small blade, to help him out of a mess if the negotiations failed. She had been among the Fellein long enough to understand that he was bargaining with the Guard. For the right amount of coin they would look the other way. She wasn’t completely certain of all that was gained by the action until she accessed her host’s memories. No taxes or levies paid on the materials brought into the city and no one learned of the passengers and what they were doing there.

She already knew about them. The gods had demanded their deaths. That was enough for her.

Kallider stayed exactly where he was, waiting for her signal.

She made him wait for several long minutes while the man smiled and talked of how many coins he would have to give up.

Finally, after too long spent soaking in the rain and watching her targets gather and prepare to move on, the City Guard with the most rank on his shoulder held out his hand and watched while the negotiator offered several small silver pieces.

Time at last to do what the gods demanded.

The thought brought a smile to her face.

Captain Callan shook his head and avoided spitting with only the most meticulous self-control. He’d have been better off dealing with brigands on the road than the City Guard. At least the brigands were honest about their intentions.

Still, he was being paid handsomely enough, he supposed.

Seeing the attackers was purely an accident. His eyes drifted toward the alleys as he considered which way to a good pub. It was a walk, but the Broken Oak had excellent wine and clean beds. He wanted a clean bed in the worst way. Also, their whores were almost as clean as the beds.

The Brass Key was closer, but many of the sailors making deliveries went there first. As a result the place tended to be a bit filthier, much like his crew.

He was looking toward the Broken Oak when he saw shapes moving. They were dark and they were fast and if there had been any breeze at all he might have thought them shadows or even a bit of dust caught the right way, had it not been for the steady pelt of the rain.

A brave man might have called out a warning. A good man might have done the same. A truly heroic soul might even have run to the aid of the passengers he had delivered to the port.

Callan walked back toward his ship and gestured at his lads, letting them know that trouble was heading their way.

The lads, being wise in the ways of their captain, continued their work.

Callan got himself back on the deck of his ship as quickly as he could without offering any sign that he had seen anything at all. His first mate, Vondum, was already preparing for any possible trouble.

The cargo had been delivered. That was all that was required of Callan. The rest was not his concern. The bodies of the men he’d delivered would still earn him the rest of his coin. Even if it did not, the goods his crew was currently moving and guarding would take away a portion of the sting. A small portion, granted, but still.

The shadows moved again and Callan watched them without looking in their direction. His father had told him the best way to observe the world was to never look directly at it. His father had been a very wise man when he wasn’t drunk to the point of unconsciousness.

One of the men he’d dropped off looked toward the moving shadows and grabbed for his sword, letting out a cry of alarm.

The first of the dark shapes stepped in close to the swordsman, close as a lover, and then moved on. The sword fell from the man’s hand and a moment later the man fell to his knees and then on his face.

By that point both of the shapes had engaged their enemies.

Callan had brought twenty men into the area. They were there for the sole purpose of working for his employer, who in turn worked for someone else. That was all he wanted or needed to know about them, aside from the fact that they were there in secrecy. He had kept his part of the bargain. No one had heard from him about their arrival and none of his lads had yet had a chance to get drunk and chat away.

Still, someone knew and that someone wanted the mercenaries dead.

The first shadow moved fast and stayed low, but managed to get cut just the same. The second man the shadow approached was dead in an instant, but the third struck with a small throwing blade that shimmered in the vague light before disappearing into the shadow’s belly.

There was no noise from the one that got cut. The one that had thrown the blade, however, let out a powerful scream as his hand was cut away from his body.

That was enough to warn the rest. They turned quickly from their individual discussions and tasks and worked as a unit, backing toward each other in an effort to build a unified defense. No one would cut them from behind if they were careful.

They were not careful enough. The second shadow form was smaller and slipped inside their guarded area before they finished establishing it.

While they were fighting against the first dark shape, the second moved among them, slipping between bodies and striking with terrifying efficiency.

Callan had seen the Guntha in action. He had watched soldiers and sailors from nearly every port in the world. But he had never seen the level of efficient brutality that came upon his charges. While he watched on, they were chopped down, some from the larger shadow, others by complete surprise, as they were attacked from behind.

Callan put two fingers in his mouth and blew out a shrill whistle. As one his men stopped their work and moved back to the ship. They moved quickly, while the shadows were otherwise engaged.

Vondum held his crossbow to his side and clutched at the small wooden carving of Lalos he wore around his neck. Callan did not believe in gods, but he threw his own prayer to the god of travelers, just in case it might help.

Twenty men died in short order, but not one of them belonged to Callan’s crew. That was a victory in his eyes.

The shadows did not stay around, but ran back into the rain-soaked alleys and, if he were lucky, away from his existence forever.

Vondum stared at the bodies as the rain continued. Blood flowed from the corpses and into the waters soaking the docks. More of it ran between the boards and spilled into the river. It was too dark to study the rain for any possible portents, though he suspected a few of the lads were likely trying.

“What were those?” Vondum’s voice was strained.

“From what the Lady Tataya told us, those might be the enemies we’ve been hearing about.”

His first mate looked his way with a shocked expression. Finally he spoke. “Might I suggest we move to the other side of the continent? I don’t think it’s safe here any more.”

Callan wished the man were joking. He also agreed with the sentiment.

“Finish unloading, then we disperse for the night. I have to talk to our employer about this one.”

“Need someone watching your back?”

Callan nodded his head. The negotiation was likely to go poorly. He intended to walk away from it with his head still on his shoulders. “Aye, but I think I have someone in mind who can help me with this one.”

Vondum didn’t ask and Callan volunteered nothing. It was best sometimes to know as little as possible about a plan. Sometimes people got themselves caught and questioned and there was no doubt the City Guard would be calling on the Inquisitors about this one.

The Inquisitors were a problem, but only if they could link the bodies to his ship, or any of the illegal merchandise he’d just brought with him. That was why he needed to handle this particular situation as quickly as he could.

That, and there was a lady he wanted very much to see while he was in port.

They went their separate ways in a matter of moments and Swech looked back as Kallider began to falter. He was dying; there would be no saving him if she did not go back immediately and offer him aid.

She continued on.

Ultimately Kallider mattered no more or less than she did and the Daxar Taalor would decide his fate. If he better served them by living then he would live. If he better served them by dying, then he would die and the consequences of his death would have their impact as they surely must.

She recognized that he was of Imperial blood. There would be repercussions.

Swech closed her eyes and listened for the voices of the gods as she called to them with her prayers and told them what had happened and what she believed.

She opened her eyes quickly when she heard the sound of someone coming closer.

Swech did not strike. There was no need to kill anyone who approached her, only those who were a threat.

Jost was not a threat. She was a friend.

The younger woman was covered from head to toe in black. She was here for the same reason as Swech herself: to serve the Daxar Taalor.

“I have missed you,” Jost said. She lowered her head for a moment, but never took her eyes from Swech.

“Later, when we have finished with the night’s work, you and I shall discuss what has happened in my absence. For now I need your help with this.” She pointed to Kallider, who still breathed, though barely. “For now, help me.”

Swech looked down at Kallider and drove her dagger into his temple. His death was swift.

A moment later Jost gathered the man’s feet and she captured him under the arms and they lifted his mass.

Getting him back to the place where she and Kallider had killed the assassins was easy enough. The people from the boat were moving crates and bags of supplies away from their ship in a hurry and did not take the time to look around. Even if they had, there would have been little to see as the rain continued to come down in a heavy cascade.

Leaving the body where they wanted it was easy enough.

He would be found. His death would serve the Daxar Taalor.

All was well with the world.

Jost waited until they were well away from the bodies before she spoke again, using only hand signals to convey her message. “I do not like the way you look. I prefer your true face.”

Swech nodded and eyed her friend, responding in similar fashion. “I do what I must to please the gods.”

Jost chuckled and moved with her, graceful and silent. They moved among the shadows and remained unseen by any save the occasional rodent.

It was good to have the girl with her again. Jost was a reminder of home and she needed that. The gods must have sensed it, for surely they had answered her prayers. The Daxar Taalor could be so very kind.

The waves thundered around him and Andover Lashk did his best not to drown.

He could no longer be certain how long he had been in the waters, only that he was still alive, and had endured the crashing and beating that the water threw at him.

He was cold to his bones and his muscles ached. His eyes burned with the salt from the ocean waters. His head ached from the knowledge that Wheklam had filled his mind with. Though he had never been on the ocean or even to the edge of any of the great seas, he understood tidal currents and the location of the islands and continents that covered much of the world. There were other lands as vast as Fellein that had never been spoken of in his lifetime and he knew now that they existed and how best to get to them.

That was Wheklam’s gift to him. He merely needed to survive it. The weight of his cloak had been too much and so he let it go. The weight of his weapons had been substantial, but he kept them. The hammer was long gone, but one did not cast aside the gifts of gods easily – at least he was fairly certain one did not. He was still working on understanding the proper way to deal with deities, and at the moment he was trying to understand how to deal with them when they threw him into waters without end.

A particularly large wave lifted him higher than he’d been in a while and Andover saw land ahead. The soil was dark and rocky and looked barren. He did not mind that notion in the least.

His first thought was to push for the land and so he did, but he did it carefully. He was not a skilled swimmer; in fact he barely understood how to tread the waters as he was doing now. Small strokes seemed the way to go and so he paddled with his arms and kicked with his aching legs.

There were several times when he was absolutely certain that the strip of land was coming no closer. When those times came on hard and fast he would stop for a moment and allow himself to simply float and breathe.

He heard a voice calling his name, or rather he thought he did. It was hard to hear much of anything over the sound of the surf as it ground itself into the sand and soil again and again. His eyes looked around but saw nothing but more water and a growing strip of land. And so he continued on until, finally, he felt the ground beneath his boots and he could once more stand on his exhausted legs.

The sun was like a furnace as it beat down on him and he welcomed it after the bitter cold of the ocean. He shivered and his breaths came in laboring gasps. He spit a dozen times in an effort to get the brine out of his mouths but there seemed to be more of the stuff.

Mouths. The one he was born with and now three Great Scars. The marks left on him by the gods were silent for the moment, but he knew they’d start talking again soon. Whispering, mostly, softly enough that only he could hear them. He found the sounds oddly comforting.

There was no one on the shoreline that he could see, no one who could have called to him or would have had a reason to do so.

Looking carefully, it only took him a moment to understand that he was on the other side of the volcano’s pit. Here the ground sloped at a gentler angle. He looked behind him and was scarcely surprised to see that the ocean was gone.

A few hundred feet away a deep cavity led downward into the heart of Wheklam and even now he could feel the heat, what he had mistaken for the sun on his back before. Fumes and smoke rose from the crater and, even as he stared, he could feel the heat from the volcano drying the sodden fabrics he wore.

No ocean. No sea. Part of him was stunned. Most of him, however, was coming to accept that gods did not follow the same laws. If Wheklam wanted an ocean, then an ocean appeared.

Or perhaps it was all in his head and he was suffering a fever dream. He found he preferred the notion of gods.

There was no sign of Delil.

Just to be certain he called for her, his voice echoing off the sides of the volcano.

Because he didn’t know how long he was supposed to stand inside the volcano, he let his instincts lead him toward the edge far above. Perhaps Delil was up there. He’d find out soon enough. Whether she was there or not, he knew he had to move on. There were time limits to consider.

If Delil was not there she would have to follow after him or go her own way. He wanted to be with her. He did not need to be with her. He had met with three gods and had four more to meet with before his promises were properly kept. A man was only as good as his word. He intended to be a good man.

Andover Lashk did not consider how he would have reacted to his current situation only a month before. There was a time that would have been foremost on his mind – that, and the image of the a young lady named Tega, who for a brief time was the center of his universe – but those times were gone. That Andover was gone.

Metal is forged in the heart of a furnace and tempered and shaped.

Drask Silver Hand would have been the very first to point out that there were seven forges in the Taalor Valley and that the Daxar Taalor were adept at shaping their weapons.

The City Guard handled many things. They could even, one assumed, handle an occasional murder. The story was different when the bodies numbered over a score and when one of them belonged to a member of the Imperial Family.

Callan watched the spectacle unfold from the comfort of his ship, and looked toward Tataya with a worried expression. “You can see why I called you, yes?”

The reason was obvious enough to Callan. Twenty of the bodies belonged to those who had traveled on his ship. The young man of imperial blood had apparently been killed by those twenty men. All of that might have been an inconvenience or a major dilemma, but none of it mattered to Callan as much as the man standing above their cooling bodies and ordering the City Guard to do his bidding.

“Honestly, Captain Callan, I don’t begin to understand what any of this has to do with me.” Tataya looked at the scene with moderate interest, but obviously felt none of his desperation. In fact she barely seemed to care at all about what was happening.

“I thought you might be able to help me clear up this mess.” He tried not to sound as desperate as he felt.

“You are a captain who was delivering cargo. You were wise enough to report suspicious activity. If all of your papers are in order you have nothing to concern yourself over.”

“Yes, well, it’s the papers, you see…”

“Are they not in order?” She looked at him with cold eyes. There was a challenge there and he knew it. She wanted him to defend himself properly before she would defend him to the man who had a dozen City Guard scrambling to obey him.

“Well, strictly speaking, I didn’t actually have any cargo.”

“Then lie.”

“Excuse me?”

“Lie. You had no cargo. You were merely here looking for more work. You called on me because of past connections. I will not lie for you, Captain, but I will not expose your lie, either.” She looked away from him and toward the Inquisitor on the docks.

“What’s his name?”

“The Inquisitor?”

“Yes. Him.” Callan swallowed though there was no moisture in his mouth or throat.

“That is Darsken Murdro. He is the third highest ranking Inquisitor in the city.”

“Only third?”

Tataya smiled. “That means he’s hungry. He would very much like to be the second Inquisitor. If he can manage that task, he will be in line to assume the head title in only a few years.”

“Ah.”

“Indeed. You should be extremely careful if you lie to him. He has been known to be very imaginative if he thinks someone is lying to him.”

“‘Imaginative?’”

“Oh yes. He can’t actually torture you, of course. That luxury is denied him. But he can mete out punishments that are rather substantial.”

Callan tried to decide if the redhead was toying with him. He could never quite tell if she was bluffing.

“Like what?”

“Well, he can decide where you will spend your time while he’s waiting for a truthful answer from you.”

“Where I’ll spend my time? That hardly seems… Wait… As in where I actually get to wait? Can you offer examples?”

“Strapped to a post in the military barracks.”

“A post?”

“The soldiers always need targets.”

“Ah.”

Tataya leaned against the railing of the ship and stared at the Inquisitor. “And here he comes. Prepare your words carefully, Captain Callan.”

Nine

The refugees came, just as Merros had predicted. Well, Merros and nearly everyone else she had spoken to. As the Empress, Nachia did her best to make certain that they were taken care of.

There were a great number of landowners in the city, and many of them were outraged at the notion of having strangers coming into Canhoon and taking up residence.

The innkeepers and the owners of apartments, however, didn’t seem to have as much trouble with the idea. They seemed quite pleased by the notion of increasing their prices.

Some things, she felt, you simply could not do anything about.

Adding to the interesting aspects of the situation was a large coalition of landowners who were currently arguing among themselves while she watched. They did not know she was watching, of course. She was hidden away in one of Desh’s secret areas. She could see them but they could not see her. They also couldn’t see the sorcerer, who was standing beside her.

“Why exactly are they fighting?” she asked him.

“Some of them think it’s inappropriate to charge newcomers more money than they would normally charge and others are determined to see the prices increased throughout the city.” Desh crossed his arms and shook his head. “Nothing I haven’t seen before, of course, but never on this scale.”

“The ones who argue for keeping the prices the same, who are they?”

“Followers of Etrilla and Luhnsh, apparently. The priests have been busy trying to remind people that the gods are there and will help those who are good to their fellows.” Desh frowned. “Which reminds me, Majesty. We are now receiving rumors from the east about a rather large gathering of the faithful led by a man called the Pilgrim. It seems he’s gathering quite a following from the far east and heading in this direction.”

“How far east?”

“Elda, Danaher and even Morwhen.”

Nachia nodded her head. Morwhen was so far away that she had never been allowed to visit the place. Apparently barbarians ran the area, or at least they had in the past. It was hard to keep up with the areas of the Empire that were so very distant.

“Do you think these people are friends or foes, Desh?”

In the room they were looking into, a dark-haired woman raised her voice and stood up, causing several of those around her to look at her as if she had lost her mind. She pointed first at one of the men and then at another, a round-bellied man who had tried on several occasions to get the property taxes lowered, and who usually claimed that he was near poverty. For a desperate man he wore a great deal of finery.

“She looks familiar. Who is she?”

“That is the woman Merros is spending his time with. The widow of Wollis March. Dretta, I believe, is the name. You met her son and sent him off to the Mounds.”

“No, no. You sent him to the Mounds. I merely approved your decision.” She would not let the old fool rewrite the truth on her. That had been the folly of her cousin and not one she intended to mirror.

“Semantics.” He waved a dismissive hand. “In any event, she was wise enough to buy up a few pieces of land before the worst started. She is likely going to make a good deal of coin in the coming months.”

Nachia frowned. “What side does she argue for?”

“Leaving prices as they are and helping out the newcomers.”

“Well. Then I suppose I like her.”

“Why wouldn’t you like her, Majesty?” Desh did not turn and look at her, but his eyes left the increasing agitation of the crowd on the other side of their hideaway. “Are you planning to choose the general’s next romantic partner?”

“Hardly.” She felt herself blush a bit and looked away, but she also saw the smile on Desh’s face. He knew.

“Speaking of romantic partners, we still have to consider the viable candidates for you.”

“Absolutely not. There is a war on and I have no time for looking at possible mates.”

Desh said nothing to that and she continued looking away. “What will we do about this ‘Pilgrim’ and his followers?”

“We need to have a proper discussion with the church leaders. I know how little you want to risk their wrath, but we have to, and as much as I like Merros Dulver, I don’t believe he’s the right person to gather the elders together.”

“Then perhaps you could?”

“At least half of the churches look at sorcery as an affront to their gods,” Desh pointed out. “I should rather not risk being tortured or worse in the name of any deities.”

“Well, then I suppose that leaves me.”

“I’ll make the arrangements.”

Nachia sighed. “I will require the presence of my First Advisor.”

“Naturally.”

“Does the general’s concubine have any preferred deities that we know of?”

“By all the gods, Nachia. I don’t even believe they have that sort of relationship.”

Nachia smiled. That question had successfully been answered.

She didn’t know exactly why it was important that she know the details of Merros’s love life, but she most definitely wanted to know.

He was a tall man, broad of shoulder and lean of waist. He walked with the confidence of a well-trained warrior, but he did not strut as so many did when they felt invincible. He had seen too much in his time and now he would see more.

There were gods to meet with and this was the place where he was most likely to find them. This was where the temples to the gods rose highest and where the greatest numbers of followers could be found.

He was a Pilgrim and his quest was a holy one.

He had much to discuss with the gods and time was growing short. He had to return to Canhoon as soon as he could if he were to help the gods with their sacred task.

Eyes that had seen the Empire before it was old looked upon the city of Goltha with an odd blend of pity and contempt.

They did not know. They could not know. The people ahead of him had been raised in ignorance. He intended to refresh their memories, though there was no reason to think they would thank him for the education.

The Pilgrim looked out across the valley ahead and frowned. He and his followers had a great deal of traveling to do yet, and he had not gathered enough of the faithful to take care of his appointed task.

Well to the east of the Blasted Lands, in an area of Fellein that had never once tasted the ashes of the ruined territory, several towns and cities gathered along the shores of the Empire’s largest fresh water lake, Gerhaim.

Lake Gerhaim was spoken of many times by poets and scholars alike. Spanning an area large enough that the earliest settlers thought they had found a sea, the body of water had gathered thousands of people to its shores and in time those thousands had spread, building towns and finally cities.

The largest of those cities was Goltha, a place built largely from stone and fortified by walls that were legendary in their strength. Over the years Goltha had been attacked numerous times and repelled all comers.

In time the city of Goltha became the country of Goltha, and in turn that country became a part of the Fellein Empire. Goltha grew larger both as a city and as a country when the Empire came along. It was in Goltha, a city nearly at the center of the Empire, that the highest buildings had been raised. It was in Goltha that, according to the most common wisdom, all roads in the Empire met.

Goltha lay ahead of him and offered possibilities.

Behind him the faithful were moving on, heading toward Canhoon. He did not doubt that they would reach the city without him. They understood how important what they did was, and he had faith.

He had to have faith.

The sky ahead was dark with storm clouds.

“Sarmin.”

The woman he called for moved to his side. She had been with him since he’d killed the men who were planning on harming her. Not because she had anything they needed, but simply because they were bored. He had followed a trail of bodies and come across them as they were attacking her farmhouse. Her husband was also alive as a result of his actions, but he was further back, hindered by the damage done to his leg.

Sarmin was strong in body and in faith. She was a devout follower of Plith and insisted that the Pilgrim’s arrival was the answer to her prayers. So far he had not been able to dissuade her of that notion.

He had not tried very hard. The faithful were necessary.

“Keep them on track, please. I go to Goltha now. I believe we can finally gather enough of the faithful there. Time is short.”

“We could go with you. We could show them the way.”

“No. They must come willingly and they must not be intimidated into this. Had I come to you with four hundred people behind me, what would you have said?”

Sarmin looked down. “I’d have likely run away.”

“The same is true anywhere. Strength in numbers is not the same as strength in faith.”

“I will strive to keep the faithful on the right path.” She lowered her head.

“Lemblo, Powl and Longrid should be able to help you in this.” He paused for a moment. “Sarmin, I am grateful for all that you do.”

“We all live to serve the gods.” She looked at him with an uncomfortable level of affection and then moved away.

The first blade came from his left, carried by a boy no older than ten if he had to guess. The second came from behind and that was the one meant to kill him. The boy was only a distraction.

His left hand reached out quickly and slapped the young arm that carried the dagger. The boy let out a squawk of surprise and pain as a bone in his forearm snapped. He fell to the ground quickly, the pain from the damage likely larger than anything he’d ever felt in his life before.

The sword was a different matter entirely.

The Pilgrim ducked and allowed himself to fall to the ground in the alleyway. The man had him. If he had not dodged aside, the blade would have cut deep and very likely killed him.

Though his assailant was taken by surprise by the maneuver, the advantage would not last long. His leg kicked out, striking the man in the knee. Something deep in the tissue of the man’s leg cracked and he screamed, falling back, trying to keep his balance on a knee that no longer supported his weight.

The Pilgrim pushed himself into a standing position and drew his short sword from the worn scabbard.

“No! Wait! Please!” The man hopped backward on his one good leg, one hand out to ward off any blows, the other trying to hold his sword and support his injured leg at the same time.

The Pilgrim’s sword cleaved through the mugger’s jaw and throat with one swing. Satisfied that the man was dying and could no longer harm him he turned back to the boy.

On the ground now, lying in a puddle of muck, the lad looked his way with wide, terrified eyes.

“Is this how the people of Goltha welcome strangers?” The Pilgrim’s voice was not tempered with kindness.

He had travelled far to the east of the Blasted Lands, to an area of Fellein that had never once tasted the ashes of the ruined territory. That had been a very long time ago, and now he was headed back to the west and places he had once sworn he would never see again. The gods had different plans for him.

“Get up, boy. I have places to go, and you will take me to them.”

Though he whimpered as he rose, the boy did, indeed, stand. The Pilgrim was not the sort a smart boy disobeyed. Broken and scared, the boy knew enough to listen.

“I need you to take me to the Tower of Etrilla. Do this, and quickly, and I shall forgive your transgression.”

The words seemed a bit of a struggle for the boy, but he nodded just the same. A moment later the lad was moving, holding his arm and whimpering as he moved through the streets. If there were any others with the boy, they chose not to come to his aid.

They moved down what seemed a nearly endless run of sidestreets and alleyways, until the Pilgrim began to wonder if his guide was trying to prepare another assault of some kind. He was considering asking exactly that when the boy stopped moving and pointed with his uninjured arm toward the vast marble structure ahead.

It was not a tower, really, but the building was tall enough to be impressive. Etrilla was the God of the Cities and as such most of the monuments to his glory were like fingers pointing toward the sky. There had likely been a time when the temple had been the largest structure around, but it had been overshadowed by others as time went on.

Seventy feet in height, the Tower of Etrilla was festooned with the images of hundreds of faces, each different and likely sculpted in the likeness of a person living back when the entire structure was being finished. Each visage wore an expression as unique as the people they were modeled after, and though there was truly no time for such luxuries, the Pilgrim spent a few minutes absorbing the details. Few of the manmade structures he had seen this far east were as breathtaking.

The boy did not wait around. As soon as the Pilgrim lost himself in staring his guide slipped away into the stream of people moving through the great city.

That was just as well. He had served the Pilgrim’s needs and was no longer of any significance.

The Pilgrim entered the greatest of the temples in the city and strode with purpose through the marble hallway leading to the center of the structure. As with the exterior of the temple, the interior was filled with endless likenesses of people both common and extraordinary.

At the very center was a large table carved from a dark wood that had been polished meticulously. Sculpted into the center of the table was a likeness of Etrilla, a stout figure with arms heavy from years of labor, carrying a massive block upon one shoulder. Unlike many of the images of gods, Etrilla remained unchanged.

Four stood before the table, though there was certainly room for many more. There were no benches or chairs within the structure: Etrilla believed that work came before rest and offering places for the latter did not inspire the former.

The people all wore robes. That had changed. Etrilla was a laborer. Robes were not designed to aid in strenuous efforts.

The gathering smiled their welcome – though the oldest among them eyed the sword at the Pilgrim’s side.

“Do you seek solace here?” The oldest spoke carefully, his eyes leaving the hilt of the Pilgrim’s sword reluctantly.

When he spoke, the voice was not his own, but belonged to the being for which the tower had been built. “Do you know me?”

They were devout, the four who stood before the Pilgrim. They knew who spoke to them.

When the Pilgrim spoke, the followers of Etrilla listened.

The Inquisitors were, as a rule, very scary individuals.

Darsken Murdro was one of the scariest. He knew that and used it to his advantage. He was not extraordinary in height, though he was bulkier than most. His skin was the color of dark mahogany and his long hair was coiled into several braids that ran halfway down his back. The people of Louron were much darker than the average person in Canhoon, and that led to a great deal of unease for many of the people he dealt with.

Louron was known for many things and few of those things were considered pleasant in the eyes of most. One of the things the swampy area was best known for was dark sorcery. The other point that attracted most people’s attention – and more so even than the claims of sorcery – was that Inquisitors were trained there to handle their tasks.

The man before him was doubtless guilty of numerous sins. He could see the pulse in his neck, the sweat on his skin and the way he looked everywhere but directly into the Inquisitor’s eyes and know that.

According to his masters back in Louron, there were three primary skills required of any Inquisitor: Empathy, Observation and Patience. Empathy let an Inquisitor read the intentions and conscience of a subject. Observation allowed for all of the small details that could learn the truth of any circumstance. Patience allowed for terrorizing a subject properly. An angry man could be scary. A patient man who gave away nothing in his expression was usually worse in Darsken’s experience.

He knew, without any real consideration, that the man calling himself Captain Callan was not a murderer. Would he kill if cornered? Most would. Would he kill if his life depended on it or if someone were trying to take from him? Very likely. Would he kill twenty-one men, including a cousin of the Empress?

He doubted the man was capable. His crew could have helped, but there was still a great deal of niggling doubt involved in the notion.

“What did you see, exactly, when the men died?”

“I saw nothing. I wasn’t here.”

Darsken smiled thinly and stared hard into the man’s eyes. He made absolutely certain he was the center of the captain’s attention by tapping the edge of his stick on the deck of the ship. “I doubt that. Think very carefully and answer me again. What did you see when those men were killed?”

Callan looked from him to the stick and frowned. All of the inquisitors carried a short staff of one form or another and most were personalized. In this case there were deeply detailed engravings circling the wooden staff from the foot to the crown. Darsken knew each of them intimately as he had carved them during his lifetime of training.

Callan looked away from the stick, more unsettled than before.

“There were two people that attacked them. They were in the shadows. I didn’t see them clearly. I think one was a woman but I couldn’t say for sure.”

Darsken took one step closer, his eyes locked furiously on Callan’s. His smile faded, and his voice lowered by a full octave. “Why did you lie to me, Captain Callan?”

“Because…” Callan looked away again, trying hard to find the right words that would save him from the Inquisitor’s wrath. “I was scared. I was paid to bring those men here.”

“Who paid you?”

Callan looked away, desperate now, and his eyes sought Tataya. Darsken knew her, of course. They had been associates on several investigations in the past. She shook her head, offering no help.

“I give you a name and that name comes for me. He hires twenty more just like the ones on the dock, only this time around he’s paying them to kill me.”

“Did you know you were bringing assassins into the seat of the Empire?”

“Assassins? I was told they were mercenaries! Bodyguards!”

Had he the time and the patience Darsken knew he could have broken the captain. Instead he nodded his head. “You tell me the name. If you do not tell me what I want to know, I will look more closely at why a ship the size of yours only brought twenty men into the port instead of unloading a great deal more.”

“I–”

Three sharp taps of the stick on the deck and the captain stopped speaking. “I have more important affairs to investigate than your deliveries. Keep it that way. Tell me what I need to know.”

The man looked once more toward Tataya. She nodded almost imperceptibly.

“He said his name was Foster. Losla Foster.” Callan’s skin was paler than ever and his pulse was singing in the veins of his neck.

“I am done with you. I appreciate your honesty.”

Callan did not speak, but he nodded and backed away.

Darsken made a small gesture to Tataya, asking without words if she would walk with him.

As she passed the captain she placed a consoling hand on his shoulder and moved to follow Darsken.

Where Darsken walked, the crew from the ship and the City Guard parted to let him pass. Two wagons had been loaded with the corpses from the docks and were already moving away, their cargo hidden under baskets and blankets. People would talk, but the exact scene of the crime was already cleared, courtesy of the guard and the rain.

When they had walked far enough away to suit him Darsken looked to Tataya and smiled mischievously. “Was he sufficiently scared, do you suppose?”

Tataya smiled back and let out a small laugh before she caught herself. “I think he came close to wetting his breeches.”

“He is not the killer. You already knew that, of course.” Darsken paused a moment. “He is also guilty of many crimes, but none I am concerned about.”

“Callan has done favors for the Empire.”

“Which is why I do not care about his many crimes.” Tataya looked at him carefully and he offered nothing but his usual placid smile. The sorcerers never could quite decide what to do about the Inquisitors. The feeling was reciprocated. According to the laws of many areas within the Empire, sorcery was against the law. According to the Empress it was not. Also, and this was important, wizards were extremely dangerous when cornered.

That might have dissuaded almost any City Guard from dealing with the sorcerers, but the Inquisitors, some of them at least, were trained to handle the risks that wizardry offered. Some, including Darsken, used sorcery of their own in cases. There were rumors that the Inquisitors even used necromancy. Darsken did nothing to dissuade such rumors.

“Darsken, we have known each other for a long time.”

“I dare say yes.” He smiled and waited for her questions.

“Do you know anything of necromancy?”

His smile did not change. “If I say yes?”

“I might ask for your assistance with an unusual case presented by the enemies of our Empress.”

“The corpses of the soldiers returned from the Blasted Lands?”

“How do you know about that?” She seemed genuinely surprised.

“I tend to hear many forms of confession, Tataya.”

She nodded her head. “Would you be able to help?”

“Are the bodies here?”

“Some samples, nothing more. Most were in Tyrne, and they were burned even before the city.”

“That is the best way to handle dead things.” He nodded.

“I know you don’t raise the dead, but can you or any of your people talk to the dead?”

Darsken looked away from her, knowing what she would ask next.

“There are ways, Tataya.”

“My sister… Goriah….”

“What is forbidden for you is also forbidden for me.” He walked again, slowly, and she followed.

“So you cannot?”

“That is not what I said. I said it is forbidden. We have ways. Sometimes the need to learn who killed someone requires more than questioning those who might have seen the crime.”

She didn’t actually ask. She didn’t dare.

“We will talk soon, Tataya. If you feel the need. For now, I must find out more about a man who was paid by the Imperial Family to kill at least one member of the same bloodline.”

“Who?” He had surprised her a second time. That was a rare feat.

Losla Foster was the personal assistant to Laister Krous. If what the captain had said was true, the Krous family was very likely to be at war with itself in the near future.

He could have told her. She might have appreciated the information. She might also have run to the man he was about to hunt and warned him and Darsken could not allow that.

“Soon, perhaps. Before I mention more I must confirm certain details.”

She didn’t question him. She knew better.

“Tataya?”

“Yes, Darsken?”

“I am truly sorry for your loss. Goriah was an extraordinary lady.”

No more words were spoken. None were needed.

Despite the incredibly early hour, Nachia Krous agreed to see the Inquisitor.

He was a dark man, wearing dark clothes, with a square face and a body that most closely resembled an effigy made of tree trunks and a large barrel for ale. She had seen larger men, but few who looked so unsettlingly solid. She could easily understand how he would prove intimidating to most people.

Having been raised in a family of royals, she was not easily intimidated and being tutored by a sorcerer had guaranteed that few could make her uneasy.

The Inquisitor – she had already forgotten the man’s name, but knew that Desh, standing to her right, had not – smiled and his face brightened with the expression.

“I am grateful, Majesty, that you agreed to see me. I am afraid I bring unfortunate tidings.”

She suppressed a shudder. Her mind immediately went to invading armies and the dread that they had moved on to another target so quickly. Still she managed to keep her expression blank of any worries, a skill Desh had taught her long ago.

“What has happened, Inquisitor?”

“Majesty, I was asked to investigate an attack this morning. Over twenty men were killed in the night, near the docks. I am so sorry, but one of them was a relative of yours, Windhar Krous.” He paused a moment while she looked at him and for the first time the man looked uncomfortable in her presence. “He is your second cousin, I believe.”

“Was. He was.” She paused a moment and swallowed. She knew Windhar, of course, but aside from being another courtesan in the family crowd she could not have told anyone much about him. Pleasant enough to look at, but not really much of a conversationalist and hardly the most significant member of her family. Brolley would be upset, however. They had been much closer. “Do you know who killed these men?”

“It is my understanding that these men were brought here by a man named Losla Foster, though I cannot say why they were brought here, I do know that a man with the same name has been employed for several years by Laister Krous. I could not currently say if that is the same man, or if it is merely a coincidence.”

She liked the Inquisitor. He had a way of carefully avoiding making accusations he could not back up.

“I would like very much to know the absolute truth of this, Inquisitor. Until you have an answer for me I must ask that you work only on this investigation.”

The man looked at her for a moment and lowered his head. “I cannot promise discretion in this investigation, Majesty.”

Nachia smiled at the man. “Not at all, Inquisitor. I would not ask that of you. By all means, let it be known that you are investigating the murder of one of my family and that I intend to bring the full might of the Empire down on the heads of everyone involved.”

When the Inquisitor smiled again it was a cold thing, a smile that allowed for no hope of happiness or peace for those who managed to block his path.

“As you wish, Majesty.”

The Inquisitor left the room and Nachia looked toward her First Advisor. “Do you think Laister could actually be that foolish?”

Desh pulled down the hood that had, once again, hidden his face and sighed. “I think Laister is fairly convinced that he is invincible. So, yes.”

Nachia leaned back in her throne, ignoring the way it made her back and side ache.

She stared at the distant wall and shook her head. “Danieca will not be happy.”

“Considering that she has made her support of Laister well known, you might consider getting the information to her by one means or another.” For the first time since Goriah’s death, there was a tone of amusement in Desh’s voice.

“Oh, I plan to. Just as soon as I can.”

Desh nodded his head. “Merros has begun moving troops.”

“Where?”

“He’s clearing a pathway between here and Trecharch for the refugees. He is also planning a few surprises for those who follow them.”

“Will they be followed?”

“I believe it’s already happening, though proving it is difficult. The Sa’ba Taalor don’t quite follow the normal rules of engagement. Their troops move as they will. They do not seem to have supply trains or established routes.”

“How are they managing that, Desh? How are they getting where they need to be without forming proper columns?”

“Here’s the thing, Majesty. They are adept at moving through the Blasted Lands and surviving there. As I understand it the main sources of meat for the Sa’ba Taalor have always been hunted in that wasteland. They hunt and kill and live off the meat of the Pra-Moresh.” He paused to make sure she understood how insane that concept was. She did.

“After that, finding food to eat in virtually any part of the Empire must be the easiest thing in the world for them.”

Nachia remained quiet for a long while, her brow knitted in thought and her mouth working silently at what words she might need to say.

Finally she responded, “What can your magics do to make that more challenging for them?”

Desh looked at her hard for a moment, his expression almost tempestuous, and then he laughed. “I had never thought of that. Not a once.”

Nachia smiled. Her smile was exactly as warm as that of the Inquisitor before he left her presence. “Give it a great deal of thought, Desh Krohan. I want to make their lives more difficult as soon as possible.”

Desh nodded his head and started across the chamber. “With your permission I wish to speak to a few of my associates. Corin is more of a specialist in these matters than me, but I suspect we can come up with something… appropriate to your needs, Majesty.”

Nachia waited until he left the vast room and then got off the throne. She preferred walking when she was thinking and she had so very much to think about if she wanted to save her Empire from the Sa’ba Taalor.

Ten

The town of Jorhuan was fortified. Many of the larger cities had forgotten about the previous wars, but Jorhuan was not among them. Surrounding the actual town were two walls. The first was made of stones and rose a staggering thirty-five feet into the air. There were two gates, both of which were currently being guarded against any strangers. The North Gate faced Trecharch and had been sealed, because if there was to be a siege the last thing needed were people asking for assistance. They would have no food and would be of absolutely no use to Jorhuan.

It was a harsh life lesson, to be sure, but better that strangers stay out and move on than that they clog the streets.

The South Gate remained open, but was guarded against any enemies. Members of Jorhuan’s City Guard were currently spaced along the walkway for the outer wall, carrying loaded crossbows to discourage anyone foolish enough to try attacking, and they were alert for anyone attempting to come their way from the north or the west.

The nine followers of Wrommish came from the south. They walked, and not one of them carried an obvious weapon.

That they were Sa’ba Taalor would have been obvious to anyone looking carefully. They did nothing to hide their appearance. They had light gray skin and they were dressed in common enough fashion.

Because they approached on foot and bore no weapons, the guards on the walls paid them little attention.

The guards at the gates were a different matter. The first of them was bored. He had been on duty for over four hours and there had been nothing out of the ordinary, not even anyone coming from the north trying to gain entry. They had been warned, of course. The birds had been sent out with messages notifying all that Trecharch was fallen and to expect refugees and to offer them aid.

That aid would not be forthcoming and the guards all understood why. The Imperial Army was on the way and would soon be engaging the enemy, but Jorhuan was not a large city and they could expect remarkably little by way of assistance, though they were on the made pathway from Trecharch to Canhoon. First look to yourselves, then to your brothers. Offer aid when you can, but anyone who would risk their own lives to help strangers was surely addled.

It was a philosophy that had always suited the temperament of the people of Jorhuan.

The second guard was younger and dreamed of fighting the enemy. He had no idea what the enemy might look like, but Sherea was young and beautiful and she liked the notion that he might save them all from the enemy. In order to impress her he would gladly kill a hundred men.

All men are young once, and even those who are older are often made foolish when a woman smiles.

He was thinking of Sherea’s smile when the strangers approached. That meant he was ready for trouble.

“Lem. Look at these ones.” He felt his blood surge as they came closer. The Sa’ba Taalor were supposed to have gray flesh and these folks looked gray to him. Though not as gray as he’d have expected. He had thought their flesh would surely be the same color as granite, but no.

Lem looked his way and stifled a yawn. He knew of the younger man’s affections for Sherea – and she was worthy of a few stray thoughts, though his own wife was much more to his liking – and he shook his head.

“What am I looking at then, Kell? More tradesmen? More mercenaries?”

“I think it’s them. The enemies.”

Lem’s eyes wandered toward the strangers. There were nine of them. Hardly an invading army. He was about to say as much when he looked more closely at the one leading them. The man was lean, but hard. His body seemed nearly sculpted and his tunic showed a series of scars on gray flesh. The scars seemed to make a design, but he could not see it clearly. The man’s face was equally lean and another deep scar ran across his left cheek. He had a thick braid of hair running down his back.

He carried no weapons, but the way he moved was predatory. Cats moved that way when they were stalking birds or butterflies to torture. He hated cats. They were nasty creatures, but he had to tolerate them as his wife loved the damned things.

Despite the fact that Kell had made a dozen inaccurate claims regarding the invaders earlier, Lem now stood tall and reached for his club. Lem was a very large man and most people upon seeing the stout club he’d carried for years decided it was best to remain calm, lest he decide to bounce it off their skulls.

“How can I help you this fine day?” Lem kept the words pleasant, but swept the air around his legs with his club and locked his eyes with the first of the strangers. Beside him Kell was hastily pulling his axe from his belt. If he moved with his regular grace, the situation would be resolved before Kell was ready.

N’Heelis, Chosen of the Forge of Wrommish and King in Gold, smiled with both of his mouths. The effect was unsettling for Lem and Kell alike, and while Lem was trying to recover from the oddity, N’Heelis broke his skull with a single palm strike.

Kell was trying to understand exactly what had happened to the larger guard when N’Heelis ruptured his airway with a follow-up maneuver that the young guard never even saw.

N’Heelis did not speak the tongue common to the Fellein. He did not care. He was here for a reason.

“Kill them all. Every last one. We offer no mercy this day.”

Once through the gate the Sa’ba Taalor moved quickly, becoming individuals instead of a crowd. Three of them moved up the two separate stairs leading to the walkway on the first wall.

There was no time to celebrate. The followers of Wrommish had been given a mission and they intended to see it through. Wrommish wanted Jorhuan by the end of the day. N’Heelis was glad to provide whatever his god demanded.

The eight with him were younger and not as fully experienced in war as many of his followers, but that was not a concern. They could fight. They now had a chance to prove themselves.

The gates remained open after them. Two stood at the open gates and looked inward, prepared to kill any who tried to flee.

Grath and Delon went up the stairs on the left side and Larrister took the flight on the right. They moved gracefully and quickly, all of them wearing heavy guards on their forearms to allow for some protection.

The first City Guards went down without a protest. They didn’t question the people coming toward them because there had been no alarm sounded. Delon managed to break the neck of her opponent soundlessly and he slumped to the walkway. Larrister was not as fortunate and the body of his target fell from the walkway and crashed into a stall below where the fight occurred.

That was enough to alert the rest of the guards. Weapons were drawn and soldiers charged, prepared to fight for the safety of their people.

Grath stood aside and let Delon go first. Delon did not disappoint. She moved quickly and as the first guard came for her she blocked his attempt at swordplay and broke his arm at the elbow. He screamed and dropped his weapon. She moved on and let Grath finish the task.

On the other side Larrister moved like a thrown blade, cutting down the first and then the second opponent without even changing expression. He swept the legs of the first guard and forced the man’s face into the wall hard enough to shatter it. The second came for him and was thrown over the wall, but not before his body was bent into a new shape. Larrister was not subtle, but he was powerful.

The others moved forward, charging past their king and attacking. There were no weapons. This was a test of their unarmed skills. An axe came down and was deflected; a hand broke the wrist of the axe-wielder and the weapon was taken away and thrown at another opponent.

N’heelis watched and judged.

When the City-Guard came from their barracks on their horses, he stood prepared for them. Just as his followers had their parts, so too did their king.

Men on horseback have many advantages. They have speed, they have mass. They have weapons meant to impale or kill with ease.

N’Heelis had training and faith.

The first horseman came at him swinging a long flail. Moving aside was an easy enough task. As the rider charged past, surprised to have missed, the king broke the horse’s hind leg with a brutal kick. Horse and rider both fell, and in so doing created an obstacle for the rest of the horsemen.

Horses veered. Riders tried to compensate for the sudden changes. N’Heelis took advantage of every delay, striking again and again and often killing or maiming with a single blow.

When a weapon came to him, which was not uncommon as they fell from the hands of his enemies, he used them. A spear dropped from a rider’s grip and N’Heelis used it to block a sword and impale a rider.

The men fighting him quickly learned to keep their distance and it was only a matter of minutes before the first crossbow was leveled at him.

Their gods chose the kings of the Sa’ba Taalor because they exemplified all that the individual gods wanted from their followers. N’Heelis was no exception. Throughout his long life he had fought with few weapons and relied on his body as the main offense and defense.

The crossbow bolt was aimed at his heart. He saw the archer aiming for him and moved, sliding sideways. The bolt that should have killed him slipped past and grazed his forearm instead.

When four more of the guards aimed at him, he knew dodging alone would no longer take care of the matter. One arrow was a very different consideration.

While the King in Gold was keeping the attention of most of the people near the southern gate, his followers took care of their own business. None of the Sa’ba Taalor paid the least bit of attention to the spectacle. Instead they followed his commands and eliminated the guards along the wall and moved quickly to the northern gate.

The guards did not continue to ignore them. The first few fell quickly before N’Heelis distracted the locals but the rest did not stare down into the center of the area. Instead they took note of their enemies along the wall and did their best to kill the intruders.

Grath took a crossbow bolt through his left eye and roared his pain for all to hear. He was a fighter and a skilled warrior but the pain was immense and he fell to his hands and knees, defenseless.

Delon considered Grath a friend but her duty was not to protect a weak ally. She served the King in Gold and Wrommish. The axe of the closest guard served to cripple the archer who had fired before another bolt could be set in the crossbow. Four long strides later she shattered his jaw and shoved the man aside on her way to the northern gate.

Larrister fared better. His sheer size and ferocity unsettled his opponents. They had never seen a grayskinned man before, nor had most of them ever been in a serious fight beyond a moderate amount of training.

Jorhuan was fortified, yes, and as with all of the people in Fellein, the City Guard had all spent their time in the armies of the Empire, but none of them had ever seen combat. It is one thing to practice war games and another entirely to engage in war.

The City Guard hesitated when Larrister roared and came for them. Larrister did not hesitate. He charged like a bull, grabbing any item that was of the right size and hurling it at the closest target, the better to confuse and disorient. Where Delon had to engage all her enemies, fully half of the City Guard facing Larrister panicked and ran before considering their actions.

Larrister’s choice of tactics failed him when the guards on the lower level, beside the northern gate, aimed crossbows at him and fired. A bolt plunged into his calf. The wound was not serious enough to stop the man, but it slowed him substantially.

Delon won the race for the gate, taking out the last of the soldiers in her path before moving down the walkway and attacking the two men who were looking toward Larrister and reloading their crossbows.

She did not give them time to change targets.

While Delon and Larrister made their charge, the rest of the Sa’Ba Taalor with them systematically killed anyone in their path, regardless of age or gender. They had their orders and they followed them.

The entire affair might have ended with none of the invaders killed if not for the actions of Branfer Hollis, a hunter who took one look at the invaders and promptly released his dogs.

The animals were well trained and had been employed on numerous occasions to help the hunter take down big game. They moved for the strangers when Branfer pointed and they came in low and fast enough to catch the Sa’ba Taalor off guard.

N’Heelis watched a boy he’d seen raised from infancy move the wrong way to defend himself and die in an instant. The dog ripped open his throat and tore at his face.

He did not have time to do anything about it, even if he’d had the inclination. Men with crossbows were trying to kill him and staying alive was taking all of his concentration.

Another of his followers went down, struggling with the dog, and came back up after breaking the animal’s back. He came back up bloodied and missing three fingers.

The situation might have only grown worse from there. The dogs were fast and they were savage. The opening of the north gate changed everything when Tusk and his riders came through.

The dogs were vicious. The mounts were worse.

Tusk came with seventeen of his people. Most of them were on mounts and pulling wagons loaded with corpses.

Tusk did not interfere with the actual taking of the town. That was not his purpose. He delivered the dead and nothing more, but he watched and he smiled as N’heelis and his followers finished the work they had started.

Tusk looked to N’Heelis when he was done and smiled. “A good day’s work!”

N’Heelis looked to his people, the wounded, the unscathed and the dead, and agreed.

Then he began the work the Wrommish demanded. There were bodies that had to be moved, and more of his people came through the open gates to assist.

What the gods demanded he was glad to do.

The Temmis Pass was not a well-known point on the map. It was mentioned, as was the town of Hallis, the very small collection of buildings that made up the most western point in the whole of the Fellein Empire. The population was usually a bit under a dozen.

Currently Hallis was home to a much larger gathering: the tents and supplies for the First Lancers Division. A city of canvas and wagons surrounded the tiny gathering of buildings. To say the people of Hallis were unsettled would be a vast understatement.

Colonel Lockner Horast had every intention of following the orders given to him by General Merros Dulver. To that end the men were ready for war. Each of the Lancers remained prepared and armed at all times and within easy walking distance of their steeds. They wore light armor and sported great shields, hand-to-hand weapons and, of course, their lances.

The Sa’ba Taalor came up the only easy access point for the area, moving en masse up the Temmis Pass, ready for whatever might come their way. First up were foot soldiers, and they came armed and wearing armor. No two were alike, and most of the people in the small town would have been hard pressed to say which was the most terrifying.

The Sa’ba Taalor were not giants. They were not monsters, but they were almost as alien as any of the nightmares from legend. All of the people in the town had heard of the Pra-Moresh. None had ever seen one. All had heard of the invaders, and they had been witness previously when the King in Iron spoke with the Empress Nachia Krous. They had surely never expected to see a greater spectacle in their lives and that was their mistake.

The Sa’ba Taalor came in formation, moving in lines thirty soldiers wide and carrying various weapons and shields. As they walked they tapped the edge of whatever weapons they carried on the edge of the shields and did so in perfect step with their strides. The end result was a sound rather like thunder. If it was designed to unsettle the locals it worked very well.

The entire population of Hallis – all twelve of them - took it upon themselves to get away while they could, and moved between tents and past wagons as they ran from the newcomers.

As soon as they had cleared the way, the First Lancers Division charged in.

The Sa’ba Taalor struck an impressive sight as they marched in formation up the trail from the Blasted Lands.

The first rank of horsemen made an impressive sight as they impaled a dozen of the men who could not break formation fast enough to avoid being run through. The lances did their jobs and their targets died or were maimed. The charges continued forward into the ranks of the Sa’ba Taalor while their riders drew short swords and swept their blades into the flesh of their enemies.

The reaction was immediate and violent. The formations fell apart into a seething mass of conflict. Horsemen tried to move forward and their enemies did their best to cut them down where they stood. Both had moderate success. The first of the horsemen was pulled from his saddle and thrown to the ground even as his ride was nearly beheaded by an axe chop to the neck.

The Sa’ba Taalor broke ranks and moved around the first chargers, heading for the rest of the enemies they saw waiting for them. The second rank of lancers moved into them at a hard run, first using lances and then switching to flails, bashing in skulls and denting shields as they charged past.

The First Lancers were among the best that Fellein had, and they proved it that day.

The fighting started brutally and did not slow down.

Through the first assault only two hundred of the Lancers were sent in. The rest waited as patiently as they could, knowing that to charge in any sooner would only add to the congestion and chaos of the moment.

The enemy was proficient at fighting, but hardly seemed ready for handling the soldiers on horses.

That changed the moment the first rank of mounted Sa’ba Taalor showed themselves. The fighting had been going on for several minutes and the foot soldiers had done their very best to clear a path. What had seemed initially to be a panic on the part of the brutes from the Blasted Lands was, in fact, merely a clearing of the way. The mounts were not horses. They were larger, and they were carnivores. The chargers were trained to fight against other horses and riders. They were not prepared for the ferocity of the nightmares the grayskins rode.

Horses and riders alike attempted to retreat, but it wasn’t meant to be. The mounts pulled horses down as they tried to get away, rending flesh from the animals’ flanks and tearing them to the ground. Their riders were equally brutal, using weapons familiar and completely foreign to the Fellein alike.

Still the lancers continued on until, at last, the first groups sent in had been taken down by the enemy.

And while they were in the process of being slain by the Sa’ba Taalor, the rest of the lancers waited.

While they waited, a solid wall of horses and men, the Archers Division moved into position and began firing arrows into the ranks of the enemy. Some were ready with shields, but the combat had weakened the proper formations and far larger numbers were taken by surprise. The hail of arrows did the job it was designed to do and sent the grayskins scattering, reaching for shields and trying to prepare themselves. The second volley did almost as much damage, but by the time the third came the Sa’ba Taalor were once again ready for the attack.

By that point over a hundred from each side were either dead or dying.

The sounds of horns calling from lower on the Temmis Pass caused an instant ripple among the Sa’ba Taalor. The formations came back together, this time with the mounted riders to the front. They sported spears in some cases but few, it seemed, had ever used a lance.

Sadly for the lancers they seemed perfectly willing to learn. Worse still, they were excellent at adapting to new situations. Spears and stolen lances alike came into play and the mounts charged at the horses and riders. The horses charged back but even from a distance Lockner could see that the training was only barely holding. It was one thing to expect an animal to charge at a soldier, another to expect even welltrained horses to charge a predatory nightmare.

While the two groups were engaging, the Sa’ba Taalor moved their archers forward.

The First Lancers Division had excellent training. Their enemy had numbers, and four times as many archers. In the end there was only one possible conclusion.

Delil was waiting for Andover in the valley past Wheklam. The land there was rocky and the waters that trickled through the area ran hot and steamed up the air. By the time they ran across each other both had stripped down to the bare essentials and were sweating profusely.

There was no food to be had, so they went hungry.

“You look different, Andover.” Delil sipped at a flask of water and moved carefully over the ground. The earth here was dark, broken and tended to slip out from under unwary feet. He began to understand why so many of the Sa’ba Taalor walked softly instead of merely stomping their way across the landscape.

“How do I look different?” He touched the third of his Great Scars, momentarily selfconscious. If Delil saw the gesture, she did not say anything.

“Your skin is more like ours. And your eyes have the proper shine to them.”

He frowned as he contemplated that. “Do you suppose I am becoming one of your people?”

“Would that bother you?” She looked at him carefully, her feet seeming to know exactly where they should move.

“I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “No. I am already no longer who I was. I have hands, and I have…” He shook his head at a loss for words.

“You have what?”

“I’m not sure. I have never been good with words, Delil.”

She laughed. “Liar. You are very good with words. You’ve used them to make a hundred excuses in the time I’ve known you.” She did not understand the nature of the gesture he offered. That was just as well. She’d have likely broken his skull if she had.

“I have hands. I have spoken to gods. I’m supposed to speak to more. I never expected any of this.”

“The gods have chosen you, Andover Lashk.”

“Yes, but what have they chosen me for?”

She rolled her head, working to stretch the tension from her body. “Who can say the will of the gods before they let their will be known? Only fools, that is who. Gods do not always explain themselves until they are ready.”

Andover nodded his head and looked toward the next mountain. It was, as they all were, a vast thing. “Which mountain do I look upon, Delil?”

“You stand before great Ordna, the Bronze Mountain.”

He considered that and nodded. “What does Ordna do?”

Delil looked his way and snickered. “Whatever Ordna wants. Ordna is a god.”

“You’re not as funny as you think.” The words were spoken without malice.

“Ordna teaches the way of great weapons. Ordna teaches us to break walls and crush armies with ease.”

As she spoke she started up the rough edge of the mountain. There were easy handholds, but it was going to be a very long climb. The side of the mountain rose like a column, towering and straight, unlike the last mountain which had been rounder and had fewer decent places to place a foot. Still, Wheklam and Ordna had one thing in common: they were meant to be challenges that had to be faced.

“‘Break walls and crush armies?’” He shook his head as he started ascending. The climb was easy enough, but he had to pull his body upward with his hands as often as not and the strain was easy to feel as it grew inside his body.

Delil looked down at him over her shoulder. From this angle he could see most of her body and the scars that ran across her, detailing every struggle she’d experienced. The scars told a story. Someday he hoped to learn all of the tales that made the whole of the woman.

“Do you have siege weapons in Fellein, Andover?”

“I have no idea what a siege is. What do the weapons do?”

She shook her head and smiled. “You will soon discover the answer to that question, I suspect.”

The ground was soft and sandy and wet.

Lored, Chosen of the Forge of Ordna and King in Bronze led his mount across the damp sand with a smile on his face. He was not smiling because his mount, Pre’ru, was making unhappy noises about the moisture on his paws, but because he was now off the ship that had been transporting him and his people.

He scanned the shoreline with both his flesh eye and his bronze one and nodded his satisfaction.

He did not like the ships. They swayed and rocked and left him feeling restless.

Night covered the world. The sky was clouded and few stars shone through the veil of storm clouds. The keep ahead of them was a massive affair, with heavy stone walls and reinforced gates. It would be a good challenge and one they looked forward to overcoming in the name of the Daxar Taalor.

Donaie Swarl, the King in Lead, had done her part and transported them to the far eastern side of the Fellein Empire. Now he and his would do their part and seed the fury of the gods in virgin territory, as ordered by Ordna and the other Daxar Taalor.

Donaie walked down the gangway from her ship and moved over to where he rode Pre’ru. The mount made no noise as she put her hand into his thick mane. They were positively old friends after their time together on the vast black ship.

The air was hot here. Ordna was used to the sort of heat he encountered, but there was also a breeze and that was a pleasant change.

“We go our own ways now, Lored.”

He nodded and looked at the king before him. She was a tall woman, and heavily muscled. He wondered idly what their children would look like if the Daxar Taalor decided they should have any.

“Do you stay here, Donaie? Or will you move on?”

“I’m finished here. I go back toward the west. To the south. There are ships massing. They wish to engage us in combat.” She looked in that direction and then back to him, here eyes aglow with the thrill of the coming battles. “They do not understand the Great Tide or that it is now upon them, Lored. We must both teach them lessons.”

He slapped her shoulder with companionable affection and she smiled. “Go teach the water riders about the tide, Donaie Swarl, and I will teach them about the land.”

“Keep Pre’ru safe. He’s the better part of you.” Her voice held a teasing note.

“I would say the same about your ship, but it reeks of dead fish.”

“Less so now that you are off of it.” She waved one hand in farewell and he nodded to her even as she walked away.

Then he rode forward and bellowed to his people, “We ride! There’s blood in the air!”

They roared their agreement and began to move, heading for swamplands in the distance.

There were people there that needed killing and he was in a mood to help them along the paths of their destinies.

His people moved quickly and efficiently. They had practiced their maneuvers over every sort of terrain for most of their lives and now, finally, they would have a chance to use them properly. It was one thing to war against the other kings of the Seven Forges and something entirely different to work against the enemies of the gods.

Praxus walked closer and nodded to Lored and Pre’ru alike.

“This is Elda?”

Lored nodded and eyed the closest wall of the keep. “One small part. Elda is a kingdom. Elda is a large part of the entire Empire and has many soldiers.” He pointed to the stone barrier. “Elda also likes walls almost as much as Tarag Paedori.” The King in Iron loved walls. Lored loved knocking walls down. They had been friendly rivals for a very long time.

“Where is Blane?” Blane had traveled to Fellein before and met with the previous Emperor and their sorcerer, too. He was a ferocious fighter, but it wasn’t his skill with a sword that was needed just then.

Praxus frowned. “Working on one of the catapults, my king.”

“Find him for me. I want to make sure I word the demand for surrender properly.”

“You are going to write a demand for surrender?” The man’s broad mouth frowned in bewilderment.

“Of course,” he smiled. “I will strap it to the very first stone we send through their wall.”

Praxus chuckled and nodded. “I will find Blane.”

By the time the siege engines had been assembled Blane had written down five copies of the articles demanding surrender and the sun was starting to rise.

The sound of horns came from the keep ahead of them and Lored nodded his head. “They call to arms! Listen to them! Break their walls!”

The first missile ripped through the air and struck true, smashing into one of the stone walls and sending a rain of debris falling into the interior of the keep. Before the dust had settled, fourteen more volleys blasted the wall and collapsed the entire barrier.

Lored stared at the ruin of the first defense and scowled. He had hoped for a greater challenge. The wall was not built to withstand the sort of weapons he had brought with him. Against a gathering of soldiers with ladders it would suffice, but he and his did not climb walls, they destroyed them.

“Gather your shields! Raise the battering rams! Bring them down in Ordna’s name!”

“Ordna!” the name echoed across the shattered wall. “Ordna!” Horns called from both sides as if there could be any doubt that the battle had been started.

The soldiers who spilled from the ruined barrier came fast and hard, prepared for battle. Men with heavy armor and shields came toward them from above, moving down trails that had once led to gates that had been sealed against any possible attackers.

Lored raised his longbow and reached for a handful of arrows. The fools came toward them wearing armor and sporting shields. The armor was hastily slapped in place and the shields were carried at the oddest angles, where they could do remarkably little good. Most of the troopers were not wearing helmets.

His first arrow punched through his target’s forehead and dropped the man where he stood. That single arrow had been a signal to the rest of his archers and they paid attention.

The advancing wave of soldiers promptly retreated back to their shattered wall, and Lored grinned. In his own tongue, one that the locals likely would not understand, he called out, “Reload! I see towers along the remaining walls and I want them knocked down!”

He called to Blane and Praxus and had them pass on the message: the rest of the keep would be surrounded by troops and cut off. The message went out quickly and the riders set out to follow his commands.

As he watched through the vast holes in the wall before him, the soldiers inside the keep prepared themselves properly, gathering their armor more completely and taking the time to put on their helmets and position their shields.

Once again he waved for Praxus and the man came forward. “Take down the rest of the wall. I don’t want them thinking they can hide behind it.”

Before the order could be completed a coalition of men from within the keep came out, unarmed and heading toward Lored where he sat upon Pre’ru. He slid down from the mount’s back and patted his old friend on the shoulder. He rested one hand on the handle of his mace and waited calmly.

The man at the front was older, but in good shape. He did not wear armor, but his uniform was covered with buttons and cords and many decorations. His hair was pulled back into a thick braid.

Lored did not speak. He kept his expression neutral and waited for the man to come to him. He watched the old man’s eyes look him over, from his scaled armor to the metallic sculpture that had replaced a portion of his face, a gift from Ordna. The bronze flesh moved and felt. The bronze eye moved and saw.

“Why have you attacked us?” There should have been rage in that voice. There should, at the very least, have been indignation. Instead there was only fear. Lored did not change his expression, but he was disappointed.

“You are part of Fellein. We are at war with Fellein.”

“But what did we do? How do we sue for peace?”

“Surrender your keep. Offer us your troops as ours, and we will consider your request for peace.”

“I cannot. I have a king I answer to. I have made oaths and sworn my fealty.” He was nervous as he spoke. They were words he did not want to say, but felt he had to say just the same. He had made vows to kings, after all.

Lored nodded his head in the way of the Fellein and then he brought his mace around in an arc and shattered the man’s face. The soldiers behind the man let out noises and he looked at them and sneered.

“You will surrender to me or you will die!”

Three of them retreated. One of them stood his ground and reached for his sword. It was a very pretty sword, with gems and gold wire around the hilt. Despite the ornamentation the man pulled it with ease and dropped into a proper stance.

“You have killed a good man today and you will die for your troubles!” The voice shook with rage.

“I have killed a weak man. It was meant as a mercy.” Lored bared his teeth in a grin as he spoke.

The swordsman lunged forward with his sword in position and Lored blocked with the handle of his mace. He shoved the man backward with his full body weight and the man fell back exactly far enough to let Lored hit him with the heavy end of his weapon.

Depending on who you speak with, a sword is a gentleman’s weapon. It requires skill and demands respect. Lored had several swords. He used them regularly. Now and then he preferred the way a mace felt when it was crushing a skull.

The other three men tried to run back to the keep and Lored whistled to Pre’ru. His mount took them down easily, clawing two of them to the ground and beheading the third with one bite of powerful jaws.

Lored laughed and several others joined him. If this were the best the Fellein had to offer, the war would be a short one.

“Take down the walls!” He waved his mace and his followers obeyed. The volleys from the catapults obliterated the remaining wall facing the ocean, killing at least a dozen who stood too close to the damaged structure.

“Take them all! Take this place in the name of Ordna!”

“Ordna!” they roared as one. “Ordna!” they prayed to their god, offering sacrifices in the name of the deity.

Lored joined them in the offering to the Daxar Taalor. Their offerings were many that day and their god was pleased.

The entrance into Ordna’s heart was not at the top of the mountain. Instead it came upon Andover as a nearly complete surprise. One moment he was concentrating on where he would place his hand and the next his fingers found purchase on a ledge that he was sure had not been there before.

He did not question this. He understood now that the gods had their ways.

The walk to the center of the mountain was uneventful. Delil walked beside him and looked only ahead. He returned the favor. Delil meant a great deal to him, but he also knew that she was not why he was in the heart of Ordna. He was here instead to meet with a god.

So the last thing he expected when walking around a bend in the tunnel was to find his mother waiting for him.

At fourteen, roughly the same time he decided he knew how best to handle his world, his mother and father sent him on his way with instructions to stay away or face the scarred knuckles of his father’s fists.

“Mother?” His voice broke as if he were just starting puberty and he felt himself blush.

“No. Not your mother. I have merely chosen her face for dealing with you.” He felt the presence then. That vast, overwhelming power that he had now felt three times before. This was Ordna. A god.

His mother stood before him and shook her head.

He dropped to one knee before the god and offered his hands before him as he had with Truska-Pren. The axe he had been given by the gods rested in his open palms.

His mother reached for the weapon, but it was Drask Silver Hand who plucked it from his grasp.

Drask loomed above him, his eyes burning beneath a furrowed brow. Though he no longer wore a veil, Andover recognized him. The Great Scars on Drask’s face were different. There were seven of them, one for each of the Daxar Taalor, and they ran in perfect lines from just below his nose to just above his chin. The man’s dark hair flowed loosely around his broad shoulders.

Silvery eyes regarded the weapon before handing it back.

“Why are you here, Andover Lashk of Fellein?” The voice was Drask’s, but the words seemed impossibly heavy, as if they might crush him. The attention of gods was not an easy burden.

“I am here to make myself known to you, Ordna.”

“Stand. Walk with me.”

Andover obeyed, quickly settling his axe back at his hip and moving next to the larger man. As they walked, the walls shifted until they were standing in a chamber carved from warm, brown rock. The ground beneath them was a mosaic, meticulously laid out from small tiles that depicted seven different symbols. He recognized Truska-Pren’s visage among them. A face carved from obsidian scowled in the detailed illustration: Durhallem. In the exact center of the mosaic a face made of bronze tiles rested. Ordna glared up toward the ceiling, a face shaped from endless angles of metal. The rest of them were lost in shadows and distance.

“What is war, Andover Lashk?”

He stopped examining the artwork on the floor and looked at the god wearing Drask’s face.

“I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Honestly. It is always best to be honest when talking with gods.” There was a hint of humor in that comment and for brief instant Andover realized how much he missed Drask. The man was had not always been kind, but he had always been honest.

“I think war is a conflict between two people.”

Drask’s silver hand tilted left and right, making clumsy waves in the air. “Yes. No. Give more details.”

“War is a conflict between two people that cannot be resolved with words and promises.”

“Better.” Drask did not smile, but he tilted his head into a nod in that way Drask did sometimes.

“Now, what is the purpose of war?”

“To settle matters once and for all?”

Drask/Ordna nodded. “Resolution. A final decision. That is the purpose of war.” The god turned and looked toward the distant wall. Only where the wall should have been there was now a view into the distance. “War has many purposes, Andover Lashk. Resolution is a part of that, yes, but there is more.”

Drask walked toward the image on the wall and Andover followed. The air felt different where the image was and Andover smelled the scent of a river, the odors of familiar spices in the air. As he approached the image he saw a collection of stands and small tents, set up near a riverside. This might not be Tyrne he looked at, but it was close enough. He could just about reach out and touch the world he had left behind. As if to prove his point a breeze caressed his brow as he came closer still to the moving image.

“Is that Tyrne?”

“You already know that it is not. It is Freeholdt, at the banks of the Freeholdt River. Tyrne no longer exists. Durhallem now stands at the spot where Tyrne once stood. This was done to make a point. This was done to explain to the people of Fellein that war is here and they will fall before us.”

Andover nodded his head slowly. “Durhallem is in two places?”

“Yes. Durhallem stands here and there. Just as this mountain, Ordna, will soon stand here and in a different part of Fellein.”

“Why?”

“We are at war, my people and yours.”

The muscles in his mouths pulled in different ways. They were foreign as yet. He was not used to having different mouths and the feeling was uncomfortable.

“Tell me what you are thinking, Andover.”

It wasn’t a request.

“I’m not certain if they are my people any longer. I am not certain of anything.”

Drask nodded. “Good. Then you are learning the greatest truth of war.” The god made flesh turned and faced him and that massive silver hand rested on his shoulder. “Fellein is old and has grown stagnant. There has been no change for too long. There must always be change, Andover.”

Andover tilted his head, absolutely unaware that he was mirroring both Drask and Delil in the way they asked questions without words.

“There are Seven Forges here, Andover Lashk. Just as the forges in a blacksmith’s are used to shape and strengthen, so too are the forges here used to the same end. Durhallem demanded that you walk the Blasted Lands and learn to fight before you were allowed to meet. Truska-Pren gave you new hands, yes, but you were made to endure great pain in the giving. That was not a mistake or an oversight. As Drask Silver Hand told you then, life is pain.”

Drask/Ordna stepped closer, until he was inches from Andover’s face. He was bigger than Andover, but not as big as the man remembered. “Metal must be heated and shaped. So, too, with people. You have been heated and shaped, but you are not yet complete. Do you understand?”

Andover continued to frown. “Not entirely.”

“Good enough.” Drask nodded. “When you were with Wheklam what did you learn?”

“How to build a boat. How to judge the winds on the water. How to swim. How not to drown. How to fish if I need food.” The words came freely and Andover felt an unsettling sense of awe. He was not aware that he had learned these things, not on a conscious level, but now that he spoke, the comprehension was there. He had never sailed, never built a boat, never fished, but the knowledge was there as surely as he understood how to walk.

“Wheklam held you under the waters. You were tempered by the touch of a god. Now you must be heated again and shaped again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Andover. You have worked as a blacksmith. You understand the process of making a tool or a weapon. You have forged your own weapon and killed with it, yes?”

“Yes. My hammer.” The hammer was gone now, of course, but he’d made it and used it well.

“Your hammer. The first of many weapons you will make in your life. You have the skills to make more. You will do so before you leave here. Metal will be shaped and formed and you will carry a new weapon, whatever you decide to make.”

Andover nodded. If the gods wanted him to make weapons he would. It was the least he could do in exchange for all they had given him.

“Gods make tools and weapons, too, Andover. You are one such weapon. Each and every one of the Sa’ba Taalor is a weapon of the gods. We have shaped them, as we are now shaping you, do you understand this?”

Andover considered those words carefully before nodding.

“Are you… Am I Sa’ba Taalor now?”

“That is for you to decide.” Drask looked at him and then moved his arms away from Andover. “You can leave here and go back to your people. Step through that spot…” He pointed to the image on the wall. The image that moved, where water lapped at the edge of the river, and the scent of cooking meats brought a rumble to Andover’s stomach and a flutter of familiarity to his heart. “Three steps, and you are in Freeholdt, never to return here.”

Drask crossed his thick arms and continued to look at him. “Freeholdt is not yet touched by the Sa’ba Taalor, though it will be soon. You would have time to get away before that happened and you have the skills to survive should you wish to avoid my people. Your life will not be easy, but it will be yours.”

The Silver Hand walked a few paces now and gestured to the ground, where seven faces of seven deities glowered toward the ceiling. “Or you can stay here and finish what you have willingly started. You can be shaped by the gods, forged into a different being. Your life here will not be easy, either, but you will be accepted by the Sa’ba Taalor and you will have a purpose in this world beyond finding your next meal.”

“What will I learn from you, Ordna? If I stay, what will you teach me?”

“Do not ask what I will give you, Andover Lashk. Merely know that you will learn and be shaped. You will be prepared for war.”

Life is pain. War is change. The raw materials of life hammered and shaped into something with a purpose.

He did not ask if he had to choose now. He already knew the answer. He was in the presence of a god and gods did not wait on the whims of mortals. He could only guess how rare it was for a god to give a mortal options.

Andover turned his back on the land where he had been born and walked toward the image of Drask Silver Hand.

Eleven

“Why are you still here, Cullen? Everything is gone already. Everything is dead.” Deltrea’s voice harped at her. Deltrea was dead, of course, but it seemed not even death could shut the woman’s mouth.

“I told you before, I’m waiting for something.”

If she looked in the direction of Deltrea’s voice she could almost see her friend, long and lean and smiling that lazy, lusty smile of hers. She missed Deltrea more than she would have thought possible. Enough, it seemed, to let herself wallow in the madness of fantasies.

She’d have thought she could do better when it came to spectral companions, but apparently her mind wanted Deltrea and she had to accept that.

“Does this make you our new queen?”

“What?” She looked toward the voice but there was no face this time. “No. Why would it?”

“You told me once you were related to the queen, didn’t you?”

“No. That was my grandmother.” She waved the question away. Or maybe she waved at a fly. It was hard to say sometimes.

Cullen had watched the grayskins move on and the people of Trecharch stumble past her, though she could not have told anyone which came first. Days moved past her with no true recollection beyond the end of everything she had ever believed in. She might never have moved again if hunger hadn’t finally snuck past her shock and bitten hard enough for her to notice.

In exchange for her vigilance, she had gotten Deltrea’s voice in her head. A blessing, perhaps, or a way for the Mother-Vine to make her suffer even more.

The Mother-Vine lay dead before her, burned and hacked and destroyed. That fact sat as well with her as the notion that sun would never shine again or that the Great Star would fly away and find a new home somewhere far away. None of the concepts made sense in her eyes.

She spent a week foraging in the woods around the ruins of the tower and circling the ruin of the Mother-Vine. What she touched failed to feel real under her fingertips. Her skin was numb and she could not escape the horror of what her world had become.

Sections of the great vine fell from the trees and shattered to the ground at random intervals and Cullen watched. It was all she could do. In time she found a decent bow and gathered arrows. Neither were hard to find. The grayskins had not claimed anything but the bodies of the fallen and most of her people who had gone past wouldn’t have known how to use a bow or were too weak to use one. Those she saw were not the sort to fight. The old, the diseased, the young. The rest were gone along with the Mother-Vine.

On the ninth day Cullen climbed to the remains of the Mother-Vine and slowly scaled the great husk. She wasn’t quite sure why, except that she seemed to have a need.

That was the only reason she had stayed this long anyway.

“What are you going to do, Cullen? Whittle your name in the remains?”

“You’re very rude, Deltrea.”

“Well, death has made me like manners less.”

“Nothing could make you like manners less. Shouldn’t you be off fucking Lurne’s ghost?”

“Now who’s lost her manners?” There was a pause and Cullen scaled the remains, pulling herself up the vast trunk of her dead god with ease. “Besides, I haven’t found any other ghosts to speak with.”

“Just as well. I’d be bored without you.”

“That’s why I stay, you know. To save you from boredom.”

“I have lost my mind and you are an echo of that loss.”

“You have lost your way, Cullen. There’s a difference.”

“Well, should you happen to know the way I should go, please feel free to tell me. Otherwise I’m just staying here until the winter comes around again.”

Deltrea’s voice stayed silent, but that was just as well. Cullen would have never noticed. She was too busy looking at the brilliant slice of green hiding in the ruined trunk of the Mother-Vine.

Had anyone told her that she would reach for that sliver of green in a vast field of dead, gray ruin, she would have laughed at the notion. Cullen was simply not that brave and would have been the first to tell anyone as much.

Still, her fingers reached, and touched, and burned with the vitality of the treasure she found hidden in the depths of a dead god.

Deltrea no longer spoke to her. Instead she screamed. Cullen screamed, too.

Drask moved as carefully as he had for days now. He could have made noise and he had no doubt he would not have been heard over the sound of complaints coming from below. Tega was quiet. The larger of the men was quiet as well, but the small one, the one he thought of as the digger, continued to bemoan the lack of food.

He reached into his pouch and took out a logga nut. Most people required a knife or a rock to open one of the hard nuts. Drask had a silver hand. He found it very useful for just such situations.

They had made surprisingly good time. Despite the constant complaints, the digger led them well enough, careful to avoid the more obvious pitfalls.

Drask merely followed, as he had been ordered.

Until they reached level ground.

Everything that he had already seen in the depths of the Mounds was here as well, only more so.

There were columns of crystalline rock that held hidden things within the murky depths; half-seen bodies and remnants of other forms. Near his left hand he could see a human head, burnt and blistered and torn, suspended in the stone and staring with one wide eye in his direction. He did not fear such things, but they made him uncomfortable.

When Ydramil spoke it was with Ganem’s voice. Ganem was the King in Silver and so this was not at all surprising to Drask. Her voice was smoky and sultry and Drask closed his eyes, delighted to hear the familiar tones.

“It is time, Drask Silver Hand. You will soon learn secrets never meant for the Sa’ba Taalor.”

Drask nodded his head, fully aware that the god knew and could see all that he did.

“There are places forbidden to your people for your protection. This is one such place. But there are also secrets here, for even gods have their secrets. You are trusted as none of your kind have been trusted before in this. Think carefully before you react. Know that your actions and words will have consequences.”

Drask spoke softly, but he spoke. “Ydramil, I have served all of the Daxar Taalor. I have lived in each land and studied the ways of every king and every god. Yours is the path of reflection and consideration. I have chosen to follow your ways. I will not disappoint you.”

“The Fellein will soon find what they have sought. Here there is a weapon that can be used against us. It is also a weapon that can be used by us and for us. Look upon their discovery when the moment comes and if you would honor me, take up that weapon in my name.”

“How will I know this weapon, Ydramil?”

“You are a warrior, Drask. You will know it as you have always known weapons. You will see it for what it is.”

The voice faded, but the presence did not. For this moment in time Ydramil kept close watch on Drask and that by itself was enough to make him understand the gravity of the matter ahead.

Drask watched the Fellein as they moved across the flat surface of the ground and closer to the source of the light they had been seeking for so many days.

“By the gods, Vonders! Do you ever stop complaining?” His voice was louder than he’d meant it to be, but the sentiment was sincere and Nolan glared at the source of his frustration.

“No, not often.” Vonders looked back at him and smiled. It was the first time Nolan had seen the man look remotely cheerful in the last two days.

“You’ve enough of your trinkets to buy a castle when we get home. You should be celebrating, not pissing about how hard your existence is.”

Vonders shrugged and patted the pouch he’d sewn into his cloak. “Can’t spend a fortune here. It isn’t worth a fortune here, and even if it were, I’ve still got to finish this nonsense.”

Nolan knew that Orly was only complaining to hide the fact that he was terrified. The nightmare that had killed Tolpen had been unsettling enough, but when they found Tolpen’s corpse far below them several truths became evident. First that the thing Tega called a Mound Crawler was not dead. There was no sign of the vast body. Second that other things were alive down here. Hart’s body had been chewed on a great deal. Most of his face was gone and the droppings of whatever had fed on him were nearby.

Tega reached into her cloak and pulled out three pieces of pabba fruit that should not have been there. They were fresh and smelled as perfect as a sunrise over the mountains looked.

“Eat,” she said. He could see the strain on her face. Though she had explained little, he understood from her words that sorcery of any sort had a cost. Getting fresh fruit from another part of the world might have seemed like a parlor trick to some, but there were no fruit stands here and however she had managed the feat she had to reach a very great distance to gather the feast.

Vonders snatched the fruit and sniffed it eagerly.

“Gods, Tega. Now if you could just manage a bit of bread and a good cheese.”

Nolan looked carefully at Tega. “Thank you, but do you need this more than me?”

“I can manage on one fruit, same as you.” She smiled and he felt his stomach flutter. He had seen her kill with a gesture, had watched her quite literally make a monster explode before his eyes, but she was still capable of smiling and making him forget all of that. She was lovely, true enough, but that wasn't it. She was also kind when she did not have to be and that forgave many sins in his eyes.

“I think the glow is stronger here.” Vonders’s voice had lost some of its waspish edge now that he was eating.

“It is,” Tega agreed. “I think we have almost reached our destination.”

“Then why have we stopped here?”

Tega smiled in his direction. “Because we are tired. We are thirsty and we are hungry. Better to allay those troubles before we face whatever comes next, I think.”

Nolan nodded his head. There was wisdom in the notion and he was certainly tired enough.

The fruit was perfect, fresh and sweet and juicy. He made himself savor it instead of wolfing the food down. Vonders did not follow the same philosophy.

Nolan looked away from the other man and scanned the area above them. There was a lot of darkness up that way and he could only guess that they had descended close to a thousand feet. He was wrong. Drask would have pointed out that they were closer to five thousand feet down.

“I hope that if we find a weapon against the Sa’ba Taalor that it is light.”

Tega frowned and pulled a section of pabba fruit from the whole. “Why?”

“I will do what must be done, of course, but I have no desire to carry a great weight all the way back up there.”

A second later they were all looking at the vast distance they had covered.

Vonders sighed. “The problem isn’t the weight so much as the entire thing will be uphill.”

Tega laughed at that, the sound echoing away from them and bouncing back. The look of horror on her face when the sound started was enough to make both of the men with her smile.

It was as close as Nolan could remember to being genuinely relaxed in days. He finished his food and licked the juices from his fingers, relishing the taste. By the time he had finished the others were long done.

“We should go.” Vonders spoke almost too loudly and Nolan looked at the other man. He gestured with his hand, pointing in the direction that they’d come from. Nolan looked that way but only after starting to collect his belongings. The move hid his taking the time to look where Vonders pointed.

He barely managed to keep his face calm when he saw the giant moving carefully down the path.

The man was enormous, but moved with the grace of a cat.

Before any more time had passed, Vonders had a throwing blade in his hand and Nolan tried to get his attention and stop him before he could throw. The challenge was to do so without being noticed himself.

He was too late. Vonders Orly was a clown half the time and he was greedy to a fault, but he was also a trained soldier and he had moved through the periphery of the Blasted Lands a hundred times or more. He knew how to handle his weapons and he knew how to aim at a target.

The blade cut the air silently and moved for the shadowy form. If the blow was not perfect, if the enemy did not get injured, but instead merely noticed the attack, they were going to suffer for Vonders’ actions.

The blade sailed flawlessly into the darkness and the man moved, stepped to the side and swept his hand at the spot where the blade should have buried itself into him.

The man’s head turned and his eyes flashed with a light all their own.

He made no sound as he moved, but instead came in fast, charging toward Vonders. If the scavenger had thought to escape before he was struck, he failed in his efforts. The man came out of the semi-dark and drove his fist into Vonders’ chest with a hard, wet noise. Vonders let out a grunt and fell back, his face twisted with pain.

As Vonders fell backward the man moved in closer again and drove his knee into the muscles of his attacker’s thigh. The thick bone snapped. Nolan watched the way Vonders’ leg bulged unexpectedly and then saw the bone rip free of the muscles around it. Vonders never even screamed. He got lucky and passed out before the pain could fully register.

The man turned, his entire body lowered into a crouch, and his right hand glimmering oddly in the faint light. His left hand held a blade of some sort, but from his current distance and in the dim light, Nolan couldn’t quite make it out.

The fight was over before Tega even noticed it was happening. That was hardly her fault. She was not trained in fighting situations and besides, the entire thing had happened in two heartbeats.

“Drask Silver Hand!” Tega stepped forward, her hands held out at her sides, showing clearly that she held no weapons.

The giant nodded, but his attention remained firmly focused on Nolan. “Put down the weapon. Do not make me hurt you.”

It was only then that Nolan realized he’d drawn his axe. His grip on the handle was tight enough to make his fingers hurt.

It wasn’t conscious, but he calculated his chances of taking the man down before the situation could get worse. The odds were not in his favor. He put the axe away.

Vonders coughed and groaned, drifting slowly back toward consciousness. Nolan knew he would wake properly soon enough and that the pain of his leg would come down on him like a felled tree.

“You’re following us?” Nolan could think of nothing else to say.

“I am.” There was an odd tone to the man’s voice. A sibilance that made Nolan’s flesh shiver.

“Why?”

“My gods wish me to know what you do down here. I obey the desires of the Daxar Taalor.”

Nolan nodded. He wanted to stall for time but could think of nothing to say.

“You’ve broken his leg.” Tega had moved forward to examine Vonders where he lay on the ground.

“He attacked me.”

“Well, yes, you were following us.”

“Had I wanted you dead, you would be dead.” Drask looked down at her. The man’s face was broad, his jaw was strong and squared and his longish hair tied back away from his face. His skin was gray and looked lifeless, but he lived and moved and breathed. His eyes glowed, much like a cat’s in the right light. It was an unsettling effect and Nolan found himself wondering if the stranger could see as well in the dark as a feline. His face was mostly hidden in the darkness but Nolan could see that something was off about the way his mouth moved.

When Drask came closer he saw and understood what that something was. The lips of the man’s mouth were sealed into a scar. At regular intervals along that scar slits ran from his chin to just under his nose. Each of those slits moved as he spoke. Each revealed a hint of teeth and gums.

Nolan looked away and forced himself to breathe. This was an abomination. Not as severe as the dead things that had moved and attacked when he was on his way to Tyrne a few weeks earlier, but just as unsettling and offensive to his senses.

Drask said, “You are Tega. The apprentice to Desh Krohan.” He moved around her, his unsettling eyes scanning the area.

“I am. We are here. We are here to find a way to end the war between our peoples.”

“You seek a weapon that will stop the war.” Drask nodded. He moved his hands and Nolan saw the metal appendage that took the place of a real hand. He saw the fingers move, the hand flex, and bit down on his own lip to stop from screaming. He was not a cowardly man, but the unnatural things he ran across unsettled him.

“Do you seek a weapon, Drask?”

“I seek what my gods ask of me.”

“That’s not a no.”

“Neither is it a yes.”

“Why are we at war, Drask? Why did one of your people kill the Emperor?”

Drask shook his head. “I do not know. I traveled with Andover Lashk and others, and I heard about the murder only after I returned to the Taalor Valley.”

“I can’t mend this. You’ve broken his leg and his chest is bleeding.” Tega spoke softly, but there was little else to hear.

“He should not have attacked me.”

“You should not have followed us.” Nolan spoke without thinking. He knew the situation was tense and yet he opened his mouth and made comments that would not ease the problems. His father would have disapproved and he felt shamed as a result of that knowledge.

“I am here. You are here. This is either a peaceful situation from here on out, or we fight and I kill you.” Drask spoke calmly and looked directly at him. Nolan did not know how skilled Drask was – though the evidence of his abilities was currently bleeding and broken on the ground – but the stranger had enough confidence for a dozen men.

Nolan took a step toward him and Tega shook her head. “Stop. Do not provoke him, Nolan.”

There it was. He clamped down with his jaw and stopped himself from saying something foolish. This girl was in charge of what he did here. He did not have to like it, but he had to accept it.

Of course, the girl was also a sorcerer and had killed monsters that slapped him aside with ease. It would be best if he didn’t think of her as weak.

Drask turned away from him as if he didn’t matter, and Nolan felt himself bristle at the notion.

Best not to say anything foolish. Best not to do anything to escalate the situation. He didn’t know enough about his enemy aside from the fact that he looked monstrous.

Still, he desperately wanted to beat the man down.

Drask started walking, heading toward the very thing they had been traveling to reach for the gods knew how long.

“Where are you going?” Tega spoke before Nolan could.

“I intend to find the source of the light.”

“What about Vonders?”

Drask frowned, puzzled for a second. The expression was doubly unsettling as it pulled the muscles in his mouth – mouths?! – in strange ways. “Your man is not my concern.”

“You cannot go on without us.”

“I can.” Drask looked at her. Studied her. Perhaps weighing his chances of surviving her powers. Did he know what she was capable of? Nolan was unsure. “I will.”

“We cannot leave him here.” She sounded frustrated.

“Have your man carry him.” He spoke slowly now, as if to a person of dubious capacities. “He is not my concern.”

Without another word Drask was moving on, heading toward the potent illumination in the near distance. It was no longer a matter of hours or days, but of minutes to reach that spot.

Nolan looked at Tega. He looked at Vonders, broken and bleeding on the ground.

There was a mission to consider.

He followed Drask.

After only a moment, he heard Tega following and he damned himself for his lack of compassion.

Half a continent away the Pilgrim marched, and behind him a growing column of people moved along and kept pace. They were tired, but they understood that this was a mission of the gods themselves.

They knew this because the Pilgrim’s closest followers told them as much. They knew this because they had seen his actions on their own, or heard of his amazing deeds. They knew this because though none of them had brought much by way of supplies, still they did not go hungry and they did not go thirsty.

In Goltha the Pilgrim had stopped and approached the greatest of the temples to Etrilla armed with only a simple sword and his faith, and come away with two hundred followers. Each of those followers had enough supplies to stop the hundred already following from going hungry, and when their food ran out, there were others who offered food and clean water.

He was a quiet man, but he answered questions when asked. He spoke with conviction and he spoke with a deep knowledge of the past that was haunting to those who listened to his answers.

That was all the news that Merros Dulver had received of the man so far and he was not comfortable with the information as it stood.

Desh nodded when they looked over the pages of written descriptions. “Well, it’s different.”

“Yes it is. I also have to wonder where this man is coming from and what he’s doing.”

“As well you should.” Desh looked toward him. “He’s a part of the greater sum of parts, isn’t he?”

“You’re being cryptic. It suits you well enough, but now is not the time.”

Desh waved his hand, dismissing the notion. “It’s always a good time to be cryptic. Comes with the territory. But in this case I’m being accurate. He’s up to something. We have no idea what. He could be coming here to help. He could be coming here to lead a small gathering of people who believe that they must be here to seek protection or to volunteer themselves for some obscure purpose.”

“It’s not really a small gathering, Desh. There are over a thousand of them.”

Again he waved a dismissive hand. “It’s a matter of perspective, really. We have fifty times that number trying to find homes in the city already.”

Merros rubbed at his temples. His headache was back and growing exponentially the longer he spoke to the First Advisor. “Yes, and that’s a problem.”

“Not your problem, Merros. We have a head of the City Watch here. He has to deal with the overflow.”

“All of us have to deal with it, Desh. I’ve already had to chase off several squatters from my own home.”

“Hardly an issue I’d think. You’re normally not there but for a few hours.”

“You see? Right there. You think you’re being witty, but really, it’s only annoying.”

“No, really it’s funny. You’re just too close to appreciate the humor of the situation. If Nachia were here she’d agree with me.”

“Where is the Empress?”

“She’s dealing with her family. More precisely, she’s having them dealt with. The Inquisitor. What’s his name?”

“Murdro, I think.”

“Darsken Murdro, that’s right. He’s investigating who, exactly, was behind the murder of her cousin. All signs lead to another of her cousins. She’s not taking it very well.”

“Shouldn’t one of us be with her?” He felt his guts tighten. “What if someone tries something foolish?”

Desh smiled at him. “You have obviously never dealt with Darsken Murdro. The only thing anyone will do around him is behave and pray he does not notice them.”

“I’ve only seen him from a distance but he seemed pleasant enough.”

“Oh, he is,” Desh nodded. “So is a murder rose until you decide to hold the blossom in your hand and sniff it. Perfectly inviting and even charming until the poisons burn your skull open.”

“By the gods, man, where do you hear about these things?”

“I was the one who advised Empress Detelia to outlaw the farming of the things. Foolish sort of thing to cultivate in the first place, but they were very popular eighty years ago.” There had been a time when Merros was absolutely convinced that Desh Krohan was a charlatan and spread rumors of his power strictly to make sure everyone thought he could perform sorcerous acts. He had no doubt in his mind that Desh worked on the rumors and convinced as many as he could. He also had no doubt the man could truly work sorcery though he had never actually seen Desh himself do anything at all that qualified as mystical aside from wear his robes.

“So the Empress is safe?”

“She has a dozen armed guards and an Inquisitor. Not even her worst blood relatives are foolish enough to try anything right now.”

That was one less thing for him to worry about and Merros was grateful for it. “Back to where we were. What are we supposed to do about this Pilgrim fellow?”

“Absolutely nothing. Let him continue on his way. If he is a threat and he and his followers reach the city, the City Guard will handle him. You have more pressing matters to attend to. Like Elda. How are we going to handle that matter?”

Merros shook his head. “We’re not. Elda did not deliver their conscribed allotment of soldiers. They fell short despite the threat of levies and fines and a lack of protection from the Empire. So now they face levies, fines and an attack from the Sa’ba Taalor. Should the invaders move past Elda, they will find that we have amassed a few surprises for them.”

“Levies and fines?” Desh frowned. “Aren’t they the same thing?”

“Technically, I suppose. In my case the levies are the number of soldiers I will take by force from any would-be refugees from the battlefront. The fines will be monetary. Wars cost money. Failure to offer the proper levies will add to the fines.”

“You are a cruel man, Merros Dulver.”

“I prefer to think of myself as practical.” His head hurt.

“That expression right there. The way you rub at your temples when you think of how much you have to do? That is why I made you a general.”

“Nice of you to confess. And you’re saying my pain is beneficial to my career?”

“It means you’re the right person for the task. If you didn’t mind using Elda as an example I’d think you heartless. An army should have a heart.”

“Hearts don’t win wars.”

“I disagree.”

“I’m telling Nachia that you confessed to manipulating me into being a general of the Imperial Army and that it was not, in fact, her cousin.”

“I never denied it. I merely clarified. I suggested. He signed the papers.”

“Are you sure Nachia’s safe?”

“She’s still in the castle. She’s as safe as she’s likely to get.”

Swech watched the Empress as she moved across her court, her arms behind her back clasped together as if she feared letting them free of each other, where they could lash out.

She was hidden, of course. Dressed in her black clothes and wearing her veils, to hide away hair and face alike, despite her hiding place, because caution required not being seen or recognized. The crawlspace where she hid herself was concealed in the very wall of the large room. There was a reason that she’d taken the key from around the neck of Libari Welliso when she’d killed him. Access to several hidden chambers had gained her access to several different keys before Tyrne burned. No one looked for the keys now, because they were assumed destroyed with the city.

The gods were wise.

The Empress of the Fellein Empire was in a bad mood. Even if she had not heard the words spoken, Swech would have understood the body language. Tension in muscles throughout the woman’s body. Her hands not still, but clenched with each other as if fighting for dominance. Her posture stiff and her teeth grinding against each other.

She was not the same carefree creature she had been before ascending to the throne of her Empire. That made her at least moderately wise.

“My cousin, my blood and yours, is dead! He was murdered two nights ago in the company of cutthroats fresh from a boat that delivered them to the city. What I want to know is why he was murdered. The investigation so far has led to a very real possibility that one of the members of our family is responsible. One of the people in this room.”

There were twenty or more members of the same family, the royal bloodline, apparently, all in the room with her. If she understood correctly, they were all in line for the throne if Nachia died. Blood was what mattered in Fellein, not skills or faith. And wealth. She was learning that quickly enough. If one had money one could open any number of doors.

She shook off her reverie as the family members present went through their motions. They nearly crawled over each other in an effort to declare their innocence. She knew which of them was involved, of course, though he was not responsible for the death in this case. His hired blades were supposed to kill the Empress. That was why she had killed them.

The gods wanted the Empress alive. She did not know why and she did not need to know. Was she curious? Of course. But the certain knowledge was not required and not knowing did not cause her to suffer. The gods had wanted the Emperor dead. They wanted the Empress alive. That was all she needed to know.

The guiltiest of the parties, Laister Krous, crossed his thick arms and scoffed. “What possible purpose could any of the family have for murdering Windhar? Who is served by such foolish notions?”

Nachia Krous turned on her cousin with a smile on her face that would have made most enemies hesitate.

“Who indeed, Laister? The most solid connection we have to the brigands found with Windhar lead to Losla Foster.”

He was good. Laister Krous barely even twitched.

“Darsken Murdro.” Nachia gestured with her left hand to a dark-skinned man with a powerful build and long black hair that exploded into tails of differing lengths. He was dressed unremarkably, and carried a short staff. “Inquisitor Darsken Murdro is here to speak with each of you. You will answer his questions to his satisfaction and only after you have done so will you be allowed to leave this chamber.”

Once again the protests started. Not everyone raised their voices. A few looked toward the dark man with nervous expressions. One of the older women in the group leaned back in her seat and looked coldly toward Laister. Her smile rivaled that of the Empress. It was a promise of pain and suffering on an epic level.

When Nachia Krous continued her voice snapped. “You will do this thing! You will stay here. You will answer his questions! We will know, all of us, exactly what has happened to our kin. Should any of you attempt to leave before Inquisitor Murdro has allowed it, the guards in this room will see you punished.”

She moved toward the doors to her private chamber, which meant that she headed straight for the hidden access point above those doors, where Swech was currently waiting. Swech did not move. She did not fear discovery. She was well and truly hidden within walls that were several feet thick.

Her surprise when she saw the Inquisitor looking directly at her could not have been more complete. There was no mistaking it. He was not looking in her general direction. His eyes were on her.

The Inquisitor made a gesture to one of the guards and the man moved closer. Those dark eyes never left her. He spoke softly and the guard looked toward the chamber the Empress had entered.

Swech did not stay around to contemplate how she had been seen. She merely moved, as quickly and quietly as she could, fully accepting that her hiding spot had just been discovered.

The guards entered the chamber of the Empress at the same time Swech was dropping down behind one of the heavy curtains that surrounded the windows of the room.

The guard that grabbed at the curtain to move it aside managed to handle that task and to offer Swech her chance to strike at the same time. His body was exposed as the heavy fabric was pulled away and she drove a blade into his neck without hesitation.

He fell back, choking on his own blood, and Swech helped him along, sending the dying man stumbling across the room to knock aside a small table.

Nachia Krous saw her and her face dropped with shock. She had not expected to find anyone in the room. She should have been prepared – her predecessor had been assassinated after all – but she remained surprised enough to let Swech move past her at a dead run.

By the time the dying guard had collapsed and the Empress had let out a call of alarm, Swech was out of the room and moving down the hallway toward the next wing of the vast structure.

One unfortunate guard came out from a side door as the alarm was sounded. He stared at her and started to draw his short sword. She was already moving faster than he could draw the weapon, but she shifted position and then broke his neck with an elbow strike as she moved past.

Within ten minutes she had vacated the palace. There were other tasks she needed to attend to, and there was little time to dwell on the unexpected discovery. Still, she marked the Inquisitor in her memory as someone to be aware of.

Twelve

The sun had set and the Imperial Highway was overflowing with the people who followed the Pilgrim.

He stood at the head of the massive entourage and nodded his head in satisfaction. The sky was already dark with perpetual clouds. The volcanic activity in the distance and the burning of Trecharch were enough to guarantee that the stars would soon be hidden behind a thick layer of clouds, but here, for the moment, the Great Star and a few others were still visible.

Sarmin and Lemblo stood on his left. Longrid and Powl on his right. There had been a time when all four of them had been soft. The walking had changed that. Their muscles had hardened as surely as their skin had grown dark with the sun’s treatment.

Sarmin smiled at him and he nodded back. His face was not designed for smiling and that was something they had come to understand about him.

“How much farther, do you think?” Powl looked his way as he spoke. Like so many of his followers the man seemed to believe that every word from his mouth came from the gods themselves. He had surrendered the notion that he could convince them otherwise. He spoke with experience, he spoke with the sure knowledge that they needed to reach Canhoon as quickly as possible, but he did not speak with the voice of the gods, not in this instance.

“We have several days’ hard walking ahead of us.”

“Will we make it to the city in time?”

The Pilgrim looked at Powl and frowned. “We must and so we will.”

Powl frowned, too. “There are some who say they cannot walk any further.”

“Then some will not make the journey. We must ensure that enough do.”

The Pilgrim grew tired of the doubt coming from his follower and looked away from him. He saw the expression on Powl’s face. The man wanted words to soothe him and comfort his doubts.

“Believe this, Powl. The gods wish us to succeed. They have given us all we need to prosper in this. We merely have to continue on the proper path. Ours is a sacred path and the way will be cleared of heavy obstacles as has been the case all along.”

It seemed enough for the man.

Later, after everyone had settled in for the night – as much as anyone could settle themselves comfortably on a road designed to be traveled by wagons and horses – the Pilgrim saw Sarmin staring at him in the darkness.

“What bothers you, Sarmin?”

“You know what we travel to. Does it concern you at all?” Her brow was knotted with tensions and doubt.

“I was born for this. I slept for a very long time waiting for this event. It was ordained. I am not bothered by what will happen, child. I look forward to it.”

“I am scared.” She looked away, her face still troubled.

“The weather has been kind to us. We have found the food we need and no one has come up lame, despite Powl’s worries. That is because the gods favor us in our mission. We do the will of the gods. We are the instruments of their desires. Do you understand this?”

She listened to his words and slowly the tension left her face. “You are kind to listen to my worries.”

“You follow me into the unknown, Sarmin. How can I do less than prepare you for what we know must happen?”

Sarmin closed her eyes and smiled and slowly drifted to sleep.

The Pilgrim did not join her; his mind was filled with the endless possibilities of what could go wrong and how to prevent disasters from stopping them.

The gods had need of the people who followed him. He would see this through. He had no choice in the matter.

His was a sacred mission.

Tarag Paedori looked upon the corpses of his enemies and nodded his satisfaction. The First Lancers had fought well and employed surprising strategies. The archers with them had done their jobs well and over a hundred of the Sa’ba Taalor were dead or maimed as a result. The dead were being taken care of. The injured were being tended to.

The small town that had been an outpost of the Fellein was now gone, crushed under the armies of the Sa’ba Taalor.

To the south and east he could see the smoke from Durhallem’s second home. The newly formed volcano roared and spit ashes and flame into the air. Almost directly east of where he and his forces were gathering, Canhoon waited.

There was no rage in his heart. He had offered his anger to the Empress of the Fellein only because the message he had to convey was made clear to him by Truska-Pren. He needed only look to the skies to know that he did well in the eyes of his god. The clouds that gathered were a sign of his success.

Ehnole stood nearby, her eyes scanning the whole of the eastern horizon. She offered no opinions. She made no statements. She followed orders and even now supervised the removal of the dead.

The Daxar Taalor said to place the dead within a pit and leave them behind. This had already been done. The last of the dead – both Sa’ba Taalor and Fellein alike – rested together now. In death they were no longer enemies. They were merely meat.

At home, in the Taalor Valley, the bodies would have been treated differently. They’d have been offered to the gods by those who killed them. Here they were offered as one in the names of all the gods.

Tarag looked upon the dead and nodded.

“You have done well, Ehnole.”

She offered a formal bow and nothing else. She was a proper soldier and that was why she moved up the ranks of the King in Iron with ease. There were no decorations upon her to denote rank. None were needed.

“We offer the dead to the Daxar Taalor.” Tarag spoke clearly and as he spoke, all of the people who followed him stomped one foot in unison. At a distance of one hundred feet, those he had appointed earlier repeated his words and again, the Sa’ba Taalor responded by stomping the ground. The ground fairly shook, as it should when the gods demanded.

“We offer our lives to the Daxar Taalor!” Ehnole and all of the others within range of his voice repeated his words and again the ground shook with the feet of the Sa’ba Taalor.

Tarag Paedori raised his arms to the heavens and roared his words for all to hear. “We offer our enemies to the Daxar Taalor!”

As one they raised their arms above their heads. As one they stomped one foot into the ground. As one they repeated his words. Tarag Paedori’s blood surged and he looked at his armies. They ranged in age from ten years into their fifties and higher. They served the gods of the Seven Forges as he served the same deities. They obeyed his words but only because the gods demanded it. There was no ego in his words. There was only praise for the gods they had all been raised to serve until their dying days and beyond.

Even Kallir Lundt, the Fellein who now followed their ways, raised his voice and his arms to the gods of war.

“The enemies of our gods will fall before us!”

Oh, how they roared their approval then.

“It is time! Now is the time of the Daxar Taalor!” Without another word he walked forward, heading for his mount and the call to war. A hundred horns sounded their ululations, though they were surely unnecessary. A hundred more responded.

Tarag Paedori knew that the Fellein thought they were great warriors. They also thought that the Sa’ba Taalor were small in numbers. They were wrong. Fifty thousand warriors rode or walked behind Tarag Paedori at that moment and they were but a portion of a much greater army.

“We offer the dead to the Daxar Taalor!” He gestured to the vast pit they had spent over a day digging and then filling with corpses. He marched on, and his forces followed.

And behind them, left to fester in their shallow grave, the dead began to move.

All must answer to the gods of war.

Cullen walked through the ruin of Trecharch and into the lands beyond, where trees did not rise toward the clouds and once upon a time, the open spaces would have terrified her. The road she followed was well traveled and the proof of that could be found in what had been left behind.

Many of the escapees from the Sa’ba Taalor had tried to take their possessions with them and a good number discarded those goods when the grayskins came after them. It was a simple lesson to learn: a favored vase is not worth dying for at the hands of a merciless enemy. The road and the areas around it were littered with the items thrown aside or dropped when the enemy came through on a killing rampage. There were no bodies, though there were many areas where it was obvious people had died. Blood painted the dry soil and the places where the dead had fallen still showed signs of the weight of those bodies.

“Where are you going now, Cullen?”

Deltrea continued her tirade of questions and complaints. Sometimes Cullen did not know if she should be grateful or if she should kill herself just to make the noise stop. Still, if Deltrea talked she did not have to think so much, and thinking hurt.

“I’m following the road. I have to get to Canhoon. I have to let them know that Trecharch is dead.”

“I should think they already know. They can probably see the smoke.” Deltrea’s voice sounded hurt. To be fair, she had died somewhere back there. She had every reason to feel hurt.

“That doesn’t matter. They need me. I have something for them.” Somewhere within her she felt it stir, the life she had snatched from the dead Mother-Vine. She needed to see it safely to the City of Wonders. There was a man there who needed to know about it. She could not see a face, she did not know a name, but she could sense him. He needed to know. It was of the utmost urgency.

The road ahead of her was different. There were people up there. Not a lot, but enough to make her aware of more than the life that burned inside of her.

For a moment she feared it was the grayskins, but no. These were people with flesh that resembled life instead of decay. They were active, and they were moving and speaking the same language that she did.

There were more than ten, but she couldn’t have given an exact number. They moved along the road and gathered the salvage that others had left for them to find.

They were destitute, the lot of them. They picked at anything that might have value and carefully placed their treasures in the wagon they brought with them, dragged by two of the saddest-looking horses she had ever seen. She had not seen many, true, but these were old and withered and swaybacked. Cullen wondered if they could have supported the weight of even a small man on a saddle without collapsing. She had her doubts.

Most of them saw her, decided she was harmless and nodded before moving on, but one of the men kept staring, his eyes focused on her arm with an unsettling intensity. It only took her a moment to understand he wasn't looking at her, but at the bow she carried.

She shook her head to warn him away and he frowned, likely trying to decide if it was worth the trouble to try to take from her.

Just to make sure he stayed dissuaded, she notched an arrow and tapped her finger along the fletching to make sure he got the point. Eventually he looked away, muttering under his breath. Cullen decided to keep an ear on the lot of them as she walked past. If he chose to try his luck she’d kill him for his troubles. They were little better than grave robbers in her estimation. Not that she and her stolen bow had any right to judge.

The skies were darker here. The winds stank of ash and worse. There was an aroma of death that came from the south and west, the direction of Jorhuan. She had never been to the town before and knew that she would not be going there now. The stench alone would have deterred her, but that roiling heat in her guts, the Mother-Vine’s mark inside of her, told her that it would be a bad choice and she chose to listen to it.

There were others on the road, but as a whole they were broken remnants. There were no soldiers here, only a scattering of scavengers. Of course, some scavengers still had teeth.

The five men who came at her were not overly large, nor were they dressed with any particular adornments that made them threatening. It was the way they walked, the way they looked around that let her know.

One of them nodded an acknowledgment of her. The others did not. All of them moved with too much bounce in their step and she could clearly see the way their hands twitched. It wasn't nerves. They were signaling each other. She didn’t know what the signals meant, but she doubted they were of benefit to her situation.

Deltrea agreed. “They mean you harm. I can smell it on them.”

Cullen didn’t answer. Instead she took the arrow she had already notched and fired it into the first of the men. Her aim was nearly perfect and he staggered back with a new hole punched clean through his throat.

The next arrow was out, drawn and airborne before the scavengers had a chance to react. The first man was painting the road with his blood, his hands trying to staunch the flow and failing. A second let out a long, warbling scream, the arrow sticking out of the side of his face. She could see that the arrowhead was embedded deep into bone. He would live, but there’d be no fight in him.

Two of the others froze, the third and the last of them took a few strides in her direction and finally stopped when she aimed at him and shook her head. “I lost to the grays. Doesn’t mean I’m not trained. Gather yours and back away, or you’ll all die right at this spot.”

The one she’d skewered in the face was still screaming. She couldn’t blame him. He was trying to speak but his words were lost in the gasping, wailing bellows that came from him. He could have been mistaken for a Pra-Moresh.

The cockiness they’d had before was gone. The brave one, the one that had got closer, was still considering his options, but she could see the other two had already grown wiser from the encounter.

“Keep looking at me, and I’ll split your eye open. You doubt me, you take one more step this way and test my skills.”

For several seconds she thought she might have to carry through but he finally backed down, looking at his fallen friends and letting common sense prevail. He had no weapons. She had a bow and enough arrows to whittle him down to half his size.

She waited several minutes for them to gather their wounded and dying and leave before she continued on.

“You should have killed him, Cullen.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you let him live?”

“There’s enough death here. I can smell it on the wind.”

“What if they come back for you?”

“I guess you’ll just have to warn me, Deltrea.”

“You know I’m dead, right?”

“And yet here you are, still talking to me.”

Because part of her saw the wisdom in Deltrea’s concerns, Cullen walked faster and, when the road took her past a collection of trees that hid where she had been and she was certain no one could take it as a weakness, she started to run.

She ran for a long while, moving at a pace that should have left her gasping for breath after only a few minutes but didn’t. She ran until the sun began to descend, and she did so effortlessly.

Cullen did not consider the impossibility of that any more than she considered the burning ache that the Mother-Vine left inside of her. Possibly she was slightly mad by that point, as those who suffer great loss can become if they think too much. Cullen did not think that was the case. She simply accepted that the fire the Mother-Vine had lit inside of her wanted to be in Canhoon and that she needed to get it there before it could burn her away completely and leave nothing but ashes.

She could not have said how far she would have to go to reach the city, but she knew she was heading in the right direction by the trail of discards cast along the sides of the road.

Inquisitor Darsken Murdro stood before the assembled members of the Imperial Family and smiled pleasantly. He had been doing exactly that for over an hour, not speaking but merely looking from one to the next while they fussed and straightened their immaculate clothes, very likely considering the best way to get out from under his gaze without being punished for their actions.

He was not in a hurry.

Silence can tell a great deal about a person. Most people fail to see that. They think that words are the end of all that a person can learn. Darsken knew better.

Darsken learned as much from what was not said as he did from what was.

He finally walked forward and looked at Brolley Krous. The Empress’s brother was a boy, but he was working toward being a man. It had taken remarkably little to find out about his misadventures with the Sa’ba Taalor. His actions since then had been exemplary.

“You are Brolley, yes?”

The young man looked up from his hands and nodded. He had deeply wounded eyes. It took no real effort to see that he tortured himself mercilessly over his past actions.

“I am sorry for your loss. Please, go now, and mourn properly.”

The young man rose, nodded once more and then looked at his kin before leaving the chamber.

Several of the family members had thought to leave the room when the earlier disruption had occurred. The guards took care of that very quickly. Darsken had handpicked them, because they had worked with him in the past. They knew what he expected and they were quick to follow his orders.

His knuckles creaked and cracked as he worked his thick fingers over his staff. Most of the Krous family looked at him, hoping that they, too, would be released from his presence.

He looked to Danieca Krous and frowned softly. “You as well, Milady. I am filled with sorrow for your loss.”

She smiled but did not move.

“I am fine here for now. I wish to know what you discover.”

He’d have bet coins on that being her answer.

Darsken lowered his head momentarily in a sign of respect. One by one he offered his condolences to a great number of the family. This was the town where the Krous clan held the most sway and that was saying a great deal. Even the lowliest of them had wealth and power. They were the ones he released first. He knew exactly who he wanted. He knew precisely who Losla Foster worked for and currently he was the only man who knew exactly where Laister Krous’s assistant was resting his head.

He also knew that Laister wanted that information himself.

The catch when dealing with powerful people is that they must never be allowed to see you grow nervous. That was one of the many things that was driven into the Inquisitors. Like patience, it was a very significant part of the examination process.

He smiled softly and looked at the remaining people. “I will leave you now. I will return soon. In the meantime, food and wine will be provided for you.”

It was Laister who stood and shook his head. “This is unacceptable! What if I need to relieve myself?”

Bluff and bluster. The man needed to show Darsken who was in charge. Unfortunately for him, the Inquisitor already knew the answer to that question.

“There is a chamber pot in the corner. I made that arrangement earlier.”

Laister Krous puffed out his chest and fairly swelled with righteous indignation.

Darsken smiled calmly in the face of the man’s outrage. He locked eyes with the man he knew had ambitions for the throne. Eventually Laister looked away, uncertain how to react to a man who stood up to him without even breaking a sweat.

Empathy, Observation and Patience. It would not take much longer.

The weather in Louron remained unchanged by the volcanic eruptions. The swampy region was hot, humid and still.

To hear the Roathians speak of Louron was to hear of a green hell. The land was half submerged; the waters stank; the people were savages, cowards and very likely guilty of sorcery. What land there was teemed with massive trees that dripped a heavy moss, and the insects in the area seemed to have a special love of human blood.

Whatever the people of Louron might think of the Roathians remained a mystery. Very few of the locals willingly left the area for long, and those that did tended to be the sort that wiser people actively avoided.

The stories of the sort of sorcery that the Louron performed were dredged up from the worst kind of nightmares. To hear a good number of the religious leaders speak, Louron dealt with demons (no one could say exactly what a demon was, but they all agreed the things had to be bad), raised the dead with great regularity, and could tear the soul out of a person with a single word and a drop of blood.

Desh Krohan would have been the first to admit that at least two of the rumors had a foundation in truth. As he had never in his long life encountered a demon he was willing to concede that there might be some exaggeration in that category.

The great black ships of the Sa’ba Taalor were allegedly peopled by demons. Grayskinned monstrosities with ferocious bloodlust and a penchant for death. Desh Krohan might have allowed a certain truth to that, too, but would have pointed out that “demon” was excessive.

When the three ships came for Louron they floundered in the shallow waters. The vast structures could move through rivers if the waters were deep enough, a fact that Fellein had recently learned, but the shallow depths of the coastal flats surrounding Louron were too much. After several aborted attempts, the Sa’ba Taalor were obligated to lower smaller boats to work their way toward the shore.

There was little consideration about whether or not leaving their ships abandoned was a wise thing to do. They were at war and the Sa’ba Taalor were warriors.

Fully three days later, when no communication had come from the followers of Wheklam that had made their way to the shore, five more ships were sent.

Understandably, they proceeded with much more caution.

After first examining the three abandoned ships, the captains consulted and decided to proceed together under the leadership of the most seasoned of their group.

The head of the second invading party was a woman named Truatha. She was an excellent tracker – having hunted a great deal of prey through the Blasted Lands over the span of her life, a task that few would willingly undertake – and noticed the signs long before she would have moved forward.

Truatha called a halt and those behind her obeyed. She summoned the other captains to her and they consulted together about what she saw.

“Look there.” She pointed to an area where the footsteps of the previous Sa’ba Taalor could clearly be seen. So, too, the tracks of their mounts. The area was a broad, sandy expanse and, after consideration, two of the Sa’ba Taalor walked slowly and carefully across that area, looking for any signs of struggle or traps. There was nothing. The land was solid under their feet and the tracks of their predecessors moved across the terrain in an orderly fashion before disappearing. There were no dropped weapons. There were no telltale signs of bloodshed or even attacks from the closest copse of trees.

The tracks of over a hundred Sa’ba Taalor and a dozen or more mounts simply vanished.

“How is this possible?” The speaker was Lor, who was sometimes Truatha’s lover and always a trusted ally. She crouched low to the ground and examined the tracks carefully. “The weather has been good. No rain. The wind has blown some of the sand but not much. They have either vanished from the world or someone has brushed the sand so perfectly that I cannot see a single trace.”

Truatha looked at her friend and walked closer, moving with the same caution. Curiosity was an excellent way to get killed if one did not apply the necessary observational skills.

They took their time and studied the area. There was no indication of what had happened to their predecessors.

Truatha asked for ten volunteers. She then picked from the hundred and seventy-three that offered themselves.

Ten hard, skilled warriors walked across that sandy plain and continued on unchallenged. They struck the ground with spears, they fired arrows into the closest copse of trees, but nothing happened beyond what one would expect in those situations.

The ten continued on until they reached the other side of the sandbar and the waters began to fill in the low areas again, all of them puzzled and ready for combat.

“What is this then? Where is the enemy we would fight?”

The only answer came in the form of one old man, stoop shouldered and carrying a small net filled with fish in one hand and a short staff in the other.

None of the Sa’ba Taalor with them spoke the language of the Fellein. They had not expected to encounter anyone. They had been waiting for a battle on the seas, not for an expedition across salt flats and marshlands. They would adapt, of course, but communication would be a challenge.

Still, one had to try.

“Old man!” Truatha called out to him and pointed to him, lest he be confused about the matter.

He looked her way with a puzzled expression and after a moment shrugged his shoulders and moved toward her.

Despite the heat and humidity he was dressed in a cloak over his baggy pants and open-toed shoes.

As he approached he tapped his stick against the sands occasionally. Finally he made his way past the ten, who watched him without acting, and stopped in front of Truatha. He was a short man, as seemed the case with many of the Fellein. He was also thin and older than any man she had ever met in her life. The Sa’ba Taalor who could no longer fight did not live for long.

When he smiled he bared a total of four teeth. His facial hair and the hair on the top of his head was a light gray with occasional darker hairs to remind anyone seeing him that the lighter colors were signs of age.

When he spoke it was in her tongue, though with an accent. “How may I help you this day?”

Truatha managed to hide her surprise. Several others did not.

“We seek some of our people who came here a few days ago. They have disappeared.”

“Oh, yes. They were here.” He nodded and continued to smile.

“Where are they now?”

The old man looked around and scratched at the scruff of beard on his chin. “They are not here any longer.”

“Yes, I see that. Where did they go? Do you know?”

“Ah. I believe they tried to attack some of the people here. That is forbidden.” He nodded his head, his smile continuing. Truatha wondered if she had come across a simpleton. There were a few among her people who were not very bright but could fight well enough to live through that flaw.

“What do you mean? Why is it forbidden?”

“The rulers here. The Council of the Wise, they do not permit invasion by force.”

“How do they stop it?”

“I am not a member of the council. I could not say.” He shook his head. “I must be on my way. My dinner will spoil if I don’t cook it soon.” He waved the fish to make his point.

He waved one hand and started on his way and Lor came closer, looking on as he resumed his trek.

“He is so old…”

“Yes.”

“Do you intend to let him go?”

“Yes.”

“What are we to do now, Truatha?”

“He says that fighting is forbidden.”

She gestured to one of the ten, a young boy she had never met before. He was eager to show his worth.

With a simple hand signal she sent him to kill the old man.

Either he would succeed, or she would know why.

As is often the case with the young the boy tried to prove his worth with as much flair as he could manage. The knife he threw cut the air flawlessly and passed through the old man as if he were made of shadows.

The old man turned back to look at his would-be attacker and smiled. “You see? Forbidden.”

Truatha had followed the blade’s progression. When she looked back to the young attacker he was gone.

“Where did he go?” She couldn’t have told you exactly who that question was directed at, but it was Lor who answered.

“He faded away.” Her voice was strained.

“What do you mean?”

“He was there. I saw him throw the knife and as it left his hand, he faded. Like mist.”

Truatha gestured to another of the ten. This one was older and possibly more cautious. She moved toward the old man and drew her sword, a long, sharp affair with a curved blade.

The old man looked at her as she came closer and shook his head. “I would not.”

The girl’s name was Hrua. She was a skilled fighter and moved in quickly, aiming a blow that should have severed the old man’s head. The blow never reached him. Truatha saw it this time: as Hrua attacked, her body blurred out of focus and then vanished completely.

“What did you do?” The words were roared at the old man, who continued on his way, a soft and sad smile on his wrinkled features.

“You cannot attack us. The Council of the Wise does not permit it.” He tapped his stick in the sand and water of a low spot. “There is no way around this law. If any of you attack, you will fade away.”

“Where have they gone?”

“There is a place.” His smiled slowly changed into a frown. “It is not a place you want to go. There is no way back from it.”

After only a few moments’ consideration, Truatha called back her forces and headed for the ships.

“Where are we going?” asked Lor.

“We cannot fight this.”

“We are surrendering?”

“No.” Truatha shook her head. “There is no one here to surrender to. We are simply not going to fight this.”

“I don’t understand.” Sometimes she wondered about how smart Lor was. She often overlooked the times when the woman had trouble with thinking things through because she was a brilliant fighter and fun in bed, but now and then it hurt her to admit her friend was not stubborn, merely stupid.

“There is no point in fighting someone we cannot hurt or attack without hurting ourselves. I will fight a warrior. I will not fight a rock. I will fight an army, but I cannot fight the winds of the Blasted Lands. I will fight a ship of enemies, but I will not fight a wave that will crush my crew.”

She paused a moment. “Should we attack these people, we become as smoke in a hard breeze. I saw this with my eyes and you did, too. And so we will no longer fight them.”

Lor nodded her head. There were plenty of sailors and warriors among the Sa’ba Taalor. Though the crews would be working longer hours they divided their forces and regained control of the other three ships.

Truatha was wise enough to know that she was not the king. Donaie Swarl would decide what happened next. Had Wheklam spoken to her at that moment she would have obeyed her god, of course, but barring that, she deferred to her king.

There are many reasons that people are afraid of the Louron. The Sa’ba Taalor learned one of them that day.

“We haven’t spoken much of late.” Nachia’s voice was soft and bordered on cautious. That meant she was worried about him, so Desh put on his brightest voice and smiled reassuringly.

“No, we haven’t. That pesky business with the Sa’ba Taalor keeps getting in the way.”

She smiled obligingly. The problem with people who are close to you is that they can often tell when you’re lying, whether or not that lie is made with words. She could tell. There was nothing he could do about that.

Rather than dwell on the obvious, Desh deflected the worry with a question. “Has your Inquisitor discovered the guilty party yet?”

“Oh, he knows. He’s known for quite some time. He just wants to give my dear cousin every chance to confess before turning him over to me.”

“And what do you intend to do about the situation?”

“Laister was planning to have me assassinated. I know that’s a traditional manner of handling the internal problems in my family, but I don’t particularly appreciate it in this case.” She walked around Desh’s private chambers as if she owned the place, which to be fair, was technically true.

Nachia plucked an apple from a bowl of fruit and commenced eating it. “I believe I’ll have him executed properly.”

“Really? What a novel idea.”

“Do you disagree?”

Desh smiled. It was the sort of smile that had made more than one person pale when dealing with him.

“You have an interesting quandary. On the one hand, you have every reason to have Laister executed. Doing so could, depending on who you talk to, even cement your position as a ruler who will tolerate no nonsense. On the other side of this debate, many would argue that solidarity within the Imperial Family is a must in times of war.”

The expression she fired his way was pure venom. “And what would you have me do, old man? Should I promote him to First Advisor?”

“Look carefully at my contract. You don’t have the right.” He smiled.

“I can’t very well let him go free.”
“Of course you can. He is guilty and you know it and I know it and he knows it – and more importantly he knows that we are very well aware of his actions. The likelihood is that he’ll be worrying over every little sound he hears for the next year. You already have his man in custody and can certainly make an example of him if you feel the need.”

“I don’t like it and I don’t trust Laister. He’ll try again.”

“Strip him of all that he owns and he’ll never do anything of the sort again. Remove him from the family by Imperial Decree. No name. No title. No property.”

Nachia chewed at the apple for a moment, obviously intrigued. She was not known for her kindness. She could be kind, she was ruling as well as he’d hoped she would, but she was not always the kindest of souls.

She shook her head. “He still has information and influence. Too much of both. Even if he is stripped of everything, he has enough knowledge to cripple half the family. Not me, of course. I never quite got the nerve to dabble the way that he did.”

Desh shook his head and grinned. She said that last as if it were a thing to regret.

“If you take everything from him he has nothing. More importantly he also has no name and no protection.”

“Who would he need protection from?”

“Without giving the matter much consideration there’s Brolley, Towdra, Endon and, of course, Danieca.”

“Danieca?”

“Windhar was her grandson, after all.”

Nachia looked at him for a moment, the juice from the apple glistening on her lips, the latest bite half-ruminated in her mouth. After a moment she spoke around the morsel, something she would have never considered in public. “Strip him of all he has and his name, you say?”

“I think that’s the best way to honor the wishes of all involved, really, and you also take back the holdings that he has owned and misused over the years.”

“How much of the Krous fortune rests in Laister’s hands?”

“Enough that he can afford to hire twenty cutthroats and attempt to assassinate the Empress without fearing the consequences.”

“And are there papers that have to be signed on this sort of situation? I have never actually written out an Imperial Decree before.”

Desh walked over to his desk and plucked a freshly written document making the appropriate proclamation from a small stack of papers he had been working on. Nachia read it carefully and nodded.

A moment later she had signed the copy and marked it with her seal.

“You know I used to mock Pathra for listening to your advice constantly.”

“You also used to mock me for offering my advice constantly.”

“You are an amazing man, Desh.”

“I’m an advisor. It’s what I’m supposed to do. I advise, nothing more.”

“You are a liar, sir.”

Desh moved across the room and poured a small glass of sweet wine for each of them.

“I am a liar in that I have not consulted the Sooth. Instead I have one of my associates handling that for me. The last time was... draining.”

Nachia suppressed a shudder at the way she’d seen him the last time, drenched in what seemed to be blood and exhausted.

“On matters sorcerous I leave the where and why to you, Desh.”

He nodded his head. “I have Jeron working on finding all that we need. He searches now for information regarding what is north of the Seven Forges, on the location of Tega and her escort, on where the different armies of the Sa’ba Taalor are gathering. The news is not all grim, but most of it leans in that direction.”

“You cannot reach Tega?”

“She might be too busy to communicate. Something might be stopping her.” He took a small sip of his wine. The potency of the stuff was not to be overlooked. “She might well be dead. It’s hard to say.”

Nachia took a small sip of her own wine and then consumed the last bite of her apple. “Goriah… I’m so very sorry about her death, Desh.”

He looked out the window toward the endless gray sky and the distant, seething column of smoke where Tyrne should have been. “Some things are inescapable, Nachia. Death is one of them. We will all achieve that state eventually, even me, and I have been alive for a very long time and have no plans of changing that status in the foreseeable future.”

“Your people exploring the world for us.” Nachia looked ready to flinch as she asked her next question. “How goes the war against the Sa’ba Taalor?”

“We are currently being attacked from four separate directions, my Empress, and they seem determined to meet here.” He walked to the map he had pasted to the wall with wax and pointed. First, far to the east. “Elda is suffering. Merros’s plans have worked so far. He let them take one small corner of Elda and has held them off from going any further, but there are doubts he can hold them there. They have machines that can hurl boulders through the air. Not much survives when those rocks land.” He poked another spot to the far south, closer to home. “The Louran are holding their own. Reports are that the invaders attacked and then decided to depart. I have no idea as to why, exactly, but they left quickly.”

“Can you find out why? It could be of benefit.”

“Yes, it could, and I suspect the answer is that Louron has its own sorcerers. Their sorcery is different from mine. Subtler a lot of times. Perhaps your Inquisitor can offer enlightenment.” He did his best to keep the edge out of his voice. The Louron were an unsettling people.

“The Sa’ba Taalor have moved to the east of Louron and are attacking along the shores of Corinta. The Brellar have been alerted and should be on their way to the area to work on our behalf.”

“Can the Brellar be trusted?”

“There’s gold involved. They can be trusted as long as we pay.” He looked toward Nachia and saw the sour expression on her face. “It’s not a perfect solution, Nachia, but it’s all we have. Pathra let the naval forces of Fellein waste away. He trusted the lies and I’m partially responsible for that. I didn’t think we would have troubles like this.”

“I don’t understand this.” She took back her wine in one gulp and then gasped. Having done the same a few times he could understand the reaction. When she had recovered from the drink she shook her head and looked at him again. “You have your Sooth or whatever it is and you never knew that this was coming?”

“I’ve told you before, Nachia, that magic has a cost. Dealing with the Sooth takes more than just a few hours of my life. It takes preparations that can span months. Years, no, decades of effort have gone into learning what I have in the last few months. That is why I have someone else looking right now. My resources have been severely limited. The preparations I had for dealing with the Sooth were in Tyrne. It will be months before I can properly contact them again without having to steal the power I would need from other people.”

She shook her head, frustrated. “I have seen a few of the powers you have, Desh. I know that they exist, but sometimes I swear I feel you are deliberately avoiding using them.”

“I absolutely am.” He looked at her hard then, as he had looked at her when she was younger and reckless and prone to mischief. “I absolutely am avoiding using my abilities.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Losing control.” He shrugged and settled back, while she looked him in the eyes, not the least concerned about his stern expression. That had not changed over the years.

“Explain that to me. Losing control of what?”

He held out his hand and spread his fingers wide. The opened hand was lowered until it was only a foot or so from Nachia’s face and he focused his will. “Look carefully, my Empress.”

It was a trick, really, the sort that apprentices used when they felt the need to show their powers. He created a small electrical charge and held it in the palm of his hand. The glowing bolt jumped from one finger to another, slithering around his hand like a hyperactive serpent. Even if she had touched it, the worst she’d have managed was a tingle and a few hairs standing on end.

“I have seen this trick before, Desh.”

“Yes, I remember, you wanted to study. You would have if I hadn’t caught you in the act.”

It was a bitter point between them from time to time, but the past was the past.

“This is an easy thing, Nachia. This is a sparkle in the air. I could hold this for a dozen days and never grow tired. But as you have already said, it’s a trick and little more. What you want, what everyone seems to want, is for me to end this war before it can get any larger.”

“Yes. That’s exactly it.”

He nodded. “Would you have me cast lightning from the sky and burn our enemies into ashes?”

“Could you do that?”

“Very likely. I could obliterate an entire army of them. I would be sore when it was finished, and I would surely be weak for some time, but I could do it.”

“Then why won’t you?”

“What happens if I miss?”

“I don’t understand.” She frowned, her lower lip jutting out in a specter of the child she was not that long ago.

“Let’s say I aim that lightning storm at Tuskandru. I understand he’s the one who destroyed Trecharch. If I aim at him and I make my preparations I have to be careful to aim at the right location. If he moves, if I miscalculate and he is one valley away from where I think he is, then the lightning I send will hit something else.”

“Then you send it again and again until you hit him.”

“It’s not a sword, or an arrow, Nachia. It’s lightning. A single stroke can destroy a forest. One blast can kill a dozen people. A dozen of your people. Understand me on this, if I cast lightning to kill a living being it will find a living being. I can no more control it after it has been cast than an archer can control an arrow after he has let it loose.”

She was weighing the possibilities. He hated that fact more than he could say.

The bolt that danced around his hand moved and grew as he willed it, and now it arched around his entire arm, crawling, hissing, releasing tiny tongues of electric outrage that burned the very air. That it was a deadly thing was undeniable.

“I can burn a man with what I hold now, Nachia. I can kill with one touch. But once released it is no longer mine. No more than that arrow I discussed. If I cast this away, it finds a target and destroys it. If I am lucky it only strikes that one target. Perhaps I cast it toward the window and aim for a bird, but the bird moves so my lightning moves on and reaches the river and strikes a boat and burns the cargo and the sailors and the boat and the very water.”

“Then you don’t miss, Desh.”

Desh shook his hand and the lightning grew bolder, writhing around his arm and moving to his other hand, a massive snake of electricity now.

Nachia stepped back a bit. He would have never let her be hurt by it, of course, but she did not know that.

“I could cast a lightning storm to destroy the Sa’ba Taalor in Elda. I can look on a map and see where it is. But there is a great deal of distance between here and Elda and there are mountains, there are birds and rivers and cities. And if the map is poorly drawn, instead of striking the Sa’ba Taalor I have just burned away a thousand people and leveled the town of Rethmar. Or, worse, I am off by a greater amount and Danaher burns.”

“You have made your point, Desh.”

He threw the lightning and let it strike his map. The paper crackled and burned in an instant. The wax that held it in place melted and the entire affair crumbled in a smoldering mass.

“I can kill one man from a thousand miles away. I have done so. I can create waves that will sink their ships, but I cannot stop those waves from destroying anything else that is nearby when that happens. I can call to the Sooth and ask them to tell me when and where to strike, but what have I said about the Sooth on countless occasions?”

She sighed. “The Sooth lie.”

“That is correct.”

“You could strike at the Seven Forges.”

“I cannot hit what I cannot see and the gods of those mountains, or whatever sorceries they use, have always made it impossible for me to see what lies beyond the Blasted Lands. You know this.”

Nachia Krous did not like being outargued. It went against her nature to concede defeat.

“Do you doubt that they have gods, Desh?”

“No. We have seen the things they can do. I couldn’t hope to mimic the hands they made for Andover Lashk…” He paused a moment there and swallowed. The boy was gone and it bothered him that he hadn’t even considered him for weeks on end. “…or any of the rest of their people. You saw what they did to Merros’s soldier, the one with the metal mask for a face. I cannot work that sort of sorcery and I have never heard of it being worked elsewhere, so no. I just don’t like the notion of gods being involved.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s always possible that gods can do what I cannot and properly aim. If that’s the case, what’s to stop them from dropping another of their damnable volcanoes right on top of this city?”

Nachia paled at that possibility.

“Remain calm. There are many reasons that Canhoon is called the City of Wonders, my Empress. We are safer here than in almost any other spot in the world.”

He hoped that was still true. He hated that he might be lying.

Thirteen

Andover Lashk left Ordna with still more knowledge in his head, calculations and equations the likes of which he had never conceived of before. He also left with two short spears and a new bow, complete with a score of arrows.

How much time had passed? He no longer knew.

It did not matter. The gods would do as they pleased and though he knew he was walking and climbing and living as he had to, he also knew that time was not moving the same for him and Delil as it did for others. A fourth Great Scar cut across his mouth like a slash from right to left. As with the previous three, he accepted the blessing of the god Ordna and knew he would do all he could to live up to that blessing.

When he reached the base of Paedle he saw a temple waiting before he even set foot on the sacred ground.

Delil stopped outside the temple and crossed her legs. “Paedle is one of my chosen gods. We have a long understanding. This journey is yours alone, Andover.”

The temple was an elaborate affair. The entranceway billowed with a dozen gaudy, diaphanous veils that snapped and fluttered in a breeze coming from inside.

Andover looked carefully at the sharp angles and the quartet of faceless stone statues at each corner. One statue was of a young girl. Another of an old man. The third of a woman heavy with child, and the final of a male in his prime. All were naked and carved from a glossy black stone flecked with silver. Each head was featureless. No face at all, and only a hint of where ears should be.

Delil pulled out her weapons and began methodically checking all of them again. He did not have to ask if she felt it was necessary. He already knew the answer.

Andover set down his new weapons before he entered the temple of Paedle.

There were walls, he knew that, but upon entering they seemed to stretch away for eternity. There was no horizon for his eyes to rest on.

At first there was nothing but the endless distance of the temple and the breeze but eventually he noticed the movement from the corner of his eye.

The veils he had seen before moved, separate from the doorway where he had assumed they were anchored.

They shifted and danced in the air and as he looked at them they made forms in the wind: here a withered shape crouching; next a tall, thin man reaching toward him.

There had been a time in his life when Andover would have seen a spectacle like that and applauded the street performer likely responsible for such chicanery even as he tried to understand how it was done.

These days he was wiser. As the veils formed another shape and reached for him, he dodged the cloth that tried to touch his body. There was no consideration, merely automatic response.

“You have learned well, Andover Lashk.” The voice seemed to come from the shifting veils, but it also filled his head. “Not every weapon is a blade or a hammer.”

A moment earlier there had been a dozen cloths of different colors but they merged, shifting into one form. That shape was long and thin and could have been male or female. It was impossible to guess.

Andover bowed before Paedle, arms held out to his sides, his head lowered.

“What is war, Andover Lashk?”

“War is a conflict between two people that cannot be resolved with words and promises.” He remembered that one. It was easy.

He never saw the form move, but it was gone. “No.” The voice came from behind him and Andover turned quickly, but there was nothing to see.

The figure was next to him, moving around him, a shifting shadow too fast to be seen. His eyes ached from trying to keep up. “War is one way to end a conflict between two people. There are others.”

“I don’t understand. Aren’t you a god of war?”

“What is the best way to win a war, Andover Lashk?” Paedle – and there was no doubt that this was the deity. He could feel the overwhelming presence of a god even if in this case it was almost completely hidden – ignored the question and moved again, drifting away from the area and settling in the distance. Range did not seem to matter. The voice was as clear as ever.

“I don’t know. I would think with greater skills and forces?”

“If a thousand solders must move between two mountains to reach their destination, what is the best way to stop them?”

“You could have an army waiting on the other side, where they cannot see their enemies until it is too late.” He nodded, pleased with his answer.

“Would it not be easier to block the passage between the mountains?”

“I suppose. If the mountains are close enough together.”

“You have spoken with Wheklam and learned of the sea.” It was not a question. “If one hundred ships are crossing the ocean to fight against an enemy, what is the best way to stop the invaders?”

“I don’t know.”

Paedle was there again, next to him, the voice neither male nor female, young nor old. “If the ships burn, or if there are holes in each of them, how will the invaders find their way to distant shores?”

“I–” A shiver tore through his body and Andover dodged to the side as the shape came closer again. Fading from one side and appearing on the other. His iron hand moved and caught at the wrist of the shape. He found nothing to capture but a delicate, needle-thin blade. Had it struck he’d have barely noticed. The blade dripped with a thick, clear syrup.

“If a king seeks war, and orders his people to fight, what happens if that king dies?”

“The war is stopped?”

“Perhaps. It might also be delayed. It might also continue with a different leader, but the new leader might not be as strong, or as capable. If you were to strike at me with a sword, right here and now, how best would I avoid that blade?”

Andover shook his head again.

“I could fight you with another sword. I might have a bow and kill you before you come for me. I could threaten to kill someone dear to you…” For a moment the shape shifted, changed and looked suspiciously like Delil before once again hiding in a cloak of semidarkness. “If I knew of your intentions, I could poison your food, or choke you to death in your sleep. There are a thousand ways I could kill you before you ever drew a sword. There are just as many ways to stop an army or kill a king.”

When Paedle moved closer this time the cloak was cast aside and the figure that moved forward was featureless. There was no face, there was no sex, instead the shape continued to change and shift, a column of liquid silver that was almost humanoid, but not quite. The voice came from everywhere even as the image flowed and melted into the ground of the temple.

“The best way to end a war is to make certain that it never happens. The best way to win a war is to change the shape of the battles to suit your needs.”

Andover considered those words as he looked around the interior of the temple. It was smaller now, he could actually see the walls in the distance where before there had been nothing, though still larger than even the palace in Tyrne.

“Sit, Andover Lashk, and learn the ways of a silent warrior.”

Andover settled himself on the cold, marble floor.

“If I had let this blade cut me?” He set the dagger on the ground and carefully wiped the wetness from his iron hand.

“You would be in great pain and possibly near death. There are many ways in which you must prove yourself. Expect several lessons throughout your time here. None of mine can long survive unless they are aware of all that surrounds them.”

The lessons began a moment later.

“How can you stand being in a different body?” Jost leaned against the wall of Swech’s bedroom chamber and looked around the room. The bed was large and comfortable. The floor was tiled in dark wood.

“You know the answer to that, little one. The gods make demands and I obey.”

“Does it hurt?”

Swech smiled and brushed her hair. “No. Sometimes. This shape is not as well conditioned as my body. There are muscles that I use that this body does not seem to have ever needed. Sometimes I wake up sore.” She shook her head and rose from the bench where she prepared herself for the day. She was dressed well enough, but anyone who looked at her before she was completely clothed would have been astonished by the places where she could hide a blade.

“They are soft.” Jost’s voice held a thin edge to it.

“Not all of them. Never forget that. It is too easy to assume that they are weak, but some of them are very deadly. Some of them are worthy warriors.” Again her mind shifted to Merros Dulver. He had seemed soft back when she’d first met him, but she had seen him only the previous day as he walked down the street, and she had heard him speaking with several of his followers. He was a skilled tactician. Had he known she was there he would likely have ordered her death.

It would not have resulted in her death, but he’d have ordered it just the same. He was loyal to his people as she was loyal to her gods. Nothing would change that. If he were weaker, she would not find him attractive despite his pink skin and his godless ways.

No. Not godless. He worshipped the same god she did. That all of her people did. He just called his god by a different name. He called his god by a different name, even if he did not know it.

“Duty.”

“Eh? What duty?” Jost tilted her head.

“Never mind. I am thinking aloud.”

“What are we to do next?”

“We have caused suspicion in the family. We have saved the Empress not once, but twice, and we have prepared the city.”

“Prepared the city for what?” Jost frowned, her arms crossed over her chest. She, too, bristled with weapons, but hers were more obvious.

“The Great Tide rolls to Canhoon from all directions, Jost. We will soon have armies coming here to take this city. They are overcrowded and already cannot support the weight of their own people. When we add the Sa’ba Taalor, they will falter and then crumble.”

“How will we prepare the city?”

Swech quickly tied her hair back and covered it with a shawl, as many of the fishmongers and elderly did. The fabrics were dark and helped hide her distinguishing features.

“We will remove the methods they have for escaping when the Great Tide comes.”

Jost frowned.

Swech smiled.

“There are three others who left Taalor with me, Jost. There were four but one is dead. The other three have been busy as well, and one of them has prepared something to help us capture our enemies.”

Jost craned her head to the side again, but Swech did not answer the silent question. She had no idea as to how she possibly could.

The Pilgrim stared at the foothills ahead of him and nodded his head, satisfied. Three days at most and they would reach Canhoon.

Behind him close to three thousand followers continued to move. In every town they had crossed, in every city, he had stopped at temples and spoken to the leaders of the different churches. He had spoken and they had listened, drawn to his voice and to the conviction of his words.

The four who were closest to him continued to give him updates, continued to let him know when someone grew too sick to continue or simply changed their mind and tried to sneak away in the night. There was no punishment for fleeing. If their faith in the gods was so weak that they feared doing as the gods asked, then he had no need of them.

This was a sacred quest, a call to arms from the gods themselves, a last chance to fight against the forces sent to destroy everything that the people of Fellein believed in, and the Pilgrim would see it through one way or another, but he would not punish those who lacked the faith to join him.

The gods would see to their punishment instead.

Three days. The sun was setting but they continued on for another hour before he was satisfied that they had traveled far enough.

Once again, no one wanted for food or a place to rest their weary bodies.

The gods provided what was necessary.

Drask looked down at the patterns of light as he had for the last few days, and studied them, fascinated. There were endless patterns, it seemed.

Not far away the Fellein were doing something similar. Tega was, at least. The young man with her paced instead, often scowling toward Drask as if he were the cause of the difficulties they faced.

The lights below them burned, flowing and shifting and whirling, an endless maelstrom of illumination that refused to be categorized. The light was not cold, but it gave off no heat that he could feel. There seemed to be nothing between them and the lights, but currently his backside was planted on that nothing and while he could feel a pressure there, he could not see any reason for him to not be allowed to touch the very lights he was looking at so intently. However, so far, his best efforts had been denied.

He had struck at the solid air with his hand, with his boot, with his axe and even had started a fire with his meager supplies in an effort to understand what it was that kept him from his goal.

There was nothing.

Ydramil said only that he would know when the time was right what he had to do. He would know the weapon when the time was right. He had no doubt that the lights he stood over were that weapon. The challenge of getting to them remained a mystery.

The only good news was that the Fellein had similar luck.

He broke the shell of a logga nut between two of his fingers and slipped the meat into one of his mouths, chewing slowly and methodically.

The young man stared at him, mouth open, and even from a distance Drask could hear the rumble of his stomach. Perhaps if he waited long enough they would simply starve to death and save him from any grief. He had doubts.

There were times when Drask Silver Hand was polite to a fault, especially in comparison to most of his people, but there were also times when boredom did him in. “If you want it, boy, come take it from me.”

The lad was large for a Fellein, but that he was young was also obvious. He was gangly and too thin and also he had very few noticeable scars.

He balled his fists and came for Drask. Maybe it was hunger. Perhaps, he, too, was tired of trying to solve the puzzle of how to reach their prize after waiting for far too long.

As the boy came toward him Drask rose to his feet, grateful for a distraction after too long lost in contemplation. The boy did not draw a weapon and Drask held to that standard.

Tega called out, “Nolan! No!” but it was too late. The youth charged, one balled fist curled back and ready to launch at Drask.

Drask slipped to the side and drove his elbow into the side of the boy’s head. Not hard enough to take him down, but certainly with enough force to make him foggy in the brain.

Nolan staggered and came around faster than Drask would have expected, his face twisted into the same sort of rage he’d shown when dealing with the Mound Crawler. He let anger ride him. That was a strength and a weakness both.

Drask exploited the weakness.

“Come! Come get your meal, boy! Come teach me how well you fight!”

Nolan charged, reaching for his weapons as he moved.

Drask could not suppress his smile.

His silver hand caught the axe blade that came for him with a scream of metal on metal. Nolan was strong, especially for his size, and he was furious, which helped him feel even stronger, but Drask plucked the axe from his grasp with ease and bent the boy’s wrist back in the doing.

The weapon clattered across the barrier that stopped them from falling toward their prize.

The scream that came from Nolan was pure and savage and while Drask could admire that, he could not forgive that the youth was too angry to focus.

Not far away, Tega paced, eyes wide, contemplating the outcome. She expected her compatriot to die.

Drask’s leg swept down and kicked the lad’s ankle out from under him as he started to move. Nolan let out a grunt and dropped to the ground. He caught himself on one knee and both hands, the other leg sprawled out behind him by the force of Drask’s strike.

The boy looked up at Drask and snarled again, struggling to stand.

Drask brought his knee up fast and smashed it into the side of the boy’s head.

Nolan flopped bonelessly to the ground.

Drask considered his enemy.

Tega considered Drask.

Drask looked her way. “A wise man would eliminate a threat.”

“He is not a threat to you. You know this and so do I.”

“He has weapons. He tried to kill me with an axe.”

“He was hungry.”

Drask shrugged. “I tire of games.”

“We seek the same thing. We want to understand what is below us.”

The boy was clever, but not clever enough. While Drask spoke with the wizard’s student, the youth reached for a dagger up his sleeve and then lunged.

Drask caught the hand with the blade under his heel and stomped down. Bones broke and Nolan screamed. Not one to leave a fool unpunished, Drask ground the hand under his foot a second time and watched the boy thrash, his face stretched into a mask of agony.

“Enough!” Tega’s voice broke.

Drask looked at her and felt the air around him shift. There was a pressure that had not been there before and he could feel his hair moving.

“If you do anything at all, Tega, I will kill him and you.”

She stayed where she was and focused only on him.

Without hesitation he stomped on Nolan’s hand again, breaking more of the small bones and driving the blade of the dagger into soft, pink flesh.

Blood flowed from the wound.

“I have seen what you can do! I will kill him! I will kill you if you do not stop your sorcery!”

Just as quickly as it had manifested the pressure around him evaporated.

“Stop hurting him!”

She had taken strides toward them but he could tell by her body language and her expression that she was more worried about the boy than about retribution. Drask stepped back from him and eased three of his throwing blades into his hand. If the air around him changed again, he would kill her before she could blink.

As she started to reach for Nolan, the air under her softened and Tega fell.

Drask had exactly enough time to make the connection between cause and effect before he, too, was falling. The boy’s blood had broken whatever seal held them away from the ever-changing streams of lights.

There was nowhere to run. He had grown too comfortable with the impossible situation and now he paid the price.

The lights he had seen from a distance came closer and Drask studied them as impassively as he could. The boy fell with him, his eyes once more looking toward Drask with an unrelenting hatred.

The blades were still in his hand. He threw one at the boy. It was simple, really. Sooner or later Nolan would try to kill him. He could see it in the mad expression on the young man’s face.

The blade sank into Nolan’s throat and vibrated there as blood spilled freely from the new opening in his flesh.

Drask focused again on the lights below and watched as Tega hit them and sank with a splash. Whatever it was they were here to find was not solid at all, but flowed like water.

Drask Silver Hand had always been curious. He kept his eyes open as he fell into the endless, shifting lights.

Above the liquid that swallowed Drask and the Fellein, the air screamed again, louder than it had before. So loudly, in fact, that stone shattered and flesh was pulped and the vast crystalline formations of the Mounds visibly vibrated with the sound.

Within the towers of crystal the bodies of the long dead moved and gasped, and the frozen flotsam and jetsam of a city in perpetual ruin shimmered and danced.

In the Blasted Lands, the Mounds themselves shuddered as the sound escalated, forcing dust and ice and even the winds to move, pushing everything away from the ground as the skin of the Mounds split. Light crept through the perpetual twilight of the Blasted Lands, and from as far away as the Seven Forges that light could be seen painting the skies first a brilliant shade of blue and then red and finally white.

Sitting in the protection of a cluster of boulders and feasting in the remains of a Broken wretch, Drask’s mount Brackka died violently when the lights touched his body and incinerated his flesh. His shadow burned itself into the stone, the only sign that he had been there at all.

There were creatures that lived in the Blasted Lands. Like Brackka, they were destroyed, ripped asunder by winds and light and sound that shattered bones.

Along the Edge, the great wall that marked the end of the Blasted Lands, the worn stone was undamaged, but only a hundred yards away, the ground was suddenly glazed with a new layer of glass. That glaze cracked and in some cases shattered a moment later as the perpetual ice and snow in the area heated to near boiling point, billowing up as clouds of steam and drowning a few of the creatures that remained.

At the Seven Forges, Durhallem shuddered under the force of the blast, but, as had been the case for a thousand years, the sentinel of the Taalor Valley withstood the brutal assault. Beyond the mountain the valley was unscathed and the great entrance into the valley was nowhere to be seen. With the Sa’ba Taalor gone there was no reason for the doorway to remain open and Durhallem had sealed it.

The bodies of the dead surrounded Andover Lashk.

His iron hands were dyed crimson with the blood of his fallen enemies.

At first they had come one at a time, and then they came in twos and threes, and even as he brought them down more came, a slowly gathering procession that meant to see him destroyed by their hands.

At first he had known fear, but then the presence of Wrommish filled him. He had felt the gods around him before, had felt their powerful scrutiny and been overwhelmed by the raw potency of their shapeless forms.

This was different. As he fought, the god climbed within his skin, managed to fit within him and speak to him at the same time.

He felt his body change as the god used him. He fought the enemies that came for him and felt the direction of Wrommish. He stood upon the crystalline bridge of Boratha-Lo’ar and felt at peace as his fists crushed flesh and his body was bruised and battered again and again.

They were his fights. Wrommish offered guidance but did not strike a single blow.

The ones he fought were the faithful of Wrommish. Over the centuries the bodies of the faithful had been offered to the furnace beneath him, where they burned and became one with their god. The Sa’ba Taalor were no longer present, but their dead were here and they served their god even centuries later. They fought against Andover Lashk and beat upon him again and again. Sometimes he won, but even with the wisdom of Wrommish to guide his moves, he often failed.

There was no rest. There was no food. He did not die though he was delivered a thousand fatal blows.

What he did was learn. A lifetime of lessons in unarmed combat were given to him and then a dozen more lifetimes were offered him as well.

Time does not move the same way for gods, and when in their presence time moved differently for Andover as well.

He had been in the heart of Wrommish for only a few hours according to Delil, but when he came out he could barely remember her name. She had been a part of his world a very long while back and recalling how to speak was a challenge when he first left the cave.

Within the Heart of Wrommish, Andover Lashk dealt with his trials unaware of any change in the Blasted Lands. As mighty as the explosion was, the gods had their ways of defending against incidental catastrophes.

Deep within the Mounds, neither Drask, nor Nolan nor Tega was aware of the violent transformation.

They had other, stranger things to consider.

Fourteen

The black ships rode steadily up the Freeholdt River and stopped at the town that bore its name. A majority of the people had already fled to Canhoon or points east in an effort to escape the inevitable, but not everyone left. Those that stayed did not believe that the ships would stop, or that the attackers could possibly be as fearsome as the claims stated.

The ships did not go further up the river. Beyond Freeholdt the waters were too shallow and the waters too treacherous. To the south the fires of the second Durhallem spat smoke and worse into the air, and the heat from that eruption was oppressive in the extreme. Refugees had come to Freeholdt and quickly moved on, fearing that the Sa’ba Taalor would come for them.

The refugees were wise in their way. The army disgorged by the ships was large, and each of the shapes that waded in from the shallows of the river came carrying all that they needed to bring death and mayhem with them.

The City Guard of Freeholdt was heavily depleted. Threats of a lashing meant remarkably little to the guards who wanted to see their families to safety, and promises of extra coin held little appeal when the winds shifted and the stench of decay came spilling in from the south.

If the Sa’ba Taalor came expecting a glorious battle they were disappointed. The City Guard quickly surrendered when they saw the size of the army coming for them, and the officials within the town were front and center when the surrender occurred.

The followers of Durhallem, often called the Wounder or the Unforgiving, offered exactly the same mercy as they had always offered. Those that surrendered, those that chose to fight and those who tried to flee were killed. The town itself was constructed mostly of wood and as a result of that simple fact was razed as the sun set and the Sa’ba Taalor moved up the riverside. The Imperial Highway ran along the river here and the Sa’ba Taalor did not hesitate to take advantage of that well paved pathway. Nor were they foolish enough to expect that no traps had been laid for them.

Long before the heavily armored troops of Durhallem’s followers moved along that stretch, the followers of Ydramil, Paedle and Wrommish moved through the woods and scouted the paths leading to Canhoon.

Not all of the Sa’ba Taalor followed the same philosophies as Durhallem’s brood, but for the present time they made exceptions. Most they encountered were slaughtered quickly and efficiently. Those that were not, soon wished that they had been. Ydramil’s King, Ganem, often sought the answers to life’s riddles. Sometimes that required calm reflection and other times it demanded other forms of information-gathering.

Those who asked the questions could have taught the average Inquisitor a few new methods of gleaning the truth.

They were three days away from Canhoon when the Mounds exploded and the Blasted Lands shook and flashed with an unspeakable brilliance.

Cullen never even slipped her bow from her shoulder. She just ran.

She was walking with a small group of other survivors, traveling together toward Canhoon, when the nightmares came for them.

The mounts of the Sa’ba Taalor had terrified her when she’d seen them in the woods, but here, without riders, on the ground and hunting, they were so much worse.

One moment a man named Tomlo was explaining what he could about Canhoon – he had been there several times, which was several times more than Cullen – and the next they were running as a beast came for them, roaring and bulling through the low brush along the side of the road.

There should have been no way for the things to hide in the scrub and yet they came from nowhere. Tomlo saw them first, and tried to run. She saw his eyes widen in fear and then the man was turning, his long legs bunched and muscles tensing and the paws came into her sight and caught him at his shoulders and ripped downward, peeling the flesh from his arms and driving him down to his knees in one savage blow.

Cullen screamed. Tomlo screamed. The great predatory beast roared and then there was madness.

The bow never once crossed her mind. Cullen ran, bolting from the road and charging through the woods. Here she was closer to comfortable. The road offered no cover, no protection of any kind, but the woods? The woods were home and always had been.

The problem was that there was no way to negotiate with the hellish beasts coming after them. They were an unknown. When she was a little girl, her parents had traveled to Canhoon on behalf of the Queen. She did not understand the reasons and couldn’t remember if she ever had known them, but the end result was that she stayed in the house of her grandparents for almost a month. Her grandfather had taught her that there were predators in the Trecharch, bears and others. He had also explained that some of the beasts could be negotiated with.

“Bears don’t want you. They want either food or to be left in peace. Give them what they want and they will leave you alone.”

Whatever madness the beasts were that the enemies rode, they wanted only one thing: blood.

By the time she had scrambled up a tree with enough low-lying branches to accommodate her, the worst was over. The slaughter was done.

Cullen waited as patiently as she could, doing her best not to focus on the creatures that ate the people she had been talking with only minutes before. There was no way of moving from where she was until they were finished. By then the sun had set and she had to venture out in the darkness.

Before his death Tomlo had stated that they were only three or so days away from Canhoon. She decided to make it in two. Sleep was not going to come to her that night in any event.

Deltrea kept her company, often by providing graphic descriptions of how each of her friends had died while Cullen cowered in the trees.

Despite Deltrea’s best efforts, Cullen felt no shame. It was not only a matter of self-preservation. She was also on a mission. The Mother-Vine had plans for her and she had to keep those plans.

Tuskandru sat among his followers and listened to their cheers and conversations. The war was going well. Trecharch had fallen and the people who ran from them were closer to death than most could have imagined.

Around him the fires blazed and his people feasted as well they should. Some of what they roasted and ate had once carried swords, but most were fourleggers: horses and cows and small, screaming things called sheep. There were a variety of meats and Tusk tried them all. Universally he found them interesting.

When the feasting was mostly done he called out to Halrus, one of the men he’d set to guard duty earlier.

Halrus came forward with a grin on his face.

Tuskandru, king of the followers of Durhallem, struck the smile from the man’s features with one hand. Halrus staggered back, shaking his head and drawing his sword in the same motion. King or no king, he was a follower of Durhallem himself and no one would strike him without fearing the consequences.

It was Tusk who grinned now.

“Come for me! Come for me, Halrus, and while you come tell me why nine humans got past you on the road this day!”

Halrus eyed his king and moved his sword in a circle around his wrist. It was a pretty move, but meaningless. The very act of sweeping the sword in a short circle required that he let the weapon move too loosely to be effective. That aside, Tusk was smart enough not to get cocky. Sword patterns were meant to distract and he would not let himself be distracted.

“I let no one get past me!”

“Brodem and Loarhun both fed on their corpses after killing them!” Tusk’s voice was loud only because he wanted all to know why he had challenged one of his own in the middle of a war. “I have feasted on the meat of one of them, as Brodem was feeling generous enough to share.” He gestured with one hand to where very distinctly humanoid remains continued to roast on a spit above a nearby fire. “You may call Brodem a liar if you feel the need, but he will defend his honor the same as anyone here.”

Brodem let out a growl that shook the woods nearby and sent small animals scurrying for better hiding places.

“Why did nine Fellein walk down the road you were guarding this day, Halrus? Explain yourself!”

“My king…” There was nothing Halrus could say. He was caught and he knew it.

Tusk continued to grin, challenging with his eyes until Halrus had no choice but to either attack or retreat.

That was no choice at all. The followers of Durhallem do not retreat, and Tusk had struck him a brutal blow first.

The swordplay stopped and Halrus came for him, using the caution of a wise man, for Tuskandru was king for a reason and combat prowess was a large portion.

He brought the sword around in a low sweeping arc, hoping to cut Tusk’s legs out from under him but Tusk danced to the side, the teeth around his neck clacking and chattering as he moved.

Halrus came in a second time, feinting for Tusk’s head. For one moment he was off-balance, leaning too far forward. Tusk shattered his knee with a hard kick.

Halrus winced as he lifted the ruined leg. He did not have the luxury of stopping. He did not dare. His face was pale from the pain of the blow but that did not matter. Tuskandru might have let him live, might have been satisfied with humiliating him, but he had attacked his king with a sword when his king carried no weapons.

The sword Halrus had forged with his own hands was beautifully balanced and held an edge that could cut thick hides and leather with ease. The tip was keen and could and had pierced metal on more than one occasion.

The blade never got near Tusk. When Halrus swept it toward the king again, Tusk swatted it aside with his helmet. While Halrus had been finding his balance on one good leg, the king had pulled the great helm free and the large teeth of the helmet caught the blade and deflected it easily.

Helmet and sword were cast aside and Tusk came in hard, driving his thick fist into Halrus’s stomach, and then his chest, and then ramming his elbow into his enemy’s clavicle as he staggered back. The collarbone broke and just that quickly one arm was useless.

Halrus tried to defend himself but it was no good. The king struck again and broke the other collarbone. In an instant Halrus had one leg to stand on and three useless limbs. He could rant and roar all he wanted but the king had crippled him.

Before he could recover from the damage, before he could even fall down, Tuskandru grabbed Halrus in both of his thick arms and raised him over his head.

“Brodem! A treat for you!”

Halrus screamed as he sailed through the air.

Brodem roared again and took his new plaything. He was kind enough to kill Halrus quickly. Because he was a generous spirit, Brodem shared him with the other mounts.

All around him Tusk’s followers cheered.

He held up one hand and called for silence and they listened.

“Fail me and you fail Durhallem. Fail Durhallem and know our god’s mercy! I don’t care if you need to shit in the woods or sharpen your knives; do not turn away from your guard duties when called. Do you understand me?”

His followers answered, screaming his name and Durhallem’s. He gave them a moment and then nodded his head.

“Eat! Feast! We are almost to the capital of the Fellein! Our battle will be glorious!”

Tusk moved back to his spot and settled on the ground. Stastha smiled at him as he reached for a piece of meat.

Sometimes the gods were kind.

Merros Dulver’s day started well enough. In the morning he met with Dretta March and they broke the fast together, discussing the current state of Canhoon and its preparations for the inevitable conflict coming their way.

According to the latest reports Stonehaven had fallen to the Sa’ba Taalor. The place where Dretta had lived and raised her son and waited for her husband on countless occasions was gone. He was so very grateful that she had decided to come to Canhoon instead of returning there.

Of course, Canhoon looked to be lined up for invasion next. The Sa’ba Taalor were coming from several different directions and they looked to be meeting in the next few days at the gates of Canhoon.

“How will you stop them, Merros?” Her dark eyes looked into his, trying to read the future, perhaps. Whenever she stared too intently he was made uncomfortable; he prayed she would never stop.

“We have gates, Dretta, and walls that are over fifty feet in height. They will at least slow the bastards down.”

“I was out shopping yesterday and saw you talking to several of the newcomers. What were you saying to them?”

“Near the wall at the northern gate?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head and felt his lips press together even as he spread a blend of fresh fruit and honey onto the hearty bread she’d prepared.

“Ever since Tyrne we’ve had a great deal of people coming in, naturally, and now with Trecharch there are more. It seems that everyone wants to place their belongings along the outside of the wall and start building their homes in that spot.” He shook his head and waved the bread around as he warmed up to his subject. “It’s not a particularly safe location. They are setting their tents on the outside of the walls. Of course I can’t allow that. I’ve tried to explain a dozen times to the people who showed up there and now I’ve posted proclamations explaining.”

“Explaining what, exactly?”

“If their possessions and people are on the outside of the wall they will not have the protection of the wall. Also, they’ll be the equivalent of an invitation to the Sa’ba Taalor. They’ll literally be a stepping stone to help our enemies get over the wall with more ease.”

“How do you mean?” She still stared, but she listened, studied his words, paid attention in ways so few women seemed capable of in his experience. That was not fair. Others listened as well. It just seemed to matter more that Dretta paid heed.

“You have not seen the great beasts they ride. I have. Those creatures can scale nearly sheer surfaces and can pounce like cats. I think with even a little advantage that the creatures will find a way to climb the walls and if they manage that, the deaths they cause will be hellish.”

He took a moment to chew at his food and eyed the sweet cheese she had cut in advance. “In any event, I have the guards clearing the walls today and every day from now on. No one will add to the risk of the Sa’ba Taalor taking us by surprise.”

“Surely you’ll have sentinels.”

“Of course. They’re already in place and staying alert. But better to avoid giving the enemy an open invitation.”

“If the Sa’ba Taalor come here, if they lay siege to the city, how long can the city hold? Are there supplies enough with all of the refugees coming in?”

Merros smiled at her. He was fully aware that she had purchased a lot of land, that she had set up places that would work as housing for people if it came to that. He also knew that she had stocked many supplies away, ordering them from both up and down river. She was wealthy, just as he was. Both he and her husband had made a great deal of money while they explored the Blasted Lands.

“At the very least we have enough supplies to handle at least two months. They would be lean weeks, to be sure, but enough to handle a substantial siege should it come to that.” He shrugged. “It would have been more, but the fall of Tyrne took a lot of supplies that had not yet reached us here.”

Dretta nodded at that and poured a tiny glass of the potent wine she managed to find in the market. The only other person Merros knew who was willing to pay for the stuff was Desh Krohan. It was delicious and only to be consumed in small doses.

They talked of training the new soldiers, of how best to get rid of the cursed vines that kept creeping up the walls of Dretta’s place, of how best to prepare a boar caught in the wild, something both of them knew a surprising amount about. While Merros did not often cook he’d requested recipes from several cooks on the road and had come up with what would, in theory, be a wonderful preparation. They agreed that they should try to cook one of the beasts as soon as time permitted.

They did not dwell on the approaching armies. They did not speak of the reports that something horrible had happened in the Blasted Lands. Some subjects were simply too large to consider.

Instead, they spoke of the growing tide of people coming from the east, people who were citizens of the Empire and not more grayskins. It seemed likely that volunteers were coming to help the citizens. That, or a small army of people were coming to demand better protection from the army.

The one point of positive news on the war front was simply that the Sa’ba Taalor in the far east had not managed to gain much footing. The soldiers were managing to keep them locked down around one fort that had been taken quickly.

While they discussed the ranged weapons of the Sa’ba Taalor – weapons the likes of which Merros had never seen and which he wanted to examine up close – they rose from the breakfast table and moved around the room where Dretta did most of the cooking. There were days when she had help, but this was not one of them. Fruit spreads and bread did not take as much effort as a roasted calf or the occasional meat pies.

Looking back later, Merros remained uncertain exactly what happened. They were standing one moment and the next thing he clearly recalled was holding her naked body in his arms and kissing her amazing mouth urgently.

There was a moment of brilliant, scintillating panic, and then she did something with her hands to make him forget all about the fact that he was laying with Wollis March’s widow.

He did things with his hands, too, things that had her making the most fascinating noises. When it was done he was exhausted in the best possible way. She must have been, too, because both of them slept half the afternoon away.

He could always blame the wine, of course. It was a potent blend and he knew that before he sipped, but the simple fact remained that if he’d been asked, he’d have admitted their encounter was virtually inevitable. The attraction he’d felt for Dretta was as strong as any he’d felt for a woman in a long while.

It was later, after they made love a second and third time, sated and sore and wonderfully exhausted, that the guilt came for him and settled on his chest.

Wollis’s wife.

Dretta March, the amazing woman he’d spent an unforgettable day with, was Wollis’s wife.

Wollis, who had been his finest friend and confidant.

She lay unclothed on the bed beside him, her face slightly turned away, her eyes closed and her breaths coming steadily. He took the chance that she was asleep to study her.

The guilt was bad.

But not bad enough. Despite his misgivings, he smiled at her sleeping form.

She was amazing. There was a very real chance that what he felt for her was love.

And that notion terrified him.

The world was ending and Teagus sat in a cell, very nearly forgotten.

It was a clean cell, true enough, but it was not at all what he was used to.

There had been a time when he was respected. He had spent a great deal of time in this cell wondering exactly when that changed.

He knew the answer, or course. He was far from a stupid man. He just didn’t like admitting that he had done things of a questionable nature with girls who were barely more than children. That dark part of him that answered his urges whispered in the recesses of his mind that there were no laws against talking to girls and making suggestions. He had never forced the issue with anyone in his life.

His station in Tyrne had kept him safe from repercussions. He knew that. But Tyrne no longer existed and he had struck at the highest-ranking member of the Imperial Army in a fit of grief and rage. The price he paid for his outrage was a beating, followed by walking in leg irons from the edge of the Empire back to Canhoon. By the time the walk was done his ankles were bloodied and the meat under the irons was infected.

He had learned a lesson. Do not cross the military.

There were members of the Church of Etrilla who came and cleaned his wounds. They fed him. They cared for him. They barely knew him, but the head of the church in Canhoon had shared many correspondences with him over the years. They may never have become friends, but they were at least friendly.

Of course, the very reason he was locked in a cell was preventing that friendship from ever blooming into a reality.

In the cell closest to his, a man was bellowing endlessly. He knew his name. Laister Krous. They had met more than once, and they had been associates on several deals over the years. Power and money are often attracted to like.

While he looked at his healing ankles, picking at the wrappings and peering at the cleaned scabs, Teagus listened to the conversation in the adjoining room.

“Why are you here?” Despite being locked in a cell, Laister Krous’s voice dripped contempt.

The voice that answered was also known to Teagus. It took him a moment to recognize the older woman. Her words were softly spoken, but the waspish quality of her words carried easily enough. Danieca Krous was not happy.

“Did you think you could kill any member of this family without consequences? Did you think you could kill my grandson without me finding out?”

“Frankly, I never much cared.” There was a long, dramatic sigh. “I’ve been stripped of my money, my title and even my name, you toad. What else do you think you can take from me?”

He could hear the purr in the old woman’s voice. “Your dignity. Your life.”

“Do your worst! There are guards outside the door! And I am not without my influence!” He did not speak or merely yell. He roared his words.

Her voice did not change in the least as she responded. “Do you know what the best part of still having my fortune is, Laister? I can pay enough to reach past your influence. And I can pay these fine men to take care of the rest of my desires, too.”

The sounds of a scuffle were clear. Though he had never been one to indulge in fisticuffs, the priest knew the sounds clearly enough. Laister made a few inarticulate growls that were surrounded by and eventually overwhelmed by the noises made when fists and boots meet soft flesh.

It was a long fight, but ultimately the end result was inevitable. The whispery noises that came his way were those of a man being dragged and then carried away.

Teagus considered the noises and worried at his lower lip while he clenched and unclenched his hands nervously. It was appalling to think that someone could be taken away so easily.

He had almost calmed down when he heard Danieca’s voice addressing him. “I haven’t forgotten about you, either, Teagus. You are a vile man with disgusting habits. Had I not trained my blood to know better than to answer to your type, I’d have killed you a long time ago. Or possibly just nailed your manly parts to a bench. I’m still considering that possibility.”

That was all she said. It was all she needed to say. He could not tell when she left or if she left, so he did his best to cry silently.

Inquisitor Darsken Murdro looked at the cloth-covered body as it was pulled from the water of the docks, and stopped the City Guard long enough to take a long and hard look at the corpse.

Laister Krous was dead. Darsken was not the least surprised. His flesh had been beaten until it was a deep combination of colors. Several of his teeth were broken or missing. His knuckles showed signs that he had fought hard for his life, but, ultimately, there had never been any doubt about the way his life would end.

The City Guard were well compensated to protect the upper echelons of society in Old Canhoon. They knew the faces of the powerful and they also knew when the powerful fell. Laister Krous could not have fallen much further.

Tataya was nearby, lurking in the shadows. She did not lurk often, but when she did it was an impressive feat. Her hair alone normally stood out enough to guarantee that she would be noticed and her clothes, usually designed to catch a man’s eye, were now replaced with subdued colors and a cloak that hid away all of the assets she usually used to make certain she was not easily forgotten.

When he had finished examining the body he waved a hand at the guards to continue their work. He had what he needed. There would be no further punishment, for now.

“I know what you want, Lady Tataya. I do not believe that I can help you.”

Tataya frowned from the shadows.

“There are laws, you see? And if I am to enforce them, I must also follow them. To do otherwise sets a bad precedent.”

“I never asked you to resurrect my Sister. I asked if you could let me talk to her.” She stepped toward him, her eyes looking toward him with the sort of intensity that very likely withered lesser men.

“It is the same thing. It requires the use of abilities that I have sworn would only be employed in answering the question of who has committed a crime and even then only under the most dire of circumstances.” He kept his smile in place. Remarkably little made him lose his smile.

“I–”

“Ultimately you know that the only person who can give me permission in this case is the Empress. I would likely accept the word of Desh Krohan, but I am not likely to listen to anyone else. I am very sorry, Tataya. I would help you if I could.”

The simple fact was that necromancy took a lot of effort and the dead themselves often suffered for the actions of the necromancer. Pulling a spirit back from the realms beyond the living took effort and often caused a torturous amount of pain for the spirits. Why else would they scream so much when he summoned them?

“I understand, and I thank you.”

Someone else sighed. Darsken felt his skin crawl. It was seldom that anyone could surprise him, but the sorcerer had managed.

“I need to speak to Goriah, Darsken.” Desh Krohan’s voice was immediately recognizable.

Darsken lowered his head and nodded. “Then you shall, but understand I accept no responsibility for any pain she suffers as a result of the summoning.”

The sorcerer came out of the shadows, seeming to pour from them like water from a spilled jug. “What must be must be.”

“Not here. I need to see her body.”

“Then come with us. She is waiting.”

Darsken felt the smile slip on his face. They were prepared for his request.

The palace was a solid distance from the docks. He made sure to take his time on the walk.

“You have employed necromancy in your past, Desh Krohan?”

The sorcerer looked at him for a moment and nodded. “You know I have.”

“It is true I know that you were one of the reasons that necromancy was forbidden. That said, why do you not handle this matter yourself and avoid the chance of indiscretion?”

“I do not believe there’s threat of that.” The wizard paused and sighed. “And I have forgotten more of necromancy than I now know.” The wizard looked toward the palace and his lips pulled down in a quick scowl before he caught himself. “Also, I suspect I will be called on to defend this city soon and I need to conserve my energies.”

“Have you?” Darsken frowned at that thought.

“I am old, Darsken Murdro. I am very, very old.” The sorcerer considered him carefully. “Are you saying you would not willingly forget necromancy?”

“Not while it is a tool I must use.”

“Then I pity you.”

“But without it, how would you get your answers, Desh Krohan?”

The wizard nodded his head.

Fifteen

“Would you explain how this is even possible?” Merros’s voice held an edge that would not go away. The man had been smiling when he showed up, but now he stared around him with a brow that was heavy with tension and one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Desh made it a point to study people. Whatever had relaxed the man so thoroughly was now a thing of the past.

The general was not addressing him. He was actually speaking to the stable master, a man who currently was looking around the room as calmly as he could for a method of escape. To be fair, Merros Dulver could be a bit intimidating. He also had earned a reputation when he started punishing the occasional deserter or soldier who simply would not follow orders.

“I swear to you, General Dulver, that I or one of my men have been here at all times.” The stable master was trying to put on a good face, but he was shaking and his brow was pimpled by fat drops of sweat that the weather was not responsible for generating.

Merros Dulver looked at the dead horses throughout the long stables and cursed under his breath.

Desh and the general had been taking one of their fairly regular walks and keeping each other posted on what had occurred in the last few days. They had passed communications back and forth but mostly had been far too busy to consider an actual meeting. Now, frankly, there wasn’t much time to spend on anything else. The armies of the Sa’ba Taalor were on their way. There was simply no way to avoid that unpleasant fact.

While Merros looked at the dead animals, Desh considered what they had in common and made a deduction.

“Poison.”

Merros turned his way, scowling. “What did you say?”

“Poison. We should check the feed and the water. I’d guess poison. And a good one, too. That sort of thing is not inexpensive.”

“And do you have a list of poisoners and how much inventory they carry? Can we query them and find answers?”

Desh ignored the sarcasm in the question and smiled tightly. “I have just the man to help us with this.”

“Oh, really?” He had Merros’s undivided attention.

“I have seen him work near-miracles. He is responsible for the recent change of events in the life of Laister Krous.”

Merros nodded. “I like him already.” He then looked back at the stable master. “I want samples of the water and the feed set aside. Keep them safe.” The look he skewered the poor bastard with was exactly why Desh had wanted him for a general in the forces.

“Who in the name of all the gods would poison a stable full of horses?”

“Who has the most to gain from killing them, Merros?”

Merros looked at him and scowled. It seemed the only expression he was capable of generating. “You think the Sa’ba Taalor murdered every horse in the royal stables?”

“I think you need to find out if the horses at your military stables are well.”

“Oh, by the gods!” Merros looked around for his personal aide. Taurn Durst was watching from easily a hundred feet distant and started in their direction before the general could call his name. The man was a bull, pure and simple. He had somehow managed to fit a human skin over his preposterous body, but Desh had a powerful suspicion that Durst was actually a very large bull. It explained why his face looked so heavy and his body shook the ground when he walked.

“Aye! Ho, sir!”

Merros closed his eyes for a moment, a look of long suffering moving across his features.

“Taurn, I need you to alert the stables. Have all of the horses checked, and have the feed and water checked for poisons. Set samples aside. Get fresh water drawn from the river for the horses.”

“Aye! Ho, sir!” The man turned and stalked away. He didn’t just walk, but seemed to actually generate an air of menace that moved with him. Desh was suitably impressed. It had taken him lifetimes to manage what the man accomplished simply by existing.

“I keep asking him not to bellow,” Merros said. “He keeps explaining to me that he has to lead the troops around me by example. I’d like to yell at him. I would, but he has a point.”

“You chose him for a reason. Allow that he has the right idea and worry about other things instead.”

“Aye. You’re as right as he is, I suppose. Still, the way he’s always there and always waiting for my commands…”

“That’s his duty.”

“I know. But, your Sisters never seem so bloody eager.”

“They have plenty to be eager about, Merros. Mostly they enjoy the finer things in life, like tormenting the men around them with their looks.”

“They are rather… spectacular.”

“They should be. They use sorcery to make certain they are noticed.”

“Really?” Merros shook his head. “I’d have never noticed.”

“If you could notice, they’d be doing the work the wrong way.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you see when you look at the Sisters?”

Merros grinned. “I tend to see them and little else.”

“That’s the idea. They are gifted at keeping people offguard.”

“To what end?”

“The exact same end that your Taurn Durst manages so easily. When people are looking at them, they are not looking at me. When he comes stomping up the street, most eyes are on him, and that allows you a modicum of freedom.”

Merros looked at him for a long moment and shook his head. “You have a strange way about you.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean if I take off my uniform no one looks at me. I know. I’ve done it.”

“I doubt that is true any longer.”

“How do you mean?”

“You tried this before, back when you were Captain Dulver?”

“Yes.”

“You’re General Dulver now. You are in charge of the entire Imperial Army.”

“Yes, but it’s rather like that cloak of yours, Desh. With it you are a presence to be feared, the powerful advisor to the Empress and a sorcerer of unknown skills. Without it, you’re rather nondescript.”

“I’m not sure if I should feel insulted by that.”

“You’re not one of the Sisters. Without their robes, there would be mass chaos.”

“Fair enough.”

Merros changed the subject back to more important matters. “They’re here sooner, not later, Desh.” He looked around the area, his eyes scanning every access point. It was an automatic thing and the sorcerer knew that, but it was still interesting to note that the last group he’d seen who had the same tendency was the enemy they now faced.

“They are very likely already here. I have a few of my people trying to find any of their sort in town, but so far no luck.”

“For how long?”

“Since we arrived. They believe in war, Merros. Not every war I’ve been in involved swords and horses and shields.”

“But you have found no sign?”

Desh looked around very carefully for a moment and then shook his head. “I know they are here. However they are hiding, be it sorcery or something else, they are very good at it.”

“What? You think their gods are helping them?”

Desh felt a grin he couldn’t quite suppress. “You don’t?”

“No.” The general shook his head.

“You are a brilliant man. I’ve seen what you have accomplished getting a very weakened army in shape, and I’ve watched your work fortifying the defenses of first Tyrne and now Canhoon – and yet, Merros Dulver, you are sometimes powerfully stupid.”

“Say again?”

That made Desh’s smile grow a bit more. Merros was offended. So offended that he forgot who he was dealing with.

“I spoke clearly. You have actually seen the actions of their gods in play and yet you deny them.”

“What do you mean?”

“By all the gods, Merros!” He was actually laughing a bit. Really, he’d had less frustrating conversations with Nachia when she was eleven and those particular discussions had often led to him ranting for hours. “You watched a man summon a volcano with a sword strike. That wasn't sorcery of any kind I know. That was divine intervention. A god literally forced a mountain from stable ground. What else do you need to understand the power involved here? We are lucky they haven’t simply eradicated us completely.”

“Yes, well, when you say it like that…” Merros frowned, lost in thought, then shook his head and blushed. “I am daft.”

“Or very optimistic.”

“How can we possibly win this, Desh?”

“You are working on your side of that equation and I am working on mine. You wanted faster communications and I managed it. You want answers on the horses and I’ll work on that as well. You wanted to know where the enemy is coming from and, well, I have accomplished that, too, though the answer is not a pleasant one.”

“I am still trying to understand the idea of the Mother-Vine being gone.”

“Aye. I’m finding that challenging, too.” He looked away from the general, lost in memories of when the Mother-Vine had been a different sort of entity entirely.

“I know people who think you should be able to end all of this, Desh.” Merros wasn’t accusing him; he was making conversation. Desh was wise enough to know the difference.

“We’ve already discussed that.”

“I know. I’m just trying to find the right words to avoid having you boil me in my own skin.”

Desh grimaced inwardly; there was a very real possibility that he would never live that incident down and it had occurred over three hundred years earlier. “Speak directly. I like you, Merros. I’ll try to avoid killing you.”

“You said it yourself. They have gods. They have shown us their strength. You doing the same might well work to deter them.”

Desh nodded his head. “I’ve thought about that. The problem here is that it’s about fear.”

“Well, yes, that was rather my point.”

“So now we come to a different question. Do they fear me more than they fear their gods?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I can threaten them. I can make them suffer. They have been raised to believe that their gods are all-powerful and all-important. Unless I can be those things, I have no hope of convincing them that I am anything remarkable.”

Before Merros could answer, a young soldier ran up to them calling the general’s name.

Dulver took the message the boy handed him and dismissed the lad immediately. Whatever had to be done, he had no intention of passing the information back to the same messenger. Too many chances of things going astray, Desh supposed.

Merros read quickly and shook his head. “Every last horse. Every single horse within the Imperial palace and through the whole of the military stables.”

“General Dulver!” They turned to see another young runner coming, holding another folded, sealed note.

“Well, this bodes poorly.”

The boy was sent on his way and the note was read and this time Merros Dulver grew pale. “It would seem the First Lancer Division is returning to Canhoon.”

Desh frowned. “I though you reported them all slain.”

“Well, yes, that was the problem. Still, they and the archers they took with them are on their way back here as we speak.”

“General Dulver!” This runner came from the northern gate’s direction. He was older and he looked utterly terrified. Refugees had been coming in steadily from that direction since Trecharch fell. That the man could get through the press of people was impressive.

“What is it?”

“The enemy is coming, General. There is an army of the grayskins coming down the Imperial Road.”

“How far out are they?” Desh interrupted, looking to the messenger and breaking protocol without the least concern.

The man looked at Merros for a moment and then answered Desh. “They are two days out at the most. But they do not stop. They continue walking even in the dark and I think they will be here sooner than that.”

Merros shook his head and cursed under his breath. Desh looked at Merros for only a moment and then gestured toward the chambers where Nachia kept her residence.

“Come along, General. I fear you might get your wish.”

“What wish is that?”

“You may yet get your display of power from me.”

Nachia Krous looked down from the top of the very highest tower in the palace. The view it afforded her was one that most would never see. She wished she could appreciate it more than she was able to at that moment.

From where she stood in the tower it was possible to see for a great distance. Far off, she could see them gathering, the armies of her enemies moving into place, settling before a final march would put them at the edges of Canhoon. The way between where they were and Trecharch was mountainous, but not this close in. A field of dark shapes impossible not to notice. She could not make out individual forms, but she could most certainly see the gathering, like a massive swarm of distant ants, if the ants had learned to light campfires.

This was war then: a crawling, endless panic; a fear that the world would not end well. How many people would die in the next few days as the Sa’ba Taalor came for her, to take her head and her crown and claim the entire world for their own?

She thought of the King in Iron, the behemoth of a man she had faced off against with her heart hammering in her chest. She had stared him in the face, but she’d had to crane her neck into a very uncomfortable position to achieve that task. He was leading his forces to her, and he could destroy cities with a gesture.

She was breathing hard and trying not to panic by the time Desh and Merros made it to her chambers.

“Majesty.” Desh moved into the room and she felt the panic abate. He had that effect on her. He always had. He was a strong, soothing presence even at the worst of times.

She pointed to the window facing north. “There. Look, Desh. You can see them from here.”

He walked past her without a sound and looked. “They come from several directions, Milady, as we knew they would.”

Nachia took in a deep breath and faced her First Advisor. “And what can we do about them?”

“We have our forces gathered, Nachia. But we have been struck a blow. The horses are gone. All of the stables. Someone poisoned them.”

She cursed under her breath. “So we have no cavalry at all?”

“We have no lancers. We have no horses. We still have a very large army waiting here to defend us.”

“And they have those damnable beasts of theirs. That gives them a rather substantial advantage, Desh.”

The man looked past her, studied one window and then the next.

Merros Dulver was oddly quiet. She looked his way and he stared at Desh.

“I think we might have reached the time when I ask you to use sorcery, Desh.”

The First Advisor nodded. “That is why I am here, Majesty. You know that this will exhaust me. I will be tired to the point where there is little I can do for a day or more. Still, I will make an example of one target. You have but to choose one.”

Nachia looked at the latest maps, moved from one window to the next and finally decided. “Let the forces in the north know that the Fellein Empire is unforgiving. They have destroyed Trecharch. They should pay for their actions.”

Merros stepped closer and looked at her maps. He used his finger to indicate where the greatest gathering of the Sa’ba Taalor were, according to the latest reports. It was one thing to see distant forces gathered and another to know which areas would have the greatest concentration of the enemies.

“How many of our people will be hurt in the process?”

Desh looked at her after she’d asked the question and the expression on his face was as revealing as a stone wall. “I suppose we can find out in the final body count. As I warned you before, I can aim this. I cannot control what happens once I let it go.”

“Aim what, exactly?” Merros sounded worried. Nachia knew how he felt.

Desh Krohan did not answer with words. Instead he walked to the window that faced north and raised his hands into the air. There was a balcony outside the window. It was narrow and Nachia had never quite had the nerve to walk outside on it. Heights did not scare her nearly as much as the notion of falling did. It was one thing to look and another to risk losing her balance.

Desh Krohan stood on that narrow balcony and concentrated. His face was set, his brow furrowed with tension. His hands were steady, however, and he moved them as he muttered to himself.

When he was finally ready he pointed with his fingers widespread and hissed a word beneath his breath. She could not hear the phrase, but the sounds that she did hear made her feel queasy.

In her entire life she had never seen magic used in a display of force.

She prayed fervently that she never would again.

Tuskandru looked around the area and nodded. Durhallem had told him where to stand, where to wait with his people, and that was exactly what he intended to do.

His army was vast, yes, but he knew firsthand that there were powers well beyond those offered by a good sword, and he had seen what the sorcerers of the Fellein were capable of. They could fly! They could move from one place to another at speeds that seemed impossible. He had never seen them attack and according to his god they only did so sparingly.

Durhallem said an attack was coming. He had no reason to doubt his god.

His forces waited patiently while the other army moved forward, shuffling along on dead feet. The gods had their ways. A city was cleared and the corpses of the enemies were placed as the gods demanded and then those corpses rose and walked. A gift to the Fellein. They would have their dead back.

In the far distance he could almost make out the city of Canhoon. It was the goal of all the kings for the moment. They would reach that goal soon, but first he was to wait where he was while the wizard of the Fellein showed his power.

He would wait.

He was patient.

Cullen felt the power building.

She did not question the sensation, but instead allowed instinct to guide her and ran hard and fast, her legs pumping furiously. She was a full day ahead of the Sa’ba Taalor, getting closer to Canhoon all the time.

“Run, Cullen! Run as hard as you can!” Deltrea’s voice cracked with raw panic and the sensation was contagious. Cullen sprinted harder still, her vision shaking as she hurled herself downhill along the Imperial Highway. The woods were fine when dealing with the grayskins, but now that she was well ahead of them the road was better.

She ran until she felt her sides burning and then she slowed, still moving but no longer as quickly. There were limits to what she could accomplish. She could climb a tree with ease, scale a hill or run along vines, but she had never covered long distances before and her legs burned and her chest and sides ached. She had run miles farther than she knew, pushed on by the power that nested inside her.

The presence inside of her, the last remnant of the Mother-Vine, urged her on and she moved, gaining new vitality from that odd presence. She did not run, she couldn’t have any longer, but she moved forward and she looked toward her destination, Canhoon.

Deltrea’s voice became a wordless scream of panic and Cullen fell to her knees and then curled into a ball on the ground. The fine hairs on her arms and neck rose into the air; so too the hair on her head. She covered her ears and closed her eyes, but the light still came and the sound followed.

Ahead of her the heat that came her way crisped her hair and dried her throat. Behind her, the world boiled.

She would have boiled as well, but the presence she held inside deflected the blast.

Swech was looking at the palace when the world went mad.

She was contemplating the reactions to all that was happening in Canhoon. The people who ran the stables were moving in a fury of activity, and soldiers crawled over the palace grounds like ants on a corpse.

She had seen Merros Dulver walking earlier with the wizard, Desh Krohan, and she had made certain not to be seen. He was a handsome buck and she admired him.

The general and the sorcerer had been in a hurry and they’d headed into the heart of the palace, barely bothering to look around at all.

She was expecting news from Jost, but so far nothing had been forthcoming.

The younger girl had been sent to find one of the sorcerers. Not Desh Krohan, but another, a man named Jeron. Until Krohan came back to Canhoon, Jeron had been in charge of the city in many ways. Now he did the elder sorcerer’s bidding and sent his mind out to find the secrets of the Sa’ba Taalor. The wizards had an array of their members moving through the Empire and communicating together. They spoke of the Sa’ba Taalor and shared secrets that the gods did not want shared. It was time to end the problem.

Jeron was to be killed or converted. Jost was the one to handle the matter in either event. That decision came from Paedle, not from Swech. There was no discussion necessary.

She pondered the fate of the sorcerer even as Desh Krohan stood upon a balcony so high above her that even her finest bow and arrow could not have hoped to reach him. The only reason she recognized him at all was because of his robes, which moved and shimmered and seemed so very alive.

The sun was gone and the world was moving toward proper night. There was a glimmer of color at the edge of the world and beyond it the darkness and the stars. Her eyes were not prepared for what happened next.

The sorcerer moved his arms and threw them outward as if he might be hurling rocks from his hands.

Instead of rocks it was lightning that spilled forth. A great, potent stream of liquid light ripped across the darkening skies and turned the world white. Stark shadows snapped into focus, but the tongues of liquid blue fire that ripped from his hands took away all other colors and made those shadows dance madly.

Had she been in her own flesh her eyes would have adjusted instantly. A second set of eyelids would have moved, and protected her from the glare as surely as they protected her eyes from the dust of the Blasted Lands. She was not in her body, however. She wore a different woman’s flesh.

The light blinded her for a moment, leaving her seeing phantom shapes in blue.

The sound came next, a roar as pure and potent as the screams of the Mounds. The noise rippled through the air and echoed off buildings, sending throaty vibrations through her entire body.

Swech closed her eyes and waited, while all around her people reacted to the unexpected sound and sight as if the world itself were ending.

Swech knew better, of course. The Daxar Taalor were not yet ready for the world to end. Though they were surely fine with certain parts falling into ruination.

Trecharch burned once more. What the Sa’ba Taalor had failed to do was taken care of by Fellein’s greatest sorcerer. That the land was already in ruin was a given, but the trees that remained, the animals foolish enough to come back to the area after the Pra-Moresh came through, all found out what magic could do.

Lightning ripped down from the heavens in a thousand brilliant tongues, stroking the earth, the trees, the rocks with fires so potent that wood exploded into flames, the ground boiled and rocks were shattered. Birds and insects startled from their rest fell, stunned or cooked where they waited. The few humans left in the area – and there were only a few, as most had either been killed or long since had fled the area – died just as quickly, their bodies burnt into husks in a moment.

Along the path of destruction the army of corpses meant as a perverse gift to the Fellein were destroyed. Flesh fried, bones burned, metal and cloth disintegrated in a pyrotechnic display. Water evaporated or boiled, and for a dozen miles the world was scarred.

Less than a mile from the massive detonation, Tuskandru watched and experienced a new sensation. He was not familiar with fear. He had been startled many times, but never had he been afraid.

He did not like it. The unfamiliar emotion was burned out of him, replaced by anger.

All around him his people stared, shocked by the unexpected ruination.

When the lights had finished bathing the sky, and the sounds had completed their roaring reminder that some things were beyond mortal understanding, Tusk looked at his people and observed their reactions.

Most of them did as he did. They looked around and assessed the end results of the attack. A few trembled.

He marked the ones who were afraid. They would be watched.

“Durhallem warned us to wait and so we did!” He had no choice but to yell. Even then he was uncertain how many could hear him. It did not matter. What was important was that his people understood that he was not afraid, and that he and they should be ready for war.

Some turned toward him. Others stared around. Tusk nodded and reached into the satchel attached to Brodem’s saddle. The horn was easy to find. It was all that filled that particular bag.

That noise got the attention of all of them. The note was sharp and clear as he called them to war. It was time to ride. They would not stand still and cower in the darkness. The Sa’ba Taalor were warriors. Any who forgot that would suffer the wrath of their king, the wrath of their god.

“We ride! We have a people to conquer!”

Tusk could barely hear their responses, but he felt them in his flesh. The roar of his followers was as loud as the thunder itself.

In minutes they were mounted and riding or walking as befit their abilities.

Fear was for lesser beings. The Sa’ba Taalor had nothing to fear. Their gods were with them.

Merros Dulver watched on as Desh Krohan rained destruction down on a land that was days away. It started as a lick of light from his fingertips and exploded outward from there.

There was no way to escape the sight.

He squinted against the light coming from the skies and spewing forth across the distant area, and watched the fires burning. The sun set, but the glow from the north matched the dusk’s fading light.

The air stank with the discharge of power.

Nachia stood at his side and looked at the ruination.

She turned to look at her First Advisor with wide, genuinely shocked eyes.

“What if you’d missed?” Her voice was small, barely a whisper.

Desh sighed. “And how many times have I offered you that exact argument.”

The sorcerer walked away from them heading, Merros supposed, for his private chambers. “I am tired now,” Desh muttered. He did not look back.

From the north Tuskandru gathered his armies and moved, slipping among the trees and advancing with more stealth than many would have thought him capable of managing. The simple fact was that after the earlier display of power it was best to let the enemy think that he and his were gone until it was too late to do anything about it.

To the east, the movement of the army was more direct. The Imperial Highway was occupied with the movement of troops in numbers that would have had most of Canhoon trembling if they could see that far, but the army of King Tarag Paedori was still over a day away and moving at a steady pace. The rear echelons of that army stopped when the sun set. The forward wave did not stop but continued, moving slowly but deliberately in the direction of Canhoon.

In the direction of home.

As with Tuskandru, the King in Iron brought with him a gift of the dead. Lancers and archers alike moved along the path, bearing little by way of weapons but not needing any, either.

Kallir Lundt, once of Fellein and now of Prydiria, stood next to his king and stared after the moving dead.

“I don’t completely understand. Why send them back if they are unarmed?”

Tarag Paedori looked down upon him. The man was well over a head and shoulders taller. He was, without doubt, the largest man that Kallir had ever met.

“The dead are a reminder. They let the Fellein know that the gods favor us. Should any have lived long enough or have written a record of the past, they are a reminder that the Fellein once used armies of the dead to fight their wars.”

Kallir nodded his head. “None will remember, but they will be scared senseless by the very notion.” He spoke a complete truth there and he knew it. When he saw the dead rising it was all he could do not to run away. He was not easily frightened, but dead things should stay dead.

The King in Iron looked at him for a long, silent moment and then looked back toward the distant Canhoon. “Are you uncertain, Kallir Lundt? These were your people before you joined us.”

“No. I have accepted the gifts of Truska-Pren and I have been given so many gifts.” Still he spoke the truth. The maps that the Sa’ba Taalor had of Canhoon were drawn by memory, and they were remarkably accurate. There were discrepancies, to be sure, but fewer than most would have imagined. “I know that what must come next is inevitable.”

The king nodded. “That is good. I want you with us for this. I want you to bear witness to what happens to Canhoon and the rest of the Empire.”

Kallir nodded his head and did not speak. He had seen the power of the gods of Taalor and yet, he felt doubts. They had mended his face. They had punished others before him, and he had watched as one of the arrogant, youthful fools who sometimes must beat their chests to prove themselves had fallen to the ground before him and been transformed. He had learned in a moment where the mounts came from. They were the humbled, those who lacked the faith needed to follow the Daxar Taalor. He knew the Daxar Taalor had power.

Still, his faith was strained. He had never seen any action on the part of the gods of Fellein but still he found himself wondering if the army he sided with would be strong enough to take on the vast forces of an empire at least a hundred times the size.

He wondered if the gods of Fellein were truly absent.

One gauntleted hand rested on his shoulder for a moment and he looked up toward his friend, ally and king. The eyes of the man glowed with their own light in the semidarkness. All around him the Sa’ba Taalor lit the area with faint starlight wherever he looked. “Rest, Kallir. We ride at dawn and we ride until we reach Canhoon.”

Kallir nodded and moved toward his tent, still feeling a sense of unease.

He would pray and soon enough he would know if his prayers were answered.

Sixteen

In his dreams the stranger before Teagus was dour and hard and spoke for the gods. “Etrilla steps aside now. It is time for Kanheer to come forward and save his children.”

He should have felt fear at the idea that war had come, and yet there was a savage joy in his breast.

“How can this be when Kanheer has slept for so long?”

The Pilgrim stood before him with the dust of a thousand miles of walking on his clothes. He was gritty and he was grim and he carried his sword drawn and ready for combat. He was hard where Teagus was soft. He was hardened and tested in combat. The only time Teagus had attempted to fight in the last decade had resulted in a beating and being locked in chains.

“Kanheer was preparing for this time, as gods do. There were people to place just so, and forces to gather in the right places.” Despite his harsh features and the cruel set of his mouth, the man spoke calmly and patiently. His voice soothed the worries in Teagus’s soul. “You are where you are because Kanheer needed you to be in this place at this time. I am where I am because the god of war summoned me from my sleep and told me to gather an army.”

“You have an army? You’ll fight these Sa’ba Taalor?” Was it possible that a few words from a man he’d never met before could make Teagus so optimistic? No. It wasn't the words, but who said them. He could not have said exactly why the Pilgrim filled him with hope, but there was something about the weathered features and rough strength of the figure that did just that. Here was a man who spoke with the authority of the gods themselves. Here was a man whose purpose was righteous. “What must I do?”

“Prepare yourself. Say your prayers to Etrilla. Say more prayers to Kanheer. It is time for us to save the faithful. It is what we were created to do, Teagus of Tyrne. We must remember the dead and protect the living. It is what our gods want of us.”

“But I am in a cell. How can I help from a locked room?”

“There are no prisons for the faithful. When the time is right, come to the Eastern Gate and wait for me. We will meet in the flesh soon enough.”

Teagus opened his eyes in the darkness. There was light, yes, in the distance. The flickering light from the guard’s lantern down the corridor. He looked toward that light, his eyes drawn to any form of illumination as he contemplated the dream. The exact same dream he’d had the night before. At least he believed it was the same. The sleep was over; the dream was fading and left little beyond a strong sense of hope.

His eyes studied the light for a moment before he realized that he should not have been able to see the light at all from his cell. There was normally a door in the way. The door was missing. Not open. Gone. Missing.

Teagus considered that for several seconds and then rose from his narrow cot and moved toward the hallway.

Faith means believing in miracles, especially when they happen before your very eyes.

An army came to Canhoon, led by a Pilgrim and summoned by gods. Here, at last, there was hope.

The passage was clear. Leaving was unsettlingly easy.

The day broke clear and sunny, with a gentle breeze from the east and a low enough temperature to keep the bugs slow and sluggish. That by itself was a start for a good day in the eyes of most.

Still, war was upon the land and new orders had been given. The great gates leading to Canhoon were shut and barred, and guards were placed at the smaller entrances near each of the gates. The City Guard reigned within the city, but at the walls the soldiers were picked and carefully instructed by Merros Dulver himself. There would be no mistakes.

The northern gates were closed after Cullen made her way into the city. The sight of the great wood and steel barriers being shut and then barricaded with heavy oak arms caused a great deal of whispered discussion.

A vast river offered fresh waters to Canhoon. The waters ran deep and wide and flowed along a series of docks set just outside of the massive wall that surrounded the city. One area allowed greater access. A section of the barrier had been cut away to permit boats greater access, but as she looked on she could see the soldiers fortifying that spot with massive wooden barriers that had apparently been cared for over the years. The wooden walls were slipped into place and locked together. She might have doubted that they could hold off the grayskins but she could also see the massive iron bands that helped keep the shapes in place. Guards bellowed and a hundred men or more hauled the barriers along a series of rails that looked freshly greased. She wondered idly why they did not have animals pulling the massive structures. There was not a horse to be seen anywhere and she’d expected a great number of them from the tales she’d heard growing up.

“Have you ever seen such a town, Cullen?” Deltrea’s ghostly voice sounded as overwhelmed as Cullen felt.

The buildings started low, mostly hidden behind the vast walls around the city. Each wall was of a different era and while all had been kept in good repair, the styles were as different as the times. The first was made of massive stones that had been placed together close to the heart of the city. Each stone was cut and polished until the whole of the thing looked like one piece, save only for the differences in the color of each enormous stone. She could not begin to understand how they had been assembled. It would take armies of men just to slide one piece, let alone to raise them on top of each other.

“Sorcery,” Deltrea said. “It must be.”

Further out the second wall was slightly lower and made of bricks cast from the clay of the river. Time had not been kind, but the wall still stood, and even from a great distance she could see how thick the structure was, how very solid.

The wall that surrounded the entirety of the city was made from smaller stones and not as perfectly put together. She could see handholds all along the thing. The outer lip of the wall, however, rose at a sharp angle and offered shelter from the sun for a dozen feet or more. Anyone attempting to scale that wall would be stopped by the massive outcropping. At over sixty feet in height she had doubts that anyone could scale it easily. There were a few, survivors of Trecharch who were used to scaling rough surfaces, but even the most inventive would have to hang like a spider scaling a ceiling to manage the underside of the angled walkway at the top of the wall.

Guards walked that wall, a dozen or more in plain view and she assumed many more besides. Cullen studied them for several moments and then moved on.

Hunger was a new force inside of her and she dug around her clothes until she found her small satchel of coins. It had belonged to someone else on the road, but that someone had died holding it. She suspected they tried to barter with the grayskins and died for the attempt. In any case one of the coins bought her several pieces of fruit and a slice of fresh roasted beef on a slap of hard bread.

Cullen chewed slowly but took big bites. Her stomach demanded no less.

While she ate she stared at the men building their wooden wall and watched the people trying to get past it as quickly as they could. Most seemed calm but a few were eager to get past and locked within the confines of the city.

One of the City Guard looked at her for a moment, saw the bow and arrows, the food at her side and nodded before moving on.

Deltrea said, “He wants to know if you can use a bow, I bet.”

Cullen shrugged and ate.

“I hear that only a few women in this area can fight for themselves. Most are pampered and kept safe from any possible harm.”

Cullen managed not to laugh pabba fruit out of her nose, but it was an effort. “Do you see anyone here who looks pampered, Deltrea?”

She looked around herself to prove her point. There were too many people. That was the first thing worth noting. Many were dirty from days on the road, and most wore expressions of exhaustion and desperation. She knew, because she had seen the same look on her own face when she was cleaning herself at the river earlier in the day. “They are hungry and they are scared.”

“Of course they are, because they cannot fight and they cannot hunt.” Deltrea’s voice sounded petulant. “They come from places where they’ve never had to survive a fight with enemies that wanted them dead.”

Despite knowing better, Cullen took the bait. “Have you lost your senses? Look at them!” She tossed aside the remains of her pabba fruit and waved her hands to encompass everyone. “These are our people, and more besides! There are Roathians here, and the remains of Tyrne! They have nothing! They have less than nothing!”

In her guts the heat from the Mother-Vine roiled and curled and stretched and she grunted. The heat wanted food and so she shut her mouth and grabbed up her slab of beef, chewing on the meat and the hard baked bread under it. It stopped her from making more of a fool of herself. She could see the people around her still eyeing her warily, this girl who talked to the air and argued besides.

The men who walked past were dressed in military finery. She did not know the ranks, but she could see they were in the upper echelons. They had too many shiny buttons and cords of gold on their clothes to be otherwise. The leader of them was a man who walked with the confidence of a killer. He pointed and spoke, and the others around him nodded and obeyed his orders.

“General Dulver, a moment if you would, sir.” A man had come from where they worked on constructing the barrier against the river and what lay beyond it. He practically simpered.

The man she was watching nodded and listened as the details were laid out. There were problems with the tracks that the wall was supposed to slide along. Too much debris had built up over the years and even with the grease they ran into obstructions.

“Durst, please walk with Kermon here and show him how to clear the tracks.” Durst looked like he should have been on the team moving the sections of the wall, or just possibly as if he should have been a section of that wall himself. He scowled at the interloper and nodded. Kermon looked like he wished he were anywhere else, or possibly as if he should have considered fixing the issue without asking for assistance.

Life in the military did not change. She had spent years listening to orders fall from lead tongues onto lead ears.

The general looked her way and nodded politely, then quickly looked a second time, examining the bow and arrows at her side. She looked at them herself. The bow was standard enough. The arrows were whatever she could find on the road and some were from the enemy.

“You are coming from the north? From Trecharch?’

She squinted up at him, and nodded, even as she swallowed the lump of chewed beef. She had not been expecting conversation.

“I am sorry for your losses. We were not fast enough.”

Cullen shook her head. “They came with Pra-Moresh and stranger things. They came in great numbers. There would have been nothing to do, especially after they killed the Mother-Vine.”

“We are looking for soldiers if you need employment and can use that bow.”

“My friend Deltrea was saying how the likes of people from Canhoon don’t much need female soldiers.”

The general smiled. “I am not from Canhoon. And I need every solider I can find who is willing to fight.”

“I’m to find a wizard first. A man named Krohan.”

The general looked at her for a long moment with a half-smile on his face. He was handsome in his way, but aged by the mantle of his duties. The smile made him seem younger again.

“You seek Desh Krohan?”

“He’s the one. You know him?”

“Oh, aye, everyone knows him or at least of him. In my case I’ve met him several times and will be seeing him within the hour.”

“Can you get me to him?”

“Possibly, but he’s busy and not likely to see a woman with a weapon aimed his way. I might have to take that from you until after the meeting.” He kept a light tone in his voice. She liked that. Too many people seemed to find it important to make demands instead of simply explaining themselves.

“I expect I can approach without a weapon.”

He stayed where he was expectantly and after a moment Cullen realized he was waiting on her to join him. Flustered, she grabbed her food and slipped it into a fold of her oversized blouse, then grabbed her weapons.

As they walked he asked her questions about what had happened in Trecharch and she answered them truthfully. There was no point in lying.

She spoke of the deaths of her friends, including Deltrea, but he made no worrisome noises as she’d feared he might. He was a soldier. He had been in combat. He very likely had a few ghosts of his own he spoke to when the time was right. Or who spoke to him, for that matter. She could tell that by the way he moved and the way he looked around. He did not strut like so many of the younger soldiers. He did not puff out his chest or scowl at the people around. As they spoke they moved across the streets and hills of the city and Cullen ate her food. By the time they reached the gates of the palace – and had there ever been a city with so many walls? So many gates? She had her doubts – he had likely gleaned as much information as he had hoped.

The general smiled at her. “In all of this I’ve forgotten to ask you your name. Who is it I’m to say wishes to see Desh Krohan, the First Advisor to the Empress?” His tone had not changed and Cullen wondered idly if she was supposed to be impressed by the title he offered.

“My name is Cullen.” Her hand moved over her abdomen to where the endless heat moved and pulsed inside of her. “My message for Desh Krohan comes from Moale Deneshi. He will know the name.”

Truer words had seldom, if ever, been uttered.

Captain Callan did not enter the city. He stayed with his ship and watched on as the great wall was assembled. He had been given passage to leave as he pleased or to enter, but he doubted that he would stay.

In addition to the offer of safe passage he had also been given a commission and if Callan could be said to have any god it was the coin of the realm, regardless of which realm he was in.

Vondum chewed at a sliver of dried beef that was likely as hard as steel. He did so without bothering to taste the stuff, but merely so that he would have something to do as he watched the laborers build their wall.

“It’s not that I’m not enjoying watching a herd of men try to replace horses, because I have coin on at least one being crushed before this day is done and I like my coin – but why are we still here, Callan?”

Callan’s face had a heavy growth of beard on it at the moment and he was contemplating scraping it away. His skin itched and he hated that feeling.

Along the docks he could see heavy gratings that ran under the wooden platforms. He knew from past experience that those grates filtered the water going into the city and stopped anything larger than a mouse from creeping in.

There were other boats and ships around him. Most were readying for leaving the area.

He frowned. “There were four boats due in from Freeholdt. None of them have come round.”

“And they won’t and you know it. We’ve all heard the stories. The black ships are on the water and waiting for their signal to come in.” Vondum shrugged. “We stay here, and half the crew goes into the city and we remain here. We leave now, we might have a chance to slip past them. Or we go round the city and take the river east.”

Callan nodded. “East is sounding like a fine notion to me, lad. How about you?”

“East is a destination I can find some good thoughts about. West and south do not bode a good day.” Vondum switched the dried beef to the other side of his mouth and looked toward the water. “Today, Callan. If it’s not today, I’ll take my chances in the city.”

“You’d leave?”

“Coin only spends if you are alive to spend it. I’ve heard the stories. You’ve heard them too. Time to leave or tuck ourselves in a safe place. The Sa’ba Taalor are coming.”

“We go south, we can meet up with the Brellar.” Callan rose and dusted off the seat of his pants and walked to the edge of the deck , looking down into the waters. “We get more coin and an army of savages to fight against the black ships.”

“Really, it’s much the same answer. We can’t spend the coin if we’re dead.”

Callan sighed. “Off the ship with you then. I’ll find new bodies to take with me. I think it’s time to fight against these bastards. They’ve killed half the ports we sail from and they’re aiming to kill this one, too. They keep it up we have nowhere left to sell our wares.”

Vondum considered that for a moment and then spat his dried beef into the water. An instant later a fish snapped at the meat. Callan hoped it enjoyed the meal.

“It makes me grouchy when you’re right, Captain. So let’s go the way you want, but let’s do it quickly, before I change my mind.”

“What about the lads?”

“They’ll mind, long as there’s coin involved.”

“I thought you couldn’t spend if you were dead.”

Vondum looked at him and smirked. “Aye. But the lads don’t think that far ahead.”

“Fair enough.”

Half an hour later the ship was on its way. They took a wide turn and headed back out toward the waters of the south, toward dead, ruined Freeholdt and the waters beyond, where black ships sailed and demons waited.

He should have been terrified, but Callan felt alive. He always felt best when he was heading to the sea.

The horns would sound soon. Swech nodded her head. There were hours at most before the war came to Canhoon and when it did she would be ready. The time to wait had never really come to pass. She had been far too busy. That was the advantage of staying busy.

Jost would likely be back soon to report on the activities of the others.

There was little left to be done for the moment and so Swech took a bath, rinsing the grit from her body. Grit was everywhere these days, as the storms from Durhallem and distant Wheklam continued to vomit toxic filth into the air. The next mountain would move soon, though at a far enough distance that she would not even be likely to feel the great eruption when it occurred.

Once she was cleaned and dressed she left the small apartment where she had met with the others and moved back toward her home deeper in the city.

There were things to be done. There were appearances to keep. She felt a flutter in her chest at the thought.

The meal would be a quick one of necessity and she was not sure it would even be one that she shared, but she could not afford to take that chance.

The servants had done their work and the oven was warm. The roast had been finished and the fruit and cheese had been laid out. It only took a matter of a few minutes to pull the cooking bird from the oven and place the dough into the heat to finish baking.

By the time everything had been laid out properly the sun was rising.

She checked to make sure her clothes were proper and that her hair looked as good as it could after cooking and then she went out to the porch and waited in the early morning breeze.

When Merros Dulver came through the open gate into her private estate she stayed where she was. The general came to her, as he always did, and he smiled an apology. “I cannot stay but for a moment, Dretta. The armies of the Sa’ba Taalor are gathering.”

Swech smiled warmly and nodded her head. “Then you should eat. You will have a busy day saving us from the savages.”

He smiled gratefully and sat across from her at the table. “You are wise, Dretta March.” He poured himself a cup of cold water and then watched as she set up a plate with a collection of his favorites. “I worry, Dretta. Will you be safe?”

“I will not leave my home, Merros. I will be safe here until you return to me.”

He ate his fill and then she led him inside and away from prying eyes. He would be going to war soon. The thought of war, of combat and bloodshed, always left her aroused.

The horns sounded from outside Canhoon and were answered immediately from well within the wall.

The first wave of grayskins did not look as intimidating as many had expected as they moved toward the closed Western Gate. They had numbers, to be sure, but they did not march in unison and few of them seemed to have any weapons.

The gates were closed just the same and the guards waited, gathering together to watch the figures, a dozen of them all told before the first horn sounded. Most retreated back to their posts, shamefaced by their lack of proper behavior. A few continued to stare until the watch captain roared his orders. Captain Tinner was not known for his gentle touch with a lash. They moved quickly to get to the proper places after that.

Tinner was a good man, seasoned and trained and well used to making sure that the city was kept safe. It didn’t matter that no one had attacked in over a century. Tinner was a career soldier and knew the value of discipline. He was one of a dozen or so men who’d made absolutely certain that the walls of the city stayed in good shape and was the first to send men out to clear the tents and supplies from those who wanted to use those walls as a lean-to.

He was also smart enough to know when something wasn’t right. He ordered that the group traveling toward them be hailed and so they were. He watched as they continued on, making no sign that they had heard the hail. After the second and third attempts failed he called for one of his guards to hand him a bow and took careful aim.

The arrow sailed true and slammed into the thigh of the leader of the group, a solitary man wearing the colors of the Imperial Army and acting not at all a part of the same.

That the arrow struck true was a given. He could see it where it stuck, watch it shift with each step the man took.

Tinner called for the alarm to sound and was rewarded with a blast from the horn closest to him and several others as well.

As the sound issued again and again from around the outer wall, the gates were doublechecked and tested for security. Canhoon was sealed from traffic in all directions and the smaller doors near the gates were sealed and barricaded with stout wooden supports.

Behind the walls, safely locked away from the invasion, the people of Canhoon and the refugees who swelled that city’s population stared uneasily at the walls meant to protect them. They were here now, trapped, whether or not they wanted to go anywhere at all.

Tinner watched as the marching shapes moved to the doors and pressed against them, moving to force their way through barriers that would have withstood nearly any force known to the Empire.

He gave the signals and the archers along the wall took aim, firing into the crowd that pushed forward. Arrow after arrow struck flesh and the shapes that should have screamed or made noises did nothing at all save continue on as they had.

He gestured to one of the runners, a lad of twelve, too young to fight but fast enough to work conveying messages. While the boy waited he wrote a quick note and ordered it taken to the office of General Dulver.

The message was simple: The dead have returned, as you said they might.

He kept his calm. There would be no panic on his watch. Sorcery was almost inevitable and after the display of the day before it was also no longer surprising.

Merros looked upon the dead things battering at the Western Gate and felt his stomach turn. They were dead. They certainly looked dead and they most decidedly smelled dead. They were also his soldiers, or had been in life.

Desh Krohan stood next to him on the high wall and looked down. His face was somber and his demeanor was worse. He was not a happy man.

“They’re very dead. I wouldn’t waste any more arrows on them.”

“Yes, well, it took a few volleys before the watch captain decided exactly that.” He looked at the wizard and then down into the moving collection of the dead and shook his head. “What do you propose we do about them?”

“Well, you could burn them but you risk burning your doors at the same time. They’re mostly metal, granted, but the heat it takes to burn a body is substantial and the structural damage if they don’t stop moving might well be enough to cause troubles.” Desh looked down and shook his head. “That’s why we outlawed necromancy in the first place.”

“Necromancy?”

“That.” He gestured. Below him the dead kept pushing against the doors, which stubbornly refused to be pushed open, for which Merros was exceedingly grateful. “Any sorcery that deals with the dead or their spirits.”

He bit his tongue, fully aware that the man he was dealing with had brought back Goriah’s body when she was killed and that the body had not been buried or burned.

“My suggestion is leave them where they are.”

“Leave them?”

“It’s that or burn them. I mean I suppose you could send someone out to cut them down, but it won’t go well.” Desh shook his head. “It never does.”

“Well then. That’s that. We’ll leave them until I can think of a better way. The guards won’t be happy about it.”

“The first one that complains, give him a sword and suggest he cut them all down to smaller pieces that are more easily scattered and burned. That should calm down the discontent.”

“You are wonderfully mad, Desh Krohan.”

“‘Be a part of the resolution of the difficulties, not a portion of the complaint about the same.’ That’s what Theurasa Sallis always said.”

“Who?”

“My teacher a long, long time ago.”

“Did you speak with the young woman, Cullen?” He wouldn’t have asked, but ever since the woman had been introduced to him Desh had seemed unsettled, even more than he’d been after destroying a small army.

“I did.” Desh frowned, worrying his lower lip. “She has been… enlightening.”

“Who is Moale Deneshi?” He asked because he felt it might be important. He had no desire to pry into the sorcerer’s life. It wasn’t healthy to do so, but the man’s reaction to the name had been as strong as if he’d been bitten in his privates by an angry goat.

“She was my lifemate a long time ago. She gave her life to preserve the Mother-Vine. It’s complicated and nothing you need to worry about.”

Merros nodded his head and took the hint, but he also knew the man was lying. Whatever had occurred the situation wasn't over yet. He could sense it. That, however, was the least of his concerns.

“They’re coming from all directions, Desh. This is going to be a long and bloody siege.”

The sorcerer looked at him. “I admire your optimism.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The Sa’ba Taalor are going to destroy us in short order, Merros. If they continue to raise the dead to fight on their side then we will surely be overrun within a few weeks at the most. The corpses will bring sickness. Plague winds, at the very least. If they decide to place one of their volcanoes on this city we’re all dead anyway.”

“Do they plan to do that?”

“No. Corin has looked into the matter. The next of their mountains will rise far to the east. Likely where they are fighting now.”

“Desh, I’ve got a lot of troops in that area.” The sorcerer nodded. “Advance notice might save a few of them.”

“I’m letting you know what I know. There’s likely going to be an eruption in the far east. That is all that I know. Everything else is guesswork.”

“What makes you think it will happen in Elda?”

“It’s a stronghold for your military over there. They’ve successfully been holding off the Sa’ba Taalor. It’s what you’d do in the same situation with a similar weapon. It’s what I’d do.”

Merros stared furiously at the man with no idea of how to respond. He hated that the man was right.

“They’re coming. The real enemy. They’re almost here.” Desh pointed. The army was impossible to miss. A thousand people moving on the Imperial Highway had seemed impressive. This, however, was much more than that.

Merros looked on and felt his stomach fall away into the very bowels of the planet. They did not wear matching armor. They did not carry identical banners, or swing weapons that looked alike, but there was no doubt that the moving river of flesh that filled the highway was an army.

Helmets of every imaginable type, shields great and small. Swords and maces and chains and bows and odder items he could not hope to fathom were carried in the ready hands of the Sa’ba Taalor as they came forward.

There were tens of thousands of them. They continued on toward the Blasted Lands for as far as his eyes could see, and they moved in perfect unison. Thousands of feet rose and fell together, sending out a synchronized thunder with each step forward. At regular intervals bannermen carried vast red flags emblazoned with the black face of an iron god. That face was familiar to him. He had seen it once on an iron box that offered a crippled young man a chance to use his hands again. That had been a few months ago but it felt like a lifetime.

“These are the forces of the King in Iron,” Merros said. “This is only one portion of their army.”

Desh Krohan nodded his head. In the distance, a great distance off, actually, they could just make out the shapes of the mounted soldiers. It was hard to say for certain, but there seemed a good number of them as well. “It might take them less time to take the city than I originally thought.”

Nachia Krous looked out from her tower and tapped the sword against her hip. The armor was not comfortable, but she wore it. If her army were prepared to fight she would be prepared as well. Her brother, Brolley, stood nearby. He, too, was dressed in armor. He seemed far less calm than she did.

Brolley was currently staring at the gigantic black mark on the land where Desh had cast his destructive spell. He’d been staring at that spot a great deal.

“There are soldiers down there,” he said.

“Yes, Brolley. I’m currently looking at them. There are a very large number of them, really.”

“No. I mean to the north. There are more soldiers. They aren’t all moving together but they’re there and they are forming up. I don’t think there are as many as you’re looking at, but it still seems a lot of them.”

Nachia sighed and walked over to look where her brother was staring. He was correct. There were a great deal of them and they were gathering, falling into a loose formation.

She had already looked to the south and seen more of them. The only point that seemed unimpeded was the east, and that was likely an illusion. It was only a matter of time before they were well and truly surrounded on all sides.

There was a temptation to call for Desh Krohan. It was strong, but she ignored it.

He would come when he was ready and would likely not be long in heading in her direction. There was a war to fight and she had chosen her commanders. She had to trust in them a bit, and for now she would watch and observe.

Nachia looked to the east, just in case an army might be hiding.

There was no army, but there were a great number of people.

They were entering the city in an orderly fashion and even from as far away as she currently was she thought she could feel them looking toward her in her tower.

This was the Pilgrim, perhaps. The man they claimed gathered the faithful to his side and planned to help the Empire.

She hoped the claims were true. They needed all the help they could get.

The mass of soldiers stopped at what had to be a carefully considered distance. They were just out of range of the crossbows, which meant they were beyond the range of the archers as well. The dead did not care either way, but continued to push and batter at the doors with no noticeable effect.

Desh Krohan looked at Merros and shook his head. “You should go to the palace, General.”

“I’m needed here.”

“No, actually, you are not. The watch captain seems quite competent and you are needed where you can best strategize and prepare for a multitiered attack on the city.”

The First Advisor was not joking. He meant it, and Merros could see that, but he wasn't at all pleased by the notion.

“I didn’t come out here to investigate and run.”

“Were you planning to throw open the gates and strike down the dead? After that, were you going to singlehandedly kill the entire force of invaders waiting out there?”

“Desh–”

“No.” Desh cut him off, speared him through with a dark stare. “It’s not a request of you, Merros. Get to the palace. I need you where you can do the most good and that’s not here.”

“I’m a soldier, damn it.”

“You’re the commander of the entire army! I have four hundred swords on the way here and a thousand more being rallied. Go to where you can do me the most good and prepare for the siege, Merros!”

He hated to leave. He hated even more that the damned fool sorcerer was right. Had he known then, back before the madness started properly, all that he knew now, Merros Dulver wasn't completely sure he would have accepted the commission into the military at a higher rank. Command was a necessary evil, but not one that sat well with him in this circumstance.

He looked out over the wall again as rank after rank of the Sa’ba Taalor moved to the sides of the road and formed into precise lines.

They did not speak. They did not shuffle impatiently. They simply stared at the massive doors of the Western Gate as more of their people moved forward and slid into position.

Merros turned and walked away, his fists clenched in cold fury.

The men at the Eastern Gate had planned to bar the smaller doors, but the Pilgrim stopped them.

He walked to the heavy, reinforced door and walked through the threshold with one hand bracing the door open and the other on his sword hilt. His countenance was harsh and the guards hesitated for only a moment but that was enough. It was only a matter of moments before the faithful began spilling into the courtyard closest to the gate, and they moved quickly, not taking the time to linger.

They were a large gathering, dirtied by their time on the road, lean and hungry and universally as somber as the man who led them. Had there been a dozen the City Guard would likely have contained them and locked the doors. But they were not a dozen or even a hundred. They were literally an army. They kept walking across the threshold and moving to the side allowing the next person through as their leader held the door and gestured for them to move to the appropriate place.

Hendil, the captain of the watch for the Eastern Gate shook his head and let them enter. They were not the Sa’ba Taalor. They were citizens of Fellein and his orders said nothing of killing their own in an effort to close a door. Better to let them in and recruit them as far as he was concerned.

By the time the last of them had come through the doors it was a calm, sweating tide of people who closed and barred the doors for him. Without another word the man who led them walked on and headed deeper into the city. He marched as a man with a mission in mind, and his people followed the same way.

As he moved toward the second wall of the great city he was joined by a scattering of others.

One such was Teagus, the priest of Etrilla, who looked to the Pilgrim and smiled. “I dreamed of you.”

“No. You dreamed what the gods want you to do.”

“Yes, but I dreamed that you would lead me.”

The Pilgrim looked at him for a moment. “Will you follow me and do the bidding of the gods, Teagus?”

“You know my name?”

A woman answered for him. She was lovely and dark and there had been a time when Teagus would have done all that he could to convince her that sleeping with him was the will of the gods.

She said, “The Pilgrim has known the name of every last person to follow him. He has walked this path before.”

“I don’t understand.”

She smiled. “You will. Soon. Very soon.”

The Pilgrim answered as well. “Etrilla has called me from my resting place and summoned me back to the City of Wonders, here to do the will of all the gods as they follow Kanheer into a time of war. We who have sought peace and the comfort of a simple life are now called to do battle for our Lord of the Blood. We who have harvested grains and hunted game must now defend all that we have loved and all that we could hope to love against an enemy that wishes an end to everything we would see kept whole, Teagus of Tyrne. Just as they struck down your city, they would strike down all that matters to us.”

Teagus saw other faces that were familiar as they joined in the migration. They came from different places, walking at a calm but brisk pace to keep up with the man who led them all. Many walked with calm acceptance. Some wept, for their lot was not going to be an easy one and they knew it.

Teagus might have run. Once upon a time he surely would have attempted to barter for his safety, but he knew better now. He had acted poorly in his time. He had used his authority for his own carnal satisfactions and he had lived comfortably while many suffered. That was not what Etrilla asked of his followers. There was a time for rest and a time for work. There was a time to reap the rewards of labor and a time to offer sacrifices in the names of the gods.

He had never sacrificed before.

He had blamed Merros Dulver for the fall of Tyrne, but he was the chosen of the City God and he was the one who failed to protect that city.

He would redeem himself now.

It was time.

He was given a second chance and he was so very grateful.

There were many stairs along the second wall. The inside wall had to be guarded and though there were a few soldiers currently in position there were not enough to even consider stopping them.

They climbed the stairs as they moved along the wall, maneuvering past buildings in some cases and in others walking past recently cleared fields where the newly formed towns of the refugees had been raised and then razed in preparation for the coming assault.

The guards along the wall stood in place and watched them, often with open mouths and a deep, abiding sense of shock. There were a hundred guards spread over the whole of a wall that could hold ten times that many soldiers. There were over two thousand of the Pilgrim’s followers. The math was very easy. Best to let them alone as they seemed intent on doing no harm.

In all it took over an hour for the followers of the Pilgrim to take their positions along the wall.

It took Merros Dulver fifteen minutes to find the Pilgrim.

“You!” he called from below and pointed directly at the Pilgrim.

The Pilgrim nodded his head and stared back, his face set and grim.

“Why are you here?”

The Pilgrim looked at him for a moment and breathed out. “We are here to protect the city of Canhoon. To protect the Empress of Fellein and to raise the Silent Army.”

“The Silent Army?” Merros shook his head. “What is a Silent Army?”

“Long ago Desh Krohan and the sorcerers of Canhoon summoned the Silent Army to defend against the enemies of the Empire. They were summoned and they served and when they had finished serving, they lay themselves down to rest until they were needed again.”

General Dulver looked at the Pilgrim and then looked toward Teagus. “And aren’t you supposed to be locked away?”

“Etrilla has forgiven my transgressions and yours as well, General Dulver. We are here to help you in your hour of need.”

“You might consider buckets of water near the Western Gate. We’re likely going to need them to put out the fire.”

He had no idea what the man was prattling on about. Teagus would help to save the Empire but forgiven or not, he doubted that he would ever care for the general’s company.

“We are here to save the city, Merros Dulver. That is enough. That is all you need to know.”

Dulver listened to the Pilgrim’s words and shook his head. “Just don’t leave a mess along my wall. I’ll be sending soldiers here soon and they’ll need you out of the way.”

“Merros?” For a second he almost failed to ask, but he had to, he needed to make amends. “I’d ask you to beg Empress Nachia’s forgiveness on my behalf. I was not as good a man as I should have been in my younger years.”

“Mention her name again and I’ll come up there and kill you where you stand.”

Teagus nodded. That was fair enough under the circumstances.

“It is time.” The words were spoken softly enough, but around the entire wall the followers of the Pilgrim stood straighter.

To Merros Dulver the Pilgrim said, “The Silent Army comes. Do not stand in their way.”

The Mid Wall around the heart of Canhoon stood over fifty feet in height and was surrounded by cobblestones in all directions. A drop from the top would likely kill, but there was always that chance of failing.

“I have no blade,” said Teagus, and the Pilgrim nodded and obligingly slit his throat for him. The sword’s tip was sharp and cut through meat and tendons with ease. The pain was brief, but not unbearable.

Teagus gurgled a bit as he stepped forward from the edge of the wall and plummeted straight toward the cobblestones below.

“By the gods!” Merros stepped back quickly and avoided the blood splatter that followed. The next body fell a moment later and then the next and the next. Most of them had blades. Those that did not either asked help from a neighbor or, if they were desperate enough and short on time, bit through the meat of their own wrists.

Merros Dulver looked on, horrified as one after the next the followers of the Pilgrim bled themselves and then fell to their certain dooms. Their blood ran thick and hot between the stones and their bodies shuddered and twitched.

Teagus, the child-loving priest, looked his way as he died, a beautiful smile on his fat face.

“Why? What have you done?” He looked up to the Pilgrim who remained standing above him on the second wall.

“Have you forgotten along with the rest, Merros Dulver? The gods always demand a sacrifice.”

The Pilgrim did not cut himself, nor did he plummet to his death. Instead he spread his arms far and wide, a sword held in one hand, and he called out in the old tongue, reciting the names of the gods, one after the other.

With each name he was transformed.

Merros looked at the dead bodies around him and shook his head.

“Madness.” The closest guard was standing still, staring at the bodies and blood. “You!”

The man flinched.

“Get to the barracks. Find anyone off duty and get them to help you with this.” He waved an arm to indicate the bodies. “Go. Now.”

The need to get back to the palace grew in him. It was a sense of dread that he refused to ignore.

“What if there’s no one in the barracks?”

“Grab people off the street. I don’t care how you do it, just get it done!”

Far above him on the second great wall, the Pilgrim stood still, looking down upon his dead followers.

It was time.

Maybe the sun was merely in the wrong spot. Perhaps the sight of two thousand or more people throwing themselves to their deaths had, understandably, rattled Merros Dulver more than he wanted to admit.

Whatever the reason, he took no notice of the Pilgrim where he still stood on the wall. He paid no heed as the color of the man began to change.

When he had awoken he was transformed, altered by the needs of the gods. He was made flesh and blood and lived after a long, deathless time at the bottom of a slow moving river.

Now he was transformed again. The needs of the gods were different and so he responded to them.

The gods demanded sacrifice and so he had gathered the faithful to him and asked that they offer themselves to the gods they served. A few had crept away in the night. A few others died before they could reach Canhoon as the trek across the land was not a gentle one and he had kept a hard, steady pace.

Below him the bodies of the faithful shifted and the one guard who was supposed to find enough assistance to move their bodies looked on and then ran, biting his lower lip in an effort not to scream. He broke flesh and bled a crimson beard down to his neck as he ran for the barracks. He did not look back, he did not dare.

There were no witnesses to see the transformation. The Pilgrim’s skin hardened and darkened. His clothes changed too, taking on the form that he had worn for hundreds of years.

When he had first been created he and his brethren rose from the soil of Canhoon to defend the city against the enemies sent to destroy or control the fledgling empire. They were born for war, to defend, to protect and to kill as needed. In time they served their purpose and all of them faded, falling back into the stone and earth from which they rose.

The people of Canhoon had called them the Silent Army, for they were born without tongues and had no need of speech. They could move together, they could fight together with the skills bred into them.

There were secrets then. Great sorceries were used to forge their bodies, blood was shed and the bodies of those crushed within the earth of Canhoon as the city fell into ruin and shook itself apart were mixed with those sorceries. The Silent Army was born of pain and sacrifice and raised to serve.

The Silent Army was born again in much the same way.

The Pilgrim lowered his head and looked down at the stone wall beneath his feet. He had stood here once before when he was raised the first time. His feet had been where they were now.

Below him, along the entire range of the second great wall, the bodies of the faithful melted. They flowed into the spaces between the cobblestones, following the very path their blood had already taken.

The Pilgrim spoke the words that had summoned him the first time and added to those words of power the names of the gods who had resurrected him for this very purpose. He made his prayers, he commanded the power that the gods of Fellein afforded him, the gods remembered and forgotten alike.

The hardbaked clay of the second wall moved and danced, rising in columns all along its length.

The pillars of clay shifted more, and took form, mirroring the very shape of the Pilgrim where he stood, looking down upon the edge of the city he had sworn to protect from the moment of his creation.

Beyond the barrier where he stood was the area called New Canhoon, the places that had risen over the course of centuries. He contemplated those changes as his flesh continued its transformation from soft skin to living stone.

Seconds, minutes, hours. None of them mattered. To the naked eye the Silent Army seemed to rise in a heartbeat. To the Pilgrim the process seemed slow, and nearly as painful as a real childbirth. He ached with each transformation and felt the pain of his brethren as they were reborn from the bodies of the sacrificed.

Etrilla had kept sentinels in the City of Wonders, though few had ever considered them and none in many a decade. When the Silent Army had served its purpose many fell into ruin and were absorbed back into the city that birthed them but others climbed the towers and rooftops of the city and stayed where they chose to rest, frozen in position as they watched over Canhoon. They did not live, and they felt no need to move, but they had been there for as long as anyone, even the oldest of the sorcerers, could remember. Canhoon had its statues, true enough, but remarkably few of them had ever been sculpted by human hands, at least among those that stood above the city.

Those long silent sentinels moved at last, breaking free of the places where dust and time had long coated their bodies. Across the city the birds that had roosted along the statues broke into panicked flight while the oldest of the Silent Army moved to join their newly reborn brethren.

The Silent Army rose again. The Silent Army lived again.

Canhoon would be saved if they had any say in the matter and for a collection of beings that did not speak, they had a great deal to say.

How does one face a god?

Andover Lashk was learning quickly. He had stood before six gods and now he walked the final steps to face a seventh. So far the experience had never managed to become more comfortable.

Ydramil was the easiest mountain to climb, and oddly that only added to his discomfort. No, not discomfort. Fear.

He had scaled mountains, faced floods, fought literal armies to be where he was and the thought that he merely had to walk through an opening in a gentle slope rather terrified him.

There was a growing dread in his stomach that the final god he faced would be the worst.

In appearance he was no longer the same man he had been once upon a time. He knew that the moment he entered Ydramil’s domain. The walls around him were silver, smooth and polished to an incredible sheen. He could see himself for the first time in a while, truly see himself and all of the changes that had taken place in his body.

He was taller, he was broader, he was… well, he was older. How much older? He could not say, but at a guess it had to be at least a decade’s worth of transformation in his shape. He had been redefined by the gods. He had been, was being, reshaped.

Forged.

His hands were larger. That made no sense to him but they, too, had grown. Hard, living iron, forged by Truska-Pren. He had never considered that it could truly be alive and yet, the evidence was in front of him. A part of him. His body had changed because it had to. Hard work made muscle and he had been working very hard indeed.

The very things he had grown to admire in the Sa’ba Taalor now stood out on his flesh. A series of gray scars on gray skin told the tales of the combats he’d experienced. Not all of them. The battles he’d had in Wheklam’s heart had not left physical marks. They had instead marked his mind. He had fought so many foes that it seemed to him the fear had been pounded from his body. The idea of facing ten men did nothing to make him nervous, merely wary.

The images in the silver walls around him moved of their own volition. They were images of him, to be sure, but he was standing still and they were not. The eyes that looked at him burned with an inner light he was very familiar with. The mouths on his reflected face moved and whispered, but there were no sounds. They were images, not solid beings.

The presence of Ydramil was with him.

One by one the multiple reflections of his body shifted. They took their time and settled in the gray dust that covered the floors of the vast cavern. It only took a moment for Andover to follow their example.

“I offer myself to you, Ydramil, as I have offered myself to all of the Daxar Taalor.”

All of his reflections spoke and this time the words were clear. “You are welcome here, Andover Iron Hands. You and I have much to discuss.”

When the god reached for him Andover fell back and closed his eyes. The impact was greater than he imagined possible.

The Blasted Lands were calm. The storms no longer raged and the ground was hidden beneath waters that slowly thawed after centuries of constant freezing.

The Mounds were no longer as they had been. Many had fallen completely and collapsed into the crust of the earth though a few still stood in the placid waters.

Three shapes crawled from the tunnel they had all used to gain entrance to the depths of hidden power locked away in the Mounds.

What had been Drask Silver Hand looked toward the Seven Forges for only a moment before turning and heading for the Temmis Pass. The others followed in silence.

Where they walked, the waters boiled.

For seven hours the Sa’ba Taalor gathered. At each of the sealed gates the armies grew until Canhoon was surrounded by an army as large as any seen in a dozen lifetimes.

At the end of that time the King in Iron made a gesture and the ranks closest to him called out with their horns – long, ululating notes that echoed from the distant foothills and bounced back to crash along the solemn stone barrier that held the armies at bay.

From all sides the other gathered armies made their calls, until the sound was very nearly as loud as thunder pealing across the whole of the city.

And then the noise stopped.

Desh Krohan watched and felt a shiver run through him.

There were so many of the enemy and he could not do what he had done before from this range. It was likely that if he tried he could eliminate most of the army, but not without a cost that he was not willing to pay.

He had eventually made his way back to Nachia’s side as she stood in her tower and looked out on the vast armies gathered at the edge of the city, unwilling to rest for now. Instead she paced slowly around the cylindrical room and absorbed the sheer volume of enemies ranked together and held back by little more than a series of walls she knew would fall before their collected might.

Desh knew she considered asking him to strike against the enemy again. She considered it, but did not ask.

He was grateful for that small blessing. His answer would have been the same and that might well have ended the friendship and trust he had spent years cultivating with the new Empress.

Merros Dulver wrote messages and handed them to runners. The runners returned with other messages. Some reports were inconsequential. No one had attacked yet, but they would.

“Should we destroy the bridges between the first and second walls?” Merros sounded so very tired. Desh understood all too well.

Nachia shook her head. “No. There are too many of my people who need those bridges. Have soldiers ready to defend them. Have archers waiting.”

Desh looked up. “I have seven sorcerers ready to destroy the bridges if the command is given, Majesty. They await only your command and nothing less.”

She nodded her head. Stone walls and brick roads could be destroyed with far more ease than a troop of soldiers that moved. He had explained the reasons to her before. Preparation made a difference. The bridges could be marked, and had been. Each sorcerer would only attack a single bridge if it came to that. Each bridge would be shattered and anything standing on it or near it would be destroyed as well.

“Desh, what do you know of a Silent Army?”

He looked to the general with a surprised expression. “The Silent Army? They were raised once upon a time to stop the enemies of Fellein. It took more power than you could understand, Merros. More than the remaining sorcerers could muster, I think. And it required sacrifices.”

Merros scowled and walked to the window closest to him. After a moment he moved to the next window and studied the ground far below.

“What sort of sacrifices?”

“Power has to come from somewhere. The events that led to raising the Silent Army included a good number of deaths, and the use of necromancy to focus that power. I have told you before that necromancy is forbidden. There is a reason.”

“Desh, earlier today I saw a gathering of madmen throw themselves off the Mid Wall. They cut their own throats and dropped to the ground before my eyes, and they claimed that they were offering themselves to the gods.”

Desh frowned at him.

“Desh, they said the Silent Army was coming and not to stand in their way.”

“That seems a rather significant thing to overlook telling me, Merros.”

“I’m telling you now.”

“Why didn’t you mention this earlier, General?” There was frost in his voice that he could not prevent.

Merros shook his head. “I’ve been a bit busy today, First Advisor.” There was heat in the general’s voice.

Nachia calmed them both. “Enough. War. We have a war to win.”

“Why are you mentioning the Silent Army?” Desh moved past the general and looked out the window. At the closest wall, the Great Wall as it was often called, the situation looked unchanged. At the New Wall, the barrier that currently kept the Sa’ba Taalor at bay, the same was true. But at the Mid Wall, something was different. The wall was a great distance away, but Desh Krohan’s eyes were still as sharp as ever.

In perfect formation shapes stood atop the wall and looked out toward the New Wall or possibly beyond.

“By the gods, could we be that fortunate?” His voice cracked like a young boy’s.

Nachia shook her head. “What are you prattling on about, old man?”

Desh’s smile grew. “The Silent Army! Nachia! The Silent Army is here! I don’t even begin to know how that’s possible but they are here as they were before. I can’t say they’ll win against the Sa’ba Taalor, but they could damned well change the tide of the coming battle.”

Nachia did not speak, but instead moved to the window and squinted down toward the city below. Desh pointed until she saw them and she studied the shapes.

“Why don’t they move?”

“I don’t know. I would think they’d protect Canhoon as they did in the past.”

It was Nachia who thought of it first. “How long in the past, Desh?”

“Five hundred years, at least. Longer, probably. I can’t remember that far back.” He waved the question aside as if it were a house fly buzzing by his face.

“Desh, Canhoon was smaller then. So much smaller. The Mid Wall was raised when the city nearly fell. You’re the one that told me that.”

“Well, that could be an issue.”

“What do you mean?”

“They might not understand that what is beyond that wall should be defended.”

Nachia looked out the window again and then shook her head. “Maybe you could explain that to them?”

“I don’t know that they’ll much care to talk to me, actually.”

“What do you mean? Didn’t you say that you made them?”

“Well, yes, but I didn’t exactly ask their permission.” He looked out the window at the unmoving forms along the Mid Wall. “They might still be holding a grudge.”

“Still? What do you mean?”

Before he could answer the horns sounded again. One short burst and then two more and in fast succession.

And as the last note sounded, the Sa’ba Taalor attacked.

On the first note the dead stopped their endless pounding at the doors, as if suddenly understanding that they had no impact. Several had broken, battered limbs but could feel no pain and suffered not at all.

On the second note the dead moved into position. Those closest to the wall took a dozen strides away from the wall and fell to the ground, lying prone. Those closest to them fell atop their bodies, covering them with their mass. Layer after layer, the dead at the Western Gate fell upon their brethren, until the corpses had to climb to find a new resting place.

On the third note, the dead that could do so clutched at the bodies closest to them and held tight.

Tarag Paedori looked upon the mountainous hill of the dead and nodded, satisfied.

Kallir Lundt, next to him, nodded as well and felt his blood roar.

The King in Iron wore a great suit of iron armor and a helmet that covered all of his head. His face was uncovered most times, but now he lowered the great mask of Truska-Pren over his visage. The god’s face glowered at all who saw the king, and deep within the sockets of the mask the glow of Tarag Paedori’s eyes was clear.

With a single wave of his hand the Sa’ba Taalor who rode their mounts moved forward. The great beasts ran, building up speed, and the foot soldiers before them hastily moved out of their way. Several hundred bodies lay before them, a ramp to help them gain access to the top of the wall meant to deter them.

The King in Iron was the first to make the walkway at the crest. The great beast under him clawed at the edge of the stone lip and found purchase, pulling both its own bulk and that of its giant rider to the top with ease. As soon as he had regained his balance Tarag Paedori started looking for his access to the ground on the other side.

There were guards upon the wall. They’d been watching as the dead fell to the ground and they’d been watching as the King in Iron and his riders climbed that mountain of flesh.

Most of them stayed to fight as Tarag Paedori came for them. The sword he drew was a brutal thing, heavy enough to crush bone and bend armor with ease. He carried it the same way and used it without hesitation, sweeping the foolish aside with each strike. Some died and others merely broke, but none of them mattered.

His sole concern was gaining the ground on the far side of the stone barrier and getting to the gate.

The guards before him fought. Archers grabbed bows and tried to place arrows in his body, but the armor he wore was thick, solid and well crafted by his own hand and the missiles could find no purchase there. Those that found his blood-red cloak and black tunic made it no further, but the sight of them sticking though the heavy fabric left more than one archer doubting that the man was killable.

He let them worry instead about his ability to kill. Pordra, his mount, roared and charged and tore into anything before them. Tarag smiled grimly under his helmet and cut down anything the beast could not reach, until, finally, the great gate stood before him. A series of pulleys and levers were needed to close the monstrous barrier. Once sealed it was simple to lock the barrier into a sealed position. The mechanism was old but well-tended and Tarag admired its craftsmanship for a moment before unlocking the heavy chains from where they were anchored.

Coils of metallic chains sang as they unrolled back to their usual position. The vast doors, sealed and locked for the first time in decades, groaned and rumbled as they pulled apart and slid away into the tracks that had been designed to accommodate them.

Once the task was finished, Tarag Paedori drew the heavy hammer from his side and destroyed the antique tracks and pulleys, ensuring they would never work again.

“To me! Come to me and kill them all!” He roared his command and was rewarded with a hundred battle cries as his people came forward.

As he turned to charge one man stood before him.

He was dressed in full armor of his own and had even managed a helmet.

“Face me, King in Iron!”

Tarag lifted his faceplate for a moment to study the man. He was of average size and he carried a sword with skilled hands. He was also trembling, terrified, but he stood his ground before the king.

He challenged the king.

“What is your name and who are you to challenge me?”

The man lifted the plate on his helmet and revealed a weathered, sweating face. “I am Captain Mendre Tinner of the Imperial Guard. This is my gate and you’ll not pass beyond this point without facing me.”

The man’s voice shook. Still, he stood his ground.

“What weapons do you choose, Captain Mendre Tinner?” Tarag spoke calmly, while his soldiers formed behind him and slowly, carefully, the ranks of the soldiers serving the Fellein gathered behind their captain.

“Come again?”

“What weapons? Sword? Axe? Bare hands? What weapon would you use to face me in singular combat?”

He looked from his sword to the monstrous blade in Tarag’s hand. “Any weapon?”

“I am Tarag Paedori, the King in Iron and Chosen of the Forge of Truska-Pren. You have challenged me to singular combat, yes?”

The man looked around, nervous, but hopeful. Here, he understood, was a chance to save his people.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“If I win this combat, you die and forfeit your claim to this gate. If you win this combat, my people turn from your city and do not return.” He paused. “Agreed?”

“Yes, by all the gods, yes!” The fear was less now. Hope was a powerful weapon in its own right.

“By all the gods? No. By Truska-Pren. You have challenged. I offer you the choice of weapons. What will you choose?”

Around them, behind the king, the Sa’ba Taalor moved along the wall, their mounts spreading out for a substantial distance, all of the riders looking down on the challenger and the challenged.

“Fists!”

Tarag nodded his head. “Do you wish to wear armor? Or will we go bare fleshed?”

The man considered carefully, as well he should. Without armor he could move faster. So, too, could the king. Without armor, his blows would do more damage. So, too, the king. Armor would let him absorb some of the blows the king offered and would protect the king from him as well.

“Armored!”

Tarag Paedori nodded. “You have offered honorable combat. I accept. Should any of your followers attack during this time, my people will return the favor. So long as your followers remain outside the fight, my people will as well. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Tarag Paedori climbed down from his mount and moved to stand in front of the captain of the guard.

Tinner stared at him, gaped, took in his full size and realized that he would be fighting a man who outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds, likely more.

“You are reconsidering the use of weapons?”

Tinner looked him up and down and nodded, likely not even aware of the action. “I am reconsidering my challenge. You are… large.”

“You may choose a weapon and I will follow suit.”

Several of the Fellein were following him, their eyes on his body and a few had crossbows aimed at him.

He spoke up. “Should any Fellein fire a weapon at me or mine this truce is done and I’ll see all here dead. Do you understand me?”

The crossbows lowered a bit. Some still stayed aimed his way, but without the same focus.

“I… Swords. I choose swords.” Tinner’s voice shook again.

“That is wise. A good sword could kill me.”

Tarag Paedori walked back to Pordra and considered several different swords. He finally decided the one he carried would suffice.

His faceplate was placed back over his face. Truska-Pren once more glared down at his enemies.

Captain Mendre Tinner looked at him for a moment and took a combat stance. He was substantially smaller than Tarag, but the King in Iron had long since learned that size was not the only strength in a warrior. His armor was lighter, he was possibly faster, his skills were untested and might prove substantial.

“When you are ready, Captain Mendre Tinner, come for me.”

The captain came in hard, swinging his sword to aim for the throat. A wise choice as many people left their necks vulnerable.

The sword in his right hand swept to block the captain’s blow, knocking the weapon to the side, and he drove his left fist into his enemy’s helmeted head, knocking the helmet askew.

Tarag Paedori had forged his own armor, his own helmet, and had designed them to fit perfectly. They were not loose, because armor that moved in the wrong ways offered no protection.

The helmet on Tinner’s head was not designed for him. Whether it was a trophy or simply belonged to another the king could not say, but it was loose and the impact rattled the captain’s head inside it.

He had accepted a formal challenge and had no intention of playing kindly with his enemy.

Tarag Paedori pivoted on his hip and, as Tinner tried to adjust the helmet, he drove his elbow into the man’s head and face and sent him staggering back.

His blade cut through the captain’s chest and the armor over it. The blow was meant to kill but the armor was good enough to slow it. Tinner grunted and fell to his knees, his helmet nearly sideways on his head and a great rend in his chest plate and his chest alike. Blood flowed heavily.

Tarag kicked the man in his chest and knocked him sprawling.

The second sword stroke succeeded where the first failed and Tinner died quickly.

The face of Truska-Pren looked up from the death of a good man and an adequate warrior and scowled at the masses of the Fellein who watched on, their faces pale, their bodies sagging in defeat.

Tarag Paedori was disappointed. He had hoped more might come forward to fight for their people.

“Kill them! All of them!”

To emphasize his point the King in Iron drove the tip of his sword through the closest guard’s face and pushed onward.

Fifty thousand of his followers moved at his command, ready to seize the city.

Nachia Krous stepped back and shook her head.

“The Western Gate is open.” Her voice was broken and her spirit wasn’t far behind. The gates should have held for days and as soon as the Sa’ba Taalor attacked they were opened and the enemy came through.

“What?” Merros and Desh both moved to the window and saw that she was right. The movement of the Sa’ba Taalor from this range made them tiny, but they swarmed quickly through the opening in the gate and spilled across the cleared area around the first defense, attacking anything foolish enough to stand in their way.

Desh stared hard, his face tight with tension and she could see him calculating the odds that he could do something about the problem.

“No, Desh. Not yet.”

“If I don’t do something now it will be too late.”

She remembered the blistering arcs of light and the thunder that shattered the peace for as far as she could see. She could look even now and see the vast wasteland where he had done as she asked and leveled a portion of their enemies’ forces.

“And if you miss? How much of Canhoon could you destroy?”

He withered. From the lines on his face to the posture he offered, he looked closer to his actual age than she had ever seen before.

Merros looked down toward the wave of enemies filling the area. “We’ve got to seal the Mid Gate. Now.”

“There are still people–”

Merros shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Save some or lose all.”

Nachia moved closer, shaking her head, prepared to argue though she knew he was in the right.

“There has to be something!” How many people? How many hundreds and thousands would die if they acted now? How many would survive if they waited? Trecharch had already taught a lesson, to be sure.

The cell where Cullen waited was comfortable. It had been dressed with fine silks, there were pillows aplenty and a thick, luxurious fur to keep her warm. But it was still a cell.

She stared at the bars. They were not well decorated.

There was a crisis. She knew without being told what it was. The grayskins had made it to Canhoon and surely were attacking like the animals they were.

Deltrea sat next to her, shaking her head. “Hardly seems the way he should greet you.”

“I’m nothing to him. It’s the thing in me he wants.”

“What is it, anyway?” Her friend leaned down and placed a spectral hand on her stomach. There was no pressure to feel. “What does it do?”

“Mostly it burns in me. I know it does something, but maybe it’s not time to know yet.”

“They’re coming. If they find you here, with that thing inside you, they’ll cut you open to get to it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I can’t see them just ignoring it.” Deltrea shrugged. “Least they don’t seem interested in having their way with anyone. They just flat out killed me. Not a one of them tried to put any man parts inside my body.”

“Well, you were dead.”

“Be wiser than that. Wouldn’t have stopped a few I knew.”

Cullen’s look of disgust changed into a mask of agony, as the thing inside her uncoiled and its power flared.

“Ahhhh!”

“Come now, I’ve said worse before about Tremm.”

“Ah. No. Not.”

She stopped speaking and fell to her side, the pain too big to contain. Whatever was in her was moving, and though she didn’t think it wanted out just yet, she expected it would not be long. Sure as the dead screamed, it was changing its position inside of her and getting ready for something.

There were no corpses to use as a foothill on Tuskandru’s side.

There were, however, trees. The trees were good enough to fall when they were hit with enough axes.

After that it was just a matter of strength to see them put in the right position and the followers of Durhallem were strong, let no one say otherwise. Because they needed to earn the right to fight for their god he had the children move the trees into place.

After the first volley of arrows killed those foolish enough to get too close they listened to his words and raised the trees by hastily cut tips that held the earth and by use of ropes that pulled the vast trunks higher. When the trees fell the second time – the first when they were cut down, the second when they were aimed at the wall – their weight was enough to break the wall’s edge. It was a matter of moments for the mounts to climb their new entry points. It was only minutes later that Stastha and Loarhun tore the last of the guards down to the ground and then her mount pulled the gears and chains of the door until they finally opened.

Durhallem surely smiled down as Tusk rode through the opened gates and gestured for the children who had earned the right to make their first kills. Some of them were surely his seed and others were not, but they were all children of Durhallem and they were killers. He smiled as grown men fled from his young followers or tried to fight back and died.

A gesture to Stastha had the horn sounding and the armies of Durhallem followed again, driving back the foolish and the brave alike.

Mendt, all of nine and still pink in the skin, drove her spear though a pregnant woman’s belly and then turned and rammed the same point through the neck of a man screaming his grief even as he tried to kill her.

She did not waste her time smiling. There were more people to kill.

Tusk adjusted his helmet and pulled sword and axe alike. He allowed them the first kills. He would not allow them the last.

Durhallem was generous and Tusk could be no less.

In a chamber far beneath the main palace, a place known to fewer than five living souls, Goriah’s body writhed; her hands clutched at the shroud that had covered her and pulled it away.

Tataya looked on, her face nearly expressionless, but her heart hammering wildly in her chest. What they did here was forbidden for a reason.

Pella stood on the other side of the marble table where Goriah’s form shuddered and moaned.

At the head of that table Darsken Murdro slipped his fingers into the fine blonde hair of the dead Sister’s head and looked down at her, his face surprisingly calm when one considered the powers he wielded.

Goriah’s eyes opened. There should have been a caul of pale, milky white over her eyes and it was there for a moment, but as they watched on her Sisters saw that film fade away, saw her eyes stare first at the ceiling above and then roll into the back of her head as she screamed.

Both Tataya and Pella flinched.

Darsken looked to Tataya and shook his head. “Now is not the time for you to feel fear. Now is the time for you to ask your questions.”

Tataya thought carefully before she spoke.

Too far away for anyone in Canhoon to notice, Lored, Chosen of the Forge of Ordna and King in Bronze, roared his approval as the siege engines finally shattered the massive wall around the center of Elda.

His people roared too, and then smiled.

Elda would have fallen either way, but he wanted them to understand the power of Ordna’s ways. They believed as he did, yes, but to see their beliefs made real, that was what all of the faithful desired.

The people of Elda spent three days doing their very best to defend against Lored and his people. The walls were heavy and the soldiers well trained, but they also preened and strutted and talked to each other until he tired of waiting and started the siege before they had been ready.

War was never meant to be discussed to the point of futility. War was meant to be handled quickly and with much bloodshed. Lored showed them the error of their ways.

After the walls fell, he and his people moved into the city quickly.

What the King in Iron lamented was not found by Lored. The people of Elda were trained in war, and they fought well, even if they lacked discipline and cohesive leadership.

Lored wanted to strike himself, but the patience of his followers must first be rewarded. They were allowed to fight and to kill as they saw fit.

For two days Elda burned and streets stank of blood and death.

On the third day, Lored and his people left the city, riding north and west, heading to join the rest of the Sa’ba Taalor, but only after they had killed as many Fellein as they could stomach with their endless appetites.

On the fourth day Lored woke early and stretched and praised Ordna for his many spectacular gifts.

“As you have asked, Great Ordna, I have done. All that I have and all that I am is yours.”

He raised the bronze spear he had crafted for his god and hurled it into the air, aiming for Elda.

His god took it from there. The spear rose higher than should have been possible and arced toward the very center of the city. When it reached its destination the tip of the spear drove down into the ground and immediately shattered.

Seconds later, the ground exploded. From a full day’s ride away, Lored felt the ground shake and his blood boil. The Daxar Taalor offered miracles every day to the faithful but few of them were so very direct.

Ordna’s people roared their approval and called to their god as the mountain rose in the distance. Fire clawed at the sky. Lightning ripped down the heavens in celebration of the god’s rebirth.

Ordna rejoiced and his people rejoiced with him.

Somewhere in Canhoon, Glo’Hosht walked unseen. Many were the people chosen by the gods to die. Glo’Hosht and his chosen worked to kill a select few. Some tides are stopped by mountains. Others are freed by the removal of a single obstacle. The Great Tide was upon Canhoon.

The time to open the gates was here.

At the Southern Gate Swech and Jost carefully aimed and struck again and again, the fine, poisoned darts working to kill before those they stabbed could even feel the sting of death.

The gate opened quietly to the waiting forces.

The army that spilled through the gate was not quiet. They did not need to be. The reason for silence had already been killed by the time they could enter.

They came prepared for war and found dead guards waiting for them. Not the sort to let a delay in the celebrations slow them down, the Sa’ba Taalor rode into Canhoon anyway and sought new enemies to kill.

The forces at the Eastern Gate were not yet inside when Canhoon struck back.

There are those who have never quite understood why Canhoon is called the City of Wonders.

There are tales, to be sure, but stories for a dozen lifetimes back or more seldom hold much sway with the living. They are fables and notions and tales to scare children into behaving and seldom much more.

Canhoon had rested well, it was time to awaken.

The Silent Army stood facing the outer wall of the city and watched, expressionless, as the Sa’ba Taalor broke through and threatened all that they had died to protect.

As one, the vast army of statues shifted, placing their sword tips against the wall beneath them. It was a small thing, but this time people noticed.

If they were concerned about the odd action, they did not have time to respond. As soon as the blades touched down energies unseen spilled from the sentinels and lashed out across the land.

Roughly one thousand yards in from the edge of the outer wall the ground shook across all of Canhoon.

The Sa’ba Taalor were in motion, but they were not foolish. Training sometimes pays off where common sense might not prevail. The warriors stopped their forward motion almost as one and looked carefully at their surroundings.

At the Northern Gate Tusk shook his head, spat and for the first time in his life demanded that his followers retreat. He was not amused, but he was also not foolish enough to argue when Durhallem told him what must be done.

At the Western Gate Tarag Paedori did the same, immediately wheeling around and reversing the charge.

At the Eastern Gate the attacking forces stopped their advance and left the unbroken gate in peace.

At the Southern Gate those who had already gained entrance continued on and those who had not retreated.

The timing was important. Those who failed to listen died quickly.

The ground shook a second time and then the whole of the city shook.

The permanent structures in the city were almost unaffected. They had been built to withstand amazing trauma, and the sorcerers who had rebuilt the city had been in their prime and eager to prove themselves.

The walls of the palace did not shift, though a great deal of furniture moved and shuddered and danced. Merros Dulver managed to pull Nachia from the window where she was still staring before an errant marble bench could crush her against it.

Throughout the area called Old Canhoon and a distance beyond it as well, the buildings stood and the possessions within them shuddered and the people screamed as if the world were ending.

Maybe they were right.

The ground shook again and the city groaned. The bridges over the river that ran between the First Wall and the Mid Wall bucked and roared and screamed as they were torn asunder. The stones had rested there for centuries and been tended as necessary, but they could not withstand the force of the ground itself rising.

All of the ground. There was a line, surprisingly even, that ran around the entire circumference of Old Canhoon, and along that line everything toward the center lifted at once. The ground shivered and moaned but did not collapse. The great stone roads were not destroyed. The very buildings that had once rebuilt themselves from the ruins of first a great earthquake and then an invading army did not falter or fall.

The Sa’ba Taalor who had retreated, even Tusk, all nodded with understanding even as they backed away in dread. This was not the work of their gods. This was something different and unknown.

They had been saved from the madness by their gods and they rejoiced in their hearts, but to see the city begin to rise was unsettling just the same.

Old Canhoon groaned as it continued to rise, the whole of the city and a deep wedge of stone and dirt and the heart of the earth came with it, lifting higher and higher into the air as every last soul who could prayed to gods or contemplated the end of their lives.

In the highest tower of the palace a spot from which numerous rulers had looked down over generations on all that they had sworn to protect, the Empress and her closest advisors stood and held tightly to the edges of the walls as they looked out and watched the city rise.

There was a very strong possibility that Merros Dulver screamed. It was equally likely that Nachia Krous made sounds that did not normally come from the most powerful ruler in the known world.

Desh Krohan did not scream. Desh Krohan first gasped and then started laughing with joy. He clapped his hands and jumped up and down with the enthusiasm of a very happy toddler, he bellowed his excitement. “By all the gods I never thought I’d see the like again!”

Merros managed to swallow his fear and looked at the madman laughing as the world floated away below them.

“See what? This? What in all the world is happening?”

“This!” he gestured madly. “I forgot that Old Canhoon can do this!”

“What is it doing?” Nachia jabbed a finger in his direction. “What did you do to my city?”

“I didn’t do this, my dear! Old Canhoon did this! This is why she is called the City of Wonders! She’s escaping!”

Nachia tried hard to look through all of the windows at once and failed and finally focused on her First Advisor again. “Well? Where is it going?”

Desh stopped laughing and looked at her, his face suddenly worried all over again.

“Do you know, I have absolutely no idea. I just know that it is going and we have a chance to regroup and prepare all over again.”

“What’s different this time, Desh Krohan?” Merros looked at him and shook his head. “What could possibly make a difference? No matter where we go, I can promise you the Sa’ba Taalor will follow.”

Desh smiled again. “This time we have them.”

The wizard pointed to the window. They had continued to rise and currently a substantial flock of birds was moving around the palace wall, exploring their new, unexpected neighbor in the sky.

“Who? The birds? What will they do, shit on their armor?” Merros was close to hysteria. He had never much liked sorcery and even using it a little made him uncomfortable. Moving cities was well beyond his usual horizon for calm.

“No, Merros!” Desh walked over and gripped the general’s shoulder. He spun him toward the window and pointed toward the Mid Wall. “Them! The Silent Army! They’re here to protect us. It’s the only possible reason for the city moving, because I promise you, I had nothing to do with it this time around. Not the city and not the army.”

Merros and Desh and Nachia were all looking out the window when the next miracle occurred.

As one the Silent Army raised their swords and dissolved into the wall they stood on. Only seconds later they walked out of the wall as if passing through a curtain and stood around the wall, now facing outward, toward the edge of a city that continued to rise higher into the air.

Merros frowned for several seconds and then did something he had never truly done before in his life.

He thanked the gods.

Seven Forges Book IV

The Silent Army

This novel is gratefully dedicated to Phil Jourdan and Paul Simpson for keeping me in line, and working miracles on the edits. It is also dedicated to Marc Gascoigne and Mike Underwood because I enjoyed the hell out of our conversations at World Fantasy.

Special thanks to every reader who has followed along with me through this tale. I hope you’ve enjoyed the journey. Special thanks also to Penny Reeve, for all that you do that so very few people get to see.

One

The kings gathered together, those of them who were near the place where Canhoon had once rested in the ground, and stared at the vast landmass rising above them.

It was an impressive sight. Canhoon, surely the oldest of the cities in the Fellein Empire, a vast city with millions of inhabitants, had risen into the air, soaring higher and higher until it seemed only a little larger than a fast ship.

Tuskandru stared at the retreating stone cloud and felt his jaw clench. He had been patient. He was ready for a proper war.

Next to him, Tarag Paedori crossed his massive arms, which was an impressive sight in full plate armor. Tusk would not have thought it possible, though he’d never worn such heavy armor himself.

“I do not like sorcery,” the King in Iron mused. “When I meet this wizard you’ve spoken of, I plan to kill him first.”

“He is not so easy to kill, I expect.” Tusk looked away from the dwindling city and back at where Canhoon had been. Most of the city had risen, but everything between the Mid Wall and the Outer Wall was still there, broken and scattered by the tremors caused when the city rose. Only Old Canhoon had taken flight. Tusk could see people there, looking out from their homes or simply wandering around, shocked by what had just happened. It was not a common occurrence to see a city rise into the air and fly away. Where once the city had been, a deep wound now lay, so vast that it was hard to contemplate. Waters from the river were already raging into that gash in the earth and in a day or so it would likely be a lake.

“What now?” he asked

“Kill the people left behind. And then…” Tarag Paedori removed his massive iron helmet shaped to look like the face of his god, Truska-Pren. “Then we chase the city.”

“How?”

“It is a very large target, Tusk. And it does not move so quickly that we cannot follow. Sooner or later we will have a chance to find our way to the heart of that city. The Daxar Taalor would not call us to war if it was not time for the Great Tide. This is merely an effort to escape from the gods. It will fail.”

Tusk nodded his head and then gestured for Stastha to call for war.

She raised her horn and gave the signal. Immediately the Sa’ba Taalor who followed Tusk stopped gawping at the dwindling city and prepared themselves, calling out their praise for Durhallem.

“To war!” Tuskandru’s voice rang out in perfect unison with that of Tarag Paedori. “To war and kill your enemies!”

More horns sounded, but Tusk barely noticed. It was time to honor his god with offerings of blood and bone. Tusk lived to serve.

The three figures walked across the silence of the Blasted Lands, moving at a steady pace. They struck an image that was not easily forgotten in the vast desolation. A heavy layer of dust covered them like a mantle, spilling from their hair and drizzling down their clothes. There were two men and one woman. The first of the men was a massive brute, a towering member of the Sa’ba Taalor, with gray skin, long dark hair and eyes that glowed in the growing darkness. Next was a young woman who seemed almost childlike in comparison. Her hair, though currently hidden by dust, was thick and blonde and curly and her heart-shaped face bore a blank expression that made her look younger still. Behind them, the other man moved on, his head lowered toward the ground. If he saw anything at all it was only the blanket of fine dust and ash that covered the world around them so completely.

The first of the trio was called Drask Silver Hand. His name came from the fully functioning metallic hand at the end of his right arm. In the past someone looking at his silver limb would have been able to clearly see where the flesh and the metal had been placed together; there had been a deep seam of scar tissue and open spaces where the fusion of skin and silver had not fully connected. That scar was gone now, replaced by thin tendrils of silver that pulled the flesh close to the metallic hand.

Drask looked at his hand several times as he walked, watching the silver threads pulling and tightening. It was a fascinating process for him. He flexed his metallic hand, watched the tendons, real and artificial alike, pull and turn.

To his side, sometimes lagging behind, came Tega. The girl was still in her teens, and her skin was soft and flawless where Drask was hard and his flesh marked by hundreds of scars, some fine and some substantial. Her eyes were blue and did not glow with the same inner luminescence that marked all of the gray-skinned Sa’ba Taalor.

Trailing behind the both of them and never looking up from his feet, Nolan March plodded steadily along. He had the swarthy complexion of a northerner. His hair fell around his shoulders and draped down in front of his face like a veil. Anyone who could have seen his face would have been surprised by how calm he looked, as that was not usually the case. Nolan was not known for his patience, though he was now disturbingly placid.

They did not speak. Though they walked at a solid pace they appeared to be in no urgent need of reaching a destination.

They did not stop to eat or drink. They simply walked across the desolate wasteland. Two of them looked to where the City of Wonders now rode among the clouds. Nolan March did not look up. He was no longer capable of lifting his head. He had lost that ability when Drask broke his neck. By rights he should have been dead, but that was true of all of them.

They walked on in silence, fully aware of the gods and all that surrounded them. Drask’s face did not carry his usual expression. His brow was knotted with concentration as he considered the implications of what was happening to him, and what had happened when he fell into the liquid fires that fed the Mounds. Those vast structures, long forbidden his people by their gods, were no more. They had shattered when the energies far beneath them bathed three mortals in what should have never been seen by any but the gods themselves.

To the unwary observer, it might have seemed that they were struck dumb by the things they had seen. That was not the case, at least not for Drask. He simply chose not to speak as he considered the information moving through his skull, ricocheting through his mind like a burst of lightning captured inside him. Power coursed through his body, but he was not yet certain what it was meant to do. He supposed what was happening to him happened also to the others, but he did not contemplate that fact much as yet. He was still adjusting. The silver hand was the very least of the changes going on inside his body. It was simply the most noticeable.

The lack of a raging storm on the vast plain should have worried him. For his entire life, for over a thousand years, the Blasted Lands had raged around the Seven Forges. The mountains were still there, visible from even this vast distance, but the storms were gone, the cold had abated, and the dust and grit that had scoured flesh and stone alike for a millennium was now a fine powder that buried his feet to the ankles if he stood still for too long.

He had long since accepted the voices of the Daxar Taalor as they spoke to him. The gods of his people whispered in his mind, spoke through the Great Scars they had gifted him with over the years, and were his constant companions in many ways. They might not always be speaking but they were always present. They were still there, still in his mind, but now they did not speak. Like him, they were contemplating what he had become.

Or maybe they were fearful of what he would decide to do with the power that was now inside him.

He looked to Tega and she in turn looked back. He could sense the changes taking place in her. Could sense the metamorphosis taking place within the chrysalis of Nolan March’s flesh, as well.

The gods had not prepared him for this, for any of this. The power inside him roared and flashed and bloomed throughout every fiber of his being, though to see him from outside, a person would not have guessed.

He did not know what they were becoming.

Still, it would be interesting to find out.

“So, are we walking back to Fellein?” Andover looked out across the Taalor Valley, which was already changing, losing the vitality that had made it stand out so much from the Blasted Lands beyond the edge of the mountain.

They stood once more upon Durhallem, the great obsidian mountain. Above them the volcanic heat still melted the ice, but there was something different now, something lacking that Andover Lashk could not quite place.

Delil stood next to him and stared out at the foliage in the valley below.

“No.” She touched his shoulder with her hand and then pointed out into the valley a good ways off, closer to Wrommish than Durhallem. Where she indicated, there was motion. Whatever was down there was large enough to shake the trees and rattle the ground.

“Mound Crawler?”

Delil shook her head. “It’s not violent enough for a Crawler.”

Andover looked at the sway of the distant trees and nodded. He had still never seen one of the gigantic beasts and he was perfectly fine with that, though there was a part of him that was deeply curious.

Tusk had killed a Crawler by himself. The thought was staggering.

“This feels wrong. All of it.”

“The world is changing, Andover. The Daxar Taalor have willed it and now we must follow through with their desires.” She sighed and pointed to the Blasted Lands. They had been standing together when the world shook and the light filled all of the raging, frozen hell beyond the mountains. The very clouds coming from the Seven Forges had flared silver and white for several seconds and then the winds that had roared against the sides of the mountains since the gods had lifted them from the ground had suddenly ceased. He had not been aware of how much the distant roar of those winds could always be heard until they were suddenly silenced.

“We need to hunt for what is down there before we head for Canhoon?” Andover asked.

“What is Canhoon?”

“Where the Empire is now if Tyrne was ruined.”

“Yes, we do.”

“It’s a long walk.”

“It is as long a walk as the gods decree, Andover.” He flexed his hands and looked at the disturbance far below.

“What is down there, Delil?”

“There are many tests before any of the Sa’ba Taalor. If you would have a mount, you must tame one. What you are seeing below are new mounts. They are angry and they are hungry and they will try very hard to kill us.”

Andover felt his stomach flutter at the very idea. He had grown so used to fighting that he sometimes forgot to be afraid. The mounts, however, were a good reminder. Delil had explained that nothing in the Taalor Valley was accidental and that nothing went to waste. He was not quite afraid. He knew fear very well, had been intimate with the sensation many times, but they no longer spoke as often as they had in the past.

The Broken, the Pra-Moresh, these were creatures made by the gods. They were obstacles for the Sa’ba Taalor to overcome.

Below, in the valley, the leaves of trees that had always been green and vibrant were changing, shifting into shades of brown and gold, and fiery orange and red hues. Delil had already expressed her shock at the notion and had only calmed down when Andover explained that the leaves always changed where he was from.

When she asked him why, he could only shrug. Perhaps, he had mused, because the gods were leaving the Taalor Valley and offering their followers the whole wide world in exchange.

“We are to get mounts?”

“No, Andover. We are to choose them and they are to choose us.”

“Where do the mounts come from, Delil?”

“They are gifts of the Daxar Taalor, provided we can prove worthy of the offering.” That was her only answer. He already knew, however. Whether they were punished, rewarded or redeemed, the mounts were also Sa’ba Taalor, or at least they had been.

The great predatory beasts were larger than horses, thicker in the body and muscular. Though he had yet to see one of their faces beneath the armor their riders provided for them, he had seen them eat meat and rend flesh with ease. He had seen the great mounts cover vast distances in single leaps. They were not status symbols, but they were also hard to earn.

“How do we capture mounts?”

“How do the Sa’ba Taalor do anything, Andover Iron Hands?” Delil smiled at him, her face wrinkling with pleasure. “We fight and we demand their submission.”

Andover nodded his head. In his very soul he had known that, but there had been a hope for a different answer.

Not all prayers are answered in the method we prefer.

“So now we go to them? We choose the ones we want to ride?”

Delil laughed, her voice filled with amusement. “They are already looking for us, Andover.”

“They are?”

“Oh, yes. Mounts need to find riders. There are very few left in this place.” She slowly unwrapped a thick metal chain from around her waist, examining the links as she slipped them through her hard, callused fingers.

“Is the chain the best method for taming a mount?” He watched her hands, the surety with which she moved, the casual stance she took as she coiled the length around her wrist, holding the majority of the chain in her hands on either side.

“I do not know, Andover. I know that we will have a chance to tame the damned beasts. And they will have a chance to hurt us.” She dangled a heavy weight from the end of the chain. The sphere of metal looked to weigh close to four pounds. A blow from that lump of iron would leave a skull caved in.

“So you will beat them to death before you tame them?” He couldn’t keep the humor from his tone.

In the distance he heard a roar coming from the valley below.

“Use what you will, Andover, but be prepared to strike hard and fast. When they come for us they will be hungry as newborns.”

Andover considered his choices. He had his axe. He had his bow and arrows. There were a few ranged weapons.

And there were his iron hands. Solid iron, flexible, capable of tearing flesh if need be.

“Should we go looking for them or should we wait?” He looked toward Delil, his eyes taking in the details of her body and her muscular arms. He stared at her simply because he needed to think of something pleasant before the enemy came and the fighting started.

The Pra-Moresh had the decency to advertise their arrival. The Sa’ba Taalor called them “Cacklers” because of the fearsome beasts’ insane laughter and weeping combined. Long before they came for you, you knew they were on their way. It was both terrifying and a chance to prepare yourself.

The mounts were different. They were large, sleek, predatory nightmares. They were often silent and they stalked whatever they intended to kill.

Andover wanted desperately to reach for his axe, but did not dare. The idea was to capture a mount, not cleave it in half and there was nothing about the obsidian blade and handle that Durhallem had gifted him with that was meant to be a weapon of submission.

Besides. If he could not handle the threat with his iron hands, he was not worthy of the challenge. Delil herself, along with Drask and Bromt, had taught him to use his body as a weapon. He had learned well enough to survive several encounters.

His confidence dwindled a bit as Delil let out a deep, stressed breath and muttered a prayer to her gods.

Andover thanked the Daxar Taalor for their blessings and then stretched his arms, rolled his shoulders and looked away from the woman at his side. He had changed since he met her. Not only was he now taller than her, he was also not afraid of what was coming. Wary, yes, but not fearful.

The trees lower down in the valley shuddered and shivered closer to them now. Close enough that he knew the mounts were coming.

“Where do they come from, Delil? The mounts? What have they done to be reshaped as beasts instead of as men?”

“Do you think they are being punished, Iron Hands?” There was a faint note of teasing in her voice.

Andover tilted his head. The idea that it wasn’t a punishment had never really crossed his mind. “Are they not?”

“No, Andover. It is a second chance.”

“You said that about the Broken and the Cacklers.”

“No, those are punishments. They carry a chance of redemption. The mounts are a second chance for those who have done the impossible and grown too old to fight any longer.”

Despite himself Andover laughed. “That can happen with your people?” It seemed nearly impossible. The Sa’ba Taalor worshipped combat and war. The very notion of anyone living long enough to grow too old to fight seemed absurd.

She shook her head and crossed her arms. “How many of my people have you seen?”

“Thousands and thousands.”

“How many mounts have you seen?”

“All told? Maybe a hundred.”

“Now you know how often a Sa’ba Taalor grows too old to fight.”

There was logic to that. He nodded and once again looked around.

They stood in an area that was mostly stone and little shelter, but the closest shrubs and trees that could hide one of the great mounts were not far distant.

He had seen the beasts leap. He knew they could come quickly if they chose.

The first of the massive things came from the side and he looked directly at it. Like the Sa’ba Taalor, their mouths were slashes across their face that sometimes bisected or intersected the larger maw. Great Scars, marks that showed the favor of the gods. The first one had three such scars. The eyes were large and glowing, the face bestial, designed to bite through meat and bone with ease.

The monster ignored him completely and charged for Delil. Part of him longed to protect her, but that notion was cast easily aside. The woman was more than capable of defending herself.

And if he even tried, she’d cave his skull in for his troubles.

That was the last thought he managed to complete before the time came for instinct over consciousness. The mount that ran at him was fast. Its fur was dark black and its eyes shone like silver coins as it burst from the closest trees and bounded across the remaining distance between them.

That great gash of a mouth was open and showed teeth the size of his hands.

The impact lifted Andover completely from the ground and hurled him effortlessly. The weight of the mount was more than he’d expected, more than he was prepared for, and he hit the ground on his back and did his best to roll with the blow instead of breaking under the force. He was moderately successful. All that saved his arms from being skinned was the leather hide that tore away as he spun and tumbled.

Not far away something growled. He could not honestly say if the sound came from one of the beasts or from Delil.

Or maybe it was from him. Andover rose into a crouch, his feet wide apart, his body low to the ground. His arms were spread and his fingers hooked into claws as the thing facing him rumbled and locked eyes.

He chose not to wait, but instead ran for his enemy. The mount raised one massive paw to swat him down. Andover dodged hard to his right and rolled under the advancing beast. With a single swipe of a blade he could have gutted the thing, but instead he let the monster move past and rose as quickly as he could.

The idea was not to kill it, but to show it exactly who was going to be in charge of their relationship.

The great back of the thing was to him for the moment but it was already turning, planning to come for him again, no doubt. Andover jumped, his arms stretched wide, and as his chest crashed into the broad back of the mount his arms swept inward until his hands found each other on the opposite side of the mount’s neck. The mount roared and threw itself in a half circle, and Andover clenched metallic fingers together, locking his grip across the corded muscles of the wide neck.

He hunched his body forward until his legs were around the broad abdomen of the mount and gulped in air. Fear surged through him again as he tried to hold on. One thing to face the damned thing in combat and another to try to ride it. He’d never even been on a horse’s back in his life and the mount was bigger, and far deadlier. It twisted its body much as he had seen cats do and tried to reach him. Andover’s knees slipped and he scrambled with his legs, but his grip was sure enough for the moment.

The great mouth opened in a screech of anger and Andover pulled his arms in closer, drew himself up the great body until his legs were in a better place. The pulse of the thing’s heart pounded against his arms, and he squeezed harder still, feeling the pumping blood through the thick neck muscles of the mount. It grunted under him, and still he held on. It tried to turn its head enough to bite him, but could not.

The monster rolled over onto its back and he felt its crushing weight grinding down on him. His breath was caught in the mane of the brute, his face buried in the thick coat. His hands trembled but held and his legs stayed tight to the sides, boot heels digging into the ribcage of the monster as it rolled and scraped and tried to peel him away.

The leather of his pants tore at the knees and the seam along his left thigh split and ripped away, taking flesh, drawing blood.

Andover roared himself, pain lashing at his senses.

Enough. This would end now.

He squeezed harder still and the great beast gulped for air. The weight lifted off him and he gasped, but did not dare let go his grip. The brute had him in size, strength, ferocity and weapons if you counted the claws and teeth. Letting go would be enough to get him killed in seconds and he knew it.

A sound erupted in his head. It did not bother with his ears, but instead filled his mind. He tried to shake the mental noise away but it would not go. Gods had spoken to him but this was different. When the Daxar Taalor spoke there was a feeling that came with it unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life, a sort of euphoric awe. This was insignificant in comparison but enough to distract him

The mount tried to roll again, slamming him into the ground, and Andover drove his heels into the sides of the great beast to hold himself in place and then choked harder still. The noise in his head grew brighter.

The thing made a noise that was part snarl and part stuttering, slurred words. The noise in his head clearly said, “I yield.”

The sound in his head and the rumbled noises. They were linked.

Andover did not let go his grip, but he eased it.

“Then roll off me!” He wheezed the words more than spoke them. The weight of the beast pinning him in the dirt was substantial.

The pressure shifted and then eased and the world came back into view, replacing his close and intimate view of the hairy skull of the mount.

It did not lie. He knew that. The mount spoke the truth when it said it yielded. Sometimes he wondered if the Sa’ba Taalor even understood the concept of lies, but he knew better. Of course they did. King Glo’Hosht and the followers of Paedle most certainly understood the power of deceit, even if the rest did not.

He let go his grip on the mount’s heavy neck and staggered back four steps before landing on his backside in the dirt. Dark spots ran before his eyes and he breathed in deep gulps of air, already doing his best to get back to his feet. Delil was nearby and the other mounts as well. They might be allies if things went well but right now they were monsters.

Andover adjusted and adapted, as he’d been trained to do, and pulled his axe free, holding the obsidian in a hard grip. He looked at his mount, which was now settling down and waiting. He looked toward Delil and saw her, where she was pinned under the mass of her assailant.

Every muscle tensed, ready to move toward her.

Delil grunted, struggled, her arms trembling; the chain in her hands rattled with the strain.

The beast over her was a heavy gray form that dwarfed her. The chain was wrapped around its muzzle, and around its neck. Where Andover had held onto his attacker from behind, Delil was clutching the front of the thing in a death grip, her body literally pressed between its wide-set forelegs. She had managed to wrap the length of chain around both the front paws in an elaborate web of links that had the mount struggling to move without falling face first into the dirt.

The fall would have worked to the creature’s advantage, except for the blade pushed against its stomach. A dagger was resting against the soft part of the belly, braced against Delil’s knee. She had a sheath there. He had no idea how she’d managed it but the blade was now where it would do the most harm.

Her face was buried in the thick mane of the mount. Behind her, several of the other creatures were already moving away. They had no choices here. They would not locate another here to choose them and so they left.

Delil released the chain from the thick neck and gently pulled it away from the torn, bloodied mouth of her mount. She fell back, panting, as the brute stepped back and carefully extracted itself from the length wrapped around its paws.

Delil looked toward him for a moment and sighed. She closed her eyes and gulped in breaths as the mount slipped back and settled down.

“What is your name?” The words were muttered and spoken directly into his head again.

“I am Andover Lashk of the Iron Hands.” He looked toward the black mount. It came closer and nudged him gently with its muzzle. The teeth in that mouth could have taken the head off a horse with one bite. He knew that. He also knew that he now had nothing to fear from the mount. “And what do I call you, my friend?”

“I am Gorwich.”

Andover carefully ran his hand through the thick black mane, fully aware that his fingers could pull hair without trying very hard. Best not to anger his newest friend.

Delil sat up and winced. Her side was bloodied.

Without another word he moved to her. The fight was done, her challenge completed. Now he could help her without fear of interfering with the ritual of companionship. That was what it was. He knew that now. How else to choose a worthy rider for a mount? How else to see if a mount was a proper fit?

Deep claw marks ran down her side and scored her ribs.

He reached into a sack at his side and pulled out clean cloths. “Do you need bandages?”

She shot him a look that told him it was a stupid question; he nodded and urged her back so he could clean the cuts as best he could.

Behind her the very beast that had torn into her now paced nervously, a worried expression on the broad, feral face.

IT IS TIME, ANDOVER IRON HANDS. The words filled his head. The voice was that of Ydramil. The god spoke and Andover listened. There was no choice in the matter. Gods could not be ignored.

Andover nodded and pulled back his cloth. He was not surprised to see that the wounds had stopped bleeding. The Sa’ba Taalor were a strong race. She would heal.

He could not have said which gods spoke to Delil but he could see the subtle shift in her expression as she listened.

A moment later they were moving. The mounts went with them, and the four of them walked together toward Durhallem’s Pass.

It was a long way to Fellein and they had to be where the gods demanded in time to serve properly.

Two

Desh Krohan looked at Merros Dulver and shrugged. “I’ve considered what you asked for earlier. Well done. I never would have dreamed up this possibility.” He referred to the general’s request to have communications passed from one sorcerer to another in an effort to save time. Considering that no horse known to man would be able to reach the city for some time, that was a request he was glad he’d approved.

Dulver was currently looking over the outer edge of the only barrier that stopped any of them from falling to their deaths. The great stone Mid Wall had been designed to stop invaders from entering Canhoon. Built by sorcerous means it had held any potential invaders at bay since it was created. Now it held the city of Canhoon together, or at least stopped the foolhardy from spilling over the edges.

Merros looked his way with wide, glassy eyes. He was shocked. A great percentage of the population felt the same way. Those few that saw Desh Krohan walking from the palace very nearly competed to look away and cower. He was the foremost sorcerer in the entire Fellein Empire. They had no doubt that he was responsible for all of this. They were right, of course, but only in an indirect way.

“Are you well, Merros?”

Usually the general was fast with a return quip. Just now, however, he was shaking a bit. “I had no idea.”

“That cites could fly? To be fair, it doesn’t happen that often.” He wanted to be sympathetic. He was trying, but he’d been here before. He’d been one of the sorcerers who made Canhoon rise in the past and sail above clouds. He’d been part of the reason for the Silent Army rising from the ground and stopping the invaders of the past. His was the sorcery that rebuilt Canhoon when an earthquake shattered the greatest city built since Korwa. It unsettled him a good deal that he couldn’t remember the details of those events as clearly as he wanted, but a lot of centuries had passed, and he didn’t know how clearly he recalled the events from his youth.

All of which, aside from foggy memories, would have made him feel absolutely spectacular about his abilities, if he had any control over the Silent Army rising from the ashes and then lifting the City of Wonders into the air to avoid the invading Sa’ba Taalor.

That was all beyond him. The Silent Army had brought themselves back to life – and, from what he was hearing, had either sacrificed or caused others to sacrifice themselves in the process. Over a thousand. One for each of the unmoving stone soldiers that now stood as silent sentinels over the entire city. Canhoon rode the winds – or at least seemed to as it moved far above the ground. How far? He could not say. He would have others looking into the matter soon enough. For now he knew that the city moved toward the east and that it was not responding to any attempts by him or the other sorcerers to tell it where to go. Not that they’d had much time to try anything.

Which was why he was here now, looking for Merros.

Merros Dulver was a good and a strong man, but he really didn’t much like sorcery, and he’d seen enough in the last few days to change his perspective about how the world was supposed to work. Little things: people appearing and disappearing in places where they shouldn’t have easily been able to go, that was annoying. Desh knew that. He’d seen the general’s response to the Sisters’ comings and goings. Only a few days earlier Desh had been asked for assistance by the Empress herself. He had avoided saying yes for as long as he could, but there comes a time when actions are required.

With one stroke Desh Krohan, First Advisor to the Fellein Empire, went from possible charlatan to man to be feared. Even now, had he bothered to look in the opposite direction, he would have been able to see the scorch marks left on the terrain by his actions. Not seeing them would have been the challenge, as the land was burned for miles.

Now this. The city was moving itself and what should have been statues at best were now surrounding the city and had come to defend the citizenry.

Merros Dulver was a little shocked? Only because the implications had not completely settled in yet. He would likely be truly worried later, after he’d given the situation some thought.

“There’s nothing under us, Desh. I can see the river. I can see trees down there, but they are so tiny…”

“They are the same size they always were, Merros. They are simply farther away than you might expect.”

“All the gods, Desh. How do you handle this?” Merros shivered. It wasn’t the surprise or the fear that caused his body to shake. It was the cold. Thinner air and colder weather were only a few of the challenges that came from their new, higher, altitude.

Desh looked out over the landscape far below, where the Jeurgis River glittered in the fading sunlight. He could see the chaos in the towns beneath them. If being on a floating city was disorienting, how must it be for the people who realized that it wasn’t a storm cloud above them, but a landmass? How deeply afraid might they be that the approaching mountain-sized structure meant their death?

“What is the other choice, Merros? Neither you nor I were ever meant to merely watch the world as it changes. We are not the sort. We prepare and we fight.”

The general nodded and shook his head. “Have you discovered where the city is going?”

Desh shook his head. “We’re… investigating. It will take a while.”

“Let’s hope whatever is keeping Canhoon this high in the air does not decide to drop us somewhere along the way.”

Desh did a few quick calculations in his head and then scowled. “Try not to put notions like that in my skull, Merros. It’s enough to wreck my cheerful disposition.”

“This is your territory, not mine, First Advisor. Might I suggest you seek a solution?”

“As I said, we’re investigating. These things take time.”

The general looked away from the view below and stared at him for several seconds. “Yes, well, sooner is better I suspect.”

“What are you so worried about, Merros? I mean beyond the obvious.”

“We are currently heading, near as I can tell, directly east.”

“Yes. I gathered as much myself.”

“I was looking at the maps yesterday. I’ve been looking at them a lot. What is the one distinct landmark that is east of us?”

“Oh. Damn.”

The mountains. Fellein was a vast continent and most of it was easily traversable but there are always exceptions. In this case the Arkannen Mountains rose from the fertile lands like the spine of a god and separated the west from the east.

“Wait. There’s always–”

“Yes. The Lishter Gap.” Merros gestured with his left hand. “It’s a lovely notion. It is also few hundred miles to the north of us.”

The Lishter Gap was the only actual break in the mountains. The granite and marble range was as tall as it was long, and the only spot aside from where the river cut through was the Lishter Gap where the Imperial Highway ran. The choice for travelers was always simple. Take the river, or take the gap.

The problem that they faced was that the cut between the mountains where the river flowed was not nearly as wide as the city. There was a very real chance that Canhoon would smash into one of the peaks, and while Desh was a man who believed in the impossible, there was nothing in his arsenal of spells that would make moving mountains easy. If there were, he’d have long since done something about the volcanoes burning to the west.

Desh had not yet discovered if there was a way to actually steer the city. He was working on it, granted, but there was very little time left for trial and error. Relatively speaking at least. Surely there was still time left.

Hopefully.

“Enough of this,” said Desh. “I came to find you because we have several different problems facing us, not the least of which is what to do with all of the extra people in town.”

Merros nodded. For a moment he looked decades older than his age. Then he inhaled, squared his shoulders, and with a few changes in posture and a hardening of his features he went from a worried man to a general.

He did not look at the edge of the wall again as he started walking toward the palace of the Empress. “So let us be on with it. The day is not growing any younger and I’d like sleep at some point.”

Summoning the heads of the military and the City Guard was not challenging. The Fellein Army was nothing if not efficient, at least that was what Merros kept telling himself. The men that stood before him were as stressed as he was, and they were looking to him for answers. He would give them their answers, too. Whether or not they liked them was another matter entirely.

Taurn Durst, his personal aide and one of the largest men in the entire army, bellowed everyone to attention. They quietened quickly. They’d learned what happened to those who did not respond properly.

Durst stood at attention next to Merros and waited, his eyes scanning the crowd as if he might be looking for assassins, or possibly fresh prey.

Merros stood ramrod straight and looked out at his commanders.

“Yes, we all know that the city is in the air.” A few of them chuckled. Most did not. “We are very aware of that fact. The bright point here is that the Sa’ba Taalor did not take our city. The darker news is that we are now completely isolated and facing new troubles.”

Several of the men tried to speak up and Durst shouted them down, demanding silence.

Merros took his time, looking from face to face, making sure they knew that he was talking to them, and not just talking to hear his own voice. “We have food. We have fresh water. Thank the sorcerers for that. I don’t know where they store it, but I’ve been assured by Desh Krohan himself that we have supplies enough to last us for several months. That is a blessing. There are other troubles, however. The weather, as you can feel, is much colder at this height. Any of you who have ever had to cross over the mountains know what I mean. We are going to have troubles keeping everyone warm. We need to find places for everyone to stay. That was an issue before this happened. It’s only going to be worse now.”

One of the men called out, “Not to be inconsiderate, but why is that a problem for the army or the City Guard?”

“Because we are all here together. Because if we do not have warm clothes and shelter for people, they will feel obliged to find it on their own, even if they have to break into someone else’s home, or steal their cloaks. Reprol, is it?” The man nodded. “Do you have family here?” He nodded again. “You have to work. If you are not home, who will make sure it isn’t your home that is broken into, and your family that remains safe?”

Reprol had the decency to blush and look down as he considered those words.

“Hear me out. We are all in this together because there is nowhere for any of us to go. We need to find shelter and warmth for everyone before this entire affair becomes a riot or worse. There are a lot of soldiers here. There are a lot more people who are not soldiers, who have lost everything, and who will, if they must, turn on us and fight for whatever they can reclaim. We will not let that happen. That is the end of this discussion. We will help because we must if we wish to stay alive.

“Now, I’ve put the problem on the slate for you. Let’s hear some suggestions.”

They were slow to speak, but speak they did. They had families to consider, after all.

Tataya and Pella sat in Desh’s chambers and waited for him. He was busy and they knew that, but he would want to see them, and so they waited.

They had already moved under the city and seen what there was to see. The foundation was solid. A few open gutters spilled dribbles of water from within the bowels of the city. No spare debris fell away any longer. There had been some, but it was negligible in comparison to the sheer size of the base of their airborne city.

They did not speak of what they had seen. They did not speak of the questions they had asked.

They did not speak of the answers they were given by their sister, Goriah, as she tore apart her funeral shroud and howled her agonies into the air of the cold, dark chambers where she rested even now.

Fair to say that there was little that scared the Sisters, but after the recent grisly work they’d employed him for, they were suitably afraid of Inquisitor Darsken Murdro. He had a commanding presence. He had a reputation for finding the darkest secrets and unearthing them. He was of the Louron, which in and of itself was enough to make some nervous, but now? Now he had shown them that he could wake the dead and make them tell their discoveries to the living.

There were secrets kept by every living being. Those weren’t the secrets that bothered the Sisters.

It was the secrets of the dead that worried them. More importantly, how Desh Krohan would respond to those secrets.

The Sisters waited in silence, uncertain they wanted to know the answer to that particular query.

Darsken Murdro walked along the edge of the Mid Wall and observed those around him. From time to time his staff tapped the ground in a measured thump, but otherwise he was silent.

There was a pathway around the Mid Wall that he was certain was not deliberate. People were avoiding touching the barrier, as if it might be paper and would slip away from them should they try to use it as a support. Refugees with nothing were still avoiding actually using the wall as shelter. Instead they took whatever supplies they had and placed them on the ground a dozen feet from the edge.

The people around him were scared. He could understand why. Their world, or at least a portion of it, had been torn from the ground and raised into the sky. That was the sort of thing that tended to make people edgy.

On the wall itself stood an army of silent statues. They were made of stone. It was impossible to miss that. Just the same, from time to time they moved, looking in one direction or another, shifting their weight to favor this leg instead of that. Far more unsettling, occasionally they would melt into the very stone of the Mid Wall and step out in a different spot, as if they were dropping through water.

He could understand the wariness of the homeless masses forced to stay near the wall. It was late, the sun long since set, and cold enough to leave most breathing puffs of steam as they huddled together or jealously guarded what they had left in the world.

Darsken moved among them but was not one of them. He walked because he needed to clear his mind from his earlier work.

He needed to prepare himself for when Desh Krohan came for him as he would inevitably do. It would not be long now. The Sisters would have spoken with the First Advisor, and he would want more answers than they could provide.

Darsken leaned against the cold stone wall and closed his eyes for a moment. Not far away someone made a gasping sound, surely thinking he must be mad for daring to touch the Mid Wall. Madness was always an option, of course. Sometimes it seemed a delightful distraction from the world around him.

“Why did I say yes?” he mused to himself. The sorcerer had asked his assistance, nearly begged him to speak to dead Goriah, and he had agreed. His logic was sound enough. Better that he take the risk of speaking with the dead than the sorcerer himself do it.

Inquisitors were trained in necromancy. They had to be in order to gain certain knowledge that would otherwise be lost. Once set on a trail, the Inquisitors almost never let go until they found the answers to their questions by any means necessary. That was the true reason they were feared. There were always rumors that they tortured their targets, and from time to time they earned the secrets they needed that way, but mostly the Inquisitors knew that torture was almost never a reliable method of gaining information. People would lie to escape the pain of a hot brand or metal pinchers. Empathy, observation and patience. Those were the best methods.

Still, when necessary, any tool in the box would suffice to find the answers required.

Desh Krohan could have performed the necromancy himself. Would have, very likely, despite the laws against it, because it was one of his.

Emotions ran hot when a loved one was murdered. Had the sorcerer been the one to work the magics he might well have handled everything perfectly, but he might also have let his emotions best him. It was an easy thing to do. Darsken knew all of the Sisters, had spoken with Goriah on many occasions and had liked her well enough. He had worked with her on a few cases that had been of importance to the sorcerer and his Sisters alike.

His feelings for her would have never been a problem. If she called for vengeance he would not have responded. If she begged for another day, another year, he would not have been swayed by her desperate pleas. That was why he said yes when the sorcerer asked his assistance, because he would not be weakened by the bonds of familial love.

Not far away from him he heard people making more noises. He did not need to raise his eyelids to know that the sorcerer had found him.

When he opened his eyes Desh Krohan was before him. The sorcerer wore his robes of office and there was no face to be seen within the shadows of the dark cowl.

Darsken Murdro was not a man who was afraid of much. Inquisitors were trained to ignore fear in its many incarnations. Fear was a tool of the trade and nothing more. Still, seeing the sorcerer before him, looming out of the darkness, he felt a shiver in his guts.

When the First Advisor to the Empire spoke his voice was a whisper, soft and cold, delivered from only a foot way. “You claim you can bring Goriah back to me?”

“I can.” He resisted the urge to lick his lips. If a hundred men held blades to his throat he would have shown no more fear than if the only threat was a pleasant breeze. The sorcerer made no more impact.

“How? Without sacrificing another life, how is that possible?”

All magic had a price. It was possible to raise the dead. It had always been possible. Necromancers merely spoke with them and there was a cost. But to resurrect a dead form and give it life again was far different. The very best you could hope for was a life for a life and usually the cost was far higher. A hundred lives. A thousand. Even then there was no guarantee that the person brought back would be complete.

“I have ways. You know this. You know what Inquisitors do and why it is allowed.”

There were a hundred thousand ways to learn the truth. Some of them cost the person being questioned more than discomfort. Some lost years to the Inquisitor. It was far easier to take a bit of life force to get the truth than it was to get answers by pulling toenails or cutting away fingers. The ethics of the situation never got considered. There were truths to be found. Some truths could make a difference between whether or not kingdoms went to war.

That life was stolen away and not often returned. Instead it was held for other purposes, if an Inquisitor were wise.

Darsken liked to think he knew a thing or two about wisdom.

Desh Krohan nodded his head. Not in agreement to a pact, but in consideration. A moment later he was gone.

Darsken did not pursue him. He would decide for himself if he wanted his Sister returned to life.

The Inquisitor waited for several minutes, listening to the wind and the sounds of people moving, adjusting and trying to get comfortable in the cold and darkness.

After a time he moved for his home, and occasionally the sound of his staff tapping marked his way along the cobblestones.

Deep in the ground, beneath the palace of the Empress, there were rooms and chambers and hallways that remained hidden from most. A select group was trusted to know the truths that rested underground. Most were students of the sorcerers who knew that their ability not to speak of what they learned was one of the first lessons they must take to heart.

Failure to keep a secret would be discovered. It always had been. The secrets under the castle were kept well indeed.

It was in one of those rooms, a comfortable enough affair for all the secrecy, that Cullen sat on a pallet for sleeping, wrapped in a thick fur, rocking slowly back and forth. Deltrea was with her, as she always was. Hours before she had been in one of the towers of the palace, but as soon as the armies of the Sa’ba Taalor attacked, she was taken here for her own protection.

The sorcerer wanted her undamaged.

“Are you still in pain?” Deltrea’s voice was grating on her nerves. She had been more tolerant of her friend when she was alive. These days, the voice of the woman was inevitable.

“Yes. I am in pain. Why are you still here, Deltrea? Why do you keep talking to me?”

“We have already discussed this.” Deltrea leaned against the wall of the nicely decorated cell, her shoulder and arm pushing against a tapestry that did not ripple or notice her at all. “Either I am a ghost or you are mad. Only you can decide.”

“When Desh Krohan comes again. I will ask him if you are real.”

“If you do that and he says I am not, how will you respond?”

Cullen shrugged. “Either way, at least I will know.”

Deltrea sighed and then squatted down until they were at eye level again. “Does it hurt? That great thing inside you?”

“It’s not a thing and you know it. It’s the Mother-Vine, whatever is left of her.”

“What makes you say that?” Deltrea leaned closer. “You did not make that claim before.”

“What else could it be?”

“Does it hurt? Carrying the Mother-Vine?”

“It would hurt less if she would stay still.”

Deltrea eyed Cullen’s stomach. “Well, you don’t look pregnant.”

Cullen laughed softly. “I am not pregnant. I don’t rut like you do. I choose my mates more carefully.”

“More like you don’t choose at all.”

“That is still more carefully than you. How many men did you fuck before you died?”

Deltrea did not answer, but instead crossed her arms and stared at the ground in sullen silence. It seemed there was a way to shut her up after all.

The sound of the door opening was loud, and Cullen looked toward it as the sorcerer entered.

The first time she’d seen him, his hood was up and he terrified her. This time his cowl was pulled away and down and she could see his face. It was a good face. Lean, but not narrow, kind without being weak. She liked him instantly.

The thing that was twisting around her guts seethed and pulsed deep inside her, and she stifled a moan.

“You mentioned a name when you came here, child,” the sorcerer began. “Do you remember?”

Cullen nodded. “Moale Deneshi,” she said softly. “She is the one who sent me here.”

“She has been dead for rather a long time, Cullen.” He walked through where Deltrea was squatting and came closer until, finally, he too lowered himself to her current height.

“Rude,” muttered Deltrea.

“I don’t step aside for specters. Sets a bad precedent.”

Cullen gasped at his words. “You see her?”

Desh shrugged his shoulders. “I sense her. I could see her if I wanted, but I have no need. She is not here for me. She is here for you.”

“What does she do? Why does she follow me?”

“Likely she feels you need protecting or she is simply confused.”

“I’m right here, you know. I can hear the both of you.” Deltrea crossed her arms and sighed.

The sorcerer completely ignored her. “Moale Deneshi is dead,” he said to Cullen. “Why do you claim to speak for her?”

“She’s not dead. She is inside me.”

The sorcerer looked into her eyes for a moment and then placed a hand upon her head. The hand drifted slowly down to rest on her abdomen and, much as part of her was offended by the familiar contact, she knew he wasn’t trying to molest her.

“How is that possible, child?”

Cullen opened her mouth to answer but instead felt her lips move of their own volition, speaking words that made no sense at all. They were a language she did not understand.

Desh Krohan nodded his head as if he understood. A moment later he rose and smiled wearily down.

“Get your rest, Cullen. We will talk soon.”

He left a moment later and closed the door with a gesture. She did not hear a lock engage.

Part of her wanted to test whether or not the door was truly sealed, but she decided against it. She was safe. She had food, water and shelter. That was more than she could have said before wandering into the city. Trecharch, her home, was dead. Destroyed by the Sa’ba Taalor. She saw no reason to go elsewhere.

Deltrea apparently agreed. Her friend had slipped down the closest wall and leaned against it, looking at the space between her sprawled legs as if the floor there held the most astonishing secrets.

“Why so quiet, Deltrea?”

“I’m dead.”

“Well, yes, but you knew that.”

“Yes, but there was the chance that I was just your imagination and now we know better.”

“And that makes you sad?”

“No. Confused. If I’m dead I have no idea why I am still here when everyone else has moved on.”

“I know why.”

“You do?”

“Of course. I’ve never needed a friend more in my life.”

“I thought I annoyed you.”

“You do. Doesn’t mean we’re not friends.”

Deltrea nodded. “I feel a bit better then.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s good to be needed.”

For a while they sat in silence.

Captain Callan looked at the towering waves behind his ship and wished that he had not. It wasn’t the waves. They were bad, but he knew well enough how to ride through a storm and could safely take his chances. He also knew that Vondum was even better than he was and as Vondum was at the helm he should have felt plenty confident.

No. It was the massive vessel behind them that was the problem. His ship – really, if he were being completely honest it was more of a large boat – could survive the waves only by riding up whatever wave came at them and slipping over the top before it crested. They were far enough away from the shore that most did not crash down upon themselves.

The black ship of the Sa’ba Taalor cut the latest wave in half, like an axe blow through soft, pampered flesh. Water flew away from the prow of the vast, black vessel, and even from the distance that still separated them – a dwindling distance, thanks very much – he could see the shapes of the sailors riding those waves, waiting for the chance to destroy him.

Two days ago he’d had a chance to take the river east. It seemed a great deal like he’d made the wrong choice.

Canhoon had lifted from the ground and into the air and he and his shipmates had stared on, stunned.

They had talked of trying to follow it and decided against the notion. What if it fell? That suggestion by Vondum had put an end to the discussions.

The sea with all of its current troubles had to be a better idea.

Surely the ship was not as large as the city. He knew that, but it was perspective, really. In comparison to his boat the damned black beast tearing through the waves may as well have been as large. The whales of Cormadun were not as large as that ship and the whales were gigantic, terrifying beasts best thought of only when on the land.

“Hold yourselves to the rails, lads!” He could barely hear Vondum over the wind and the thunderous backdrop of the burning seas. The only way to get where they needed to be was to pass by the land growing where the Guntha used to have their islands. The storms there were always rough but not so dangerous that a good sailor couldn’t manage.

Now this, the ship, that was a different tale entirely. He grabbed hard at the closest rail and felt the boat beneath him shift and buck as his first mate tried to compensate for the waves and the vast nightmare heading for them. He dared another glance and saw the ship of the Sa’ba Taalor slam into the next wave, shrugging off the sea’s attempt to thwart it from its hunt.

One of his men reeled across the deck and grabbed at the railing, barely catching himself before he’d have been tossed over the side. Thimms was a good man, but Callan would not go after him if he went swimming. There was the rest of the crew to consider, and his own hide besides.

“There’s another from the east, Captain!”

“What?” Surely he’d misheard.

“Another of the damn ships comes from the east!” The clouds impaired easy viewing of anything, but he looked where Thimms pointed and cursed. There was, indeed another ship. It matched the scope of the one already chasing them.

A moment later there was a sign of hope, a faint light of potential safety.

The ship to the east was not alone. Several smaller vessels were running around it, moving like cats surrounding a massive bear, but they were there just the same.

The Brellar had arrived.

“Might have a chance at that.” He whispered the words like a secret prayer and watched as the smaller ships moved around their prey.

The Brellar were terrors. They owned the Corinta Ocean and the seas beyond as well, near as he could tell, and they owned them because they were the fiercest warriors on water.

They had also been paid very handsomely to be here and to fight the Sa’ba Taalor. Because they were honorable enough in their way, they had even shown themselves as the enemy approached.

The ship to the east shifted itself. The great black hulking shape took a turn that should have been precarious and in the doing crashed its prow into the closest of the Brellar vessels with an impact that could be heard even over the wind and the storm.

The Brellar was not fast enough and in seconds the greater ship shattered the lesser on impact. Wood and bodies flew away from the crashing ships; both looked exclusively to be Brellar.

Whatever was in the way of the turning ship was ruined or dragged under the keel. Callan looked away, not in horror but out of necessity. The other black ship was gaining on them.

The waves surged, the ship under him shuddered but it rode another crowning wall of water to the crest and dropped down on the other side. Callan held onto the rail and felt the muscles in his hands screaming at him as his body rose and fell at the whims of the water.

The black ship was closer still and he saw one of the forms on that ship holding what might be the longest bow he had ever seen.

A moment later an arm was drawn back and a missile released. He did his best to watch the shaft move through the air. He missed most of the journey but saw it land in the back of Vondum’s skull.

Vondum dropped to the deck. He didn’t need to guess. He knew the man, his friend, was dead.

He also knew they were all dead if he didn’t get to the wheel soon enough to stop the ship from foundering. Wind and rain and waves were his enemy right then, and Callan crouched low and ran along the deck as quickly as he could.

He did not run far before the arrow punched into the meat of his calf. Did he scream? Gods, yes. Did he fall? No. It wasn’t choice. He hopped on one leg and made it to the helm, grabbing at the wheel and missing the first time.

Vondum’s body was in the way. Thimms was there an instant later rolling the corpse to the side. He stayed, too, holding an arm around Callan’s waist and bracing his captain as best he could. Thimms was a smart one. He was carrying a shield.

This was a simple affair. They lived or died together.

The black ship came closer, and Callan turned away from it, intent on riding through the storm and outracing the bastards coming up behind them.

Three

The veils became a necessity. The winds were gone but the dust and grit of the Blasted Lands remained, and wherever the waters had receded, the dust lifted with each step they took and grew in clouds that surrounded them.

They had no food and very little water, but for the mounts that seemed not to matter.

Andover stared at the Edge as it grew closer. When he had entered the Blasted Lands, an eternity or so earlier, the storms had kept him from seeing anything at all. He had no real scope for how vast the barrier was. It was not as towering as the mountains, but it seemed to go on forever in both directions.

“Do we know where to climb this great thing?” He spoke in his usual slightly puzzled tones.

“The Temmis Pass is that way.” Delil pointed south. “Another three days at this speed. If we let them run we will be there tonight.”

He nodded and looked along the great stone wall. There were spots where they could climb. “We can go up here if you like.” Again that ghost of his former self railed at the notion. There were large stretches where the climb was easy, especially now that the winds were gone, but other places where they would struggle.

Delil looked to him. “Don’t ask me. I love climbing. Are you up to the challenge?”

He grinned. There was no more to say. Within minutes they were scaling the sheer stone surface. The way was much harder than he’d expected initially. The endless winds had scoured large areas nearly smooth.

Iron hands dug into stone where necessary. The mounts took the walls in leaps and bounds, their thick claws allowing purchase, their powerful bodies perfectly designed for pushing themselves in areas where human forms could not compete.

There were no Broken here. The Pra-Moresh did not attack. The winds did not slow them. The way was hard but without the challenge and risk of possible attack, Andover found himself oddly disappointed.

Life is pain. Life is struggle. A life of ease was no longer what he wanted from the world.

When they finished the arduous climb he looked down into the vast, motionless valley of the Blasted Lands and frowned. Far, far away he could make out the Seven Forges.

When he turned and scanned the desolate horizon in front of him he frowned again. Far to the south a column of smoke painted the air. Far to the north a caul of lighter colored smoke hazed the skyline into a soft blur.

He pointed to the finger of black smoke in the south. “That was Tyrne, I think.”

Delil nodded. “Yes. It is so. Durhallem now rests there.”

“How can a mountain be in two places at once?”

“Not the mountain. There are two mountains, yes, but Durhallem, the Wounder, the god, now rests where Tyrne once stood.”

Completely unaware of the action, Andover tilted his head in the way of the Sa’ba Taalor, asking a silent question.

“We move to the desires of the Daxar Taalor, Andover. They do not abandon us, they move with us. They are claiming Fellein as theirs. They are making themselves comfortable in their new lands.”

Andover nodded. “So the first of the gods to move? Which was that?”

“You do not know the shapes of the Forges as well as most. You have also not seen it, but the first to move was Wheklam. Donaie Swarl took her black ships out into the waters and found the spot that Wheklam wanted. I saw it in a dream. It was impressive to see.”

“Are you a follower of Wheklam now?”

“I follow all of the gods, but Wheklam has asked that I learn his ways.”

“And will you?”

“Why would I ever deny a god, Andover?”

He nodded his head, expecting no other answer from her. Gorwich moved close and nudged Andover’s arm with his muzzle. He scratched idly at the broad face.

The Forges were still alive, still active, even if the gods were moving from one place to another. Both he and Delil had asked for and received the “Blood of the Mountain,” literally the white-hot metal they pulled from Durhallem.

Andover had metal hands. Delil did not. Neither of them were burned by the metal as they pulled it out and shaped it like so much clay. Both of them should have been ruined by the contact, but that was the blessing of the Daxar Taalor. They were given wondrous gifts in exchange for their loyalty.

Gorwich likewise had been rewarded. The armored mask over the head of his mount was crafted in short order. Gorwich’s mask closely resembled the shape of his face, but Andover had lined the edges with barbs, the better to dissuade fools from trying to cut at the mount’s muzzle or head. Was it necessary? No, but Gorwich seemed to like it.

“Delil?”

“Yes, Andover?” She was currently climbing onto her mount, and preparing to ride again.

“If the Forges are moving so far apart from each other, does that mean the Sa’ba Taalor will have to choose only one god each? Fellein is vast. A thousand or more times the size of the Taalor Valley.”

Delil shook her head. “The distance we rode to the Seven Forges. How long was it?”

“I could not say. The storms of the Blasted Lands hid so much from us.”

“They hid nothing the gods did not want hidden. Sometimes a trip to the Taalor Valley is a trip that takes months. Other times a day or only a few hours.”

Andover frowned, considering that.

Delil continued. “The time it takes to reach any place we are required to go is changed by the gods themselves, Andover. If they wanted us at Canhoon now, if they needed us there, we would be within sight of the city. That is their way.”

Andover rubbed his iron palm on Gorwich’s neck and then climbed onto the mount’s back. If his weight bothered the great beast, it gave no sign.

“So let us see how quickly they want us there,” he said. “But let us be careful. We are now in a land where the Daxar Taalor are not the only gods, and there are enemies here who would see us dead.”

Delil smiled and patted the hilt of her long, thin sword. “Finally,” she sighed. “A war.”

Drask Silver Hand raised his eyes from the ground before him and frowned.

“I tire of this.” Neither of his companions spoke. He was not completely sure that either could any more.

“Brackka! To me!” Drask roared the words and the air around them shimmered as the dust at their feet rippled, impacted by the sound waves.

His voice echoed far further than should have been possible. In the far distant remains of the Mounds, half hidden by the settled ash and soot, a shadow was burned into the very stone where Brackka had stood when Drask and the others fell into the glowing essences that powered the endless caverns of the forbidden underground realm. The resulting contact between living flesh and reservoirs of power locked away in the Mounds had been… explosive.

Drask was not even now completely certain what the energies had been. He only knew that they were still changing him, altering his mind and his body alike. One look at his silver hand was enough to make that point clearly. Striations of silver ran all the way up to his bicep now, slithering slowly up from his wrist like arteries of liquid silver.

He knew something else as well. He knew that Brackka was dead, and how he had died, burnt into naught but a shadow.

One last thing he knew. He knew that when he called for Brackka, his mount would come to him.

In the distance, in the Mounds, left far behind, the shadow of Brackka rose, and pulled itself away from the stone. It moved quickly and took on flesh as it ran toward Drask’s voice. Flesh, and familiar armor, leather and straps and supplies and a dozen weapons long since forged by Drask.

By rights it should have been days or at the very least a long night before Brackka could reach Drask.

It took only minutes.

Drask did not wish to wait for his mount, and so he did not have to. For some beings, time works differently.

There was a moment of joy when Brackka got there. He patted his friend’s thick neck and ran his flesh fingers through the thick mane and murmured nonsense to his longtime companion.

And all the while he contemplated what it meant that he was able to so easily bring his friend back from complete destruction.

What, he wondered, makes a god a god?

Merros walked the Mid Wall, looking into the stone faces of each of the Silent Army. They were easy to tell apart. Some were male, others female. All wore the same armor, archaic breastplates and helmets that did not cover their faces. Each looked slightly rough, reflecting the fact that they appeared carved from the very stone of the wall. But each had a different face.

Each still had the features of the person who had died for them, that they might live again.

Now if he could only remember the face of the Pilgrim, a man he had all but ignored, Merros might be able to get somewhere with the notion of speaking to the literal army of stone men surrounding the city.

The top of the wall was clear of refugees. It seemed the notion of staying near the moving statues unsettled them. Merros could understand that. Sorcery of any sort made him uncomfortable.

“I called for you.” Nachia’s voice, coming from behind him, was more amused than annoyed.

“I have not received a message, Majesty.” He turned and bowed formally. Nachia stood with two soldiers: Darfel, her bodyguard – chosen by Merros himself – and Lauro Larn, the grandson of General Dataro Larn, who before his death had been one of the men who held the seat Merros himself now claimed. Both men nodded and stayed properly at the Empress’s side.

“Likely the messengers are looking in and around your offices.” Nachia raised one eyebrow and crossed her arms. “Where one would expect to find a commander of the armies in a crisis situation.”

He felt his skin blush a bit. “I’ve been trying to remember exactly what the Pilgrim looked like.” He gestured to the closest of the Silent Army, a female. “Before he turned into one of these.”

Nachia did not bother answering him, but instead stood face to face with the feminine statue, looking up to stare it in the eyes. Male and female alike, all of them were taller than the Empress.

“I am the Empress Nachia Krous of the Fellein,” she said formally. “I would speak to the one who called himself the Pilgrim and I would do it as soon as possible. Please convey that message to him.”

Merros stared at her, not quite sure when she had lost her faculties.

Nachia looked back at him and frowned. “It can’t hurt to ask.”

“They’re statues, Nachia.” He shook his head, immediately regretting the tone. A wise man did not scold his Empress, especially in a public setting, and doubly so if her name was Nachia Krous.

Nachia shot him a withering stare. “I know they’re statues, Merros. I wasn’t the one trying to find one out of a thousand or more. Also, they’re statues that move.”

“Well, yes, there is that. It’s why I was hoping it might be possible to talk to the one called the Pilgrim.”

Nachia stepped back and so did her guards. It only took a moment for Merros to understand why. To his right and slightly behind him a stone man was rising from the ground. The shape was definitely one of the Silent Army.

He was tall and he stood straight, one hand resting on the hilt of a sword made from the same substance as everything else. His face was familiar, but if Merros were honest with himself, he would never have located the one from the thousand others. There simply weren’t enough remarkable features.

The expression, however, he would have remembered. The face twisted into a cold scowl.

“You have called me, Empress. I have come.” The Pilgrim’s voice was oddly hollow, as if coming from a vast distance. There was a faint echo as well, making Merros think that the source of the voice came not from the mouth but from deep within the chest. Merros repressed a shudder. Sorcery.

Nachia stared up into the Pilgrim’s visage and then pointed a finger toward Merros. “He wanted to speak with you.”

The Pilgrim regarded him coldly. “You are General Merros Dulver.”

“Yes.”

“I remember you. What do you ask?”

“I was, well, I was hoping you could explain to me why you have come here and where you are taking Canhoon.”

“The gods have summoned us to come and protect their city.”

“But where are we going?”

“Where the gods command.” The Pilgrim stared to the east.

“Can you tell us what the gods want?”

“What they have always wanted. The safety and fealty of their children.”

Without waiting another moment, the Pilgrim started to melt back into the stone.

“Wait! We have more questions!”

The stone face turned to look at him again, and that scowl deepened. “We are here to protect the Empress of Fellein. For that reason I answered your query, but we do not serve you, nor do we serve the Empress. We serve only the gods. This body is not designed for speech. We are called the Silent Army for a reason. No more questions will be answered.”

With that, the form of the Pilgrim melted once more into the Mid Wall.

Merros stared at the spot where the stone man had been and made an obscene gesture. When one considered his position in the city it certainly seemed there were a lot of rude people around him.

The Empress spoke. “Well, I’d wanted to know if you’d had any luck figuring out where we are going. I guess I have my answer.”

Merros shook his head. “Near as I can guess we are going straight east. If that does not change, the only thing we are going to meet is the mountains. After that the only thing we are going to see for quite some time is the river below and then Lake Gerhaim and Goltha.”

“How do we get out of this, Merros?” Nachia’s voice was soft and worried.

“We work on solutions. If that doesn’t work I might suggest that the Sisters teach us how they fly.”

“The Sisters fly?”

Merros nodded. “Oh, yes. Apparently it’s contagious. They’ve lifted the entire damned city.”

Nachia swatted his arm and laughed. “For that humor alone I’d keep you in my court, Merros.”

He had no response for her.

Instead of speaking he merely broke protocol and put a companionable arm around her shoulders. She did not protest, but instead leaned into him. It was only for a moment that they acted human, and then only because they could trust the witnesses.

The columns of the Sa’ba Taalor moved along at a steady clip: the riders with mounts to the front, the rest behind them, trudging over terrain that was sometimes rough and rocky and often pleasantly flat near the edge of the river.

From a distance they could see the City of Wonders as it moved steadily through the sky.

Tusk moved along beside Tarag Paedori, who rode his mount contemplating the vast stone cloud on the horizon as if it might be an apple he wanted to take a bite from.

Their scouts had prepared them. Up ahead was a small town. Beyond that was a great stone structure, the likes of which none of them had ever seen before. All they knew was that both were occupied. The scouts had been warned not to engage the enemy.

The King in Iron shrugged his shoulders and rattled in his armor. Tusk smiled. He knew he was not the only one who was restless.

“Durhallem says the city ahead is for me. The tower is for you.” He spoke conversationally, knowing full well that Paedori’s god had spoken to him as well.

“So it shall be, Tusk.”

“I think we should send the scouts ahead a day or more, to see if there are opportunities to reach the city in the sky.”

“You are thinking of the mountains ahead.” Tarag Paedori nodded his head as he spoke. “This is wise. Send Stastha with them if you like. She is a good strategist and can assess better than most, I think.”

Tusk made a small gesture and Stastha immediately rode forward. “My kings.” She lowered her head for only a moment. The horns on her helmet rose from near her neck and thrust upward like the tusks of a great boar. She looked toward Tusk and studied his face.

“We will send you ahead, Stastha. Go to the mountains. Seek weaknesses and ways that we might reach that city. They will not escape us for long.”

Stastha looked toward the horizon. The mountains were several days away at a guess, but the city only moved at one speed and the mounts were capable of covering the distance at a much greater pace.

She nodded and Tuskandru continued. “Be aware. They must know we are here, and arrows from that height would cut through any possible armor.”

“I will only approach the city in darkness, my king.” Tusk felt himself stir. Stastha was a woman he admired for her strength and her tactical skills. Her scars fairly glowed in the sunlight and he found himself in a mood to examine them closely.

Now was not the time.

“Make Durhallem proud, as you make me proud, Stastha.”

She smiled at that and nodded her head. A moment later she was moving forward, calling names. Several other riders obeyed her summons and joined her.

“It is a small town?” Tusk asked.

Tarag nodded.

Tusk sighed. “I want that city, but this should whet the palate, yes?”

“I am curious about the tower. Why is it all alone? What is there and who protects it?”

“It is my experience that something all alone is more deadly than a gathering of like minds.”

Tarag nodded and frowned. “Unless you are talking of the Pra-Moresh. They are much worse in packs.”

Tusk chuckled deep in his chest and then spurred Brodem forward. The beast let out a rumble and charged forward at great speed. Behind him others began to ride faster, a few pulling out their horns for when the time came to announce themselves.

Tarag Paedori looked to Kallir Lundt, the Fellein who now sported a face of iron and served him loyally. “It is time, Kallir. Find four others to come with us, the rest will continue on the path and seek whatever they can find by way of combat.”

Kallir nodded his metal face and then looked over his shoulder, seeking the ones he felt best qualified and deserving. He had watched all of the Sa’ba Taalor close to Tarag. “Ehnole, Tenna, Mardus, Kopora!” he called and the followers of the King in Iron responded, sitting straighter on their mounts and looking toward him.

It was Tarag who finished what he started. “We ride!” There was nothing more to say. The six of them moved forward and the rest of the long columns moved on. The followers of Tarag Paedori were, easily, the most disciplined of all the Sa’ba Taalor, that is to say, the best at following orders they did not like. None would dare disobey a king. To do so was to disobey a god. Still, Paedori’s army waited with more patience than most, fully prepared to take down the vast, floating city above them.

Andover Lashk looked at the lake where Canhoon should have been. It was an impressive lake, to be sure, but it was not what he’d been expecting to see. A few buildings remained around the edge of the water. Most had been destroyed by whatever catastrophe had removed the city itself.

The lake’s waters were clear enough, but along the vast shoreline the remains of hundreds, possibly thousands of people had been stacked in heaps and then burned. Ashes coated stacks of bones and partially ruined meat. Andover did not have to guess what had happened to the dead. The Sa’ba Taalor sacrificed the dead to the gods, preferably by tossing them into the heart of one of the forges. When that was not possible they were burned. On occasions when necessity demanded, he knew that the dead were eaten. The Daxar Taalor did not believe in waste.

Amid the rubble great storm crows hopped and lurked, mostly silent save for occasional caws, eyeing everything with cold contempt. He had never seen so many gathered in one spot before. It was a sight to behold.

Delil looked at the birds, too. They did not exist in Taalor. They were large and gray and gave off a certain air of menace.

“Where is Canhoon?” Andover spoke out loud, simply because he was surprised. There had been a vast wall around the city, at least according to the paintings he had seen. He had never once left Tyrne before he came to the Blasted Lands, and could only trust his memories of a life he had almost forgotten. There was evidence of the wall, broken stones and shattered gates, but mostly there was debris.

Ydramil’s voice filled his head. THE GODS OF FELLEIN HAVE MADE THEIR FIRST MOVE. THEY WOULD FIGHT US AND THWART US. THE CITY OF CANHOON RIDES THROUGH THE SKIES, MOVING TO ESCAPE THE SA’BA TAALOR.

Movement from the right made him look that way. Several people were gathered together near one of the portions of the wall that had not collapsed. They were ragged and scared. Their clothes did not match and if he had to guess, they were as confused by the lack of a city as he was.

He slid from Gorwich’s broad back and landed with ease. “Why are you here?” he called out in his native tongue and the group flinched.

They understood him. He had been like them once upon a time. Now he felt like he was staring at a different species entirely. They were so pale, so pink. It was not long ago that he was the same. It was an eternity ago.

“There is nowhere else to go.” It was a woman who spoke from beside him. She shivered as she looked up at him. Her hair was fair, her skin sunburned from seeing more of the daylight than she usually did, and her clothes were the sort of finery he remembered from Tyrne, only now they were badly weathered. There was a time she would have held his eye and he’d have thought her lovely. Now she was dirty, unkempt, and shivered with fright at the sight of him. She was weak, and that weakness made her ugly in his eyes.

“You come from Tyrne?”

“From where it was.” Dark blue eyes looked up at him with dread. She did not see a person from her home. She did not see a Fellein. She saw a Sa’ba Taalor, one of the people who had come into her world and started shattering it. Her eyelashes fluttered rapidly as she attempted to blink back tears. “Everything I had is gone. And now Canhoon has gone as well.”

“You have your life and your health. If I followed Durhallem, you would no longer have those.” He tried to keep the contempt from his voice. She was one of the wealthy, one who had likely never worked a day and could not understand a world that did not adore her for her looks.

“You… You won’t kill us?” There was something about her tone that set his nerves on edge and he moved his right hand, stretched the fingers as if to relax tension, and then did it three more times, quickly.

That was all the warning that Delil needed. She drew her sword and moved into a crouch.

Andover grabbed the woman by her arm and brought her in front of him, striding hard toward the small gathering of people and the wall where they waited. Iron hands crushed soft flesh with bruising force.

She wailed out her fears as he pushed her along in front of him, holding most of her weight with ease. Her feet scuffed and dragged and tried to hold the ground but he did not afford her that level of control.

“I will kill her! I will gut her and let her bleed in the dirt. Show yourselves!”

The three men who came from behind the wall were fighters. They were hurt and they were desperate, but they were armed and carried themselves like experienced soldiers.

Swords. Three swords. For a moment he’d been worried about arrows. That was still a possibility, but not as likely now.

“Don’t! Don’t do that!” The man who yelled at him was heavier than his fellow refugees. Likely he was well trained, but he was also in bad shape. Somewhere along the way he’d earned a deep cut along his left thigh and the wound was festering. His eyes were too shiny and he licked his chapped lips constantly. He was suffering from the Plague Winds.

“Drop your weapons or I’ll kill all of you.” Andover’s tone was conversational.

He looked them over. There were ten people all told, three armed, and only two of them seemed likely to last more than a few seconds in a fight. The man with plague shook his head and muttered to himself.

“I do not care if you live or die, but I also don’t trust you at my back,” Andover continued. “Leave here. Go west. Or I’ll kill you all.”

The plague man charged, moving surprisingly well on his festering leg.

Andover’s axe removed most of his head in the first swing. The return arc brought the obsidian axe into a guard position even as he tossed the girl away and prepared for a proper fight.

In an instant Delil was next to him, standing at his side and watching the gathered people.

The mounts looked on, aware, standing close, but not joining the fight yet. They had not been invited.

“Leave. Now.” Andover’s voice was not loud. It did not need to be.

“We have nowhere to go!” the woman screamed from where he’d thrown her. She did not attempt to rise. Instead she sobbed, her body shaking with her misery, and lowered her face toward the ground.

Andover felt no pity, only disgust.

Delil looked his way for only a moment. “Let the mounts feast. They are hungry.”

He nodded and Delil called to them to have their meals.

The two armed ones tried to defend themselves against the great beasts and failed. While they were dying Andover stared at the woman on the ground. She reminded him a little of Tega, but without the strength he had always sensed in his first love. Love? No. Infatuation. But it had felt like love, once upon a time.

“You are alive. That is my last mercy.” He spoke to the remaining seven who had not been slaughtered. He looked at the woman on the ground as he spoke. “Leave. They are still hungry. They’ll eat all of you if we let them.”

That did the trick. Even those who’d been staring on in horrified fascination as the mounts started their grisly feasts got the hint at that point and started moving. Supplies no longer mattered.

“Where will we go?” the woman tried one last time as she rose to her feet.

“I don’t care.”

Delil reached past him and slapped the woman hard enough to knock her back to the dirt. “Leave before I forget Andover’s mercy!”

She took two steps after the woman, who scrambled to her feet and staggered toward the west as quickly as she could, wiping the blood from her mouth as she ran.

As she started her third step, the arrow took her precisely at the base of her skull. Delil fell forward and landed hard on her face.

There was no thought in the action; that had been trained out of him. Andover spun, even as his hand grabbed at a short spear from the quiver at his hip and he spotted the archer and threw his weapon.

The archer tried to turn away and dodge. The spear’s tip punched deep into the muscle of the young man’s shoulder, until it broke skin on the other side. The man might have thought of running, but the pain was too large for him to ignore and he staggered, then screamed, eyes locked on the weapon in his bloodied joint.

Andover called out, “Kill them all!” and charged the young archer.

Young and desperate and hungry to survive, the archer swept his bow around despite the wound in his shoulder, and tried to draw a fresh arrow. The notch did not match up with the bow’s line before Andover cut him down.

Another step and he was reaching for the closest of the natives and grabbing at her hair with his iron fingers. She slipped past and screamed and he cut her down just the same.

It was not a battle. It was a massacre. The mounts did their work and Andover did his and none of it changed the fact that Delil was down and dead. He had tried for mercy and been rewarded with the death of his closest friend.

Had there been any doubt in the desire to follow the Daxar Taalor, it was removed in that moment.

Four

Nachia seemed remarkably calm on her seat. She was not on the throne. Unlike her cousin and generations before him, she seemed perfectly content to hold off sitting in her seat of power until she absolutely had to.

Also, she knew about the enchantments layered into the very wood and stone of the vast structure. It offered protection and made sure that the person sitting there was never too comfortable. She would never say so to the old man but she agreed with Desh Krohan’s agenda when it came to the throne: no one should ever sit there long enough to be comfortable.

As she looked over the maps of the area around and below, she tapped a finger on the thick paper and shook her head. There was simply no way around it: the mountains were fast approaching and they would be a problem.

Merros Dulver entered her throne room and stopped long enough to bow formally. She had told him not to stand on ceremony when there was no one around, but he seemed incapable of obeying that simple request. He’d already told her once that she had bodyguards around at all times. He considered them people. She had flushed with embarrassment and he’d chuckled at her discomfort.

Sometimes, she wanted to gut punch him just for the look on his face. Sometimes, she wanted to aim lower. Her self-control was one of the things no one understood about her. They’d have given her a second empire if they did. She chuckled at the notion, as that would be a fitting punishment for any who truly believed themselves free of all sin. She knew better and her self-control, while impressive, had not stopped her throwing a few things and screaming more times than she cared to think about.

That was before the coronation. Now she waited until she was truly alone before she had her tantrums. One must keep up appearances.

Merros eyed her cautiously. “You’re studying the maps again?”

“Well, I suppose I could dress up in my finery and stalk the Mid Wall, but it seems someone else has already taken that task, and besides, I should hate to have people thinking I wanted to start a trend.”

“Better stalking walls than Pathra’s hideous curled hair.” Desh’s voice came from behind her and she resisted the urge to jump out of her seat and scream. She supposed she had that coming, as she liked using the same hidden passages.

“Honestly, Desh. That hair should have been a lesson.”

“That hair should have seen his hairdresser executed for starting one of the worst trends in the history of your family.”

“There’s always the chance she died with Tyrne.” She kept her voice low, as the sorcerer had before her. Only Merros heard both of them and he was properly appalled.

“If you’re both quite done mocking the dead–”

“Only their hair, dear boy.”

“–we should discuss the latest intelligence.” As Merros spoke he moved the ring she had been using to mark Canhoon on the map and replaced it with a crest of the Empire that was a bit larger and had more weight.

“So, tell us what has happened, General Dulver.” Nachia crossed her hands over her chest and stared archly at him. He did not wither. Had he been the sort to wither under that sort of expression he would have never been a successful general.

“The scryers have done their best and it’s quite astonishing what they can learn. The armies of the Tuskandru and Tarag Paedori are still behind us, but they’ve sent a few small bands to get ahead of us and to find out what lies ahead and on the ground below.”

“Really? Have we actually seen any of these scouts?” Nachia leaned back in her seat, the better to look at Merros’s face.

“We have. There are a few of them almost directly under us, moving in the shadow of our city.”

“And can we do anything about them?”

Merros smiled. “Possibly. We are working on ways to surprise them from above.”

Desh stared at the map and nodded his head. “I might be able to help with that. It’s something we can discuss.”

He leaned over the map, studied it carefully and then pushed the crest three inches further along the river’s line. “We continue to follow the river. I’ve checked and there are slight variations in our course to compensate. Also, we’re moving a little faster than we thought initially. I have made adjustments.”

“Still no luck in finding out what to do about the Silent Army?”

“There’s nothing we have found so far. They did not work this way before.” Desh crossed his arms. “We summoned them and they only did certain things, like defend the city. This is new. They could not speak before and they did not act on their own.”

Nachia sighed. “We might yet have to go to the churches and ask the leaders.”

Merros shook his head. “I already did. They seem as baffled as we are. I have witnessed several groups from different churches placing laurels and treasures at the feet of the statues. Tributes, I think, but I’ve seen no response.”

“No more from this Pilgrim of yours?”

Merros shook his head. “He’s not mine, I assure you.”

Desh nodded. “Yes, well, if he were, there’d be no real problems, now would there?”

Nachia barely moved, but her eyes flicked from one man to the other. “What of the other kings of the Sa’ba Taalor?”

“Sorry?” Merros seemed surprised by the question.

“There are seven kings. What of the other five? Where are they and their armies?”

“Well, quite honestly, Majesty, we’re not completely sure. One of them we believe is on the ocean. The black ships have moved to the south and have been engaging the Brellar.”

“How have our associates been doing?”

“It seems they’ve been having a few successes and a great number of losses.”

“How many losses?” Nachia asked and prepared to hide the wince that she knew would come when she heard the numbers.

“Well, the Brellar really do have a great number of ships. Somewhere over a thousand. Which, truly, is a staggering number, but they are spread all along the edge of Fellein. They’ve lost over fifty ships.”

“That’s not so horrid, really. I mean fifty out of a thousand?”

Merros nodded. “True enough, but they are not happy with our previous arrangement and would like to renegotiate.”

“How did you receive that information? I thought only a few of the Brellar spoke our tongue.”

“A good number understand the tongue well enough but few speak it, true.” Merros nodded again. “They have sent back a couple of messages on the bodies of their dead. It seems they really don’t have time to be more personal than that as they are retreating from the Sa’ba Taalor as quickly as they can.”

“So. No navy then?”

“Not as such.”

Nachia stared long and hard at Desh Krohan. Hard enough that he fidgeted. That was effectively a gigantic victory.

“Is there nothing that you or the sorcerers can do, Desh?”

“I’ll look into the matter, Majesty.” The chill from his voice nearly matched the weather outside. As the walls were beginning to get a layer of ice, that said a great deal.

“Desh, you know I would not ask…”

“Yes. I am aware of the dire situation, Nachia. You have seen one demonstration. I cannot promise that any actions taken wouldn’t destroy the sea life for a hundred miles in all directions.”

Nachia thought back to the vast swathe of lightning blasts Desh Krohan had cast from one hand in her presence. She recalled very clearly the devastation he’d wreaked at her request.

“Please give careful consideration, Old Man. I need the help.” Desh did not look old. He was. He had been around since the first rise of the Silent Army over six hundred years earlier. He looked to be roughly forty and was handsome enough to distract her sometimes.

She pushed that thought aside. While she could use a distraction, she’d not try seducing him again. That hadn’t gone well the first time and wouldn’t go well now, she’d have wagered.

Nachia looked at the map though it offered no new information. “Are we safe from the Sa’ba Taalor if they should try to reach us from below?”

Merros gave her an arch look. “You mean if they should grow wings?”

The first Advisor said, “The entire city has been destroyed and rebuilt. I for one am not moving under the city to discover anything, but the Sisters have traveled around the underside of Canhoon and spoke of many openings in the belly of this floating nightmare.”

“Openings?”

Desh shrugged. “As I said, the city has been rebuilt many times. They could lead almost anywhere or nowhere.”

For twenty more minutes they discussed the minutiae of the war on as many fronts as they could be certain of. There were seven kings. They could account for five. The other two either were not involved or were better hidden than they wanted to think about. Likely it was the latter of the two.

In the far east, the armies of the Sa’ba Taalor were already making their mark. Elda was gone, destroyed and buried under a growing mountain of fire. From Elda the Sa’ba Taalor marched north, heading along the coastline and striking wherever they found people. The news was grim whenever they found a city or town. They did not leave survivors. Danaher was a vast city, but it was currently engaged by the Sa’ba Taalor and not doing well.

Morwhen was to the north and had already sent forces to stop the Sa’ba Taalor if possible. Theorio Krous himself was leading the charge. Having seen the man, there was the possibility that he could match the savagery of the Sa’ba Taalor.

Nachia thanked her general for the news and smiled warmly. He really was a wonder. Despite everything he maintained a level head and that helped her do the same.

When Merros headed away, back to his office to find out the latest details, Nachia asked Desh Krohan to stay behind.

As soon as he agreed, she dismissed the guards to the outside of the room. There were few times she actively told them to stay out of range and this was one of them. They were trained well enough not to react openly. Desh was not. He looked genuinely puzzled.

Before he could make any comments at all, she spoke.

“I can’t forbid you to do anything, Desh. I mean, I could, but you and I both know it would be a waste of my words. So I’m just going to say this and have it out in plain view between us for you to consider.”

She took a breath and considered her words.

Desh watched her, unblinking, his face calm but cautious.

“You should let Goriah stay where she is.”

The sorcerer paused for a moment then said flatly, “I’ll consider that.”

“You are the one who wanted necromancy outlawed. I looked into it. You were the one who said it was too dangerous.”

“I’m well aware of what I said, Nachia.” His voice was colder still and his expression was impossible for her to read. She had nearly grown up on the man’s knee and she could not guess what he was thinking. That was a first for her.

“There’s always a price. That’s a phrase I’ve heard from you all of my life, Desh.” She fought against the tears that wanted to sting her eyes. She did not want to have this argument with him. She did not want to give him any reason to grieve. “There’s always a price. Always. Your words.”

If she could have, she would have looked away. She would have pretended that she did not know what was in his heart. She knew how much the Sisters meant to Desh. They were his chosen disciples. They were very nearly his children.

“I did not break the rules for your cousin. I will not challenge the laws for my Sister.” His voice shook with rage and guilt. He was still thinking hard of lifting Goriah from the dead.

“You know I won’t punish you if you do this thing, Desh. It’s not in me to punish you, even if I could make the punishment stand.”

She stood up and stepped toward him where he stood in his robes with his arms locked behind his back, lest he make a gesture that was too harsh to forgive. Or perhaps lest he cast a spell and shatter her body.

“Do not do this thing, Desh. I don’t know if you could forgive yourself.”

“There is always a price, Nachia. I am aware of that.”

He turned and walked away and she let him. She could have commanded that he stay and he would have, but she had already done all she could to convince him. If he listened she would be grateful. If he did not, she could cause him no harm. The trouble with sorcerers is that they were sorcerers and oh, so very powerful. Even when they tried to hide that fact.

They gathered in silence. Deep beneath the main hall of Dretta March’s home, in the area where foodstuffs were meant to be stored.

Swech settled in a familiar corner, swaddled in a heavy cloak to fight off the cold. Next to her was Jost, who was often her shadow. Jost was dressed in leathers and had a fur cloak as well. She sat cross-legged and had her hands propped on her knees.

Jost was the one who stood out. Her flesh was gray and her Great Scars made clear that she was a different beast altogether. The rest were cloaked in Fellein skins, hidden behind guises chosen by the gods. The only other exception was Glo’Hosht. The King in Mercury revealed nothing, including gender. The king’s skin was gray, of course, but no one could have said anything more.

When Glo’Hosht spoke, the others listened.

“It is time. The waters must be tainted. The grains made to rot. It will not kill them. They will not be in the air long enough to starve, but it will anger them and make the Fellein desperate.”

The King in Mercury looked to a plain woman with blonde hair shot with silver. Swech did not know her. She was a stranger, but if Glo’Hosht accepted her as one of the chosen of Paedle, then it was exactly so. “I have given you the means. Go to the wells beneath the castle and let them know that nothing is beyond our reach.”

The woman nodded and rose. She was pale, but Swech could see that this one had been training her body, just as Swech had been training the body of Dretta March. There were fresh calluses, a few fresh scars… inevitable marks of transformation.

The man who sat closest to Glo’Hosht was little more than a boy. He was familiar to Swech, having helped her poison the feed in all of the stables. Even now the city had a problem with dead horsemeat. The citizens could not eat the stuff for fear it would poison them. That was wisdom: it would indeed have killed them all.

“Find the larders. Ruin them.” Those were all the words Glo’Hosht spoke to the boy. In response the lad rose and walked away. He was not a boy. He was one of the Sa’ba Taalor and he was a trained killer. He showed no signs of recent change in his body. He did not train himself to be stronger, knowing full well that he could not change his size. Instead he used that size to his advantage. He was a child, an urchin, not seen as a threat by anyone. That was a mistake as well. Swech had killed her first enemy when she was six.

Glo’Hosht spoke without looking away from the retreating figure. “As for the rest of you, it is time to spread fear…”

Half an hour later, Swech moved through the Inner Wall Commons. The area was lush with shops and people, and as always was crowded. These days a good portion of that crowd were refugees seeking a place to stay, food or new ways to make enough money to arrange for food and shelter. It was an endless cycle that affected increasingly more of the city’s dwellers. The wealthiest of them came here to shop. Now they had to move their way through the crowds of beggars, prostitutes and cutpurses.

Swech moved in the shadows. She dressed in black and hid her face away. She did not wear a cloak. It would have encumbered her too much, but she wore leathers under thinner clothes and she sported enough blades to scare anyone who knew what she was capable of.

Small, skillful hands reached out to test her awareness. Pickpockets abounded. Her fingers caught the hand of a young one testing her mettle and she broke the fingers quickly. There was a gasp. The pain was a potent, living thing, but the penalty for being caught stealing in that district was far harsher than a broken finger and rather than cry out, the child slipped away, unseen.

The people around her were desperate. She knew that. She was one of the reasons it was so. Her people had caused this because her gods demanded it. Swech had no pity for them. They were the enemies of her gods and that was all that mattered.

A man noticed her and opened his mouth. She shut it for him. One step closer to his side and then the blade kissed the inside of his thigh even as the man smiled, expecting a different sort of touch. He was drunk and he wanted to pay for a woman. She was sober and killed him for his trouble. As he fell back against the wall, she gripped his arms and lowered him gently. The look of surprise was still on his face as the light in his eyes left him. The blade would have killed him in any event, but the toxins guaranteed his silence as he died.

A member of the City Guard stood nearby, his eyes already bored with dealing with so many people. The air was cooler, but the sheer volume of bodies ensured that everyone stayed warm.

The man tapped the hilt of his sword as he looked around. He glowered at a thin man who got too close to him and sent him along with a boot to his side. So many like this: a little power and they could not possibly let a person stand their ground. This was preferred. This, the need to express their contempt.

Swech felt nothing for the man or the guard. Still, she let the thin man live and broke the guard’s neck with a vicious blow to the side of his throat. When he fell, she caught him. He was still alive, but only for a moment.

Seven deaths in, someone finally noticed her.

She had been careful, because that was her duty. She was to spread as much panic as she could. Seven bodies lay behind her and even in a crowd as vast as this, that was a lot of death to go unnoticed.

As a merchant who’d bumped into her slumped and then fell over, bleeding, a woman who’d approached the collection of fine scarves and cloaks the man had to offer saw her pull back the blade and screamed as loudly as anyone Swech had ever met.

The small blade in her left hand sailed and buried itself in the woman’s cheek, ensuring more screams, more chaos. Most of the poison had long since worn off the blade and it would take at least another minute for the screamer to die. In that time Swech intended to kill as many people as possible.

The people around her were scattering. They moved away from the screaming woman and away from the table of woven fineries.

And Swech moved with them, slipping among them and cutting, striking, breaking as she went. A man gurgled out his last as his throat vomited a crimson stain. Next to him a woman let out a scream as Swech broke three of her ribs and shoved her aside.

People continued to flow like water away from a scalding hot stone, but they were not fast enough. Swech moved with them, her face covered, her body shielded. A man with a dagger tried to stop her and she blocked his strike, broke his wrist and shoved the blade he proffered into his own stomach as he went past. He grunted and fell, the pain a sudden and overwhelming thing that stole his breath. He might well live, but he would suffer greatly.

Her foot kicked at a kneecap and the leg it belonged to folded the wrong way. As the screaming victim of her kick started to fall, she stepped in close and flipped him to the ground. He collided with three others in the process of collapsing and took them with him.

Three sharp jabs and the City Guard coming to investigate stepped back and fell to his knees. His throat was punctured, as were his ear and his eye. His sword fell from his hand. Swech leaned down and caught it.

The sword was well made and properly sharpened. She slashed several people with it and then left it buried in a screaming man’s guts as she moved past.

The effort was starting to weary her. Her muscles were beginning to protest. The crowd was now panicking, running into each other, shoving others aside rather than moving past them. They were no longer people. They were a mob.

Swech moved along their edges, not foolish enough to risk being inside the mass of crushing bodies. Where she moved, she struck, cutting, wounding and occasionally killing as she headed for her point of exit.

Her work was done for the moment. The Inner Wall did not stop access for the people of Canhoon. Not unless the horns were sounded and all the access points were sealed. Swech made her way to the top of the wall with ease, only pausing once to stop a terrified man from pushing her back down the stairs as he climbed. She just made the wall before the City Guard came down in force. By the time she reached it, her face was uncovered, her hair was loose and displayed, rendering the appearance of merely being a patron of the shops complete. She even managed a look of panic, which was easier than she’d expected.

Below her the crowds pushed and fought and screamed as they tried to escape their possible demise.

Elsewhere, Swech knew, others were causing the same sort of chaos. She could hear the voices of the Daxar Taalor and knew that they were pleased.

That news pleased her as well, but she did not show her satisfaction until she wound her way through the narrow alleys and streets of the homes that were closest to the palace.

There were preparations to make. Her man was coming over and she had a meal to prepare for him.

Theorio Krous was a man of his word: four legions of his finest soldiers left Morwhen and headed west, toward the City of Wonders. Even with the city soaring toward the east – an accomplishment he knew of but did not begin to understand – it would be weeks before they met up.

In the meantime, there were members of the Sa’ba Taalor heading in the direction of Morwhen and he had no intention of waiting for them to show themselves. With that in mind he took six legions with him to meet the enemy in combat.

Theorio Krous was a member of the same bloodline as the Empress Nachia. Thirty years her senior, he had spent his entire life dedicated to the goal of winning any and all encounters of a military nature. Morwhen trained some of the finest soldiers in the world.

He planned for battle. He trained for it. He thrived as a result of it. He and his would take care of the matters on the eastern side of the Empire because they had to be taken care of. They would fight and they would either win or they would die trying.

If death occurred, it was a natural part of life. If victory occurred it was because of his might, and when the time came he would claim his rightful prize.

Nachia Krous would either be his grateful bride, or she would be his unhappy wife. He would be satisfied with either result. Sometimes a woman who struggled added to the pleasure. Not always, but he could accept that sometimes a woman needed to be taught her place in the bedroom if not in other areas.

She had not yet been made aware of his plans, of course. Most of his communications had been with Danieca Krous, the girl’s aunt. Negotiations continued apace, but things would work out his way, especially after he beat back the savages from the Blasted Lands.

His men traveled as lightly as they could; still, it took time to get where he was going. The first few weeks they saw nothing but the Imperial Highway and the dark clouds gathering to the south.

Everything was made perfect. The men were armed with bows, two spears apiece, short swords and small shields. The crest of Morwhen and the crest of Fellein were both present on the shields, and via random inspections Theorio made absolutely certain that swords were kept sharp and armor properly tended to.

When they rode down the highway to meet their enemy, the sounds of men walking and horses charging was a glorious thunder.

None would ever doubt Theroio’s bravery. He led the charge as a king should, traveling down the road surrounded by his closest and bravest. A contingent of lancers was followed by archers, themselves followed by bannermen who announced their approach.

Should the need arise there would be trumpets and horns to make clear their intent.

Though the Imperial Highway was a vast thing – and called the Emperor’s Highway in some places – it was well maintained. He took full advantage of that.

When they stopped for any reason they made sure to keep to the road and as theirs was a mission of great importance, any who crossed their path were wise to step to the side and let them pass.

As they approached the Rehkail River their forward motion slowed to a gradual halt. The hills around the river had always made the bridge difficult to see from a distance, but Theorio knew the path well enough. When they reached the bridge, the great stone supports looked wrong. They had been altered.

He and his two oldest sons, Roon and Horden, stared long and hard.

“They’ve added something to them.” Horden squinted across the distance, trying to make out the details. As they continued to stare, four figures came forward and crossed over the bridge, heading for them. They did not carry banners. They did not bring a retinue. It was only four men on the strangest looking horses Theorio had ever seen.

Theorio’s first view of the Sa’ba Taalor was enough to make him understand the dread lesser men felt. They were, indeed, striking figures. Each carried several weapons. The largest of them had a vast disfigurement that he covered with a faceplate. His eye and the area around it were sealed within a stained bronze sculpture that closely resembled the rest of his face, but only if it had been forged from–

“By the gods. That thing across his face moves….” Horden’s words rang softly out, but in the silence it was enough to nearly sound like a scream.

His son was right. The metal moved. The sculpted eye within that metallic socket shifted and adjusted as the men came closer.

“Do we go to meet them, father?” Roon’s voice was quieter still and he bristled. Roon had spent years waiting for a proper conflict. He was a strong lad, and a gifted fighter.

“They send four and we send four. Come with me, Roon. Horden, hold here.” He pointed to two guards he knew were skilled swordsmen, trained by him personally, and then he rode forward.

Once they had covered about half the ground between his army and the bridge, Theorio came to a halt, the other three taking position behind him.

Ensuring his voice carried the proper tone of command, Theorio called, “Who are you?” He was a king, and not easily to be denied.

The four strangers came closer and Theorio could now see that they did not ride horses. Near as he could figure they were riding bears. He had heard of the creatures, of course, but had never seen one in his travels. He had never heard of a man riding a bear before, but what was before his eyes proved the possibility.

“I am Lored, chosen of the Forge of Ordna and King in Bronze,” came the reply. “Who are you?” The voice did not sound overly impressed. More amused, really, and that was not at all the reaction he wanted or expected.

“I am Theorio Krous. King of Morwhen.”

“Then you are who I was told to wait for.”

Lored smiled. His mouth split in the most hideous way, showing more teeth than should have been possible and great wounds that looked like they sported more teeth and tongues to boot. Theorio stared with sick fascination.

Theorio was wearing proper armor and a black uniform under it. The man he faced wore furs and leathers and had armor over his vitals as well as a large buckler on his left arm. He did not carry a sword, but instead sported a very large and brutal looking mace.

“Why were you told to wait for me?”

“Because according to great Ordna, you are the king of all that is north of here.”

“Who is ‘great Ordna’?”

“Ordna is my god. He chose me to serve as his king and to be his voice among my people and yours alike.” Lored smiled. “Ordna is the God of Bronze, of long-ranged weapons and siege warfare. He has chosen me as the best among his people to represent his methods of combat.”

“What is a siege engine?”

“Do you see the towers of the bridge?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I have chosen them as the anchors for my siege engines. These are powerful weapons designed to attack many people at once, or to destroy the walls of the very greatest of fortresses. I have already used them several times in my combat to the south of here. They are very effective weapons.”

“I don’t have any walls here to knock down.”

It was meant as a joke. Lored allowed a small smile. “You have many troops. I could kill several hundred with a wave of my hand.”

“Are you a sorcerer?”

“No. I have siege engines.”

“What do they do?”

“In this case they hurl great stones and burning collections of oil and smaller stones that will scatter when they hit the ground and burn everything they touch.”

Theorio considered that notion. “How many of these weapons do you have?”

“Currently there are eight of them built and waiting to destroy whatever I aim them at.”

“And where are they aimed?”

Lored’s smile came back, wide and enthusiastic and utterly terrifying in the number of teeth it bared. “They are aimed at your soldiers, of course. The better to kill them if you do not surrender to me.”

“I do not believe in surrender.”

“I am offering you a kindness. Should Tuskandru be the one to attack, you would all be dead within a day. My way, you survive and consider attacking again when I am not prepared.”

“When you are not prepared?” Theorio stared at the gigantic man in front of him and tried to look past the scars that covered all bared flesh. He was trying to imagine what sort of hellish things might have scarred him that much in the first place.

“If I am being honest, I am always prepared, but without hope we have nothing, yes?”

“I cannot surrender to you. I think you are lying.”

Lored raised his left arm and made a fist. He then brought the fist down hard.

One of the odd collections of lumber atop the closest bridge tower shuddered and rumbled, and then something sailed through the air, trailing a thick streamer of smoke.

“What have you…?”

Theorio turned and watched that vast something rip through the skies with the speed of an angry storm crow past him.

“A demonstration to tell you the truth of my words, King Theorio.” By the time Lored had stopped speaking the missile hit the first column of Theorio’s soldiers. Whatever held the smoking mass together broke, and true to the King in Bronze’s words, flaming stones exploded across the ground and all over his troops as the mass rolled and tumbled to a stop.

Horses shrieked and bucked and threw themselves and their riders hard. They were burning and so were the men riding them. The soldiers screamed as well and beat at the fires that licked at their tunics and their bared flesh.

Theorio stared on, horrified. This was not warfare. This was a massacre.

“How did you do this thing?”

“My god, Ordna, told me the secrets. I listened to him.”

Theorio drew his sword and prepared to fight. An instant later an arrow drove through his wrist and forced him to drop the weapon.

He screamed a lot. The damned arrow hurt.

Throughout, Lored looked at him with a small smile.

When he was done screaming, Lored looked at him and asked, “Will you fight or will you surrender?”

“We fight!” Theorio roared the words and drew his dagger from its sheath. He’d pry that maddening metallic mask away and cut out whatever was under it.

Lored roared and reached forward, a brutal smile on his face. “On this we agree, King Theorio!”

His great mace swept around and slammed into Theorio’s forearm, shattering bone and pulping meat. The dagger fell to the ground and Lored hauled the King of Morwhen from his saddle. Theorio Krouse was a strong man and he fought hard despite his injuries.

While he struggled Roon charged forward, low over his horse as he’d been taught, one of his spears held at the ready.

The world tilted and Theorio groaned as the thing under Lored moved, lashing out with thick paws and slapping Roon’s spear aside. His son was prepared, he was braced, and so he sailed from his saddle and fell to the ground as the strength of the creature simply overwhelmed him.

Lored’s powerful arms were not injured and did not bleed. The man hauled Theorio to him as the King of Morwhen’s horse ran from the great beast beneath the King in Bronze.

Theorio watched while his son was mauled, his face ripped into shreds by the claws of the monster. As he struggled, more of the giant stones soared past him to crash into his troops.

They were prepared for warfare, but not for this.

Lored pulled him higher still until they looked eye to eye and Theorio thrashed, trying to break the grip. His arms would not work, his legs were at the wrong angle to help him.

“I was told to take you alive, King Theorio! Fight me and the rest of your people die!”

Theorio did not surrender. He fought with all that he had. He bit, he screamed, he spat and he even drove the point of the arrow piercing his wrist into Lored’s face.

He did not die that day.

Nor did he win.

When they reached the Edge, Drask called for Brackka to stop and his friend did. To make the ascent possible, he tied Nolan March to Brackka’s back and then they all climbed. It would have been easier to find the Hallis Pass, but he wanted Tega to learn how to climb, as she never had done so before.

By the time they had finished the ascent, Tega’s hands were bloodied and torn. She stared at them for a few moments before healing them.

They stood on the ground of the Wellish Steppes, and not a hundred yards distant was a large outcropping of shale and stone. It could not quite be called a hill, but it was certainly more than a boulder. Drask looked at the stone and nodded his head. Beneath that stone, the Wellish Overlords lay trapped, locked in a semi-slumber. They could think, but they could not move. They could starve, but they could not die. It was a proper punishment.

“The Wellish Overlords: they were the last great enemy of the Fellein, is that correct?” Drask was not certain where the information came from, but it was in his head. Best that he doublecheck its veracity.

Tega nodded slowly as she sat down and watched him make a fire. She still had a dazed, nearly sleepy look on her face, but she seemed more coherent now. That was a good thing. Drask grew tired of only his own thoughts for true companionship and it seemed neither Nolan nor Tega had been capable of much actual thought since the lot of them had bathed in the energies of the Mounds and then absorbed them.

“That was a long time ago,” Tega said. It was the first time Drask had heard her voice in many days, bar the occasional grunt of exertion as they climbed. “Several hundred years, I think. They came for the people of Fellein and tried to take Canhoon by force.” She paused and looked up at the sky. There were clouds here, and a breeze, which was more than could be said for the deathly still Blasted Lands.

“Desh told me how they were stopped, but it has been a long time and I don’t recall clearly.” She frowned. “I am having trouble thinking.”

“It is getting better though, yes?”

She nodded softly and smiled. She had a lovely smile, even if it was completely unmarred. Drask could appreciate the aesthetic of smooth skin, even if he preferred the stories that scars told on well-healed flesh.

He looked at Tega’s freshly healed hands. There were several new scars there from her climb.

Drask asked her, “Why did you wait before you healed your hands?”

“I wasn’t sure I could do that.”

He looked back at the stillness of the Blasted Lands and nodded.

Finally, bored with watching Nolan stare at the ground, he moved over to the boy and moved his head into the proper position. Muscles were not a problem, but several fragments of broken vertebrae had to be moved before they could be mended. When he was done Nolan looked around and frowned with an idiot expression. Drask could not decide if his mind was broken too, but for the present time left him alone.

“Your people. Do they truly worship gods?” Drask asked Tega, who was holding her hands before the fire.

She was a long time answering, “Some of them do. Most, I think, consider the idea for a while and then pretend.”

“That is the problem with distant gods. Faith is not always easy in silence.”

In the back of his head there were seven gods doing their very best to get his attention. He had not yet decided if he felt like listening to them any longer. The world sometimes changed when you were transformed, and while they seemed to want to talk to him, Drask was not certain that he wanted to hear what they had to say.

The gods had lied. They told him that the Mounds were forbidden and he believed them. They said that the world was changed by the Fellein when they destroyed Korwa, and for his entire life that truth had been accepted, but now, he was no longer completely certain. If gods lied, what did they tell the truth about? How could anything he had believed be considered the truth without examination?

“Your Desh Krohan, can he do what we can do now?”

“No.” Tega frowned. “At least I do not think so.”

Drask looked toward the still silence of the Blasted Lands. With very little effort he could see the footprints where they had walked across the vast, motionless expanse.

“I do not like it.”

“You do not like what?” Tega moved closer and put her arms around his bicep. Her hands were tiny. She was tiny.

Ignored by them both, Nolan let out a low moan. He blinked slowly but his eyes remained unfocussed even if they were no longer staring at the ground as they had these past days. Slowly, he moved to join them by the fire.

“All my life the Blasted Lands have raged and thundered and now they are too quiet. I do not like it.”

Drask concentrated and willed a change. The air far below stirred, and a moment later the winds roared, spiraling outward from where he stared, taking the dust and grit with them. He made the air as cold as ice and waited as the storm he created grew and spread across the still wastelands.

Drask nodded. “That is better.”

Far below him and under the great stones that held them pinned in place, the Wellish Overlords let out a noise that none but Drask and his two companions could hear. Not even Brackka could hear the sound. Still, he looked to Drask and smiled in the way of mounts.

Drask smiled back, glad he’d resurrected his trusted friend.

“Where do we go now? I can feel that Canhoon has moved and Tyrne is gone.”

Drask looked down at her. She looked back up with wide, guileless eyes.

“Canhoon moves. So do we. We will find it.”

They sat at the fire and waited for a while. They were not tired and they did not need to eat, but some habits are hard to break after a lifetime. Eventually they rose and all three climbed atop Brackka’s broad back. Tega rode in front of Drask, and because it was easier than teaching him, Drask tied Nolan to the saddle.

When the mount started moving, Drask patted his neck and said, “Go very fast, Brackka. As fast as you can.”

The miles tore past.

The town was larger than he would have imagined and that pleased Tusk. The ride along the river was easy enough and the town was open on all sides. It was not a place that dealt with war. It was a village that dealt with boats and fish.

Currently there were several boats along the docks. Some were small. A few were impressively large. They could have potential.

There were also many people along the shoreline, most looking toward Tusk and his people. Perhaps a hundred of them appeared armed. The rest stood in their crowds and looked on, faces painted with dread. It was not an expression Tusk was used to, but he understood the meaning. They thought they were going to die and that there was nothing they could do about it.

There was no thrill in that sort of enemy, only a mild contempt.

When he got closer, a small contingency broke away and approached. “You wish to take the city?” one asked. His language might be different but the meaning was plain enough.

Tusk contemplated answering the man in one of his own tongues, but decided he was not in the mood to toy with them. He said in the tongue of the Fellein, “I am here for your city and all that is inside it. I do not care if you wish to fight or if you wish to surrender.”

“We are just fishermen and merchants.” The man who spoke to him had leathery skin and hair that had been bleached blonde by the sun. His eyes were blue and he stared at Tusk with a wince on his face, as if he already knew that whatever arguments they might make, Tusk and his people would answer with steel. “We do not wish to die.”

“My god does not believe in mercy.”

The man looked him up and down for a long moment. “Who is your god?”

“Durhallem. The Wounder. The Unforgiving. He is a god of war, and he is the god of obsidian and his way is the way of combat.”

“Durhallem does not accept surrender as an option?”

“No.”

“Will you wait here for a few moments? I would discuss with my people.” It was a different sort of request. Normally people tended to beg or to fight. Either way, they were met with the same answer. Durhallem did not take prisoners.

“You may discuss the situation among yourselves. If you attempt to attack, we will kill you.”

The tanned man looked at him. “You are four times my size. I am carrying a skinning knife that I do not think would even part the fur on your… on whatever beast you ride. There will be no treachery.”

Tusk nodded and leaned back in his seat, wishing that Stastha were here to see this. She would have had a few sharp comments and would have made him laugh.

After nearly ten minutes the man came back. “We wish to join you and follow Durhallem.”

Tusk leaned back a bit more. “Repeat that.”

“We wish to join you and follow Durhallem.”

Behind him a few of the other Sa’ba Taalor talked among themselves. They did not speak the Fellein tongue and could not understand what caused Tusk’s expression. They merely knew that he was surprised.

“In all my years none have ever made this offer.”

“In all my years I have never had the followers of a war god come to my doorstep.”

“True enough.”

Tusk spoke to Durhallem and his god spoke back.

“Durhallem would require a test. A proof of your loyalty to him.”

“What would he require?”

What indeed?

Tusk asked and Durhallem answered.

The king nodded. His god was wise.

“Do you have a forge here? A metal worker’s forge?”

The tanned man nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

Tusk nodded in turn. “There will be a test of loyalty. Also, you will need weapons.”

“Weapons?”

“A god of war does not ask that you follow with kindness in your heart. The Wounder will make great demands of you and you will have to prove yourselves in combat. Do you understand this?”

“What do we get from Durhallem in return?”

“Prove your loyalty and the Wounder will tell you himself.”

“The god would speak to me personally?”

Tusk nodded. “The god would speak to all of you. All of the followers of Durhallem have heard from the Wounder and follow him by choice. We are born to this. This, what you ask, it is a new thing and requires… improvisation. You must show your loyalty. Then you can speak to Durhallem. Then you will have the chance to join his brethren under my command.”

“And what is your name?”

“I am Tuskandru, King in Obsidian and Chosen of the Forge of Durhallem.”

“You are a king?” He sounded surprised.

“What else would I be?”

“I thought perhaps a general.”

“I am a king. In the army of Durhallem I am also the general.”

“Ah. I see.”

Tusk, who knew what Durhallem had in mind, nodded. “You will. Soon enough you will.”

As they moved along, the hundred or so with weapons very carefully set them aside. It was one thing to attack and defend if you had to, but the word had already spread, and the invaders were so very large in comparison. And so very many.

Tuskandru’s army numbered in the thousands, and even the children who walked with them were armed and looked ready to kill.

Tusk gestured to a small girl who was lean and hard and looked like she might have been from Fellein, save for the scars on her body and the slightly feral way she stared at everyone. The tanned man looked at her with a worried expression.

“Mendt.” The girl moved closer. “Gather coins. One for each of the people in this town.” He looked at the crowd that was now moving cautiously along the edges of the Sa’ba Taalor.

For their part the followers of Durhallem noticed the people and remained prepared. Sooner or late everyone encountered the followers of Wrommish and learned that even a small person without a weapon could be deadly.

“What is your name?” Tusk spoke to the tanned man.

“Bram Littner.”

“Bram Littner, tell your people to each offer one coin to Mendt and the others with her. It does not matter what size coin. The value is of no concern.”

Bram nodded. He held up his hands and called out loudly in his tongue and Tusk listened. A moment later he sent Mendt on her way and told her to gather the coins and to choose others to help her. Being a wise young warrior, she chose several skilled fighters to back her. It was not that she could not handle herself, it was rather that the coins would be heavy and she wanted to share the burden with others who could carry it.

It was almost an hour later when the column stopped at the small forge and settled down. The people of the city were surrounded by Tuskandru’s Sa’ba Taalor. Mendt had collected an impressive number of coins.

“Bram Littner, are you a leader of your people?”

Bram nodded his head and worried at his lower lip.

“Then you will lead in what comes next. You will feel pain. Life is pain. Try not to scream.”

Bram looked at him and nodded again. He was very scared. He had right to be.

“This thing you do, it has never been done before. You understand this? Those whom the Wounder chooses to fight die. This is… This is as close to mercy as I have ever seen from my god. This is a rare blessing.”

Tusk plucked the first coin from the collection. It was a large coin and golden.

“You would follow Durhallem in the ways of war? You would become a disciple of the Wounder?”

“Aye. Yes, I would.”

Tusk nodded his head and placed the coin firmly against Bram’s head. “Do not move. This is your test. This is how you prove yourself to your new god.” Even as he spoke, he placed one hand against the back of Bram’s skull. With the other, he pushed the gold coin against Bram’s forehead.

For Bram and his people it must have been a momentous thing, but for the followers of Durhallem, miracles were not uncommon. The metal glowed hot against Tusk’s hand but he was not burned. Instead all of the heat seared into Bram’s forehead and the metal fused with the flesh. Skin burned and metal ran and Bram screamed. He did not stand still but tried to fight, as was to be expected. Two of Tusk’s followers grabbed the man’s arms and held him as still as they could while he bucked and howled and roared in agony.

Tusk stepped back and nodded, pleased with his work. The men who held Bram let him go, setting him on the ground instead of letting him fall.

All around them the people of the town murmured and tried to retreat, but it was too late for that. They were completely surrounded by the Sa’ba Taalor.

Tusk spoke loudly, roaring to be heard over the noises of the crowd. “This is the price you must pay! If you would follow a god you must make sacrifices!”

Bram stood. The gold of the coin was fused with his flesh. The metal was flush with his forehead and ran in swirls. Though his skin was burned, it was clear that the redness and even the bleeding was fading away.

The gold of the coin was not perfectly round, but had melted and smeared as it was held in place. There was a pattern there. A thick line ran through the melted lump.

Bram spoke up. “I have felt pain, but it’s gone now. I am not injured.” He sounded surprised. Several of the city dwellers came closer and looked at his face, frowning.

He said softly, “This is how we survive the day. This is how we learn to know a god. We must do this. As we discussed.”

The next to come forward was a portly woman. Her hands held on to the hands of two children.

“Must we all do this thing?” She did not ask Bram. She asked Tuskandru.

“Pain, or death. All must choose.”

Tears glistened at her eyes, but she did not move away. “We will be healed? Like Bram?”

“Yes. Durhallem demands a sacrifice, but he does not demand a life of misery. You must be tested. This is the test.”

She looked to her children and spoke solemnly. “I will go first, but if we are to be together you must do this thing. It will hurt, but I will be here for you.”

They were young. The oldest perhaps five years.

They watched and screamed as their mother was marked.

She watched and held them as each of her children endured the same.

Each person in the town was marked by Tusk, save a few that foolishly tried to escape.

They were struck down quickly and their bodies were laid out beside the forge for all to see.

As he made his mark upon the town, the fire in the forge glowed brighter and brighter.

The processing of every member of the town took most of the day and the following night.

Through it all Tusk spoke to the new disciples of Durhallem. He remained a calm, strong voice in a nearly endless series of screams.

After they were touched by Durhallem’s gift the people of the town were allowed to rest. Most gathered together in the area around the forge. Some wandered back to their homes, as once they had been tested they were free to do.

When the next morning finally came around, the people who had been marked by Durhallem were gathered together again.

They had been tested. Afterward, they were given the blessing of Durhallem and allowed to speak to a god.

None of them were unchanged by the meeting. Each of them was made to reach into the blazing coals of the forge to receive Durhallem’s blessing.

Five

Captain Callan woke up in the small cell and groaned. Every part of him hurt, but especially the wound where they’d pulled the arrow from his leg.

There had been a brief moment when he thought he and his crew would escape the gray-skins. That moment was crushed when the great black ship cut his little vessel in half. Each of the black ships, in addition to being nearly impossibly large, also had sharpened metal along the keel. That metal destroyed wood with ease and his little ship was no exception.

Wounded as he was, he thought he was a certain candidate for death, but the Sa’ba Taalor came down and grabbed him.

The woman who came for him was lean and hard and heavily scarred. She pulled the arrow from his leg and lifted him like he was a child. When he tried to struggle she put him down and beat him until he thought his seams would split.

When he came to, he was in the cell, three sides wood and one iron bars.

“You are alive and awake. This is good.” The voice was heavily accented.

It was not the same woman who’d bested him so easily. This one was scarier. She wore cloth pants and a leather vest over a white shirt. The fabric was made to breathe and hung loosely except where she had pulled the fabric tight with leather straps to hold the sheaths for her knives. She sported several knives along her arms. Her mouth was scarred in several spots, and her skin was dark gray and seemed almost corpselike. Her eyes glowed in the semi-darkness of the ship’s hold. On the top of her head a deep blue scarf ran around her hair, binding it, and then dropped along her back. The scarf was tied to her waistline loosely allowing her to move her head easily.

It seemed an elaborate effort, but he decided not to focus on that. Instead he looked carefully at the sword she was sporting.

“You are Callan?”

Callan nodded, suddenly very aware that he had to piss and that he was also extremely thirsty.

“I am Donaie Swarl; I am the King in Lead, Chosen of Wheklam.” The words meant nothing. She was obviously not a king. Kings had finery and were, as a rule, men. But she had a sword and that was enough for him to let her keep her delusions.

“Majesty.” He nodded his head. “I’m sorry, but who is Wheklam?”

“Wheklam is the god of the sea, and seafaring warriors.”

“I like him already.”

She nodded her head and crouched down until they were eye to eye. “He likes you, too. He favors you. Your crew is dead. They served me no purpose. Your ship is gone, as you tried to flee.”

He nodded his head. “Sorry about that. I thought you were trying to kill us.”

“We were.” Donaie, King of the Mad, nodded. “We would have killed you, too, but Wheklam said you had a purpose.”

“What purpose is that?”

“You can talk to the scarred people, yes?”

“Scarred like you?” He shook his head.

“No. The others. They… write on themselves. They carve words in their flesh.”

“Oh, yes. The Brellar. I speak their language.”

“Excellent!”

Without preamble she opened the door. Apparently it wasn’t locked. He hadn’t bothered to check, really, as the light shone through several portholes and trying to sneak off the ship would have required darkness. Still, in hindsight, he could have at least looked into the matter.

Hard, callused hands grabbed Callan and pulled him to his feet. He did his best not to scream at the pain in his calf. It was bandaged and he could see that it had been cleaned, but still.

Despite being a dead shade of gray, she was attractive enough. Still, he blinked when the scars around her mouth moved as she smiled her approval. As a rule, he found all women a worthwhile pursuit. He decided he could make an exception in this case.

“You can stand. Good. Come with me.”

Donaie Swarl moved and he followed. Her back was to him. He had no weapons, but if he were fast enough he could surely take her.

Callan shook his head. No. The way she moved, he had no doubt it would be a mistake. And anyway, there was nowhere to flee. They wanted him alive. There would be chances to escape later once darkness fell.

Callan could see other cells down the hallway they walked. They were, universally, uninhabited. They were slavers’ cells. He recognized them easily enough to understand that he was not on one of the black ships. This was a Brellar ship. Above him the deck would be vast, with enough space for three hundred men to stand comfortably apart from each other.

As they walked up the narrow stairwell to the top level – several flights that made his calf scream with each stair climbed – Callan’s eyes adjusted to the changing light. He saw more and more of the scars that crossed the woman’s body. The Brellar inflicted scars on themselves, but these were different. He could see that they overlapped in many cases and some were faint with age, others newer. This was a lifetime of fighting and injuries. He had heard of the Sa’ba Taalor from Tataya, but he had never seen them up close until now.

They were scary people. They were, judging by this one, survivors at any cost.

The sky outside was overcast, and a quick look around told him they were near the shores of Roathes. The villages that should have been there were little more than ashes among more ashes. The hot air here was acrid, but calmer than the last time he had been through. Far behind him, he knew, there was an island growing in the sea. A fiery mountain at the center of that island continued to bellow fire and smoke and cast lightning into the waters. But it did so with less violence than before.

The waters around the ship were littered with flotsam, jetsam and corpses. The sharks would come soon, he knew, even through the ashes that poisoned the waters, for they could not possibly resist a feast of this scale. Close enough to see but not to get caught in any currents, two of the great black ships waited, their decks covered with more of the gray-skins.

The deck Callan stood on was covered with the prone forms of the Brellar. They were not dead, but they had been beaten and subdued.

Standing among them were dozens of the Sa’ba Taalor. He looked first to the Brellar, who mostly lay still, their eyes searching their environs or closed to avoid the glare of the day. The Sa’ba Taalor did not wear much by way of armor and several of them had cuts freely bleeding, or newly crusted. They also had weapons. Sorts he had never seen before. There were swords, to be true, but there were other things that looked designed to break bones and heads with ease.

Judging by the ruined flesh on a few of the Brellar, they did their jobs quite well.

“You will speak for me.” Donaie Swarl looked his way. “And you will speak for them. Do not lie to me. I will know. My god will tell me.”

“Othea is my god. Also a god of the sea.”

Donaie looked at him for a moment. “What does your god tell you right now, Callan?”

“Nothing.” He frowned.

“Then listen to my god and listen well. Ask the questions. Answer them truthfully, and you will walk away from this intact.” She tilted her head for a moment and nodded. “Wheklam says you may even have this ship if you do this thing. You like to barter, yes?”

“Yes. I do. Indeed.”

“Then that is the offer that Wheklam makes. Safety and this ship in exchange for truths.”

“What of the people already on the ship?”

“You will be captain. That will be your decision to make.”

He nodded his head. As they’d spoken, several of the Brellar had looked around to see his face. He recognized Tomms, one of the chieftains of the Brellar.

“Tomms. You are alive.”

Tomms looked his way. “Yes, and thanks to you, they now know my name.”

Callan shook his head. “They want to speak to you. I am to translate.”

Tomms sat up. No one stopped him. His face was swollen on one side, bruised and bashed. His lip on that side was smashed and bloodied and would heal poorly. The scars on his body glistened in the sunlight.

Donaie walked Callan closer, holding his arm.

“I want to know about his scars. Why does he scar himself? Do his gods demand it?”

Callan asked the questions, moderately curious as to how Tomms would answer.

“My gods demand nothing. We write our victories on our flesh. We tell stories of what we have achieved in our lifetimes.”

Callan looked to Donaie Swarl and answered truthfully.

Her face took on a different look. Rage made her terrifying as she bared her teeth and her scars split baring even more.

“What do his gods say to this?”

Callan translated.

Tomms answered, “We have no need of gods. We find our own way. We are our own gods.”

Callan hesitated for a moment. He did not know that the Sa’ba Taalor would not like the answer, but he could guess.

“These are his words, yes? Not mine.”

Donaie Swarl nodded agreement and he repeated Tomms’s answer.

The woman of the Sa’ba Taalor strode over to where Tomms lay and grabbed him by his hair. She ripped hard and he followed, screaming in pain even as he stood.

Tomms brought his arm around and struck her in her side, his fist dealing a brutal blow. None of the Brellar were bound, they were merely subdued. At the sound of combat several of them started to rise.

Donaie Swarl barely flinched. She brought her free arm around and slammed Tomms in the face with the palm of her hand, sending him staggering back as she let go of his hair.

“Tell them to stop or they die faster!”

Callan repeated the message and the Brellars who were rising either froze where they were or stood the rest of the way with their hands above their heads, clearly showing that they had no weapons.

Donaie spoke again. “Tell them. Let them know that they have marked themselves and bragged for the last time. The gods decide who survives scarring, no one else.”

He repeated the words, and Tomms looked directly at the King in Lead and spat blood and a tooth onto the deck. Through his ruined lips he said, “Fuck your gods.”

And Callan sighed and repeated the words exactly.

The reaction was immediate. The Sa’ba Taalor brought all their fury upon the Brellar. Not a single one of them touched Callan, but as he looked on, the Brellar were cut, beaten and broken. Some used their hands. Others used swords. Some brought up their metallic clubs with heads the size of Pabba fruit and smashed them down on the skulls of their enemy.

Through it all, Callan watched. The Sa’ba Taalor acted with rage. They did not forgive and they took no quarter.

It took a few minutes to finish the massacre. Callan stood still throughout it, not daring to move, lest he catch the attention of the gray-skins.

When it was done, Donaie Swarl gestured to one of her followers, who took up a horn from a satchel at her hip and blew a sharp note. Moments later one of the black ships started moving in their direction.

“The ship is yours.” She dismissed Callan with those words.

“Why did you kill them all?”

“His words offended our gods. His scars offend our gods. His people offend our gods, and so we will kill all of them.”

“What of the corpses?” When Callan spoke that time it was more to himself.

Still, the king answered, “It is your ship. Do with them what you will.”

He did not speak to her again as she climbed the rope cast down from the black ship. A score of ropes fell and the Sa’ba Taalor scaled them.

Callan was left alone with the dead.

He waited until the black ships were far in the distance before he started screaming.

The keep ahead of them was not large, but the gods wanted it taken. That was enough for Tarag Paedori.

He looked back at Kallir Lundt, and asked, “Do you know this place, Kallir?”

The Fellein looked at the tower and the surrounding walls with metallic eyes. His face was metal, a gift from Truska-Pren.

“I do not. The town we passed, Inbrough, that I know. I have seen it on trips down the river in the past, but this?” He shook his head in the way of his people. “This has been built in the last few years.”

Tarag looked the structure over. It was large enough to host as many as twenty, he guessed. Had they built it into the side of a mountain the size would be impossible to guess, but the short tower and the surrounding wall were freestanding. The wall surrounding it was only fifteen feet in height. That barely qualified as anything but decoration in the Taalor valley.

Without any preamble Tarag urged his mount forward. The great beast let out an amiable rumble and obeyed. The path leading to the strange standalone tower was hardpacked dirt and little else.

The others followed as he knew they would.

The gate in the wall was open. The King in Iron rode toward it with one hand on his sword’s hilt and looked around carefully.

He slowed only when he realized that the aperture in the wall didn’t have an open gate. It had no gate at all.

That was enough to give him pause. True, there were no other structures around, but that didn’t mean there were never visitors. The paved pathway was a sign of that.

“What sort of town builds a wall and forgets to build a gate as well?”

Kallir shook his head. “None that I have seen of any size. Most of the towns I’ve seen that had a gate needed it to keep out marauders. The land is mostly calm, but there are always exceptions.”

Tarag shook his head and moved forward again, riding through the opening, his eyes sliding over the landscape inside.

There was only the one structure and none other.

No people were moving about the courtyard.

The tower was large enough. Close to fifty feet in height, and built of good stone, if he could judge by appearances.

Its door was too small for his mount to join him, so Paedori slid off the great beast’s back and passed through, drawing his sword.

There was only one person standing on the other side of the door. He was a broadshouldered man, balding and bearded, wearing casual clothes.

“You are Tarag Paedori, the King in Iron.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes I am.”

“Good. Excellent.” The man nodded and moved away from a table where he’d been looking at several thick volumes. “My name is Jeron. I am a sorcerer. We are going to have a discussion.”

“What do we have to discuss?” The man was a fool. But he was also a sorcerer, or at least made that claim and, having seen what one of the sorcerers could do, it was best to at least hear him out.

“Why you are going to leave Fellein and never come back.”

“Truska-Pren demands that I be here. He will have his revenge for what the people of Fellein did to the people of Korwa.” He would have laughed under many circumstances. But the man was an unknown quantity. It was best to respect the unknown.

“The people of Fellein did not destroy Korwa.” The man looked at him with cold eyes. “The Wellish Overlords did that.”

“So you say. My god says otherwise.”

“Your god is wrong.”

He kept his place, but it was not easy. To insult the gods was beyond mere folly.

Jeron smiled. “I have proof. I have testimonies from hundreds of witnesses.”

Tarag looked on, not moving. “Where are these people?”

“Well, they’re dead.” He shrugged and gestured back to the books. “They have been dead for almost as long as Korwa, but they were there to see the final days. They survived the experience. They wrote their tales down and I have spent hundreds of years collecting them. The truth has always been my passion.”

“You would have me believe books over my god?”

“I would have you consider all possibilities, the better to decide if this war should happen.” As the man spoke there was a change in the pressure in the room. Tarag Paedori looked around and noticed that the door through which he had entered was gone.

“Truska-Pren has given me life. He has offered me a kingdom and the chance to lead the greatest armies that the whole of the world has ever known. Do you know what he asks in exchange for this?”

“No. I do not.” The sorcerer had crossed his arms over his chest.

“That I obey him.”

“Well, isn’t that what every god asks?”

“I do not know every god. I only know Truska-Pren.” A small lie. He had spent time in the presence of all the gods, as virtually every member of the Sa’ba Taalor did.

“We have so much we could share, Tarag Paedori. We have a different world filled with its own wonders. You could teach us of your gods and we could teach you the history of the world beyond the Seven Forges.”

The King in Iron stepped closer. “I know your world. I have listened to a thousand tales about it from one of your own. A soldier who has seen much of your Empire. If I need to know more, I can ask him. Or I can ask Truska-Pren. Either way, I would learn what I need to know.”

Jeron opened his mouth to counter, but before he could, Tarag continued. “Do you know of my people? Of my gods?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Yet you would have me choose your words over those of my gods?” He simply stared as he spoke. This man, Jeron, was mad.

“Well.”

“We will teach you of our gods when you are given the choice to follow them or to die.”

“That’s not the best solution.”

“It is the only solution. It is what the Daxar Taalor demand and they are the gods of my people.”

Tarag did not alter his position. He did not have to. He merely continued to stare at the sorcerer, letting the learned man make his first move.

“I cannot let you attack Canhoon.”

“Are you the one who lifted the city into the skies?”

“No. But I have enough power to level you and your army.”

“You are not a god. Do not presume to stop the armies of a god.”

Two strides had him moving past the startled mage and grabbing one of the ancient books.

“You trust in words written in the past. I trust in words spoken to me by a god.”

“Your gods are not–”

“A wise man,” Tarag interrupted, “does not insult a god in the face of the faithful.”

Jeron closed his mouth and nodded. After a moment, he asked, “What do your gods say to do?”

“I have been tasked with conquering Fellein in the name of my gods. If I must kill every person in Fellein to do so, I will.”

Jeron sighed, nodded and then threw both hands in Tarag’s direction.

The energies hit him in the side. He could not have dodged even if he’d been given warning. As Tarag turned, he felt the book in his hand crisp and ignite. The volumes on the table, the table itself, did likewise.

The clothing on his body was all that stood between his metal armor and the waves of heat that hit him. Tarag Paedori turned to face the man trying to kill him and let the burning ruins of the book fall to the ground. The sword in his hand was starting to glow red.

“You would seek to kill me with fire?” Tarag grinned.

He walked a pace toward Jeron the sorcerer, who looked at him with a shocked expression.

“I am the chosen of Truska-Pren, the God of Iron. When I talk to my god, I walk into his heart, the very center of a mountain filled with molten iron.” He took another step forward as his armor grew hotter still.

“My god protects me from that heat as he does now.” He shrugged and the armor screamed, metal tortured by heat moved and moaned.

He reached out with one gauntlet and grabbed Jeron before the man could move away. The reaction was immediate. Jeron screamed as his flesh began to burn. His left arm caught on fire, the cloth blazing and burning the skin underneath. Tarag’s other hand reached for the sorcerer’s face and caught his bald ear and half of his scalp.

Jeron tried to pull away, but Tarag Paedori hauled him closer, letting the man thrash against the burning metal that covered his chest and body.

A moment later he let the man drop to the ground, blistered, burning, breathing.

Jeron was still alive, much as he might have wished otherwise.

“You are not a warrior. You are not a fighter. You are not important. Your Empire will fall because the gods demand it. People like you, like your Empress, you only delay the inevitable. We have spent a hundred lifetimes preparing for this. What have you done?”

When he looked again, the entryway to the room was there once more.

Tarag Paedori thanked his god and then called in others to search the keep.

There was nothing useful to find or to have: books, and one ruined old man.

They left the area, heading east again.

A short time later Tusk and his newly acquired boats came alongside them. Tusk rode along the shoreline. The boats were handled by the Sa’ba Taalor who also followed Wheklam. Most of the recently converted walked along the shoreline behind Tusk and in front of his troops. They were, he explained to Tarag, earning the respect of their fellows.

To Tarag’s eyes, they looked like they were suffering and miserable. Life is pain.

“Durhallem wanted to convert them instead of killing them?” Tarag frowned at the notion. The Wounder was not normally so generous.

“He says we should try new things.” Tusk shook his head. “Who am I to argue with a god?”

“No one.”

“Exactly.”

“What happened to your armor?”

Tarag looked down and saw the heavy scorch marks where flesh had burned and where, frankly, metal had glowed hot enough to soften and lose a bit of its previous form.

“A sorcerer tested his power against a god and failed.”

Tusk laughed at the very notion.

“We ride. Let us reach Stastha and hear what she has to say.”

Tusk smiled at that notion. “Indeed!”

A moment later they moved on, and both signaled for the horns. It was time. War was upon them. Glorious, wondrous war.

They passed odd outcroppings of ruined stone wall and occasional buildings that rose toward the skies above, and Tega explained to Drask that this had been the edge of Canhoon. The lake that replaced the city was calm enough, despite the easterly winds.

Across the ruins, Drask saw the Sa’ba Taalor before they saw him. They were too distant to recognize and so he rode closer, his companions on the back of Brackka easily compensating for the change of pace. Though Nolan still did not speak, at least he no longer fell from the mount at every change of direction or speed.

Two mounts rode ahead of them. One carried a male warrior; the other carried a corpse.

He would not have recognized Andover Lashk if it had not been for the iron hands.

“You have changed a great deal, Andover Lashk of the Iron Hands.” He smiled as he spoke.

The boy was gone, replaced by a man. He sported hard scars on his flesh and, like Drask himself, he had seven Great Scars running down his face, angry slashes that fell in a symmetry meant only for the followers of Ydramil. He had met with all of the gods and survived. More importantly, he had been found worthy.

Andover the man looked at him for a long moment without recognition and then he smiled broadly. “Drask! Gods, you are a sight!”

Both slipped from their mounts and hugged each other warmly. It was not a common gesture among the Sa’ba Taalor, but it was a sign of complete trust.

When they broke away from each other, Andover looked to the other two and nodded his head.

Tega stared at him for a long while, her mind processing before, “Andover?”

“It is good to see you, Tega.”

She climbed down from Brackka’s back without the grace of Drask, but she managed. When she moved closer, Andover realized that he now looked down on her. He had grown a great deal.

His stomach iced over as she stared at him, and froze completely when she touched his heavy arms and looked into his face. How was it that a woman he barely let himself think about could so easily cripple his mind?

Drask could see the questions on the young man’s face.

“Tega and Nolan and I met in the Blasted Lands. We did not plan to meet, but the gods saw to it.”

“You have changed so much, Andover.” Her eyes were wide as she stared up at him. “You look more like Drask than like yourself.” That was true enough. Both were gray skinned and longhaired. Their Great Scars were nearly identical. The rest of them was as different as ever, of course. The scars on their bodies told different tales. Drask had one metallic hand and Andover had two.

“You are as beautiful as ever, Tega.” The words would have never been spoken in the past. Andover Lashk would have trembled at the very notion. Andover Iron Hands was not quite the same man, though he shared all of his younger self’s memories. The world changes, and the wise change with it.

“Why are you here, Andover?” Drask asked.

“I’m seeking Old Canhoon.”

“The gods send you to Old Canhoon?”

“Yes. They have not said why.”

Drask nodded. “And what is this?” he pointed to Delil, where she lay across the back of her mount.

“Delil. She… She is dead.”

“The gods decree that she should be burned. You know this.”

Andover looked away from him. The boy’s face was a man’s and the sorrow it showed seemed not to fit his features properly any longer.

“The Daxar Taalor do not agree with your heart. What is it that you want from them, Andover?”

Tega stepped back, looking from one man to the other.

“I…”

Drask continued to stare, his gaze unflinching, as the younger man, so changed from what he had been and still changing, look at Delil’s corpse and then at the ground. Finally he looked at Drask again and said, “I want her back.”

“And have you asked the gods for this?”

“No.” His eyes fell back to the ground.

“Why not?” Drask stepped closer until Andover felt obligated to look at him again.

“Because they might say no.”

“Very likely they will. She has served her time in this world and nothing goes to waste. But you will not have an answer until you ask.” He held up his silver hand. “I had no answer until I asked Ydramil for this. It was not merely given. I had to make sacrifices.”

“Who should I ask then?” Andover’s eyes blinked back tears that wanted to fall. Another sign he was more Sa’ba Taalor than Fellein these days. When they had met previously the boy would have wept.

“Ask the Daxar Taalor and see if they respond. You have been with all seven of the gods.” He gestured to show the Great Scars on Andover’s lips. “Ask all of them and see if they answer you.”

“Where shall I go to ask?”

“You can ask here. You can ask anywhere. The Daxar Taalor are spreading across this land. They will hear you.”

Andover nodded and walked slowly over to where a portion of the wall that had once surrounded the city still stood.

Tega moved closer to Drask and asked, “Your gods can raise the dead?”

“Yes. I suppose all gods can.”

“But you… I felt it… you raised Brackka back from the dead.”

Drask nodded. So many tales of the gods and all they had done, of raising the wounded few who survived the cataclysm and helping those last survivors become the Sa’ba Taalor. That simple tale was one of the foundations of his entire life. The gods could raise the dead. He had done so himself now. Had he considered how he had done it for too long he would have been no closer than he was currently to understanding why it had worked beyond accepting that he and Tega and Nolan had bathed in the energies of the Mounds and come away changed.

Did that make them gods?

He looked past Andover and toward the distant City of Wonders. “Yes. I did. I’m still reflecting on that.”

Behind him still on Brackka’s back, Nolan let out a laugh. It was the only sound he’d made in days.

Andover looked into the waters of the lake that should not have been there and tried to calm himself. The gods had already granted him so much. He needed look no further than his hands.

“Delil is dead.”

He spoke the words to his reflection. The wind smeared his doppelganger’s features.

His reflection answered him in Ydramil’s voice. WHY DID SHE DIE?

Andover shook his head.

When Ydramil spoke again it was with the full force of his power. ANSWER ME. WHY DID SHE DIE?

“Because she was careless.”

YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN GREAT GIFTS. WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO HAVE HER BACK?

Andover looked at his reflection and knew that it looked back.

“What would you have me do?”

Soon enough the gods answered.

Six

At last, the man came to see her again.

Desh Krohan. He was handsome enough in his way, but haunted.

That was a feeling Cullen understood very well.

“I’m sorry for making you wait. I have been rather busy.”

“You have a war on your hands.” She shrugged. Not far off Deltrea was doing her best to ignore the sorcerer. He returned the favor.

“Moale Deneshi was my life partner once upon a time. She left me when she said that she had been summoned to a greater duty.” Desh Krohan spoke softly and looked at her from the corner of his eye. “I was younger. I never went after her. I had my pride, after all.”

“Pride is poor armor, but better than none.”

The sorcerer nodded his head. “Indeed. I haven’t heard that one in many years.”

He sighed and looked at her abdomen.

“In any event, what is left of her is now inside of you. I don’t know that either of you planned it, but that is what has occurred.”

“How do I get her out?”

“According to her, she needs to stay with you for now. She will only let go of her grip on you when she is ready.”

Behind him Deltrea made an obscene gesture, but did not speak.

“Am I to stay locked in here until then?”

“Not at all.” He smiled. “That’s why I’m here. I’m going to personally escort you to your new chambers.”

Cullen nodded. “These chambers. Will I be allowed to leave them?”

Desh nodded his head. “Of course. But because there are some who might seek you out, you will have guards with you at all times.”

“What do you mean ‘seek me out’?”

The sorcerer shrugged. “There are assassins in this city, Cullen, and they are causing endless grief. If they find out what you carry inside of you, it’s very possible that they will cut you open to get to it. They tried to kill the Mother-Vine and all that is left of her is inside you. If they find out they can, they will, cut her out of you to make their point.”

“And you are telling me this why? So that I can have more nightmares?” Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the sorcerer. He stared back, studying every detail of her with all of the intensity of a suitor. She was unsettled by the notion. He was not unattractive, but she was also not in the least bit interested.

“I’m telling you this because I want you to remain safe. I want you to be smart and avoid getting killed by the Sa’ba Taalor, who I believe have already managed to infiltrate the city. Not a lot of them, but the ones who are here are killers.”

“And you think they would be after me?”

“No. They would be after her. The Mother-Vine.” He gestured toward her abdomen. “You. Me. We are not significant. She is. She has a power they would take if they could. That is why you are here. Knowing the name of my old mate and having a few words for me from her, that is not enough. That only gets my attention.”

Cullen nodded and rose from her seat. “Perhaps you should show me to this new chamber then.”

The walk was long, but not arduous, and they talked as they traversed hidden corridors and stairwells that were built into walls of solid stone.

“What have these assassins of yours been doing?”

“For the last four days, someone or several people have been sneaking among the many refugees we have here and killing them. Not all at once, only a few at a time, but always where there are a lot of people gathered together. We have people watching, but it means nothing. They are very careful and they leave the bodies where they fall, the better for them to be discovered quickly and the better for the bodies to cause a panic.

“It’s a brilliant tactic. I’d have never considered it, but the end result is that the people who are trying to survive without proper housing are very anxious and we’ve had to break up several attempts by mobs to take over buildings.”

Cullen shot a look his way.

“Oh, please. No. We cannot take them into the palace. Believe it or not, there aren’t enough rooms. Most of them are already being used to store food and supplies. The palace is very large, but it is not a city in itself. The barracks of soldiers have been given to the refugees and that means weapons and soldiers alike are kept here. We were not anticipating having a city lift into the air, nor were we considering how cold it would be up here or that half the city would be left behind. Believe me, there are many things we never once considered.”

Desh Krohan paused for a moment as he fumbled a key from his pocket. A moment later the door was opened to her new chambers. They were a vast improvement, with a large bed, a window and a roaring fire. There was a door. It was currently barred from the inside.

“All of this?” Cullen could barely believe it.

Deltrea spat. “How is this even a little fair? I’m dead before I can see a sight like this, and you’re still going strong.” It was Cullen’s turn to make a gesture.

“Through that door, to the right, you will find a small dining room. There is fresh fruit. There is bread. If you wish to join us for dinner you are welcome.”

“Thank you. For all of this.” It was all she could think to say.

“Stay safe. You carry a great burden. Please honor that responsibility.”

A moment later he was gone.

Deltrea shook her head and strolled around the chamber, which, to be fair, was larger than the entirety of both their homes back in Trecharch.

“This royalty thing pays well enough.” Deltrea walked over to look out the window and Cullen blinked hard, unsettled because she could see through the form of her friend. The light was too bright through the window and Deltrea cast no shadow. In the woods, in a cell, it was easier to ignore that fact.

Cullen joined her at the window and immediately understood the need for the fire. The ground outside was covered in a thick rime of frost. The trees were coated; the lawn below was white. The buildings were iced over. Small wonder so many fought for decent shelter. Certainly it wasn’t a gathering of assassins causing the grief. Just desperate people.

The wall around the palace kept out many more people. No one was foolish enough to try storming the structure, but they were near it as if seeking shelter from the cold.

In the far distance she could see the Mid Wall. Beyond that were only blue skies and, far away but, she had no doubt, coming closer, the mountains.

There were so many people, more than she had ever seen in one place before and the sight of them hurt her head. Cullen crawled into the depths of the bed, warm and secure and despite Deltrea’s comforting presence, still scared of what lay ahead.

Three short thrusts into the screaming man’s belly as she ducked past, and Jost knew he was already dead, though he screamed on.

That was the thing about the people of the city. They screamed about everything. This one roared that he had fresh meat and people came to him looking at what he offered and hoping it would truly be fresh. It was not. Still they came.

So Jost did them a favor and killed him. Truly that was coincidence. She merely did not like his voice.

When he stopped screaming about fresh meat he screamed for a different reason. So did the people around him as he fell to his knees and took his table down in the process.

The markets were the easiest place to cause panic. They were also the easiest place to kill a lot of people with little effort.

The onlookers backed away from the bleeding man and Jost moved on. Her eyes scanned the area for the next target. The ones that made the most noise or who reacted with violence were the best for stirring the crowd.

It was easier to hide now. The air was so cold that everyone was wearing coats or dressing in shawls or cloaks. Skin reddened in the chill and most everyone huddled down on themselves for warmth.

They did not look up or around as she moved among them.

Her blade cut a woman across the back of her leg, severing tendons. The woman screamed in pain and fell backward as she lost the use of her leg, and Jost danced back, away from the blood spray. Dark clothes alone could not hide the steam that rose from a fresh stream of blood.

The hand that came for her was impossible. Still, it came and she dodged.

Jost looked at the stone wall and watched with fascination as a man walked out of it. He was the same color as the stone, as were his clothes.

She had heard of the Silent Army, but she had not seen one in motion before. They had always been standing still when she passed. A few had changed positions when her eyes were turned but this was different. This was actual motion.

The stone man reached for her once more and Jost stepped back. Her hand tried to block him, but with no real result. He was made of stone. She could not force his arm to move.

“Wrommish!” she called to her god as the thing continued reaching for her.

If the statue moving shocked her, it did far worse to the people in the crowd. They had not fled the dead as quickly as they did the moving stone soldier.

Jost blocked a hand that grabbed at her again, this time with her dagger. There was a scraping noise and the hand was pushed aside, enough for her to avoid it, but there was no blood drawn.

Lifeless eyes turned to look at her. The face of the stone man shifted and the mouth curled into a sneer.

Jost backed away again, fully aware of the people around her and how they were retreating.

The fourth attempt to grab at her met with success. The hand that caught Jost’s elbow was as hard as rock, and despite her best efforts to twist away, there was no give. There was no heat. The moving stone was as cold as the wall it came from.

The hand held her tight and the powerful arm pulled her forward. Jost was a fighter. She had been trained in combat since she could walk, but she was not made of stone. Her fists did no good against this opponent. She moved her body in an effort to lock his joint, but it was useless. On any human being she had ever met the move would have broken the offender’s elbow and likely driven bone into meat, but here the end result was the same as if she was hanging from a rock outcropping on Wrommish’s heights. She effectively swung herself around on that arm and then found herself pinned to the wall. The soldier needed do no more.

Jost kicked, she struggled, she attempted to cut one finger at a time from the stone hand, but it was useless.

The Silent Soldier slammed her into the wall three times as she fought back. The third time she was knocked senseless. By the time she recovered enough to consider struggling, she had been bound by heavy leather straps and metal chains.

The City Guard were taking no chances.

The soldier held her until they were done.

And for the first time in all the battles, the Fellein had a prisoner of war.

The meal was wonderful. The food was always satisfactory, but this was an extravagance. Dretta had cooked chicken she had likely paid far too much for, and the meat was perfectly seasoned.

Before they ate, they made love. That was even better than the meal. By the time they’d eaten most of the bird, feasted on the fresh bread and cheese and fruit, Merros wanted nothing more than to make love a second time and then sleep in the arms of the most amazing woman he’d ever met.

Naturally, the world interrupted.

Though Merros did not advertise where he went, it was hardly a secret. By the time they’d finished their meal and the conversation that went along with it – and how was it that any person could be so endlessly fascinating? There was nothing she said that he did not want to hear – one of the messengers from the palace had come to interfere.

The business of war waited for no one, and most assuredly not the man in charge of the Empire’s forces.

Dretta looked at him with her dark, deep eyes and waited patiently. He looked back and was torn. There was excitement, but there was also guilt when he looked at her. She was an amazing lover. She was the widow of his best friend. There were so many levels of wrong in what they did that Merros could never hope to untangle them all. And he wasn’t sure that he wanted to.

“What is it you are thinking about, Merros?” She reached for the bread and wiped some juices from her platter. Gods, she could even make eating fascinating and erotic.

He shook that thought away. It was just food and he was as lusty as a teenager around her.

“We have had good fortune it seems.” He smiled.

“Have the Sa’ba Taalor suddenly surrendered?”

“I said good fortune, not an act of the gods.” He still smiled. “We have captured one of the Sa’ba Taalor.”

“Have you then? Was it the one who killed Wollis?”

“I don’t know yet. I haven’t seen who, but I must go now, Dretta. We have to find out what we can.” He did his best to sound apologetic, but inside surges of adrenaline were kicking around. The thought that they might be able to actually learn something from one of the gray-skins was nearly intoxicating.

Dretta stood and nodded. She even offered a tiny smile. “Go. Take care of what you must, but be careful. I have heard too many tales from you of how dangerous they are.”

“I will be very careful indeed, milady. I will also let you know if I learn anything of Wollis’s killer.”

She moved close and hugged him for a moment that was not long enough by far. And then she stepped back and spread her arms. “The gates here are always open to you.”

He smiled at that. The very notion warmed him. She warmed him, despite the cold weather and the frost.

It was a short ride to the palace and the guards at the gates let him in. He smiled at them and headed immediately for the Empress’s throne room, where, as he expected, several people already waited.

Desh Krohan looked his way and smiled tightly. “I do not believe it is Swech, but I recognize her. She was among the first of them that we met. One of your ten, I believe.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. It also explains how she has evaded being captured until now. They were very skilled.”

“I don’t think we’d have captured her, but the Silent Army interfered.”

“Truly?”

Nachia responded, “Had her pinned to the stone wall and wouldn’t let her go until the City Guard secured her. Then the soldier moved back into the wall and slipped up to the top again.”

“How many dead this time?” It had become a problem, and a serious one. The attacks tended to leave a dozen or more dead every day and the resulting chaos had rendered more and more people too injured to care for themselves.

“Only three by the assassin’s blade.” The man who spoke was one he’d met before and one he still didn’t much like. Darsken Murdro was one of the Inquisitors. They were unsettling people with methods that Merros was never going to be comfortable with. True, the tales might only be tales, but he didn’t like the notion that whoever was going to be questioned would be left to the likes of the man across the room from him.

Murdro continued, “When the statue moved and attacked, the panic that resulted left two more dead. They were trampled.”

Desh spoke up, “We’d discussed the possibilities of a curfew.”

Murae Pellinger, the man who currently led the City Guard, cleared his throat and looked toward Merros before speaking. Technically the man had the same rank as Merros, but the reality was that Pellinger was only in charge for as long as Merros tolerated him. Nachia had appointed the general head of all military forces and that included the City Guard. Pellinger understood that and was doing an excellent job in his position.

Pellinger said, “We can enact a curfew, but there is nowhere for these people to go. They’ve made shelters for themselves in tents or on bedrolls. They’re curling up in piles to stay warm at night.”

“I know we wanted families to have homes to themselves in this situation, but is it possible to add more people to some of the places that have been offered?”

Pellinger nodded. “Some will allow it. Most will do it if they are told to, but while there are several people who have been generous with their properties, there are many more who have offered no concessions and are charging monies that few can afford.”

“Who is the new Minister of Lands?” Nachia spoke and they all looked her way.

“Arlo Lancey, Majesty.”

Nachia nodded and leaned back. She was in her throne and leaning to one side. With a wince she rose and walked away from the seat. She shot a withering look at Desh Krohan and said, “Fix that.”

“Couldn’t if I wanted to.” For one moment only, he smiled at her.

She glared and he stared back frostily, with a small smirk. Merros had no idea what they were talking about and tried to bring the conversation back around. “We were discussing the land minister?”

“Arlo Lancey. Old blood. Old money. We should bring him in to discuss how badly his world will fall apart if he doesn’t find shelter for more people.”

“Majesty?” Pellinger looked her way, frowning.

“Come now, Murae, you know better than that. Arlo is new in his position. Bring him here. Try to make it happen soon.”

“What happened to the previous minister?”

Darsken Murdro answered, his voice low and reserved. He had a thin smile on his face, and while he was pleasant, Merros couldn’t bring himself to like the man. “He was found a few weeks ago with his throat cut, not far from the docks. Someone killed him and four of his bodyguards.”

Nachia asked, “No one was ever captured?”

Murdro looked to the Empress and lowered his head. “The people I spoke to could only tell me that it was a woman who did the killings and that she was dressed in black and kept her face hidden.”

“So, Sa’ba Taalor.” That was Desh. Nachia and Merros nodded at the same time.

“Likely, yes. When we talk to the one you have locked away we might find out more.”

“I would like to be there when you speak to her, Inquisitor Murdro.” Merros spoke calmly and looked at the other man.

Murdro’s smile did not change at all, but his eyes looked over Merros carefully. “As you wish, General. As I believe you are fluent in their language that would be extremely beneficial.”

Merros nodded and wondered exactly how the man knew he spoke the language of the Sa’ba Taalor. Well, one of them at any rate. There were several apparently and he only understood the one. “Do you have her properly secured?”

Desh answered him. “She is currently unconscious and very well restrained. Tataya is with her and making certain of that.”

Nachia sighed. “Kindly go find out what you can. I want to know everything that she knows as quickly as possible.”

The Empress strode around her throne room. Merros and the rest followed her with their eyes. “We are still heading for the mountains?”

“Yes, Majesty.” Desh didn’t seem at all happy to report that fact.

“I thought you said you had several sorcerers working on that problem.”

“Yes, Majesty, but they’ve had limited progress.”

She spun on Desh and the First Advisor stood his ground. Few would have.

“Either find a way to move the damn city or find a way to burn down one of the mountains if you have to. It would be a preposterous way for all of us to die.”

“All respect, Majesty, but it might not come to that. It’s possible that we will clear the mountains completely.”

“Desh, make certain of it. I don’t care how.” He lowered his head and she continued, “I want Arlo Lancey here as soon as possible. Do not tell him why he is summoned, simply make certain that he gets here before the day ends.”

Pellinger nodded and left the room. The Empress seldom stood on decorum when it came to the meetings and it was best to do what she wanted.

“If we cannot manage walls for the refugees, then I want tents. I don’t care where they come from. The soldiers have their rooms. If they have to give up their tents for this, then so be it.”

Merros nodded, but did not try to clarify that the soldiers didn’t have personal tents. There had been a time for that, but not in his lifetime.

Nachia looked around the room for a moment and then speared each of them with a hard glare. “Why are you still here? Go! Get me answers, get me results!”

Merros took the hint. He and the Inquisitor walked together to the cell where their first Sa’ba Taalor prisoner waited.

Trying to ignore the presence of Merros Dulver at his side, Darsken Murdro headed for the cell where his next assignment waited. There would have been a time when he wondered why he had been chosen over the other Inquisitors, but he already knew the answer. He was chosen because he was good at his job and because he was currently in favor with the sorcerer and the Sisters.

All that meant was that he had to do his job well. There were a lot of people who thought he was ambitious, and perhaps he was. But they didn’t understand the Inquisitors and how they worked.

He would rise to a new rank if it became necessary, but he was in no hurry to get there. The higher in position one rose, the more one became a target. He was respected, he was occasionally feared, and he enjoyed his duties.

People like Merros Dulver could think what they wanted. It changed nothing.

The guards opened the door for them and Darsken stopped at the door and smiled to Tataya, who smiled back and rose from her seat. As always, her beauty struck him. As always he nodded politely and then got to business.

Merros also nodded at Tataya, as Darsken got his first true look at a Sa’ba Taalor. She was lean, all hard muscle, and dressed in the clothes of a street person. Perfectly camouflaged. No one would have reason to suspect her of anything, until they saw her face.

As the girl was unconscious he stepped closer and looked at her carefully. His hand moved across her gray face, feeling the raised flesh of a dozen or more scars under several spots where her flesh was freshly bruised.

At first he thought that an overzealous guard had punched the girl in the mouth until it split several times but upon a second, careful glance he understood better.

“So that is the reason for the veils.” He opened each of her mouths, studying the fully developed teeth, the musculature, the tongues. They were properly damp and his hand felt the breath that came from each. If they were born that way it was a wonder they ever knew how to speak.

Merros looked over at the girl and stared at her mouths, horrified. “By the gods.”

Tataya spoke softly. “Drask was different. His mouths had more… symmetry.”

Merros looked at Tataya for a moment and then looked back at the girl. He took one of the layers of her shawl and drew it over the lower half of her face. “Jost. This is Jost.”

“Are you certain?” Darsken did not ask to be rude, but rather to assess the facts.

Merros was wise enough to understand that, despite his active dislike of the Inquisitor. “Yes. We traveled together for months.”

“Do you know if she is fully grown? Her body is that of a young woman, but I had heard the Sa’ba Taalor were giants.”

“Not giants. Some of them are very large, yes, but only a few stand taller than me.”

Tataya nodded. “They are not giants. They are merely very, very fit.”

Darsken ran his hand over the girl’s arm and then her leg, nodding. He could feel hard muscle and still more scar tissue under the clothing. He also felt several concealed knives, which he carefully extracted from folds in her attire. He took his time, running his hands in places that might have been deemed inappropriate had this been any other female, but he was not going to leave the young woman in question with any surprise weapons. He had been cut more than once in his line of business.

When he was done there were eight blades, an even dozen small darts and three lengths of wire he didn’t quite trust should be left on her person, all set to the side.

“Can you wake her please?”

A word, a gesture from Tataya and in seconds the girl was awake. She bucked and thrashed and tried to get free from the shackles on her legs and wrists.

She failed.

Darsken waited patiently while she tried several times.

Finally he said. “You will find the best way of gaining even a little freedom is to comply.”

The girl continued struggling. Merros Dulver spoke and the girl cocked her head and answered.

“I have no answers for your questions.” Merros’s voice, but he knew the words belonged to the girl called Jost. He did not look away from her, but merely waited for the translations from the General’s mouth.

Darsken nodded. “Then you will stay here.”

“If that is what my gods demand.”

He shook his head. “It is what my Empress demands. Your gods do not matter in this place.”

“My gods are all that matter. You will learn in time.”

“How many of your people are in Canhoon?”

“Enough to kill you all.”

“You will not leave this cell alive if you do not tell me what I need to know.”

“Then I will have honored my gods.”

Darsken looked to Merros and then to Tataya. “This will take time.”

He looked back to Jost. She was staring at him with her oddly glowing eyes. “A lot of time.”

Arlo Lancey did not have any bodyguards. Many of his fellow ministers did, but he felt no need to waste his finances. First, he was only the Minister of Lands. He did not mint new coins; he could not change the taxes. He only did what he was told to do. In exchange he made enough coin to live comfortably and he ruled over a small gathering of people who listened to him and obeyed not because he was a harsh man, but because he was pleasant enough to work for.

He did not consider himself a bad man. His predecessor, Lirrin Merath, on the other hand, had been a fat, bloated lump of a man with too many connections, too much money and too little empathy. Arlo had worked with him on many occasions and both of them had understood that land was ultimately power. But where Lirrin had willingly changed the rules as he pleased to gain more power – there was never enough, you see. Power is a feast for fools. The more you have, the hungrier you become – Arlo did not follow suit. He wanted to. Let’s not misunderstand that. He would have gladly gained as much power as he could and appreciated the starvation as so many others did. Arlo would have considered being greedier, and he most certainly would have hired bodyguards, but he had been told not to.

One did not argue with the woman who held your fate.

He did not know a name. Not for the woman. He could tell you the name of her god. If he ever failed to remember the name Wrommish, it would be the death of him. That he believed with unyielding conviction. The woman, a little tall, but nothing remarkable, had killed five men in front of him to make her point. The first four were trained mercenaries, capable killers, and she’d broken them in a matter of seconds.

The last one had been his predecessor, Lirrin.

The nameless woman was the enemy of the state. She was a murderer. She was a cutthroat. She had probably had a hand in all of the mindless murders running through the city.

Arlo had no doubt that if he hired bodyguards, she would kill them and then him. She had already said that he would do his job the best he could and follow her orders, or he would die.

He looked at the thin scar on the back of his right hand. All that had happened was a scratch from the woman’s nail. She’d scraped him and promised that before that wound healed they’d talk again.

She’d kept her word. The very day he was appointed as the new Minister of Lands, after he’d celebrated with friends, consumed far too much wine and whored his way home, she was waiting for him in his apartments.

She was not there to sleep with him.

“Do you remember the name?” Her words were a soft, silky whisper in his ear as he was drifting to sleep.

He sat up quickly in his bed, heart thundering, breathless and looked around the room.

She had watched him undress, watched him fall on the bed and roll across the sheets before his head found the pillow, and had watched him patiently as he fell into a drunken stupor.

He had never guessed her presence.

“The name.” She was just out of arm’s reach. Her dark eyes looked at him without even seeming to blink.

“The name?”

“The name of your new god. The name that can save you.”

Oh, how he’d scrambled then. His body did not move. It dared not, but he thought hard and sorted through his memories of the night Lirrin died in a pool of his own blood, rainsoaked and lifeless while the shadow-shape of his killer stood and watched Arlo. She had spoken a name. It was important. Had he not been drunk he would have remembered instantly. He looked down at his hand and saw the scratch and then finally remembered, “Wrommish?”

She’d nodded and he’d thanked the new god with all of his heart.

And then she’d explained all that he was to do.

It came down to paperwork, ultimately. The laws of the Empire were clear. The right scrap of paper with the right seal meant that you owned a parcel of land. Arlo was paid dearly to make sure that there was no confusion in the matter. Ever.

He was not performing his tasks to the best of his ability. To do so would have been his death.

The Empire wanted all available lands that were not being used to hold the people now living on the streets. Several prominent citizens had already offered properties for that very purpose. The people staying there did not own the properties. They were merely tolerated, but it was a step. Others were allowing the refugees to stay for a price. Most were fair about it. Some were not.

There were hundreds of places that could have been offered. They were not, and despite the fact that he had been tasked with finding the owners of those properties, Arlo had deliberately failed.

Sooner or later they would come for him.

He was prepared. If he could just explain to someone the nature of his dilemma, perhaps they could offer him safety within the Palace. He had all the paperwork he needed. It was sorted and ready for them, but he dared not offer it up without some sort of protection.

“Wrommish knows what is in your heart, foolish man. You have prayed to him.”

He knew the voice instantly. Arlo turned fast toward it and reached for his sword. It was a foolish thing, ornate and more for decoration than function, but he knew how to use it and he was desperate.

His eye exploded with pain and Arlo dropped the sword, screaming and reaching to cover his wound. His eye could still see but the lid was trying to close over something that was in the way and every motion of any type caused more pain.

“You are a weak man and you would betray me. For that reason you are already dead.”

His good eye saw her as she moved away. Anger surged. She had hurt him and she wanted to kill him and while he was not a fighter, there were limits. Arlo surged toward her and promptly fell to the ground.

“Do you know that you can buy a dozen spices here that will kill a careless person? You just have to cook them the right way.”

“Why? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“They are coming for you and you would have. As I said, Wrommish knows what is in your heart. You prayed to him. He knows all he needs to know of you.”

Without another word she knocked his oil lamp to the ground, where it spilled its fiery contents across a woven rug and began to smoke and burn. The rug was a gift from an admirer. It was lovely. It was also flammable.

Arlo tried to reach for it. With effort he could put it out and only get minor burns.

His arms did not move. His body was sluggish. He should have been screaming but nothing happened.

The woman walked away, but as she left she made certain to scatter his paperwork across the blaze. Deeds burn brightly when they burn.

Swech slipped from the window of the apartment easily enough. The rope was still tied where she’d left it and climbing was not a challenge.

She’d hoped Arlo might be a worthwhile investment and he had been, but his service was no longer required.

As she reached the roof of the building black smoke started spilling from the window she had just vacated. The sun was still up, but the day was overcast. They were high enough up that the clouds did not block the sun so much as they swallowed the city entirely.

People moved as if they were traveling through a heavy fog. It seemed to calm them.

Glo’Hosht’s voice called out to her, softly warning her that he was present. While it was unlikely that any strike she made toward her king would hit, he was wise enough to warn her just the same.

“My king.”

Even through the cloud cover she could now see the smoke rising from Arlo’s apartment. Soon others would sound an alarm.

“Swech, Jost is captured.”

She nodded. “How?”

“The wall that surrounds the city. She touched it while she was serving the gods. The stone guardians captured her and held her until the Fellein guards took her.”

“Do we go to help Jost?”

“No. She must take care of her own. As all of us must if we are caught.” Swech felt her hands try to tighten into fists and made them relax. The gods had plans. Jost was not currently on them.

Swech nodded her head in compliance, much as it hurt her. There were no promises. The Daxar Taalor made demands and they were obeyed. They had saved members of the Sa’ba Taalor before, when it suited them. But not this occasion. Jost’s fate was her own to decide. If she could not, the gods would handle the matter.

The thought that they might not save the girl was painful, but life was pain.

Swech nodded a second time and took a deep breath.

“What is next, my king?”

“These stone men change everything. They only seem to stand at the outer wall.”

Glo’Hosht moved and spoke at the same time, gliding over the ground and heading to the next building. Swech followed and looked back at the black column of smoke that had spread in size.

“We could continue what we have been doing, my king. It has certainly unsettled a few of the people and made others desperate. But there are other things we could accomplish.”

“What did you have in mind?”

Swech looked back again as flames began to dance across the roof of the building she’d been inside. Smoke pirouetted across the roof and beneath it tongues of light tasted the air and seemed to like the flavor.

The building was going to burn down. There would be no saving it. Most of Canhoon was stone, but there were exceptions.

“Perhaps we consider more of that.”

Glo’Hosht looked on and nodded. “Perhaps.”

“What I’m thinking of involves at least three of us entering the palace.”

“For you that is an easy thing. You have the face of a Fellein.”

“There are others. I know that we have been kept apart to avoid issues, but if we wish to strike hard this is something we should consider.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Most of the food supplies, much of the clean water, is stored in the palace.” Swech stared at her king. “They might find more food, but water is rare here. They depended on their rivers.”

There was a very long silence and finally Glo’Hosht answered, “The gods agree. I will be joining you.”

“You, my king? Did you not say that would be a challenge?”

“A challenge for many. A challenge for me, but not so great a risk that Paedle does not decree it.”

There was no more to say. When gods make demands, they must be obeyed.

Behind them the roof of the apartment building collapsed and flames roared higher into the air.

Bells sounded. Horns sounded.

“They will come to put out the fires, my king.”

Glo’Hosht nodded. “Let’s kill as many as we can when they do, but do not be careless.”

Swech took no offense at the words. They were often uttered by the King in Mercury, who liked to remind the followers of Paedle that not being seen was their greatest gift.

Besides, Jost had already reminded them of the consequences of growing careless.

Seven

How quickly things could go wrong.

Nachia sat on her throne and ignored the pain it caused her to do so. Perhaps Desh was right. The discomfort was a good way to make certain she did not grow arrogant. Or maybe she just enjoyed being reminded of her responsibilities.

Darsken Murdro looked at her and frowned. “She does not speak, Majesty. Her gods have forbidden it.”

“Have you tried torture?” She hated the words as she said them.

“No, Majesty. She is not the sort to respond to that method of inquisition. She and her people celebrate the scars they earn as a mark of honor and proof of all they would willingly suffer for their gods.”

Merros, who was next to him, nodded. “You were not there when Drask Silver Hand let Andover Lashk bite into his arm until he bled. He never even flinched and I assure you I would have been screaming my idiot head off.”

“Then what do you suggest, Inquisitor?”

He lowered his head. “I can discover much, Majesty. I can walk through her mind and learn, but I am not aware of what will happen if she tries to speak to her gods.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Both Desh Krohan and the general have told me that the Sa’ba Taalor actually communicate with their gods. That either the gods actually speak into their minds, or that they believe they can. If I am in her mind when this happens, I do not know if the god will see me.”

“And if a god sees you, what is supposed to happen?” She resisted the urge to shake her head. It would not do to insult her closest companions.

“I do not know, Majesty. What are the limits of a god? We have seen that their gods allow them to survive great heat. We have seen that their gods gift them with limbs of living metal. If their gods could walk into my mind as I would walk into hers, then what secrets might a god learn? I hold many secrets for the Empire, Majesty.”

She chewed at her lower lip and then forced herself to stop. One must always look calm.

“A notable point, Darsken. What would you suggest?”

“The Sisters, Tataya and Pella, they are capable of seeing into my mind if I let them. They could, perhaps, kill me before the god could glean much information.”

Merros was standing to the side of the Inquisitor when he spoke and she could see the general reassessing his opinion of the man. She knew him well enough to read his face: he didn’t like the Inquisitor or any of his kind. Not many did.

“Have Pella come to me. I would speak with her about this.”

Darsken bowed formally and nodded before he left the room. She had told them they did not need to bow in the circumstances they faced, but most did it anyway.

She waited a full minute in silence and then looked at Merros. “You don’t like him.”

“No, Majesty.”

“Why is that?”

“He and his use fear as a weapon. That I find acceptable. That they use it as their primary weapon is irksome to me.”

“Irksome?” She teased with her voice and he grinned.

“I deem the Inquisitors a necessary evil. I do not like them. They have a level of power that makes them dangerous.”

“Said the man in charge of the Imperial forces?”

“I have more people looking over my actions.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I leave here, you and a few others know where I sleep.”

She raised an eyebrow at that.

“Are you going to deny it?”

“No. It’s important that you are kept safe.”

“If an Inquisitor tells you that something is true, what do you do about it?”

“I act on it.”

“And how do you know that he tells the truth?”

“I have the assurances of the Inquisitors.”

“And are they investigated by you?”

“No.”

“None of them?”

“No.”

Merros’s face worked as he considered that answer. “Why not?”

“Because the vows of the Inquisitors are very complex and backed by sorcery. Should they attempt to lie in their investigations, there would be consequences.”

“What sort of consequences?”

“Horrible disfigurement at the very least.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Desh Krohan is the one who set up their vows. He attends all of them. Each and every member of the Inquisition is marked by Desh. They cannot lie in their duties without being disfigured or worse.”

“And how do you know this sorcery works?”

“Have you ever been to the offices of the Inquisition?”

“No, Majesty.”

“Should you ever have the need to go to those offices, you will find that the people who work as clerks in the offices are all rather heavily disfigured. In the event that they survive the process of lying, they are given a second chance to work for the Inquisition. I say given, but what I mean is they are forced to pay penance. Five years of their lives marked and in pain. If they survive those years they may either leave or once more work as an Inquisitor, with the knowledge that they will suffer the same fate a second time should they stray.”

Merros’s face was stricken with dread at the notion.

“The Inquisitors agree to this. They know that they must always be trusted. They know that failure to be worthy of that trust brings pain, disfigurement and, if they cause an innocent’s death, their own death in exchange.”

“Wasn’t the Minister of Lands supposed to be brought before me?” Nachia forced her jaw to relax. It wanted very much to grind her teeth to nubs.

“He is proving hard to find, Majesty. Also, it seems his home burned down.”

“Are we to assume that was a coincidence?”

“No, Majesty. The City Guard are investigating.”

“Make them investigate faster, please, Merros.”

Before Merros could say more, Darsken returned with Pella. Five minutes of conversation was all it took to make the arrangements.

The girl, Jost, would talk one way or another.

The fact offered Nachia no comfort.

Another messenger entered the throne room. The girl was slight and winded, and looked around with wide eyes. She bore the scars of surviving the Plague Winds, and as they were slight Nachia found herself hoping they would heal completely. She entered the chamber timidly. Likely she had never seen a room as large in her entire life.

She whispered to the guard, who pointed to Merros.

A moment later she was handing off her package and trying not to stare at Nachia. Nachia smiled at the girl and the girl smiled back. It was a smile that lit her entire face.

Barely looking up, Merros thanked the girl and dismissed her. The stress showed on his face.

“What is it?”

“Something is wrong. People are falling ill.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere, it seems.”

It was dark out, and the kings gathered. To the west the skies were black, hidden by clouds. To the east they were clear and the only patch of darkness hiding the stars was the distant city of Canhoon and, in the far distance, the frozen waves that made up the Arkannen Mountains.

The bonfire was large and only one of a hundred or more. The Sa’ba Taalor owned the area around the river and they did not hide their presence.

Ganem sat and stared into the fire, her eyes nearly glowing. “How long until their floating city reaches the mountains?”

Tarag Paedori answered, “Two days. We will have troops in position before then. And archers. As many as we can gather.”

Ganem nodded. “I have many archers. They are yours, of course.” She paused and considered. “Lored is still to the east?”

Tusk nodded, “Mmm. He is making progress. They do not seem to have as many cities there. More villages.”

“And Donaie Swarl? She is still at sea?”

“There are people out there.” Tusk shook his head. “They have no gods and mark their bodies with scars to tell tales of their greatness.” He tore a piece of hard bread and sopped it in the stew before him as he spoke. “The Fellein hired them to fight their water battles. Donaie decided they must die for mocking the gods. She is doing all she can to kill them all.”

“The gods agree with this?”

“She would not do it without their wishes. You know this.”

Ganem nodded her head and looked to Tarag Paedori. “Glo’Hosht is in the city that floats. They are breaking the city into pieces. Well, the people.”

The King in Iron nodded. “The fights among the masses are many. They have no place to rest and the skies are colder, as the tops of mountains are colder. The walls are frozen. The ground is hard with ice.” Tarag smiled. “And down here, Tuskandru has converted people to his faith.”

Tusk chuckled. “I did not convert them. They asked to join us.”

“They have been converted? They have heard the voice of Durhallem?” Ganem looked his way. Mercy was not the way of the Obsidian God.

“Durhallem has marked them. Durhallem can speak to them. More importantly, Durhallem can watch through their eyes and know what they think. A few sought to attack us from within their ranks.” Tusk paused for a moment, his eyes alight with the memories. “The unfaithful were killed for their insolence. As they reached into the forge, they reached into the very heart of Durhallem. If their loyalties were false, they burned at the touch of Durhallem’s wrath.”

Ganem nodded. That made sense.

N’Heelis stretched his lean body, scars glistening in the light of the fire. “My people await your orders, Tarag Paedori. Will you have us entering the floating city?”

Paedori nodded. “Mostly your people. Tusk will ride ahead. We have scouts who say they believe they know where the city will come to rest. It is a large area. His army and mine will go there.”

N’Heelis nodded and prepared to leave. He paused once to say, “To the north. Wrommish has chosen.”

Tarag Paedori nodded his head and watched the King in Gold leave. He looked to Ganem.

“Your archers will work to take the city. Meet with the rest of your people. Head east. As has been said, there are many villages. I want you to take as many as you can.”

“Capture or kill?”

“If they surrender, give them Tusk’s choice. Should Ydramil wish to take on new followers, make it so. If they fight, break them.”

“You do not want them dead?”

“Your god is the Mirror God. Let your enemies reflect on their sins while they die on the ground.”

Ganem nodded. There was a certain wisdom in those words.

Tarag Paedori’s hands worked on his armor, oiling metal and leather alike. “The city will not escape us. They have eluded us, yes, but there will be no escape.”

He looked at the visage of his god, hammered into the faceplate of his armor. “We will win this war for the Daxar Taalor. They have given us so much and all they ask in return is justice for the past.”

All of the kings agreed. It was a good thing.

Ganem left that night, riding her mount, Sidian. Unlike most of the mounts, Sidian carried only a few weapons. For Ganem they were enough.

Not but a day’s journey to the west, Andover Lashk sat with his companions and ate.

“You have changed, Drask.”

“I have changed?” Drask looked his way and shook his head. “You are a foot taller. You have scars over your body that tell tales of endless battles. You walk differently. You speak differently, but you say it is I who have changed.”

Andover nodded. “You are the same in your mind, I think. But there is a difference to you. To Tega as well.” He looked toward Tega, who was staring into the fire.

Drask nodded.

“Tell me what happened to you.”

Drask sat silently for a while and then nodded again. “When I was sent away from you, it was because the gods needed me to break the very rules on which I was raised. They wanted me to visit the Mounds.”

Andover pursed his lips in agreement, recalling the horrifying sounds that sometimes came from the frozen ruins.

Drask inclined his head toward Tega and then Nolan. “They were sent with others to see if the secret to defeating the Sa’ba Taalor might wait in the Mounds. I was sent to follow them and stop them.”

He looked at the fire for a moment and grew silent as he considered the past. Andover wondered for a moment if he would say more, but Drask was simply marshaling his thoughts.

“We found ways into the Mounds and found something. I do not know what even now, but I have suspicions.”

Drask picked at his food for a moment, then took a bite and chewed and swallowed before he spoke further. The look of concentration told Andover that the man was trying to find the right words.

“When I was much younger, and curious, and angry, I killed a man who offended me. He claimed I was weak because I spared another man his life. I did not care of his opinions until he provoked me. Then I killed him to make sure he understood I was not always merciful.

“Because I was curious, I cut him open and cleaned out his innards then studied his insides.”

A year earlier Andover would have been terrified by the image Drask produced. Tega turned her head and look at Drask with interest, suddenly curious about his words.

“Have you ever looked inside a human body?” Drask asked.

“Not on purpose.”

Drask laughed at that, a deep, hard laugh, and slapped Andover on the shoulder in a companionable way. In the past that slap would have sent him sprawling.

“There are… tubes in the body. Blood flows through them. They are everywhere, and if you have ever cut off a hand or seen one cut off–” and here he showed his silver hand, which had also changed a great deal “–you can see the blood that flows from them.”

Tega said, “Arteries and veins. That is what we call them. Blood moves everywhere through them. Even in your eyes and toes.”

“Yes. What Tega says. Arteries. We found them in the ground beneath the Mounds. They were filled with light that flowed like blood. And far below the ground we found a great pool of that blood that moved through all of the Mounds.”

Drask stared into the fire again. “Nolan attacked me. I had killed some of theirs. The Daxar Taalor had told me what I must do. I did it.” Andover nodded. One did not debate with gods.

“And then the ground we stood on, above the great pool, broke and we fell into it.”

There was silence then as Drask looked at his silver hand and the way the metal seemed to have grown into him and continued to move up his arm.

“What was it?”

Drask shrugged his powerful shoulders. “I do not know. The life of the gods? The blood of the gods? Whatever it is, it is now inside the three of us. It filled us as water fills a jug. As blood fills a body. It became a part of us.”

Tega leaned forward. “It is power. We have bathed in it and absorbed it. We should have died, but we did not. We should have drowned or burned or both, but instead it fills us.”

Drask nodded. “Yes. That is a good way to say it.”

“What kind of power?” Andover asked.

“I brought the Blasted Lands back to life. I brought Brackka back from ashes.”

“Could you bring Delil back to life?”

“Yes. I think I could.”

“But you didn’t.”

Drask looked at him again studying his face, examining his eyes as if they held other secrets that even Andover did not see. “You did not ask me. You did not ask Tega or Nolan. You asked your gods. They have given you a chance.”

“They are your gods, too.”

Drask stared for a long time into the flames. “I am not sure that is true any longer. There is much I have to consider.”

“Drask, how can you turn away from the gods?”

Drask did not answer.

How could he turn away from the gods?

Drask considered that question carefully. He examined it as if it were a gem with thousands of facets, looking for the possible flaws on every plane he could study.

He had not turned away, of course. He was looking for answers that, so far, the Daxar Taalor had not provided.

They had but to speak up, of course. He had not answered their queries but he heard the gods. He had always heard the gods, for as long as he could remember, and they had always known his heart. They had not chosen to answer the questions within him; even when he’d spoken them aloud he had received no answers.

His entire world was filled with their lessons, their advice and their truths. Great Korwa, the greatest city ever, had been destroyed by the very Empire he now entered. The people burned.

The gods painted the Sa’ba Taalor in colors of ash to remind them that their heritage was ashes and ruin. Dead and gone and ruined, destroyed by the Fellein because they wanted to take Korwa as their own and in their jealousy they destroyed what they could not have.

They sought the land. They sought the Empress. They sought to subjugate all that was, all that could be.

That was the story he’d been raised with.

Drask could have told Merros Dulver all of that, but it was not his place. The gods had other ideas.

For a thousand years the Sa’ba Taalor had fought among themselves, honing their skills until even the weakest of them was a match for the strongest of the enemies they might someday face.

He looked at Andover Lashk and contemplated that fact. The Fellein boy was gone, replaced by a Sa’ba Taalor man. The scars were real. The gods had found him people to fight and if he had failed in those combats he would be gone. There were no special favors among the gods. He knew that in his heart.

And yet, Andover Lashk wondered how he could turn his back on the gods.

There were no easy answers. Drask Silver Hand found himself capable of miracles, which had always been the purview of the Daxar Taalor. Of the gods.

What need of gods when you could answer your own prayers?

Had anyone asked Callan how he managed to steer his new ship all the way to Louron, he would have been unable to say.

The Brellar ship drove into the shallows around the swampy area and he looked at the ground for a long time, barely believing he could be that lucky. The air was hot and sticky, but compared to the air along the ocean, it smelled sweet.

For whatever reason, the worst of the smoke did not come here. The volcanic ash did not taint the waters as completely. There were fish in the waters here. He had not seen fish in the region since the Guntha Islands were buried under fire and stone.

Louron had an endless supply of rumors around it. Callan did not care. He dropped anchor and scurried his way down to the beach, grinning like a fool for the first time in days.

When he looked around, several of the Louron were around him. They did not seem afraid or welcoming, merely curious. Still, they smiled in the way of their people.

Callan smiled back and spoke slowly. “Hello.” Their language was a complex one and he spoke it with all the skill of a three year-old.

A young girl, perhaps all of four, waved and smiled at him, returning the welcome. Her father, or perhaps her grandfather, was there with her and he nodded.

The man said, “You do not look like a Brellar, but you have their ship.”

“Well, mine was sunk you see.”

He nodded and moved closer to the little girl. “You do not look well fed.”

“The grays, they took the food and water with them.” His tears started and he was barely aware. “They killed all the Brellar and left me with their bodies, you see. Out there.”

The man nodded again. “They are not good people.”

Callan nodded.

“Come. We can at least give you food and fresh water.”

Nicer words had never been spoken. Callan managed to drink and eat more than he should have and felt sick for it. His hosts gave him a place to rest and he fell into a deep sleep.

It was daylight when he woke again.

Three Inquisitors stood over his bed to greet him.

They had many, many questions for the captain.

Nachia greeted the arrival of her brother and his love interest with a certain amount of amusement. Princess Lanaie… Technically Queen Lanaie, but she had not been formally crowned as yet; Nachia made a mental note to fix that situation soon. It would help morale. But first, there was a war to consider. She was a striking young woman and Brolley was enchanted, but she had doubts that it was anything beyond infatuation.

Lanaie had all the charms a man could want, to be sure, but she was as quiet as a mouse and that had never much appealed to Brolley. He liked to argue. He was profoundly good at it. The skill had almost gotten him killed when he ran across the Sa’ba Taalor, and had nearly started the war between their peoples a good month early. Drask Silver Hand was the man he had challenged. A behemoth of a man who, fortunately, knew enough of diplomacy to let her brother survive.

Brolley had changed for the better since then. He still liked a good debate, but he trained every day, the better to back up his words with steel if the need arose. He was hardly an adept – Nachia could still take him in most situations – but he was getting better. In short, he was growing up.

Lanaie was a different story. She was still surprisingly quiet, but she had been courted by several men and was still being courted. Her uncle, Laister, now deceased, had been actively pursuing the woman who was decades younger than him in an effort to claim her title as his own. He’d failed.

The catch was simple: Lanaie had the title, but she had nothing else. The country she now ruled was burned and buried under ash. It might come back from that, but not for years. All she could claim was a wasteland.

Still, she was pursued, and at the present time Brolley was most earnestly courting her.

Nachia wasn’t quite certain how she felt about the situation. On the other hand Lanaie was nice enough.

It wasn’t her concern. There were other matters to look into.

“I know you’re busy, Nachia, but I haven’t seen you in days and I wanted to make certain all was well with you.”

Nachia smiled and stepped closer, opening her arms to hug her younger brother. They had often been at odds, but had always been good friends. That was the way with family. Well, some family. The rest of her blood relations were rather debatable.

“It’s busy. We’re at war. Still, I’m always delighted to see you.”

Lanaie bowed formally and Nachia returned the gesture. They were not nearly as close and wouldn’t be until she was absolutely certain what the woman’s intentions were.

Before she could do more, another messenger arrived with a sealed document. She smiled her thanks to the boy and broke the seal.

The words were direct and she studied them for a long moment, frowning.

“What’s wrong?” Brolley stepped closer and she moved back. The message wasn’t for him. She trusted her brother, but she didn’t want him fretting. There was enough going on that he already knew and she wanted no more of it in his life.

“Not for you, Brolley.” She shook her head. “Not this one. This is for me alone.”

For a moment the old anger was there. The nearly physical need to show how he could do whatever she could do. He pushed it aside and nodded his head, smiling instead.

“Is this something you need to attend to now?”

“I’m afraid so.” She sighed. “Join me for dinner tonight?”

Brolley smiled. “Yes, of course.”

A moment later he and Lanaie were gone from the chambers and she was alone with her two mountainous bodyguards. Merros liked to pick men who looked as if they were bred to pull wagons, but they were, as she had already seen, very skilled at their duties.

That didn’t bother her. She understood the necessity; though she preferred to handle as much as she could herself, she could not be left alone, not when assassins had already proven they could enter the castle.

No. The problem was with the Temple of Etrilla, where several hundred people were now locked inside and the remaining priests were turning people away from the locked doors.

Those who had entered were beyond sick now. They were dying or dead.

The Temple of Etrilla was one of the larger structures in Old Canhoon. It was nowhere near as grandiose as the palace, of course, but it was built of heavy marble walls and gilded besides. The structure was nearly as old as the palace, and housed as many as a thousand people at a time. In the olden days it might have held more, but there had been a collapse some hundred years back and somehow along the way the land had been used to build other structures. Just as well. Under most circumstances you could not find a thousand individuals entering the structure at one time, but now was a time of need and that changed the way people looked at churches. As Vendahl, the god of wealth and prosperity, was quoted to have said to his followers when he still walked the lands, “When people no longer trust their mortal leaders, they look to the gods. When there is war or disaster, expect the coffers to fill faster than in times of peace and plenty.”

Wendtle Hearin was the head of the temple. He was newly appointed, as his predecessor had succumbed to old age and passed in the chaos of the city rising into the air. Still, he was comfortable enough with his decisions. The coffers were full enough for now, and he’d stocked up water and food for the faithful and was offering it out when it was needed. Those who served with him were faithful and diligent. The one exception had been properly punished. Following the rituals of Etrilla as told by Humble Ohlmer, the seventh prophet, the man was stripped of his position and cast from the temple after being marked with a brand to the forehead. Was it distasteful? Yes. Did it hurt him to burn a man’s face? Yes. Was it necessary in a city the size of Canhoon to punish a sinner? Yes.

Now, this.

Was it the Plague Winds? It mirrored the symptoms, but that hardly seemed likely. The faithful came to the temple and sat in the pews and waited for their chance to seek solace and blessings from Etrilla. At first Wendtle thought it was merely another day, with a few seeking a chance to seek aid from the gods. But this? This was madness. The sick came in as a nearly constant stream, a trickle at first and then a river and now a flood. He had no choice but to close the doors and lock them. There was simply nowhere else to put the people who sought refuge.

The inside of the temple was filled to overflowing. People sat in the aisles, rested against the walls, even occupied the seats of the great table, simply because it was necessary. At first prayers were offered, and the passing out of food and water added to the tasks assigned the priests. The food would not stay down. The water could not be swallowed by throats that burned with sickness.

The followers were pale and shook with fever, and their skin began to scale as if they had, indeed, endured the Plague Winds of old. But the winds did not strike with discrimination. They burned and struck rich and poor alike, regardless of faith. These were the faithful, familiar faces even after only a few days in some cases. There were the Followers of Etrilla and they were being crushed by the horrid sickness.

Now, despite the cold, the sick continued to come, seeking solace, and all he could offer them were the patches of the temple’s lawn that had not already been taken by the dispossessed.

Wendtle barred the doors of the temple and stood before them and did all he could think to do. He prayed to the God of Cities and Towns, and was joined by others. It was all that was left them.

Sometimes prayers are enough. Sometimes faith is enough. It was the only weapon left in his arsenal.

By the time dinner came around, Nachia was hardly in a mood for company, even her closest friends and family. Still, one did what one had to do.

Because there was no other time for it, she had a dinner with her inner council and with her brother and Lanaie besides.

Merros ate. He was a soldier and that was something she quickly learned: when soldiers are told to eat very little stops them from fulfilling that duty.

Desh was too busy discussing everything with her to eat. “I’ve examined several of the people at the Etrilla temple. It looks like Plague Wind. But it is not that particular affliction. It’s poison.”

“Well, how are they being poisoned?”

“I’ve no idea, Nachia. I’m a well-learned man but poisons are not my specialty.”

“Is there anyone in your gathering of sorcerers who might know?”

“Corin. I have him investigating the situation now. But the damage is done, Majesty. This is a poisoning. Somehow, someone has poisoned an entire congregation.”

“I know a lot of the churches keep emergency supplies.” Merros looked up from his food and wiped at his mouth with one wrist. “We had that incident with the horses before everything went from bad to deadly. Someone poisoned their feed. You might have Corin investigate that.”

Desh nodded his head. “I will. He was the one who found the poisoned feed, but best to doublecheck.”

“Best that we add extra guards to the stores here, too.”

Merros looked at his meal and sighed. “I’d be worried about this, but honestly, I’m rather hungry and I’ve already been eating.”

He pulled a sliver of meat from his plate and wrapped it in bread before chewing on it.

Nachia found her appetite waning.

“We are now a little over a day away from the mountains. Have you found a way to make certain we are clear of any obstacles, Desh?”

Desh shook his head. “I believe we will be safe. I’ve consulted with the Sooth and others have as well. We should be safe. Beyond that, if it comes to that, the only other option at this time is to try to level the mountain.”

Nachia took in several deep breaths and finally nodded her head. Desh did not want to use sorceries of that level. As he had already said, there were always prices to be paid. But he would if he had to and that was enough.

“Or,” Desh said, looking at Merros the entire time, “I suppose I could grow us all wings and we could fly away to the Great Star.”

She looked at Merros and had to stifle a laugh. He was thinking about the level of power it would take to move a mountain, and his attitude toward his food reflected as much. The bread and meat sat on his plate while he tried to manage to finish the bite he had in his mouth without being sick.

Brolley looked at her and spoke his mind, as he was wont to do. “I was looking over the wall. They’re close to us, close behind us. We should do something to hurt them.”

“Like what?”

“Well, perhaps spears or arrows…” Brolley’s face flushed red.

Merros spoke up. “I’m more worried about the ones we obviously have here with us. We have to stop them. We have to find a way to detect them and capture them.”

Desh scowled. “It’s not for lack of trying, General Dulver.”

Merros raised his hands. Every time the sorcerer called him by his proper title it was an immediate sign that he was irritated. “I’m not accusing anyone of not doing their best, Desh. I’m just speaking aloud. As much as I like the notion of dropping something on our pursuers, our more immediate threat is the group that has caused riots and possibly poisoned our supplies. Again.”

“I’m certainly open to suggestions.” Desh drank the last of the wine in his goblet and shook his head. “I know you said they were skilled, Merros, but the damned enemy has dead gray skin. How is it that we haven’t actually had anyone report seeing any of them?”

“I know many people thought I was exaggerating, but I meant what I said about their skills. Ten of them killed over a thousand of the Guntha because they move like ghosts. They make no noise, they are not seen unless they want to be seen.”

Brolley nodded his head. “The one we have – Jost, I think? – she was the one who waited for Desh in Roathes. Well, the ruins. The ashes. There was nothing there but dust and ash and a few burned-out huts but she waited and not a one of us saw her until she wanted to be seen.”

Nachia thought about that and suppressed a shiver. Her brother was many things, but he could never keep the truth from his face. The Sa’ba Taalor scared him. That was good. She wanted him scared. Scared people were cautious.

Desh nodded. “We can continue trying to find them. In the meanwhile, the Sisters have come up with a plan for slowing the ones behind us. If it works, it works. If not, we have wasted only a bit of effort.”

“What do you have planned?”

Desh smiled at Nachia. “It’s a surprise.”

That was all he would say.

Eight

Andover climbed from the river’s waters and suppressed a shiver. The air was cold, but not unpleasant. It was the breeze that sent the chills through him. Despite his training he was not used to the smells of death. The Blasted Lands were to his back and two of the Seven Forges now breathed ash and toxic gasses into the air to the south. Durhallem and Wheklam raged, reshaping the world.

They had swallowed the Guntha. They had swallowed Tyrne, the only world Andover ever knew before going to the Taalor Valley.

For the briefest moment a flash of anger struck him at that thought. One look at his hands was enough to quell that fury.

Tega sat near his bundle of clothes. She looked at him as he approached, but he felt no embarrassment. Flesh was only flesh. He had changed a great deal and though she showed little emotion, he suspected the way she stared was more to do with how much he had been changed in a short time than it was about lust or any interest.

“You are so different, Andover.” She offered him his breeches and he took them, sliding them over the scars that covered his thick legs then nodding his thanks as he took the shirt from her and finally his vest. The cloak stayed where it was for the moment, wrapped around his stockpile of weapons.

“I am me.” He looked at her, studied her. His heart still felt a flutter when he cast his attention her way, but she was no longer the whole of his universe. There had been a time when he would have killed for her, would have starved for her. When he would have done anything at all, just to have her attention. All she had ever cost him was his hands, and all she had ever done for him was find a way for him to have his hands again.

He looked at his hands for a moment.

“You have changed as well, Tega. You are like Drask. I can feel the differences inside you from here.”

“I haven’t changed, Andover. I just hold onto some energies. I’m the apprentice to Desh Krohan. The power is there; I could use it if I wanted, but it hasn’t changed me.”

“What is it then?”

“Just power. Lightning is power. Power is everywhere. In the flames of a fire, in the breeze, in the heartbeat of a person. This is just extra.”

“I don’t understand.” He stood near her and carefully put his weapons where they belonged. There had been no attacks, but only a fool would expect the world to remain unchallenged. There was a war going on.

Tega held out one hand. “I know how to access power. I was taught by Desh. I am… not as skilled as I would like. I have actually destroyed things I only meant to hurt or stop, without trying very hard. But when I finished casting my spells there was always a price. I was as hungry as if I had gone days without eating, or I was so tired that I had to rest. That is why Desh always says that magic has a price. You can do amazing things, but there is always a cost.”

She sighed, and then reached up to take his hands in hers. Tega looked into his eyes and spoke earnestly. “Your hands were made of iron, Andover. I could not have accomplished such a feat. I could not have healed your hands, though I stopped them from being completely destroyed.” She shook her head. “I could do very little, because the damage was so great and in order to heal the wounds on you I would have had to ruin someone else. I thought about doing that to Purb and Menock, but it was not for me to decide.”

She paused a moment then shook her head again. “Fellein has laws to stop me from performing that sort of sorcery, because the cost is too high. There was a time when sorcerers would heal someone who was rich enough by taking the power from the poor or even from people who gave up years of their life for a few coins. People who were desperate. Desh pushed to have the laws put in place that stopped that.”

“Why?”

She looked long and hard at him before answering. “Because the weak sometimes need to be protected.”

He nodded his head. “I used to believe that. I understand.”

“When Purb and his friends broke your hands, they were wrong. You were given a chance to prove that, but before the laws were put there, it was just accepted that the strong should survive. Without those laws, you would not be here now.”

“Without the Daxar Taalor, I would not be who I am. They gave me hands and they taught me lessons. The Sa’ba Taalor spend their entire lives learning those lessons. Tega. Had I been raised by them I might never have needed to fear Purb and Menock.”

She nodded and stood up.

“Before you were hurt you worked for a blacksmith. You were learning a trade. You were also punished a few times for theft.”

“I stole to live.” He nodded. “Mostly fruit or bread after my parents made me leave. If Burk had not taken me in, I would have likely been killed at some point. Even before that, I had a few scars from the lash of the City Guard.”

“Burk took you in. He saw you and accepted you. You were not strong, Andover. You were not a fighter. But you learned, yes?”

“Of course.”

“I understand that Tyrne is gone. Destroyed. That’s what the first people we found when we left the Blasted Lands told us.”

Andover nodded and pressed his lips together. “Yes. Durhallem chose to raise his mountain there to teach the people of Fellein a lesson.”

“What lesson?”

“That they should have agreed to a peaceful accord instead of insisting on a war.”

“And did Burk escape Tyrne before that happened?”

Andover shook his head. “I do not know.”

Tega looked away from him. “And I do not know if my mother and father are alive. Or my aunt. Or my little brother. Or my dog.” He watched as she blinked furiously to hold back tears. “All I know is that one of the gods you now follow might have killed them all to teach a lesson.”

“I am sorry if you have lost loved ones.”

Tega nodded. “I am sorry if I did too. And if Burk is dead. And Libari Welliso, who helped me carry you to the palace and a meeting with Desh Krohan.” She looked up at him again. “Do you know what all of them have in common?”

“They helped me.”

“They did not prey on the weak.”

Andover looked down at Tega for several moments. Her face was the same, as beautiful as he had ever seen. The boy he had been still nearly worshipped her. The man he had become could even understand why.

“Why did you help me, Tega?”

“Because Purb hurt you because of me. And because you were always nice to me. You smiled and I liked your smile.”

Her fingers moved up and gently caressed the line of Great Scars that covered his mouth. “I’m not even sure if I could see your smile now, Andover. That is a sad thing to me. You had a beautiful smile.”

She rose and started to walk away.

“Tega, if I asked, could you bring Delil back to life? Are you capable of that sort of thing?”

“Yes, Andover. I think I could, just as I now have the power to mend your old hands.” She gestured toward Tyrne. “But as much as I like you, as much as I used to wonder what it would be like to be closer to you, there is a city full of corpses I would likely want to tend to first.”

There was nothing he could say to that. Instead he sat where she had been sitting and thought about Tyrne and all the people he had known.

The mountains were higher than Stastha had thought, but that was a good thing.

The air was thin near the top of the mountains, and from where she stood she could see the great spine of the entire run in both directions. It was an impressive sight.

A large number of small villages ran along the river’s edge. Some were still intact. Others they’d taken as they moved, but only when they absolutely had to. There was an army behind them that would want to sharpen blades on the bodies of their victims. Stastha had a different task. She and her small gathering of soldiers were to find the best way to take advantage of the mountains.

The long run of the river was deceptive. Closer to the Blasted Lands the banks of the river were close to the ground, but the closer one got to the mountains, the deeper the cut of the land. The river had hacked a wound into the land itself and cliffs rose high enough to make the water impossible to reach without climbing down several hundred feet. The foothills were deceptive and the land was magnificent to look over. In a few places villages had built bridges between the two sides of the river. Most were in good repair. Stastha left them that way. A person could never tell when being on the other side of a river might be beneficial.

Canhoon was getting closer. Within a day the vast city in the air would be moving along the river to the west and heading for the very spot where she was now standing.

She prayed the gods gave them the best possible weather. Clouds, yes, but no rain or snow. Whatever the case they would be ready, of course, but best if the weather worked with them instead of hindering the cause.

The work was sturdy, but it was also ungainly in appearance. It would do.

Satisfied at last with her work, Stastha took out her horn and blew four sharp notes that echoed between the mountains and along the river below.

The sound came to them as the skies to the east began to lighten.

Tuskandru rose and stretched and walked over to Brodem, who was still pretending to sleep though the sound had awakened him.

“Up, you lazy brute,” Tusk said with affection. Brodem let out a good-natured rumble and rolled over, giving Tusk access to the satchel he wanted.

A moment later his horn was out and he was blowing four sharp notes that perfectly mirrored the ones Stastha had just called out.

There were no complaints from most, but the newest among them looked around, shocked by the powerful notes.

Bram Littner, the spokesman for the villages who now followed Durhallem, looked to Tusk. “My king? What do you need?”

“Get up! It’s time for war!” Tusk bellowed the words even as his followers rose from their rest and grabbed their belongings. The newer followers had little. Most could carry only a cloak and a few supplies. That was just as well. They would learn today as they had every day since joining the followers of Durhallem.

The boats raised their anchors and untied from hastily crafted stays along the shoreline.

Tarag Paedori bellowed to his people and they responded.

Within ten minutes the Sa’ba Taalor were on the move. Those with mounts took to the lead. Those on the boats were close behind. The stragglers – mostly from the village – did their best, hastened by the younger members of the Sa’ba Taalor, who made sure they moved as quickly as they could.

Life is a series of tests. No one was permitted to fail. Young Mendt and her cohorts kept the stragglers in line. Those who could not follow the orders of their god were not left alive.

Durhallem is called the Wounder for a reason.

They travelled east with every haste. The time had come to show the foolish among the Fellein that no place was safe from the Sa’ba Taalor.

The winds picked up pace and the boats soon took the lead, moving even faster than the mounts. From all points among the gathering horns called out, not to communicate but to call to the gods, to let them know that their children were on the move and eager to serve.

Far to the east Lored ran into a surprise as he moved along the river’s edge.

His army was moving, but slowly. The war engines had to be pulled from location to location. It might have been easy enough to build more in their stead, but there were no forests here, only occasional trees and more flatlands.

Bromt suggested taking the river, seizing boats as needed and moving quickly to the west. There was a war going on and there were few threats to them that they had not easily crushed. A few hundred of the Sa’ba Taalor had been badly injured and half that number had been killed.

They wanted war, and they wanted it sooner rather than later. There were also several cities with great walls along the river, at least according to their captives. Best to find them and crush them if they could, and so they rode along the river. It was easy enough. They took boats by force as they went, and killed their enemies in the process.

When the arrows came, few of them were prepared.

Oh, to be sure, there were guards, but whereas usually they stayed alert because they were on foot, the waters made them complacent. They looked for boats and little else. They were foolish.

Lored saw the arrows and called an alarm, but his call was cut short by the arrow that slammed into his own throat and stopped against his vertebrae. He reached for the obstruction, uncertain as to why, exactly, he was having trouble breathing, and then fell back, drowning in his own blood.

The followers of Wheklam onboard the boats steered and turned the vessels, moving them to better defensive positions, but it did them little good. Their assailants had waited patiently and brought their full wrath down from a very advantageous position.

The Imperial archers knew their duty and they did it. Arrows rose and fell and many of them were covered with burning pitch.

The Sa’ba Taalor did their very best, but the boats under them were burning and sinking and they had no choice but to swim for the shores. The problem was that the shorelines were not clear and easy to access. They were rocky outcroppings that led to areas where a person could climb seventy or so feet up a cliff side to reach land.

The dead Sa’ba Taalor burned with the boats, then sank into the fast moving waters.

The rest climbed. The simple fact of the matter is that the people of the Forges were raised climbing mountains. It was among the very first tasks they were given. Many of them, even encumbered with wet clothes, scrambled quickly up the sides of the cliff. The volleys of arrows slammed into the walls around them, stuck to their backs or pierced their limbs. However, the majority of the gray-skinned people carried backpacks with supplies, occasionally their shields, or even weapons, all of which stopped the arrows from penetrating. Those hit occasionally fell back into the river, but not as many as might have been expected. They were trained their entire lives to deal with pain. Unless a tendon was cut or a bone broken, there was little they would not endure.

The arrows continued to come, however, and those who were not quick enough died before they reached the top of the cliffs.

They did not have their siege weapons any longer. They did not care. The Sa’ba Taalor lived for war. Their gods shaped them that way.

The archers on the shores retreated a reasonable distance, but they did not flee. Some of them used short bows and used them well, several arrows held in their hands and fired in quick succession as the Sa’ba Taalor approached. Others used longer bows and fired from a distance. These weapons had greater power and slammed into the enemy with substantial force, often enough to penetrate bone.

As the Sa’ba Taalor charged, their enemies retreated then dropped down to the ground to give the crossbow archers their chance.

Several of the Sa’ba Taalor had bows as well and used them, but most never had the chance. The Fellein archers were better prepared, and their weapons had not just been soaked in the river.

Had the Sa’ba Taalor been alone it is very possible that they would have been killed off in that initial assault.

No one sounded an alarm. No one blew a horn. So the mounts were unaware of a battle until well after the worst of the damage had been done to the boats.

But when they realized the mounting carnage, they did not take well to someone murdering their humans.

The Fellein in the area had never seen a mount before. They had been warned to beware the creatures, but they had no real point of reference. Yes, they had seen bears, and occasionally a mountain lion. Bears did not move the same way, and the mountain lions did not wear heavy armor.

If the armor should have slowed down the mounts, it was not up to the task. Flaming arrows and regular arrows alike did their job and cut into the beasts, but a few still made it to the archers before the fighting was done and even the crossbow bolts that hit the beasts seemed to slow them only when they’d been struck a hundred blows.

Not all the Sa’ba Taalor died that day. Not all the mounts, either. Instead they did what few Sa’ba Taalor ever did: they retreated.

Once they were safely far enough away, the surviving Sa’ba Taalor looked to Ordna for direction after the death of their king.

Ordna was silent for a long time before responding.

If one were to observe the southern shoreline of Fellein, the first sights from the west would be the ruins of Roathes. The bodies of a few could be seen here and there, rotting away, though far less than one might expect considering the catastrophes that had befallen the small nation. Beyond that, the Louron still held sway in an area that was surprisingly untainted by the volcanic activity that destroyed the neighboring Roathes.

An odd sight that one might note would be the activity around a lone ship that was being loaded with supplies by an unusual crew.

For a long span after Louron there were rugged shorelines that belonged to no one. The area had been disputed for generations, claimed again and again by both Fellein and the Brellar. The land itself was inhospitable, the ground unstable and given to collapse. For that reason, the area was finally abandoned by both sides. The Brellar still claimed it was theirs. The Fellein still claimed it belonged to the Empire. But no one fought over it any longer. The neighboring people of Louron said it was best left alone, for angry spirits inhabited the area.

It should be noted that most people in Fellein didn’t believe in ghosts. They preferred to believe that any unusual actions were acts of either sorcerers or the gods. Louron was the exception. Most of the people there believed in ghosts and other spirits. It should also be pointed out that Louron was the area that, for the time at least, the Sa’ba Taalor had decided to leave alone.

Almost at the center of the continental landmass, there was a break at the southern end. That break was the mouth of the Parmahar River, which ran from the Corinta Ocean all the way to Lake Gerhaim. In most places the river was over a mile wide and there were no existing bridges crossing it. The waters were deep and fickle and it was best to travel by ferry, which could be found with great regularity and used to cross for a small fee. No one would charge a heavy fee, as the next ferry was never really that far away.

Along the way there were many villages and port towns, most of them small in population and happy to be that way. Larger towns, the local wisdom said, get noticed in times of war. Though Fellein had not been at war for several generations, the local wisdoms still stood and made perfect sense to the people who lived along the Parmahar.

The wisdom of the locals did not mean much to the black ships of the Sa’ba Taalor. They rode up the river from the sea and took their time about it. But first, they let off the remaining armies they carried.

The armies of Ganem spread on both the eastern shore and the western. Those on the western shore saw Ganem first. Days of hard riding found her on the other side of the Arkannen Mountains. She rode her mount and carried her spear in one hand, bucklers on both of her arms.

They cheered when they saw her. The King in Silver was well loved for a reason. In a perfect world, as far as Ganem was concerned, Drask Silver Hand would have been on the western shore to lead the troops.

Instead it was Tenna, who was just as solid a leader, but tended to waver on the path of balance more than her former lover. Tenna would do. She was a warrior first and a philosopher second and this was, after all, wartime.

Ganem sounded her horn as the sun rose and the black ships sailed on, heading upriver with all haste. Tenna sounded her horn in response. Moments later Ydramil’s army was on the move.

The small villages had always believed that their size made them useless as targets. They had no strategic value and their people were merely fishers and boaters.

That notion was cemented for them when the great black ships moved up the river, dark sails set and oars cutting the water. None of the villagers were foolish enough to cheer as they went past, but most of them thanked their gods – mostly Othea the River God and Luhnsh the Beggar King – as they were spared assault.

When Ganem’s forces attacked, few of them were praying any longer.

As with Tuskandru before, and with the direct wishes of both the King in Iron and Ydramil, each villager was offered the chance to pray to a new god. When each had made their decisions they were converted or killed. As with Tusk, a coin was needed to prove faith and to mark the newcomers among the blessed of Ydramil. Some lived. Some died. All were changed by the experience. While it is true that many converted and were introduced to Ydramil, a great number chose death. The river ran red as the soldiers of Ydramil made their way to the north, following after the great black ships.

First came the sickness.

Then came the riots.

The illness that started with the Temple of Etrilla spread. The symptoms were identical to the Plague Winds, meaning that people first grew feverish and then had to deal with the horrible scarring of their flesh, with nausea and chills and vomiting and in many cases the loss of hair and teeth, before death came along to end their suffering.

Once past the walls of the temple, the illness became a flame that drew the attention of the people. When the dead and dying were hidden away people did their best to ignore it, but as soon as the refugees started dying on the streets, panic set in. In a day’s time the rumors had become truth in the eyes of many and that was enough to start the desperate attempts to escape their fates.

Those who suffered the pains soon found death to be a mercy. Those who watched their loved ones suffer did not take it well. Prayers were not enough, it seemed, no matter how much the faithful asked for assistance.

Those who did not have loved ones suffering from the Plague Winds did not see the efforts that went into stopping the spread of the illness. All they saw were the infected, who might well pass the sickness by breathing on them. “Spreading the wind,” they called it.

The priests did their best. Everyone acknowledged that.

Still, a few felt that the gods were not doing their part and therefore help was needed.

How they got past the locked doors was anyone’s guess. But they did. It was easy enough to find the supplies of oil among the dead and dying.

Fire purifies.

The oil was spilled and then set ablaze before the doors were sealed again in the darkness of a cold, wintry night. Snow was falling even as the temple and the faithful began to burn. The snow was silent. The faithful were not.

The temple was made mostly of stone, great slabs of marble. It survived the fire. The faithful did not.

No doubt a few thought that they had saved the city and acted heroically. It was grim work, to be sure, but better for everyone in the end, yes?

The next day a few people were found suffering from the same symptoms. Most were left alone. Two were burned alive, while witnesses watched. The descriptions given were nothing spectacular. The men who did the burning were captured within an hour, but by that point the damage had been done. Parties started spreading, looking to take care of the Plague Winds before anyone else died. Most of them carried lanterns with enough oil to handle the matter.

A surprising number of them were stopped by the City Guard, who took it upon themselves to do their duties without waiting for anyone to tell them to do so. Still, a few slipped past as was inevitable.

Seventeen people suffering from the illness were taken to the top of the Mid Wall by a mob that had had enough. No one would see them or theirs ruined by the disease.

They were right. The Silent Army ruined them instead. Each and every member of the mob was captured by the stone soldiers who rose from the wall and separated the rioters from their victims.

A man named Wilkham tried to protest the way he was being treated. The stone soldier dealing with him grabbed the protesting survivor from Tyrne by his neck and his crotch and effortlessly flung him over the wall and past the small amount of land beyond it. Wilkham screamed very loudly as he rose into the air and then sank, dropping toward the river far below.

The mob that had planned the exact same fate for the afflicted people they’d dragged to the top of the wall tried to escape, but to the last they followed the fate of Wilkham.

By the time the City Guard arrived the situation had ended. There were plenty of witnesses, however, who were glad to tell them what had happened.

The rioting continued, but it did so well away from the Mid Wall.

The following day, as the sun rose, the Silent Army moved. Half of their force stayed along the wall. The other half moved out through the whole of the city, from all points toward the palace. They did not merely stand as statues. They moved. They patrolled.

That was the day the worst of the riots ceased.

While the riots continued there was, understandably, a bit of chaos and occasional bloodshed.

Merros Dulver moved along the streets, on an urgent mission. He had not seen Dretta March in two days, despite his best efforts. The business of running an army was a massive affair.

Word had come in of the successful assault on the army of the King in Bronze, and he had celebrated with a glass of wine with the Empress and Desh Krohan, but that had been all the time there was for celebration. Despite the very best efforts of Darsken Murdro and Pella, he could not gain access to the mind of Jost. She would not talk, she would not break, and all agreed that actual torture would do absolutely no good. The closest they came to actual physical torture was withholding food and water. The problem was, Merros had seen the Sa’ba Taalor move through the Blasted Lands and eat far less than any of his troops. It was possible that they could have ruined the girl by keeping the water away from her, but they all agreed, ultimately, that she would simply die rather than talk. They did not want her dead. She had secrets that they wanted.

Pella and Tataya were discussing the best ways to pull the information from her without risking anyone’s mind.

Desh understood the necessity, but refused to be any part of it. No one, not even Nachia, could sway him.

“Torture,” he reminded them, “is seldom a useful technique. People will tell you what they think you want to hear. They’ll make up all new stories for you if they think you’ll listen to them and just stop administering pain.”

The way he said it, Merros knew he was speaking from experience. He didn’t ask about the exact situations and Desh did not volunteer any particulars.

The girl under Desh’s care came with him almost everywhere, but she seldom spoke. Merros was the one who’d found her back when she was seeking the wizard. Still, though she was civil, she had little to say to him. She held her stomach like she was going to be ill, but she never was. Instead she simply followed Desh Krohan around, occasionally spoke to what had to be an imaginary friend and from time to time cried a silent tear or two. That was understandable. The hells she must have endured getting away from Trecharch and marching the hundreds of miles to reach Canhoon must have left her broken. Merros doubted very seriously that he would have been in any better shape than Cullen by the end of the situation.

Having won a victory against the Sa’ba Taalor, Merros and his soldiers were now busier than before. The riders he’d employed were not from Canhoon, obviously, but they were skilled and they were aggressive when it came to defending what was theirs. The plains they ran along were populated mostly by nomads and the occasional town. Had it not been for working out details with Desh Krohan about having the sorcerers pass along information, the attack would never have worked.

Now that it had, he wanted to employ it to better advantage. The Sooth was useful in finding the Sa’ba Taalor, but it had taken troops and, frankly, a little bit of chicanery to manage their one major victory to date. They’d known where the Sa’ba Taalor were. They’d been informed of boats that had been stolen. They’d set a trap and it had worked.

Captain Leno Nethalte had run the charge brilliantly. He was also, fortunately, one of the people who escaped the great mounts that came after the remaining Sa’ba Taalor.

The mage working with Nethalte – he could not remember the girl’s name to save his life. It had to be ten syllables long at least – had helped identify Lored, the King in Bronze. They had managed to kill one of the kings. That had to be a morale blow to the Sa’ba Taalor, but he had no idea how good a strike it had been.

He made a note to have Darsken Murdro mention the death to Jost. Maybe that would make her chatty.

Such were the thoughts that were going through Merros’s mind as he walked through the market on the way to Dretta’s home. He planned to surprise her with fresh fruit. The stuff was getting harder to come by every day, but one of the vendors, who got his fruit directly from the palace, had promised to set aside grapes, apples and Pabba for the general. Sometimes rank had its privileges.

As he approached the trader’s table the rioting began again. Merros could not have said what started it, but there was a scream and then a second and as he looked in that direction he saw the fight breaking out in earnest. Three or four men were doing their very best to take down a smaller figure, but it wasn’t going the way they wanted it to.

The first of the attackers stumbled back with a deep gash across his throat that bled like a waterfall until he fell backward and hit the cobblestones. That made more people scream, as one would expect, and the chaos began in earnest. The smaller figure brought an elbow around and drove it into the face of her assailant. Her assailant. That piqued Merros’s already high curiosity and he moved toward the fight. The man who’d been elbowed staggered back with shattered teeth falling from his mouth.

The woman used the broken-faced man’s torso as a springboard, planting both of her feet on his ribcage – cracking his sternum in the process – and then used her momentum to knee another man in the back of his head and neck. Something broke and he dropped to the ground.

The movement was enough to let Merros see past the hood that fell down, to let him see Dretta’s face as she killed her third assailant. He stared, dumbstruck, and watched the effortless way she drove her fingertips into the throat of her fourth assailant and left him choking on his blood. A move Merros had only ever seen once before.

When Swech killed one of the men who tried to rape her the first time she entered a city in Fellein.

A man tried to run from her. He held a satchel in his hand, and he was moving at high speed. Dretta pulled a knife from the-gods-alone knew where, and drove it into the back of his neck and he, too, fell to the ground. She pulled the knife from the man’s head even as she grabbed her collected groceries and shoved them back into her satchel.

As with so many of the Sa’ba Taalor, she seemed to look everywhere at once. Still, it took her a second to recognize him. The blade was still in her hand. It was not the sort of thing one found in Canhoon. It was a flat leaf of metal that had been painstakingly sharpened and was designed to be thrown.

It was the sort of blade Swech had used to cut his face, to kill Wollis March. But that was impossible, of course. Swech had gray skin and scars everywhere on her body. He knew that from firsthand experience.

He meant to say “Dretta”. He did. But when he opened his mouth, “Swech?”

Her eyes looked so broken just then. Her face was a mask of sorrow, even as the blade left her hand and sailed for him.

She was far enough away for instinct to have time to take over. His arm came up to ward off the blow even as he dropped down. The blade took him in his hand and drove through his palm, the tip emerging on the other side.

The Sa’ba Taalor seemed capable of ignoring pain. They managed to fight when they should have long since collapsed.

Merros envied them that. He felt his gorge rise and fought not to puke on himself as the wave of pain screamed through his arm.

The street was cold and hard and he fell on it, holding his damaged hand in the air.

He looked up just as Dretta, his Dretta, came at him, a thin blade that was absolutely foreign to him clutched in her grip. The grip of the weapon was held in her closed fingers, but instead of the blade coming from one end or the other of her hand, it ran from the outside of her grip in both directions. A metal blade sharpened and ready pushed along her arm, past her elbow in one direction and a solid six inches in front of her as well.

“Curse you for being so damned smart, Merros.” The words were not spoken in the common tongue of Fellein. They were Sa’ba Taalor.

Merros looked at her and his heart shattered. “Swech. Damn it, no.” He could barely breathe.

Her fist struck his face and drew away in a flash, and the double blade along her other hand pistoned back and came for him.

Dretta March’s body was grabbed and hurled backward with astonishing force. She tried to catch herself, tried to twist her body, but the attack was too fast and too brutal. She hit the wall closest to them and fell, grunting. She came back up just as quickly and drove the blade of her weapon into the face of her attacker.

The blade was sharp and strong and scraped along the stone face of the Silent Soldier causing exactly no damage. She brought the longer end around to attack him on the backstroke of her swing and had the same effect.

And while she did that, the stone short sword of the stone man facing her cut through her stomach and deep into her chest, cleaving Swech’s heart in half.

Dretta March fell to the ground. She was dead before she landed.

Desh Krohan tended to the wound in Merros’s hand. “Stand still. You’ll only make this worse.”

Nachia paced around the room, doing her best to stay calm. Her best was not very good.

“What were you doing out on the streets alone?”

“I’m the general of all the Empire’s forces. How would I ever get the respect of the troops if I couldn’t walk home alone? Ow! Gods, Desh!”

The first Advisor tsked like a grandmother. “I told you not to move. You’re very lucky the blade didn’t sever a bone. It nicked one, which is probably the only reason it didn’t go through your hand and into your head.”

Desh looked at the wound and winced. He was being kind; the nick he spoke of was a cut though bone. Dretta March or Swech, whoever she’d been, had a deadly aim and threw knives with force enough to kill. His hand was the only reason he was alive. According to Merros the woman had aimed for his eyes.

“Where is her body?”

“Where you don’t need to look at it. She’s currently being examined by the Inquisitors.”

Merros nodded, his lips pressed into a thin line.

“You’re either going to get guards or you stay at your offices here in the palace.” Nachia was not making a suggestion.

Merros nodded. “I’ll stay here. There’s no reason for me to leave.”

Snow was falling in a fury. By the time the City Guard had brought the March woman’s body to the palace she’d been frozen half solid and covered in a blanket of snow.

She’d been taken immediately to Darsken Murdro.

Merros had been brought to the private quarters hidden to the side of the throne room, and that was where he was still sitting, scowling and wincing and occasionally making faces like he would cry if he could get five minutes alone.

“You’ve torn the bloody bandages again. Oh, to dust with this.” Desh moved his hand and muttered a word and Merros let out a squeal of surprise. Nachia saw the small burst of light that moved from sorcerer to soldier. She saw the wound close itself completely.

She stared, and had to force her jaw shut.

“I don’t do that often. Don’t expect it.” Desh actually sounded different. His words were a little slurred. Not many would have noticed, but after a lifetime with the man teaching her, she knew the First Advisor well enough. “Move your fingers, make a fist, do it often for the next few hours or the scar tissue will steal mobility from you.”

“What did you do, Desh?” Merros looked at his hand as if it might be an alien life form and one that was possibly trying to kill him.

“I mended your wound. Don’t expect it a second time. It’s exhausting.”

“I had no idea you could manage such a feat.”

“Like I said. I don’t do it often.”

Merros muttered to himself, “I don’t know if I should thank you or strike you.”

Desh had a smirk on his lean face when he responded. “Go with the thanks. Striking a sorcerer is never wise. We have defenses.”

“Yes, well, then I suppose thank you is in order.” Merros was staring at his hand, moving his fingers, making fists, and frowning.

“As I said, keep working your hand or risk stiff fingers and a wrist that won’t turn easily. Not the best issues for a swordsman.”

Nachia nodded. She’d known that Desh could do that. She’d studied with him for a while; even if she seldom practiced even the simplest spells, she understood the concept.

“What made you suspect, Merros?”

“I’ve been a fighter my entire life, Nachia. I’ve trained and worked and even when I left the army I did some work as a mercenary. The only people I’ve ever seen fight that way were Sa’ba Taalor. They don’t swing their fists. They don’t… move the same way. She moved her feet along a man’s chest and broke him. It barely looked like she was touching him, but his ribs may as well have been crushed by a Pra-Moresh.”

He looked down at his hand again. “And the moves she made? Not every Sa’ba Taalor can do them. Swech told me she followed a god who believes in unarmed combat. I can’t say for sure if she was Swech. But when I said that name, she tried to kill me.”

“If there’s a way to know for certain, we’ll find it.”

“I’m going to have to examine her place. I need to know whether or not she had secrets in there. Gods! How could I be so damned stupid.”

Nachia shook her head. “None of that. She looked nothing like Swech. She had letters from Wollis March. She gave no sign that she was anyone else.”

Merros nodded, but his face didn’t say that he agreed. He was already wondering how best to approach her home and examine it.

“We can send the Inquisitors if you prefer. They are very, very good at finding secrets.”

The look that crossed his face was almost pain. “Yes. That would be for the best, I suppose.”

Nachia moved closer to her general. “I am so very sorry, Merros.” She could hardly be accused of being touchy, but she reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck from behind and rested her chin on the top of his head. Merros closed his eyes and took the comfort offered.

Desh waited a few moments before speaking again. “Should we discuss why it is that the Silent Army is now policing the Mid Wall for us?”

Nachia nodded against Merros’s hair and sighed. It was likely to be a long conversation.

There was nothing.

Pella stood by him throughout the process of him meticulously searching the body of the dead Dretta March. First Darsken examined her clothes and removed each item, carefully setting aside each of her numerous weapons. He scrutinized them, too, and noted that several of the items had poisoned reservoirs. There were also three metal vials that contained powders or fluids. Those were set aside as well, the better to let one of the sorcerers who dealt with potions examine them.

The body was female. There were no indications that she wore anything to hide who she was. If she were, in fact, a member of the Sa’ba Taalor, they had changed her appearance completely. Just to make absolutely certain, he peeled the flesh from one of her arms, examining the layers of skin carefully.

Pella tried examining the body with her sorcerous skills and came to the same conclusion. This was a human body. Nothing more. Nothing less. The cause of death was violent trauma and a sword through her chest.

There was one peculiarity.

While necromancy was forbidden in Fellein, Inquisitors were allowed to make exceptions and Darsken chose to use that loophole. The flesh was marked, the blood was employed and the air in the dead woman’s lungs was taken into his own in an effort to draw in any last remnants of her spirit that might linger.

There was nothing.

Darsken frowned and tried stronger magics, the sort that he used only when seeking to draw the spirit back to the body. It was a sorcery he did not like to use, but he had to know.

There was still nothing. Whatever had been inside the woman had been destroyed beyond his ability to find even a trace of her essence.

“Have you ever run across a situation like that before, Darsken?” Pella, who had been watching everything and writing notes for him could not quite grasp how that was possible. She was not alone.

“Never in my life. Not once.” He frowned and ran his fingers over the designs on his staff. “I have examined bones that were hundreds of years old and there was still something. The flesh you gave me from the dead soldiers who attacked, even that had some essence. It was how I identified the bodies. If I had not been told the name of this woman, there would be no way for me to know it.”

The body remained a mystery. It did not move; it did not reveal any secrets at all. On a few occasions a body might try to leave after necromancy had been employed and for that reason Darsken always placed a few markings on the corpses to be safe. He did so again, before he and Pella sought out the Empress. He needn’t have bothered. The body did not rise nor did it attempt to.

The body of Dretta March – born in flames when Swech needed a new form – remained unchanged save for the start of atrophy.

The Arkannen Mountain Range was close enough to see, but more than that, it was close enough to feel. The air moved between the mountains and swept across Canhoon. Anything left unanchored in the streets was taken by the breeze and carried over the side of the floating city and discarded down below.

The Sa’ba Taalor watched the objects falling from above with a wary eye. It wasn’t that long ago that a dozen or more screaming people plummeted from above and crashed into the ground with violent force. Even those that hit the river failed to survive the fall. It was simply too high.

The weather was going bad, at least for the people of Canhoon. The clouds were coming hard and hiding away even the hint of the mountains. No one was quite certain how far they were from the risk of collision. No one was happy about that fact, either.

The city continued on, moving at the same pace as ever and freezing as the cold winds howled along the alleyways and between the buildings.

The City Guard moved in squads now, backed by the Imperial Army stuck in Canhoon. There were no days of rest any longer and no times when they did not move in force, alongside the Silent Army, who moved of their own accord and spoke to no one and nothing.

Those who wanted to riot did not. They were either too afraid, or too sick.

The cause of the illness had finally been found, thanks to the poisons found on Dretta March’s body. Not all of the supplies for food in the city had been tainted, but most of them had. The levels were not enough to kill, but they were certainly enough to cripple.

The food provided for the Imperial Court came from Desh Krohan himself, who did not say where it came from but managed to supply enough to keep the palace running.

Along the far southern coasts the reports kept coming in of the black ships of the Sa’ba Taalor. They were brutal and efficient, but they were not immortal. The Brellar gave as good as they got, and sank several of the larger vessels using the speed and agility of their smaller ships and boats.

They took advantage of the tactics of the Fellein, and started using arrows lit with pitch to add to the damage to the black ships. They did not have to hit the enemy. They only had to burn their ships out from under them.

It was not a victory so much as it was a standstill. The Sa’ba Taalor were not taking new ground, but they were still overtaking the Brellar a few boats at a time. Every battle won came at a heavy price and the Sa’ba Taalor had a few tricks of their own. When the Brellar came close enough to fire arrows, their enemy returned the favor, and if the Brellar came too close, the arrows were replaced with grappling hooks that tied the smaller boats down while the Sa’ba Taalor boarded. The Sa’ba Taalor were as ruthless as the Brellar.

As bad as that situation was, the black ships running up the Parmahar River toward Goltha were worse. They seemed determined to kill every person they met, without exception.

Looks were deceptive. Many of the people they encountered chose to offer themselves to a new god. Those who were willing to learn the ways of Wheklam were spared and offered new chances they would have never seen otherwise.

To the west the remains of Lored’s army paused and licked their wounds. Guards were set and the remaining Sa’ba Taalor in the area took stock of their situation.

It was Blane and Praxus who built the raging fire and called for enemies of the Sa’ba Taalor. The mounts provided, having left several of their enemies alive.

Once the fire raged high enough to melt metal and the coals were a brilliant yellowish white, the bodies of the living enemies were offered to Ordna. They screamed, they burned, and in their dying they made themselves useful to the Bronze God.

There was no need for questions. Everyone already knew what was needed. The King in Bronze was dead and his replacement had to be chosen. Someone needed to lead the army of Ordna. The faithful would follow whomsoever was chosen, of course, but that decision had to be made by the god they all worshipped.

There was a glorious moment when the sparks and flames rose three times higher and flared until the nighttime sky looked almost as bright as daylight. The flames twisted around themselves and the embers and sparks from the great pyre roared and seethed until the visage of great Ordna was there for all to see. They did not prostrate themselves before their god but instead cheered and roared his name.

Great Ordna looked upon his followers and nodded. A moment later Pre’ru, the mount of Lored, let out a great roar and was transformed.

After a lifetime of service Pre’ru had been granted a second life as a mount. More time to serve and slay in the name of the gods.

Now, a third life was provided. No one asked why the mount was given the opportunity. The answer was simple: Ordna wanted it. Ordna was their god and spoke to them all with the gesture. What most already knew was that Pre’ru had often offered wisdom to Lored. That did not mean that Lored was weak or unprepared, only that Pre’ru had remained useful long past the time when most would have been dead.

Pre’ru stood and stretched her body. She was revitalized, reborn and made young again.

Under most occasions a Sa’ba Taalor crafted their own weapons and armor. That was still true, but the armor of the new king had been discarded when he moved on to a new life. Now Ordna found and replaced what had been lost, merely to expedite their journey.

Pre’ru had been born a male the first time and had served as a mount with male genitalia. Now Pre’ru was female. The king did not question this. Pre’ru was on a third life and was truly blessed by Ordna. Whatever the god’s reasons they were sufficient in the king’s mind.

“Gather yourselves,” Pre’ru roared, even as she dressed in her clothes and gathered her weapons. “We have enemies to find, to kill, and to offer to Ordna!”

The king’s followers roared their approval and one by one knelt to offer their fealty. The gesture was not necessary. No one ever defied the gods and those few who did were punished as befitted an unbeliever.

Still, King Pre’ru, Chosen of the Forge of Ordna and King in Bronze, accepted the gesture. It gave her time to plan her methods of approach. They had a long way to go and very little time to spare.

“We walk and we ride! There will be no rivers for our enemies to use against us. Keep your shields ready! Prepare your bows and spears! We shall build our war machines when we have reached our destination. Until then we are the machines of Ordna! Let our enemies tremble!”

Within the hour they were in motion, a great tide of soldiers led by a king freshly chosen by a god who had granted all of them the chance to see a godly vision.

They were renewed and they were ready.

The storm raged on. In Canhoon it was nearly a blizzard, but lower down, closer to the ground, the frozen water melted and spilled across the grounds as a heavy rain.

The storm was not really planned, but it was a blessing to the sorcerers in the City of Wonders. They had waited for a chance to strike against the Sa’ba Taalor and the storm allowed for cover and also made the task easier. Bending nature takes more energy than merely using what nature provides. There were surprisingly few villages in the area closer to the Arkannen Mountains. The weather was often vicious and the people on the other side of the breach in the mountains sometimes forgot that the mountain range did not actually lead to another nation. There were raids constantly, and after a time only the truly desperate remained.

Those few were killed by the Sa’ba Taalor as they ran through the mountains. Tusk and Tarag Paedori alike killed or converted, and their followers did the same. Then they rode on through the breach, moving as quickly as they could to position themselves at their final destination.

The Sooth had told the sorcerers when best to strike. Unfortunately, as sometimes happened, the Sooth lied. The great rain of lightning that cut the ground beneath the City of Wonders, that boiled the river and shattered stone, did not harm the great armies of the Sa’ba Taalor, which had already passed the area days before.

Still, if the armies had been there, it would have been an incredible victory for the Fellein.

Cullen sat on her bed and read the books she had been offered by the wizard. They were tales of the sorcerers of old and they included tales of the woman who had become part of the Mother-Vine and now, apparently, was sitting inside of her.

She used to know the woman’s name but it no longer seemed important.

“Her name is Moale Deneshi.” Deltrea spoke with an edge of irritation.

“Why are you upset, Deltrea?”

Her dead friend moved closer, casting no shadow and still seeming more alive than Cullen felt currently. “Because you are reading books when you should be talking to me.”

Cullen placed her finger in the book to mark the passage she was reading and then set it in her lap. “What are we going to discuss that we have not spoken of a thousand times before? I’ve heard all I ever needed to about your love life. I’ve relived every damned moment of the burning of Trecharch every time I close my eyes.”

She sighed.

“What else is there for us to speak of, Deltrea?”

“The time when what’s in you wants out.”

“What would you know of that? What could you know about that?”

“I don’t think it will be a good thing is all.” Deltrea sat on the bed with her. There was no sense of weight at all, but the covers shifted a touch. Ghosts were peculiar things, indeed.

“Well, what should I do about it? I can’t very well shit it out. I’ve tried.”

“Get the sorcerer to help you. That’s what. If he can get it removed from you, I think you’ll be a great deal happier is all.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Think hard, Cullen! If it stays in you, it might well kill you!”

“I don’t think it can.” Cullen frowned as she said it. Honestly, she had no notion at all what the thing was capable of. She only knew it wasn’t comfortable to carry all the time. To make that point even clearer, it shifted inside her and her guts moved to accommodate it.

“It can. I can feel it.”

“Well, perhaps I’ll ask Desh Krohan about it.” Another twist of whatever was inside of her and she bit off a groan.

“He’s been rather busy lately.” Deltrea’s voice cut through the discomfort.

“Yes, Deltrea, he has. He said we can go where we please and a lot of that time I’ve spent with him so he can get what he needs to out of the thing inside of me, but that doesn’t mean he’s got time to spend on me. There’s a war going on, and there’s disease and famine and cold weather and a mountain range coming at us and I think he’s got good reasons for being busy!” She was only aware that she’d been yelling when she came to the end of her rant, winded and red faced.

Deltrea clapped her hands, but they made no sound when they hit each other. “Look at that. You do have feelings left in you. I was beginning to doubt.”

“Why are you here again?”

“No idea, Cullen.” Deltrea crossed her legs and then rested one elbow on her thigh, and her head on her palm. “I expect it has something to do with you.”

Cullen did not respond, but instead stood from the bed and walked toward the door. Her guards were outside and nodded when she stepped out. The company of anyone living sounded better than another moment alone with Deltrea. Mostly because she suspected Deltrea was right on all fronts.

Something was happening inside her and she didn’t much like her chances of survival. The ghost of her associate was haunting her for a reason. The sorcerer was watching over her but seemed to be holding back a few secrets.

Cullen liked her situation less all the time. There was nothing to be done about that. But she’d have to see what she could do to possibly change that.

The snow came down heavily, obscuring everything. Even if the snow had not been a problem the clouds would have managed just fine.

Inches fell in the daylight and more as the night took over. Those stuck out in the cold huddled together and cursed their luck. Those inside thanked the gods or cursed their luck just the same.

The City Guard did their best, moving and keeping properly covered up, stopping where they could to drink something warm. The Imperials were in the same situation and did the same thing.

The Silent Army stopped moving. After a day of constantly patrolling, never resting, they simply stopped all at once, and let the snow and ice accumulate on them as if they had never been more than statues in the gardens of the city.

In most of Canhoon the night and the storm forced an unsettling sort of silence.

Not everywhere, of course. No city of any size ever truly sleeps. At best there is a quiet time, but never true rest.

The cogs continued to move in their silent machinery. The people who had to be alert were.

Deep in the depths of the palace Darsken Murdro looked at Jost and shook his head. She was never going to speak and, despite his best efforts, her mind was locked to him. To that end she remained chained to her wooden table, though he knew the places where she had been resting her flesh against the wood for days on end must surely be an agony by now, the flesh raw from constant contact, made worse with every move she made.

“If you would only speak I could give you a better place to be than this.” He spoke apologetically and he meant it. Torture was not something he enjoyed. He became an Inquisitor because the truth was a powerful thing and mysteries were meant to be solved.

The girl did not acknowledge him.

Three minutes later she was alone again in the locked room.

Two minutes after that, Glo’Hosht entered her cell and moved to her table. The bindings on her were simple enough: a matter of unfastening a few hooks that were impossible for even the most nimble fingers on a restrained hand to reach.

Jost did not smile when she saw her king. Instead she closed her eyes for a moment and then sighed with relief.

His hands were quick. The fastenings holding her wrists were removed in moments.

Her ankles and thighs were released shortly after that.

The King in Mercury stepped back and kept an eye on the door as Jost tried to stand and fell to the ground. No words were spoken and none were needed. She would rise on her own and she would live, or she would stay on the ground and be left to her own devices.

Life is pain. Life is struggle. If she could not manage to walk she could not be saved. It was exactly that simple. That the Daxar Taalor would send Glo’Hosht to save her was a sign of their love and devotion to her, but if she could not stand, could not walk and could not fight, she was too weak to be a member of the Sa’ba Taalor and would be remembered for what she had accomplished even as she was left to die.

Jost stood, though it took a few minutes. As she had been strapped in place for days on end, she took the time to wash herself of the waste she had been made to lie in. The stench of her alone would alert anyone passing by otherwise.

They had taken her clothes and her weapons for whatever reasons they saw fit. She did not care. Clothes and weapons could be replaced.

While Glo’Hosht waited, Jost stretched and moved her body until blood flowed once again in muscles that had been immobile save for when she could find the time to flex them. She was a follower of Paedle and staying motionless for hours or days was not unheard of; had she not been so, she would likely have been incapable of moving at all.

There were no clothes to distract her and so, when she felt she was ready, Glo’Hosht opened the door and moved out of her way.

No words were spoken nor were any needed. Glo’Hosht moved and Jost followed. She saw her king flit from shadow to shadow, barely capable of clearly seeing where he was, though she tracked him with her eyes. She did her best to follow his lead, grateful for the long corridors and the darkness of the night. There were a few torches, places where oil burned in small braziers, but mostly there was the night and the concealment it offered.

Still, there are always exceptions. Two guards moved right past the King in Mercury and stopped only when they saw her standing against the wall.

Her muscles screamed in silent agony as she stepped forward and drove her palm into the first guard’s throat. He gagged but could not speak as he fell to the ground, red faced and bug eyed.

Her hands came together and met on the second one’s jaw, shattering bone. He was still capable of screaming, so she broke his neck even as he inhaled.

His clothes meant nothing to her, but she took a cloak, a short sword and boots. It was cold outside. She had heard her guards complaining earlier.

The boots did not fit and were too hard for her use. The second cloak was hastily torn in two and wrapped around her feet and then they moved on again.

Muscles that had not moved for far too long continued to protest, but as blood flow returned to them she felt the relief. The areas where she had been restrained were still sore. The flesh felt bruised and thin. She did not take the time to worry about it. She would heal or she would not as the gods saw fit.

Glo’Hosht touched a wall and part of it moved. He gestured her through and they went on their way. Swech had spoken of hidden places within the palace. She must have shown them to the king. That was a fine thing.

It seemed hours, but Jost knew it was less. When the king opened the last of several hidden doors the frigid air slammed into Jost like a gust from the Blasted Lands, cold and fierce with small debris slapping against her flesh.

It did not matter.

They were free of the palace. Glo’Hosht moved along side her and whispered into her ear. “Do not go to Swech’s home. She was discovered and she is dead. Go to where Freth waits. Be careful. We need him where he is for now.”

The order given, Glo’Hosht moved on, disappearing into the storm.

Jost allowed herself one moment to mourn her friend and then moved on. There would be time for mourning when her enemies lay dead.

Brolley and Lanaie spent a great deal of time together, it was true, but they always did so in the company of guards, per his sister’s orders. Lanaie was not the issue. Though she was a guest in the palace she was not watched as closely as he was. She was not the little brother to the Empress. It was that simple. Still, when Lanaie went anywhere, he escorted her and thus ensured she would have protection.

The princess held his hand, both securely wrapped in their heavy cloaks. Despite the fabric Lanaie’s hand was as cold as ice. That was to be expected: her land was always warm and this cold was months away from where it should have been. The winter was done and the summer was coming yet here they were walking through a deep field of snow.

“You could stay at the palace, you know,” Brolley reminded her. “You are a guest of the Empress.”

“Yes, and I have several times and I will again, but not today. Unlike in Tyrne, my father had properties and I want to make sure they are properly looked after.”

“You’re just tired of me,” his voice was teasing.

“That could never happen, Brolley. Not even if this winter lasted a thousand years.” She looked at him with her deep brown eyes and his body reacted as it did each time he saw her. She was a beautiful woman, and despite all that she had seen she remained an innocent. He would give anything to make sure that her heart was never broken again. He’d even gone so far as to make sacrifices to Plith and Woegaia. He wasn’t really sure which was a goddess of love, so he paid his tithings to both, just to be safe. Plith was a beautiful woman. He thought she was a goddess of fertility. Woegaia was half male and half female, with large breasts and an equally large penis. He thought the god was meant to represent the marriage of body and spirit. He still wasn’t sure. In any event, the churches got their offerings and he kept praying for everything to turn out the right way.

“What are you thinking, my love?”

“That I look forward to us being together one day. Man and wife.”

“I want that too, but now is not the time to bother your sister.”

It was a simple enough equation: Brolley and Lanaie could adore each other as much as they pleased, but until Nachia gave her blessings nothing could become official. Lanaie was right, of course. It was hardly the time to bother Nachia with his desire to marry a queen who had no nation, but it was most decidedly his desire to do so.

They had discussed the matter at length. At the very least they would wait until the city settled itself somewhere. Much as he would have dearly loved to consummate their relationship, Lanaie was not inclined to part with her chastity.

They had managed a few moments of passion when the guards were not around, but only a few. She had never offered herself, but she used her hands and her clothed form to offer him release on several occasions. It was enough for now. It had to be. He would not betray her trust, though he was tempted to find a good brothel.

Some things are worth waiting for.

Too soon they were at her door and she reached out with her cold hand and touched his face, memorizing his features until she could see him again. Her face, so perfect, her eyes so wide and innocent. He leaned in and kissed her once, briefly, knowing it was against the rules. Just the same she kissed back.

Then she was slipping into her house and he waited until he heard the doors locked and secured.

The night was an endless raging snowstorm, but he did not feel the chill at all.

They would be married. It was only a matter of time.

The guards were wise enough to say nothing now and he knew they would say nothing later. Money can buy discretion. He’d learned that much from his family, if nothing else.

Inside the warmth of her home, Lanaie removed her cloak and left on the minimal clothes she could tolerate and moved into the main hall where a fire roared and the temperature was enough to make her sweat.

The fire was not normally so high, but metal cannot be forged without heat.

Weapons cannot be shaped without heat.

King Glo’Hosht looked to her and nodded his head. She made the proper bow before her king and looked around at the others gathered with her. This was the first time that all of Paedle’s followers had been in one room at the same time. It was a risk, but one the king found necessary.

“We are here to rejoice.” Glo’Hosht’s voice remained soft as it virtually always did. “We are here to welcome back our lost warrior.”

Lanaie’s eyes immediately moved to Jost, who crouched by the roaring blaze and pulled hot metal from it. The metal should have burned her, crippled her, and possibly killed her. Paedle protected the faithful as always and it was good.

Already the girl had been working on replacing her blades. She worked deftly now, her hands moving at a stunning pace, shaping the raw metal into three more blades before she tapped them against the hearthstones and used a small hammer to finish the shaping.

They would need to be sharpened, of course, but there were supplies for that very purpose.

“There is more to do this night. The mountains are approaching and we must prepare.”

Lanaie nodded and spoke in the tongue of the gods. “All that was lost shall be restored, and the Great Tide will sweep the world.”

“Why, exactly, are our people at war?”

Tega looked to Drask as she asked the question, and so he answered her.

“The gods demand it.”

She shook her head. “No. That’s not enough. Why do the gods demand it? What purpose does the war serve them?”

Nolan March gave no indication that he cared, but Drask was not fooled. The younger man was listening at least. He could sense it. How much he understood was a different situation. Nolan had been dead when they took their fall. That he was moving at all was an indication of the power they’d all absorbed. Drask frowned. He thought Nolan had been dead. His memories were slipping away. Not all of them, just some of the recent ones. He would examine that notion soon. For now there were questions to answer.

“You must understand that the gods all tell their tales, and each tale is as different as if seen by different people.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I saw when we fell into the light was not what you saw. Not what Nolan saw. I watched you climb the rope into the depths of the Mounds. You did not watch me. Each of us has our own memories and our own way of seeing. It is like that for the gods.

“I have spoken often with the Daxar Taalor. Each has given different reasons for the way we have been raised by them and for why they fight wars the way they do.” He shrugged and looked up at the city, not so very distant any more. The area they rode through was burnt and blackened and stank of dead fish. The river here was littered with dead things. Mostly from the great strikes of lightning they had seen before.

Tega had explained that it was sorcery. That was enough for Drask.

“The stories all have some balances. Some things that we can guess are as true as they can be. The Daxar Taalor tell us that they were born in the Cataclysm. They were born from the bodies of the gods of Korwa.

“When Korwa lived it was the greatest city ever known, and the greatest kingdom the world had seen. The people there had peace. Their influence spread across all of the land, but in the end that is what ruined them. They grew comfortable. They did not fight as they once had because they did not feel they needed to fight any longer. There were papers that promised peace. There were marriages that guaranteed the same. It was a time when even the weather was a slave to the rulers of Korwa.

“Until the time when others grew jealous. The Wellish had their masters. They wanted Korwa for themselves. There were several tribes of younger people who wanted Korwa and all she offered.

“It is said by all the gods that the Emperor of Korwa died, and his sister took over as the ruler of the land. And when she did, the younger kingdoms and the Wellish Overlords all demanded the same thing: that she choose a husband from among them to rule by her side and end the burning desires that had started so many difficulties in the distance.

“Even the gods do not know exactly what she said. All they know is that before a year had passed the wars had started in earnest. The smaller countries fought among themselves and soon joined forces under one king. The Wellish chose their greatest champion and with his armies leading the way they sought to take Korwa.

“The old kingdoms, the new kingdoms, none of them mattered in comparison but they all wanted the same.”

Drask looked from one to the other of his companions. “They wanted the Empress. She refused. She would not be forced to serve as a puppet ruler. Her people had sworn fealty and she would not bow before others. Who could blame her? She did what she thought best. She called the armies of Korwa together to defend her.”

Drask sighed. “The stories grow different here. Each of the Daxar Taalor remembers the Cataclysm differently. Some say it was the gods that ended the war. Others say that sorcerers grew too strong and killed the city and the gods with them. Still others say that the Empress of Korwa chose to kill her people and herself before accepting defeat. It doesn’t matter. It is enough to know that Korwa burned and so did all of the armies that had gathered around the greatest city that ever was.

“In the end there were a few survivors and they were raised up, they were healed, so long as they promised one thing. They had to promise to serve the Daxar Taalor, who were all that remained of the old gods of Korwa. They were not the gods of the past. They were new gods, formed when the Cataclysm shattered the skies and the seas and the very land. You must understand this: everything was ruined. Everything was destroyed. All that was left of great Korwa was the Blasted Lands.”

Drask shrugged.

“The rest you know. We were raised from the wounded and the dying. We were told to survive and to grow strong. Each of the gods opened their hearts to us and trained us in how to be stronger.

“Each of the gods remembered the arts of war differently and together they vowed that they would train the Sa’ba Taalor to always remember the ways of war. They made us to be stronger than Korwa, stronger than our enemies as well.

“Once, a long time ago, hundreds of years ago, the Wellish Overlords tried to claim Fellein as their own. It was the Sa’ba Taalor who struck them down. We did not claim that victory, but we crushed great portions of their armies even as they marched on Canhoon.

“Your sorcerers did the rest.

“Do you know why we let that happen?”

Tega and Andover both shook their heads.

“Because Fellein had to grow strong, and then had to grow as large as any empire that had ever been. They had to rise and spread across the whole of the land.

“They had to mirror Korwa’s might before the Daxar Taalor shattered the Empire of Fellein. They had to learn a lesson.

“Your Empire is soft. Your Empire is weak. You have seen this for yourself. The Sa’ba Taalor walk across the land and crush all who come before them, just as your ancestors once stormed across Korwa and sought to destroy her.

“This time is different. The Sa’ba Taalor have been given their orders by the gods themselves. They have been forged in the hearts of the Daxar Taalor. You, Andover Lashk, have been remade in their image in a very short time.”

Andover shook his head. “No. It has taken longer than you think.”

“It has taken most of a lifetime, but that time has been made shorter that you might serve your purpose.”

“What purpose?”

“You already know that. You are to serve as the champion of the Sa’ba Taalor, should Fellein demand singular combat.”

“Why me?” Andover shook his head. In the past when he had asked that sort of question it was because he wanted to know why he had suffered. Now he asked because he could not understand why he was chosen for so great an honor.

“On this the gods agree again. It was one of the people of Korwa who offered the greatest betrayal to the Empress. It was a person she believed would be faithful simply because he was one of her own.”

Drask stared into Andover’s eyes. Andover looked back. “It was a humble servant who brought the ruination of Korwa. How, I do not know. You, Andover Iron Hands, are that servant now. That is what the Daxar Taalor ask. That is what you have agreed to.”

“But I thought the gods chose Merros Dulver. Isn’t that why you looked for him?”

Drask held his gaze. “I do not know why the gods sought Merros Dulver. I only know that they are not yet done with him.”

Nine

There were many wonders N’Heelis had seen in the course of his life. He had walked the Boratha-Lo’ar more times than any living being, his body painted by the colors of the crystalline bridge. He had stood in the very heart of Wrommish and been bathed in the furnace of liquid gold. He had taught a dozen kings how to fight without weapons and killed some of those very same kings in combat.

Now this. Standing at the very top of the mountain on the southern side of the river he watched on as the vast underside of enchanted Canhoon moved toward him with deceptive speed and he admired the network of stone and root as it defied all laws of nature and came closer to him, fully aware that if it suddenly stopped its flight he would be dead in an instant. That was part of the thrill.

Stastha, Tuskandru’s right hand, waited calmly, her longbow notched and ready. She was not alone.

There were hundreds of archers along the ramparts built by Stastha and her group. They were secure, but they were hardly works of art. Wood, stone, whatever could be used was employed, and the followers of Ordna among them made certain the platforms and walkways were sound. Some of the structures were little more than added support on stone outcroppings. Others were feats of construction that would have been impossible for N’Heelis himself.

He readied his own bow and nodded to himself.

Stastha said, “We are ready when you are, King N’Heelis.”

“Now. Make the arrows count.”

She repeated the order and several others followed her lead. Under many circumstances there would have been horns to call the order, but not now. This was a mission of silence. He’d have preferred it be left to Glo’Hosht, but that was not possible. The King in Mercury was already above them in Canhoon.

Instead of worrying about such things, N’Heelis drew his bow, took a long, deep breath, and then released as he exhaled. The silk streamer at the end of the arrow unwound, dancing frantically as the arrow sought the right spot.

It was not skill. It was luck. N’Heelis knew the difference. The arrow sank deep into a thick root, the barbs finding purchase. Other archers fired as well and for each arrow that stuck a dozen or more bounced back.

N’Heelis moved, grabbing the silk, pulling to test it and then trusting to the gods to see him to his destination.

The followers of Wrommish trained first and foremost in unarmed combat. That did not mean they could not carry weapons, merely that they either chose not to, or that they chose carefully.

He was finished with the bow. It stayed behind as he scaled his way to the moving city above. Several others joined him. More than a few of them fell as the arrows that held them came loose from the soil and roots. Most screamed as they fell. That was impossible to prevent. Some actually fell along the cliffside. He imagined a few might even survive the falls, but all of his attention was on the task ahead of him.

There were secrets that had been learned by Glo’Hosht and others. They had looked carefully at the city’s maps and studied the paths of the rivers that had once watered the whole of Canhoon. What they found was nothing short of a miracle, for which N’Heelis thanked the gods.

The sewers under the city were still there. They were doubtless slicked with water, sewage and ice, but there were tunnels, and those tunnels were the very best possible chance for them to gain entry to Canhoon.

Many might well not achieve their goal. They had no way of knowing where the tunnels went, or if they would hold the secret to breaching the city. They only knew the openings in the base of the city were there and that this was their best chance to gain access to the deep underbelly of Canhoon. N’Heelis had done what he could to ensure success. None wore heavy leather cloaks. There was little armor. Instead there was leather clothing and good, short weapons. More than a few of his followers made claws for their close combat, weapons that would hook an opponent’s weapons and tangle them, leaving the bearers unarmed for a moment or more. Those same metal tines were well suited for finding purchase in the underside of the vast city. Some used fingers, some used claws; all counted on their years of climbing different mountains to help them through a truly terrifying climb.

Fingers grasped at stone, at mud, at clusters of broken root and frozen rock. The Sa’ba Taalor began their climb, aiming for the dark tunnels carved through the very ground, that led to the depths of the city above them. The trick was not to fall in the process.

N’Heelis caught the vine his arrow was now stuck in and worried his fingers into the edges of the thick wood.

He looked down once and quickly looked back. The ground was so very far distant. He held even tighter when the shrill scream came: as they had feared might happen, the mountain and the city were on the same path. The only saving grace was that the edge of the mountain was just that, an edge. It would break if they were lucky. If they were not, the base of the city would break and everything they were attempting would end in death. Clouds had hidden the base of the city for days, leaving everyone on the mountain guessing if they would be capable of actually scaling to the city above.

As he had all his life, N’Heelis trusted in the gods. Just the same he clung hard to the heavy root and braced himself for impact.

Inches. Mere inches of stone collided. He heard the grinding roar of stone on stone but barely even felt the impact.

The Daxar Taalor were kind.

N’Heelis moved carefully, crawling with his entire body, hanging suspended in the heavy cloud cover and the bitterly cold mists. There was no time to think of others or their celebrations. There was only the one goal for now.

He found the edge of the tunnel and started in, not worried about what might be in there beyond ice and frozen waste.

The Empress and her closest advisors cheered their luck and drank a sweet wine that was, traditionally, saved only for victories. As far as Nachia was concerned surviving what might have ended her city and her life qualified.

“That was the hope, really.” Desh smiled and spoke as if he might be discussing the migration of distant birds. “I expected the city would be just fine.”

Merros snorted. “Which is why you’ve been dancing from one foot to the other, like a man who needs to void his bladder.”

The First Advisor tried to hold a menacing glare but failed. Like Nachia, he was simply too happy to be alive.

They came from lower on the mountain, moving in leaps and bounds, with all of the skill the gods had given them and all the strength of their second bodies. The mounts took the same chances as the Sa’ba Taalor they lived with, but in their case the challenges were different. They weighed much more, but they had claws capable of digging into the earth. They were much larger and had to find tunnels that the Sa’ba Taalor did not already occupy, but there were tunnels on the sides of the city’s belly that were far away from where their companions climbed.

As the Sa’ba Taalor before them had done, the mounts tried for the underside of the mountain and the tunnels that moved above them.

Saa’thaa chose to leap high and felt his claws strike deep into soft soil before catching a good grip. His hind legs scrambled and claws once again sought purchase. All of the training of two lives was needed to avoid falling, but Saa’thaa managed. The tunnel was filthy and stank of the Fellein. The cold waste crawled over his fur and into his armor, which, as fortune had it, he could not remove without assistance.

None of that mattered. All that was important was getting through the tunnel. After that all that was important was what the gods demanded. Whatever they required he would do to receive his promised reward.

There was no sickness in the air of the tunnel, but there was death. The Sa’ba Taalor had been poisoning people and he could smell the stench of the poisons used. The shells of logga nuts, the fine, black moss that grew on Paedle’s side. These were fine things. They were also deadly if prepared the right way. A lifetime ago Saa’thaa had known all there was to know of poisons. Now he could smell them, he knew the recipes, but he lacked the skill to prepare the potions. Paws cannot work the same way as hands. Both have their advantages, just as the powerful jaws he used now could rend the hide of a Pra-Moresh with little effort, but could not so easily form words.

Stench aside, the tunnel was easy enough to travel through and behind him he could hear the sounds of others of his kind moving through the debris and frozen filth.

In time the tunnel forked. In one direction the waste continued. In the other the tunnel rose higher and the air smelled only of fresh water. Following the latter path Saa’thaa found a vast opening, mostly dry but with a supply of fresh water several inches deep. The cave was manmade, and supported by many stone columns that ran to a high ceiling. As vast as it was, the chamber was far below the city above. High above, more tunnels led toward the surface and, all around the edges at the height of two tall men, were tunnels like the one he looked from, which dropped into the clear waters.

Saa’thaa thought hard and was rewarded with the word: cistern. Here the waters of the rivers must have run. Now, emptied of most of their treasure, the vast area was probably not even a consideration.

He did more than consider. Saa’thaa dropped into the shallow waters, sniffed carefully and then drank deep. Others would come soon. There was plenty for all, but he was first and that gave him pleasure.

Not far away King N’Heelis scaled down the wall until he could reach the water and looked at Saa’thaa to see if the waters were clear. Saa’thaa nodded his affirmation and N’Heelis also drank deep.

A second mount came from his tunnel and then others joined them, Sa’ba Taalor and mount alike.

There was no light in the cistern, but they did not need it. The Daxar Taalor had blessed them with eyes that saw in the darkness.

N’Heelis ran his hand through Saa’thaa’s matted fur and did what most would never be brave enough to do: he hugged the mount’s great neck. Saa’thaa in turn rumbled his approval and leaned into the King in Gold.

“Soon, Saa’thaa. I cannot thank you enough for your patience.”

The king pointed to the corners of the vast room. There were doors there, great wooden affairs that had rotted over the centuries. They looked formidable but Saa’thaa could smell their decay and see the weaknesses in them even from a distance.

“Glo’Hosht says there are stairs beyond that lead into the heart of Old Canhoon.” The king looked around. “We shall wait a little longer and hope a few more have made it.”

Stragglers did indeed continue to find their way. He counted over a hundred mounts and saw ten times that number in Sa’ba Taalor.

“It is almost time, old friend.” N’Heelis ran his hand over Saa’thaa’s muzzle, moving dexterous fingers under the war mask that covered his face and scratching all the right spots. A thousand little ecstasies rippled his fur.

“Almost time,” he rumbled.

Soon enough. He could wait a little longer.

It was an hour later when N’Heelis and a chosen few climbed from the depths, and into one last tunnel. This one led to the house of Queen Lanaie, or rather to the empty stables on the small estate.

Lanaie herself bowed formally to N’Heelis, who smiled and said, “It is good to see you, Freth.”

Lanaie’s dark eyes grew wide as she spotted Saa’thaa. The great mount was large by any standards. The expression on the woman’s face betrayed Freth’s surprise.

“Saa’thaa has what we need to continue. It is time.”

“The fire is hot, my king. But we must move quickly. If anyone should see him…”

Saa’thaa made a small, rude noise. “You know the way, Freth?”

“Yes, of course.”

N’Heelis smiled. “Then we do not need a torch or lantern to find the path. Without those, who would look past the wall around your home?”

“I have suitors.” The words were mumbled.

“Wrommish chose that form for a reason, I’m sure. Just the same, let us take care of this.”

They moved quickly through the thick snowfall. In moments all signs of their tracks had been erased.

Life is pain.

Every part of her screamed in agony, the heat as vast as it had ever been. The pain was gone in seconds, but the memory of it lingered.

Leg muscles that had not moved in a very long time moved now and she fell forward, out of the raging fire and onto a stone floor that was almost as hot.

The fire no longer burned. Wrommish was kind.

Swech Tothis Durwrae climbed to her feet and looked around at faces familiar and some almost forgotten in the recent months.

She looked down at her flesh and saw the scars that had been a part of her for so very long, and the gray hue that had been with her for years. Her muscles trembled only a little as she adjusted to standing on her own legs again, rather than the borrowed legs of Dretta March.

Her ash-gray locks fell around her shoulders and her hand on her stomach felt the small kick of new life that rested inside her.

The Daxar Taalor were kind beyond words.

The great mount came for her and let out a low yowl of pleasure. She heard her name called in her mind and knew that Saa’thaa was there for her.

She did not consider that he was wet, or that his fur was cold. Those things did not matter. Swech grabbed the great mane and pushed her face into his war mask, smiling and sighing his name.

“Saa’thaa. I have missed you!”

N’Heelis came close next, placing a hand on her shoulder and smiling. “You could not be left to the dead, little Swech.” He grinned as she turned and hugged him. “The gods would not permit it.”

“How are you here, my king?”

“It is nearly time. The Great Tide commences within days. The final hours are upon us, Swech. Where else would I be?”

As he spoke N’Heelis opened the saddlebags on Saa’thaa. Most would never dare, but a king can dare much without fear of reprisal. Swech was grateful. His kindness gave her time to stretch her body and familiarize herself with limbs that felt foreign after so long. Leather pants, a vest, a simple dark shirt. All of these things she pulled on hastily. She recognized them, of course. She had been wearing them when she returned to Wrommish and the Boratha-Lo’ar. Her boots soon followed and then her weapons. She looked more closely at the gathering of faces around her, seeing some that she knew hid the other members of the Sa’ba Taalor who had offered themselves to the gods. She did not see Kallider and she did not question that. The gods seldom considered bringing anyone back.

She silently thanked the Daxar Taalor. She had served and died in the process and thought that was all there would be.

“I have saved an honor for you, little Swech.” N’Heelis gestured for her to follow, a smile on his handsome face. She followed without thought.

“I have many questions. How long have I been gone? Where is the city now? Are we truly prepared to attack?”

“Soon.” N’Heelis waved her questions away. “First, Swech, I give you an honor. Wrommish gives you an honor. You have served so well and done so much and now you must be shown how much you mean to us all.”

Swech frowned, puzzled. To serve was everything. It was all she had ever needed. She had a mount; despite all odds she had survived her own death; the child of Merros Dulver was still inside of her. What more could she ask?

When they reached the roof of the house N’Heelis opened a window that was just tall enough to let him climb to the roof. Swech followed with ease. Despite her time as Dretta March her body had not changed at all, had not aged. Otherwise she would have been swollen with the baby.

N’Heelis took the small javelin that had rested inside a sheath on his leg and offered it to her. The piece was handsome enough but made of pure gold. She could scratch the surface with her nail.

“I am to wear this?” She smiled uncertainly. It was hardly an adornment.

“No Swech. You are to cast it to the north.” The mountain range was still surrounding them. Though clouds hid most of the vast stone peaks, Swech could see the looming shadows through the snow and cold.

“In what direction?”

N’Heelis smiled. “If I had not asked myself, I would not know.” He pointed. “There.”

Swech looked around and saw that most of the people who had seen her rise from the flames were now in the courtyard below.

Swech looked to the north and took careful aim. She knew she could not possibly reach the start of the vast range, but she tried just the same.

The golden missile soared far further than should have been possible. Moving until it was well past her ability to see.

“That is a trick?” She smiled, this time with delight.

“No, child. That is an honor. Wait for a moment.”

N’Heelis put a familiar arm around her shoulders. She felt the calluses on his palms and was comforted.

After almost four minutes in the biting cold her patience was rewarded. The skies to the far north grew bright red, highlighting the mostly obscured peaks of all the mountains leading in that direction. There were many jagged mountaintops.

“What is that?”

“You have chosen the place of Wrommish’s new home.”

Only moments after the light colored the sky, she heard the low, deep roar of the earth moaning in pain. The land gave birth to a god in the far north. The air around her vibrated with the glory of that fact.

“N’Heelis, that was yours. That was your sacred task. One mountain for every king.”

“Swech, you have done so much to honor Wrommish. This is the god’s way of thanking you.” He paused a moment. “Upon my chest I bear the mark of Wrommish. In comparison there is no finer honor. I am glad you were chosen for this.”

For a while they stood in silence as the flames grew higher and the howl of angry winds blasted toward them. So strong were the winds that they cast the snow and clouds aside.

That was just as well. The clouds had already served their purpose and hidden the army that came to the City of Wonders.

Merros Dulver stared to the north and shook his head. He’d have spat, but the rules of decorum forbade doing that in front of the Empress. In an instant, the mood of celebration that had followed the successful pass through the mountains vanished.

“I suppose I’d hoped we were done with that.”

Desh Krohan nodded. “In a perfect world we would be. At least this time no cities were destroyed. There’s remarkably little up that way beyond the edge of the mountains.” The wizard paused and squinted in thought. “By my guess that’s at the very top of the Arkannen range. Or just east of it.”

Nachia was looking at the maps spread across her vast dining table. There was food on the table but all of it had been relegated to the far corner. Right now she was more interested in information than food.

“So the mountains will direct the winds toward us?”

Desh frowned and looked at her finger as it slid along the range of mountains on the map.

“Sadly, yes that’s likely.” The First Advisor looked at his goblet of wine and frowned some more. “I suppose you opened this too soon, my dear.”

“I’ll take my victories where I can find them, Old Man.”

Merros appreciated their banter. It helped him stay calm after all that had happened. He wanted to mourn Dretta March properly. He wanted to burn away every memory of her, because they were surely lies. In any event, she was heavy on his mind and he wished she were not. Thinking of her hurt.

“On the bright side, we missed the worst of the mountains.” He sighed and looked first at Nachia, and then at Desh. “Do you suppose they’ve come to the city while it was so close?”

Desh shrugged. “I’d say they’ve at least tried. I’d also say the eruption was more than conveniently timed. If the clouds from that volcano come our way it’s going to get harsh here. I intend to see what I can do about dispelling the worst of that. If I were you, General, I’d make sure your men were ready. If the Sa’ba Taalor have managed to get people into the city I can’t imagine they’ll simply sit and wait.”

Nachia shook her head and then, decorum be damned, the Empress spat on the floor. “Where would they hide? How could they gain access from beneath?”

Desh shook his head. “I said before the Sisters saw openings under the city. We’ve had no real chance to explore where they might go.”

“No chance at all?” Nachia stared hard, her voice frosty. Desh stared back, not the least bit intimidated.

She turned a hard look on Merros. “We have had one victory so far. One. We have the greatest army in the world, Merros Dulver. Prove that to me.”

“Most of the army is gathering now, Majesty. They are following the orders I have sent and traveling to Goltha. If we are right, and if that is where the city will settle, then we will be prepared.”

“And if we are wrong? If your damned Sooth have a laugh at our expense again?” Her gaze skewered Desh instead and Merros was relieved.

While the sorcerer thought of an answer Merros added, “Well then, we are going to have a spectacular view of fifty thousand men chasing after a runaway city.”

“Don’t make me laugh, Merros. I’m trying to maintain my indignant outrage.”

Desh nodded. “Picture it. Thousands and thousands of soldiers jogging to keep up with us. They’ll get winded rather quickly I imagine.” He raised his glass in salute to the imaginary troops.

“Fifty thousand? I thought for certain we’d have more there by now.”

“We do, Majesty. They are waiting already. There is a vast army of the Sa’ba Taalor coming from our direction with plans to get there before us. There are more of them coming from the south, moving upriver along the Parmahar River. The sorcerers have done an excellent job of informing us of their motions.”

“Do they outnumber our troops?”

“Not at all. There are some still coming from the west, but we killed a good number of them. The ones from the south seem to have a number of captured people with them. It’s hard to say for certain, but a lot of the population of the small towns is now moving with them. I think they intend to use them as shields.”

“As shields?”

“Yes, it’s been done in the past but not for many years. The notion is they would put these citizens of Fellein in front of their own troops to work as a living barrier between the soldiers and themselves.”

“And that works?” Nachia stared at him as if he’d grown another eye.

“Well, not often, really. That’s why it isn’t done much any more. I believe the god Kanheer declared it a sin some time back and as a result no generals were willing to use it any more.”

“Kanheer?”

“One of the war gods,” Desh provided. “Always seemed a rather odd thing for a war god to do, forbid a method of defense.”

“It is rather cowardly.”

“Well, yes, but every shield has a use doesn’t it, Merros?”

“You haven’t answered my last question.” Nachia looked from one to the other again. “Where is there under the city for the Sa’ba Taalor to hide?”

Desh responded first. “My dear, I couldn’t hope to tell you. There are over a thousand years’ worth of history in this city. Buildings have risen and fallen.”

“Do you suppose our escaped assassin is down there too?” Nachia was not at all pleased that they had lost their one captured gray-skin.

Merros answered, “Who can say, Nachia? This weather hides any number of sins.”

Desh scratched at his neck. “There were those tunnels the Sisters found. They could lead to almost anywhere and many of them are large enough for a man to climb through.”

“And nothing was done?”

“To be fair, Nachia, we are over eleven thousand feet off the ground. There aren’t many who have a way to gain access.”

“Just anything that could have waited at the tops of the mountains.”

“I could hardly send troops over the sides on ropes, Majesty. On this one we have to trust the Silent Army to keep watch.”

“Which I suppose they would if the Sa’ba Taalor climbed over the Mid Wall.”

“Well, yes, but I don’t suppose they’d be that nice about it.”

“They are not nice, Merros. They are annoying and dangerous and sneakier than a band of thieves.”

Merros nodded. He had no solutions to her dilemma.

“Are there tunnels under us, Desh? Can they be filled with water?”

“Well, I suppose they could, Nachia. But where would the water come from?”

“You’re the First Advisor and you have sorcerers at your disposal. Can you not manage a waterfall of some sort?”

Desh stared at her long and hard, his jaw working. “If we were still surrounded by water I could redirect it, but I can’t just summon water from nowhere. Well, I can, which is why you have drinking water, but I cannot produce that sort of quantity. Magic always has a price.”

He paced a moment, his jaw still working furiously as he tried to find the right words.

“It’s not that I like not being able to help, Nachia. I mean that, but I can’t just make an ocean. There has to be an ocean first.”

Nachia stared coldly at him.

“Snow.”

“I beg pardon?”

“Snow. There are mountains of the stuff here. Can you and yours not use that to flood whatever is under us?”

“I suppose so. Can’t you just have your cooks brew it up in large pots?”

“You are a very rude man, Desh.”

“You are a very demanding ruler, Majesty.”

Far to the north of Canhoon the volcano erupted. It was violent and impossible to miss. For hundreds of miles around the air shook and the light was enough to startle sleeping animals into flight. Wrommish ripped free of the earth and shattered the closest mountain in the process.

Great gouts of flame and smoke stroked the air and spread across the sky, claiming all that had been peaceful in the name of war.

Far to the west the people of Fellein who had managed to avoid being crushed by the Sa’ba Taalor trembled. They had seen too much of volcanoes and what followed their eruptions.

To the far east the people stared in wonder at the lights and puzzled over the sounds. Those in the southern regions had already dealt with the birth of a mountain but closer to this source the people had little notion of what was happening, only that it was vast and powerful.

Along the jagged line of the mountain range the snow and ice reflected the fire until the night was nearly day, and the people in Canhoon woke to the sounds that might well have meant the end of them all. For those who had survived Tyrne and Roathes the sounds were too familiar and a cold dread seized them and would not let go easily. The world, it seemed, was ending, no matter how far they tried to go to escape that fact.

For some of the refugees it signified an end. For others it signified a time to do things differently. There had been a few who gathered their weapons and attempted to change their world by force. They had grabbed those they thought the cause of their sorrows and they had beaten or killed them, until the Silent Army handled the affair. Many once again took up weapons, but this time they approached the barracks of the Imperial Army and offered their axes and swords to the Empress.

While some were drawn to war, others did their best to find comfort in the temples of the gods. Some were not so easily comforted; the gods had offered little that they could see – and of those little could be said, save that the miracle of the Silent Army did not seem a blessing in their eyes – but they tried just the same. The Sa’ba Taalor had faith, but for the Fellein that commodity seemed very rare.

As the heat came and melted snow into water, the Silent Army moved. Some went about their courses, looking over the city and making certain that no one chose to fight against the laws of the Empress. Others chose a different route.

There were many catacombs in the City of Wonders. Some were lost to time, unknown to any living being, but the Silent Army was not quite living in the usual sense.

Whether guided by memories from the past or by the gods themselves, three hundred of the Silent Army moved down into the catacombs beneath the city. They did not try to move quietly. They marched, and their tread filled chamber after chamber with the sounds of their feet striking the ground.

By the time they reached the spot where most of the Sa’ba Taalor were waiting, the gray-skins and their mounts were ready. The vast cistern was filled with a few inches of water, but nothing more. In the darkness of the massive chamber the warriors gathered what weapons they had and the mounts waited on the sidelines, prepared to attack when they were allowed that privilege.

The Silent Army came from all four openings into the chamber, treading steadily and wielding their short swords and their shields. They marched down the long stone stairs to reach their enemies below.

The Sa’ba Taalor did not wait for an invitation. They attacked.

Born and bred for war, the Sa’ba Taalor were nightmares of bloodshed. The Fellein had learned that the hard way, losing hundreds for every individual member of the Sa’ba Taalor that fell. Soldiers and civilians, men and women and children: all were the enemy in the eyes of the Sa’ba Taalor. Whatever weapon was needed was used. Whatever advantage could be taken was seized. A thousand years or more the Daxar Taalor had prepared their soldiers for the Great Tide.

The Silent Army did not care.

The first of the Sa’ba Taalor to strike was a man named Marro. He had served with Tuskandru and was chosen by Stastha as one of the most able among the King in Onyx’s forces.

He struck the first of the stone soldiers with a hammer he had forged himself in the fires of Durhallem. The blow he delivered was powerful and sent the Silent Soldier to its knees. The skin of the stone man cracked along the shoulder.

Marro did not have time to celebrate. The soldier swung its shield in a hard arc and knocked him back four feet even as it stood up and came forward. His hammer did not dent the shield when it struck, but instead skimmed along the slightly rounded surface.

The warrior was made of stone. Marro could see that. He could not deny what he saw with his own eyes and so he reversed the hammer, using the pick-like edge normally reserved for punching through hard armor to deal his next blow. The point drove into the shield and left a break in the soldier’s defenses. The soldier drove forward again, bashing at Marro with the shield, knocking him backward. Marro was a powerful figure and grunted in surprise. The first time the stone man hit him he might have been taken off guard. The second time he was braced for the assault, but it did not matter. He was hurled backward several feet. The shield came again and Marro ducked around it, moving as quickly as his opponent. He pushed himself in against the stone man and grunted again as the soldier held its place. Just the same he brought his hammer around and struck the stone soldier a solid blow that staggered the heavy form.

The short sword of his enemy came down in a hard arc and sliced through Marro’s neck, his chest and his guts.

Marro looked up at his enemy as he died, knowing that even in death he had served his gods faithfully and that he would be rewarded.

By the time Marro fell dead, the nameless soldier had moved on, sweeping his arms in separate directions. His shield arm drove back a man with a sword. His sword arm knocked aside a woman attempting to grapple him.

In ancient times, when the Silent Army had first awoken, their very visage had driven half of their enemies into retreat. Statues should not move, or strike, or kill.

The Sa’ba Taalor did not care. Statue or flesh, the enemies of their gods were their enemies as well and they would destroy them by any means necessary. The woman cast aside was not foolish. Her tactics were best used against flesh. She was strong and she knew it. She had once broken the jaw and hind leg of a Pra-Moresh with her body as her only weapon. She could not shatter stone, but she could use physics to her advantage. As the stone soldier took a step forward she drove the heel of her foot into the back of the knee supporting all of the demon’s weight.

Then she rolled fast to get out of the way.

The knee moved forward and the stone monster lost balance and fell back.

By the time it had landed on the ground she had gathered Marro’s great hammer and prepared herself. Her fellow Sa’ba Taalor, the one with the sword, took advantage of the situation as best he could and tried gutting the stone man. His blade was well made, but the stone was unyielding and the sound of the two clashing was monstrous.

The stone man brought around his shield and drove the edge into the swordsman’s midriff, pushing him back and likely breaking a rib or two.

And while he was doing that, she drove the pointy end of the hammer into the stone soldier’s face. The blow was perfect and shattered a part of that face, breaking it completely away from the head.

There was no blood beneath that hard surface, merely more stone. The stone soldier stood up and what remained of the face snarled silently at her.

She retreated quickly and called to the mounts, “To us! Defend!” It is not a sign of cowardice to acknowledge a need for help. On the contrary, it is a sign of foolishness to deny that fact.

The mounts were not made of stone, but they were powerful nonetheless.

The first of the mounts lasted two minutes in combat with the stone soldier. That is longer in a fight than most will ever realize. Two minutes of constant straining, biting and clawing managed little but to knock the stone man around and leave the mount winded and shaking. Adrenaline only lasts a short time and despite the armor worn effortlessly by the mount, the stone sword and shield delivered hellish blows. Bones were broken and meat was cut and slashed and bruised. Teeth cracked against stone flesh, and claws tore free from their housings.

For two full minutes the mount roared and fought and bled before dying. For two minutes the mount felt alive again in the purest sense.

Sometimes the gods are kind.

Axes did some harm. Swords a little less. Hammers worked nicely enough. The trouble was that all of those were in short supply. Most of the Sa’ba Taalor chosen for the climb had little or no weapons worth noting save their hand-to-hand skills. Those skills were impressive in all cases, but one can only punch a stone so many times. Stones may break, but few will shatter before flesh is pulped or bones crushed to dust.

A few hundred of the Sa’ba Taalor ran. Most did not. Those who fled did so because their gods demanded it. It is possible that the Daxar Taalor spoke to many, but who can say what is in the hearts of the gods?

Those who stayed behind were killed. There were no prisoners taken this time. The Silent Army did not give second warnings.

The waters of the cistern were bloody and littered with corpses.

Nine of the Silent Army were shattered and useless by the time the fight was over. That was nine more than had ever been defeated before.

The stone soldiers were stronger than any human being. They worked fast and did what they had to do. Then they left their grisly tasks behind and headed for the surface.

There was one more challenge and they took care of that as well before once more going about their appointed tasks.

At first light a few of the people screamed. More of them cheered. War, it is said, is a harsh business, a bloody business that requires bloodthirsty souls.

What is often not said is that it is not only soldiers who can acquire a hatred of the enemy and a desire to see them suffer. Let any soul endure enough and the darkness must surely touch it.

By the time Nachia Krous left the palace with her brother and several others, the murmur of cheers and sobs alike had become nearly a roar of approval and as she stepped into the front courtyard of the palace the cacophony was nearly deafening.

Several citizens started chanting her name and more followed quickly, though she still had no idea why.

From her left Desh Krohan emerged and joined the progression, followed quickly by Merros Dulver who was still settling his cape over his shoulders.

The first sight to fill her eyes as she looked to the cobbled street was a dozen or more of the Silent Army. It took her a moment to puzzle out that the different colors on them were splashes and droplets of old and drying blood.

In the center of a circle formed by the stone warriors was a tribute the likes of which she had never expected.

At the base of a hastily formed stack of grisly trophies was a layer of heads from beasts she could barely fathom. She had seen them before, of course, but never without their war masks. The mounts were dead, obviously, but each had disfigurements she could barely fathom.

Desh Krohan spoke softly. “I don’t believe what I’m seeing.”

Merros Dulver nearly sighed the words, “It hardly seems possible.”

Above the heads of the slaughtered mounts a towering stack of fresh heads rested. It only took a moment to recognize that they belonged to the Sa’ba Taalor.

Nachia looked at the pile of heads stacked higher than she stood and nodded as she slowly circled around it.

She raised her hands into the air and yelled, “Death to the Sa’ba Taalor!” as loudly as she could.

The response was immediate: the call was picked up by the crowd, who carried on the chant even as Nachia made a slow, steady retreat back into her palace, imagining a thousand arrows coming at her from all directions.

Despite that dread, a smile kept trying to break on her face.

Cullen heard the noises down below, looked out into the courtyard and felt a thrill run through her. She could not decide if it was joy at the death of her enemies or joy that something, anything at all, was capable of stopping them.

The gray-skins had seemed unstoppable in Trecharch.

“You killed a few of them, you know. I don’t think that I did, but your arrows struck true.”

“I ran away just the same. Deltrea. I watched everything we loved die.”

“Not everything I loved. That’s why I’m here you know. Because I love you. You are my sister and my friend.”

“And all I ever do is yell at you for talking too much.”

Deltrea laughed. “You have always yelled at everyone for talking too much. I have never known anyone so happy to be alone in my entire life.”

“I was never alone.” Cullen shrugged her shoulders and looked away from the dead below. “I always had the trees and the wind and my thoughts.”

“I always tried not to think that hard. Whenever I did I just got sad or angry.”

Cullen smiled at that one.

“It’s almost time, you know.”

“Time for what?”

“I do not know. I only know that the time is almost here.”

“Are you scared, Cullen?”

“I don’t know what I am anymore.” She sighed and looked out the window again, but this time at the skies, not at the ground and its dark rewards. “I only know that all I was is gone with Trecharch and all that is left wants everything to change.”

“Well, I am fine with things the way they are. I like having time to do nothing.”

Cullen shook her head. “Not me. I grow restless.”

Deltrea had no answer to that.

Ten

To the east the fires of Wrommish shone from the west and brightened an already glorious morning.

Tuskandru tore a chunk from a hard bread made of logga nut and grunted as he chewed it. The air was cold and he liked that too. Better to fight in the cold. War was hot work.

“You are calm.” The King in Iron was sitting next to him and rubbing oil along the blade of his massive sword.

“What is there to be excited about, Paedori?” Tusk offered the other king a lump of bread and got a nod of thanks. The sword settled against a rock as the man ate.

“You have been angry of late.”

“No. I have been impatient.”

Tusk pointed with his chin to the lake in the distance. “There is our target. There is a city the size of which I did not think possible. You will come from one side. I will come from another and two more kings bring their armies to bear on this place.”

Tarag Paedori nodded.

Tusk continued. “To the north Wrommish offers us new light and the blessings of a god. That is a good sign, I think. But mostly, we are here. We are alive, and we have come to offer our gods countless sacrifices.” He patted the heavy axe at his side. “I think this will be a glorious day.”

The Fellein had their sorcerers who told them secrets. The Sa’ba Taalor had their gods who did the same. The deaths of so many of their brethren were not hidden from the kings. They heard of the violence and the Silent Army’s brutality.

There was no mourning to be done. They had lived good lives and died for their gods. What else was there?

Tusk looked at the massive lake. It was more water than he had ever seen at one time before. He had never traveled to Wheklam’s heart, had never tried to learn the ways of the water. He focused on Durhallem, instead. Very likely that was why he was a king.

The city itself was a crescent moon on the distant side of the vast lake. There were smaller cities and towns dotted here and there, but Goltha rested on the far side and waited like a treasure. The Fellein had nearly danced when gifted with gold. It was a metal, shiny enough and nice to look at, but soft and only good for hobbies. You could not make a good axe from gold, though he had been told it could kill if a fool ate enough of it. He did not know the truth of that and felt no reason to find out.

The Fellein liked their gold. The Sa’ba Taalor preferred different treasures, like a city that could be crushed.

The plans had already been discussed. Tarag Paedori was a master tactician – he followed the god of armed combat and led the armies of the Daxar Taalor, how could he be less? They had gone over the variables, chosen the paths they would take and decided when they would ride.

This was their final rest before the siege would begin. It would be a siege, too, they knew that. The armies of the Fellein had been gathering in the city called Goltha. Even from this distance the banners and flags of their soldiers could be seen.

There were no horns, no battle cries. They did not announce themselves this day. Instead they moved toward their destinations and prepared themselves for whatever the gods might demand.

Cullen stood upon his ship and stared out at the waters ahead.

He was a captain again, but somehow the title didn’t mean as much this time around. The ship was given to him by the people who had killed his crew and left him to witness their deeds.

His crew was dead. The new crew was untested. To be sure they could row a boat and fish, but the Louron were hardly known for their skills as warriors and sailors. If one wanted a person tortured they were among the best, but to sail into battle was a different thing.

Still, looking at the dark-skinned people around him, he could see that they were dangerous enough.

Their demeanor gave away none of that. It was the conversations with them as they nursed him back to health and fed him that told the difference. A dozen Inquisitors had pried questions from him. They did not torture him nor were they cruel, but they were persistent. Darsken Murdro had been direct and harsh, but the others here were subtler and in some ways more cruel. The questions they asked were painful to answer, not because they used torture, but because they made him face aspects of himself that he did not like. Perhaps it was a drug in the food, or in the water, or perhaps it was simply that he needed to tell someone and they knew how to ask. They found ways to get truths from him even when he tried not to tell them anything.

Now they smiled and they joked softly among themselves, and they moved up the masts of the ship, and for over a week he watched as they painted the wood with dark inks and sang softly to themselves. The wood of the ship was no different. The shape of the vessel remained the same, but there was something menacing about the Brellar boat that had not been there before.

“What is it you have done, Daivem Murdro?”

The woman he looked at was sleek and dark and ageless. She could have been fifteen or fifty and he would not have known the difference. She had silver in her hair but her skin was smooth. Her eyes held the frank expression of an older woman but she giggled when she laughed and sounded like a child at those times. Like her brother, her hair was drawn into a dozen braids, hers all beaded and covered with wire and odds and ends. It should have looked preposterous, but it did not.

“My brother said you are a good man. He asked that we help you.”

That thought puzzled him greatly. The notion that Darsken Murdro would call him a good man made as little sense as the rest of his life of late.

“Yes, and thank you. But what have you done to the ship?”

“Two crews died here. Yours and the Brellar who owned the ship, yes?”

“Yes.”

Her voice carried that same lilt as all of her people and was almost a purr. “They are angry. They want justice. They want to taste the blood of their killers. If this does not happen, they will never rest properly. They will search for their killers until the end of time. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I think.” He had heard of the Lourons’ fixation with the dead. He understood it well enough to know they were not to be trifled with. “And so we have offered them a map. It is carved into your boat. Their boat. They will guide you. We will sail with you.”

“Why are you doing this for me?”

“For the dead. They will have a voice again, if only for a while. When they are at peace, we can be at peace.”

She smiled as she spoke and then she called out to the crew around him. They called back, some loudly and some with nothing but a gesture.

Satisfied, Daivem looked to him again. “We are ready.”

“Then let’s get to it.” He didn’t give himself enough time to think and get nervous. If he did that he might well tell them to let some other fool be their captain. He owed his crew, however, and he owed the Brellar. If not for his actions they would all likely still be alive. He had led his crew, and the Brellar had been brought into negotiations with the Empire because of his suggestions and actions.

The ship lurched as the anchors were raised and the sails were spread.

Callan looked at the sky and frowned. “What is wrong with the clouds?”

They danced and shifted in a way that was not at all to his liking. They seemed oddly out of focus, even when he looked directly at them.

“The clouds are fine. We have found ways to go faster than other ships. We will meet up with our enemies in hours.”

“In hours?” Despite his willingness to fight against the enemy, he had rather been hoping for a few weeks in which they could get more of themselves killed.

“In hours,” Daivem confirmed.

“But they have had weeks.”

“The dead have watched. The dead have waited. They wish to wait no longer.”

He wished the woman would stop speaking of the dead as if they were alive. The thought made his skin shiver as if fevered.

Callan knew the coastline better than most. He was shocked to see that they had travelled much farther than should have been possible an hour into their voyage. The man currently steering the ship did not look his way, but instead focused on the wheel. The rest of the crew stayed busy.

Daivem was close by and he called to her. “How does he know where to go? I haven’t told him.”

“You do not know where to go. Why would he ask you?”

Her logic was solid.

“Just the same, where are we going and how does he know?”

“Look carefully at your helmsman and tell me what you see.” The dark-skinned man was the same as before when he looked but there was something there, a smudge in the air that made no sense.

Daivem’s long fingers moved up the back of his neck and into the tangle of hair on the back of his skull. “Look carefully,” she whispered.

He looked and saw Vonders there, holding the wheel with the helmsman. Vonders whom he’d seen killed. Vonders whom he’d mourned.

“The dead know the way to retribution, Captain Callan. They have no secrets from us.”

Callan nodded and stayed where he was, cold and dread-filled in the warm ocean breeze. The miles went quickly, very quickly indeed.

Andover woke from a doze. He was still on Gorwich’s broad back. “You sleep like the dead,” the mount observed.

“And you stink like the dead, oaf.” The words were spoken with affection on both sides.

Andover looked around carefully. They had reached the passage between the mountains. Canhoon was above them, so high up it barely seemed possible that the shape was a city. Wrommish had moved, according to Drask. The winds from the north blew hot enough to convince Andover that the man was right, even if the gods had not told him already.

Drask rode next to him on the left, with Tega riding behind him. On the right Nolan March sat on Delil’s mount, where Delil’s body still rode. Nolan still offered no expression. How he rode without falling Andover could not begin to guess.

Delil did not rot. She should have been a reeking mess after the time they’d spent riding, but she was not.

“Should we not be closer?” Andover yawned as he spoke.

“We are where we need to be,” Drask replied. “We are days away from the Great Tide, Andover Lashk.”

“Have the gods ever raised the dead before, Drask?”

“You know the answer to this already, Andover.”

“I know one answer. I know that nothing ever goes to waste. I know that the punished come back as the Broken or as the Pra-Moresh. I know that the worthiest come back as mounts. But have the Daxar Taalor ever resurrected someone as they were before they died?”

“In some of the stories of the kings, they are reborn from their broken bodies. According to some of the legends, Durhallem raised Tuskandru from the dead.”

“Do you believe that?”

Drask shook his head. “No. I know that they can raise the dead, but I have never heard of it happening.” He tilted his head. “They have come close. Swech died. She sacrificed herself to Wrommish to hide among the Fellein. She died there, but they have only recently given her back her old body.”

“So they raised her from the dead?”

Drask shook his head. “More like they put her back in her own form. It is hard to say, I am only just learning of this.”

“How are you learning?”

“Tega and Nolan and I have been changed, Andover. I think we have bathed in the blood of the gods and been transformed.”

“I thought the blood of the Daxar Taalor was the metal in their hearts.”

“A different type of blood, perhaps. It is hard to say. All I know is that we are changed. We are changing. You ask if gods can raise the dead. I raised Brackka. Does that make me a god?”

“You raised Brackka? From the dead?” Andover’s voice was soft with surprise. He looked past Drask to Tega. She stared directly in his eyes and nodded her confirmation.

“Yes, I did.”

“Could you raise Delil?”

“I think so, but I see no reason.”

“What do you mean?”

“Delil lived the life she wanted, Andover. She fought for her gods, she lived well and served the Daxar Taalor. She was happy. If I bring her back that might not be the same.”

Andover stared hard at the man who had been his mentor. “I don’t understand. Why would you hesitate?”

“You would not hesitate, Andover. She is important in your world and you wish to be with her. But she is not important to me. She was my friend, but death is part of the world, even for gods. If I brought her back, it would not be for me or for her, it would be for you.”

“Would that be such a bad thing, Drask?”

Drask looked at him, stared deeply into his eyes. “You have already made a bargain to have her back, Andover Iron Hands. It is not my place to reach between a man and his gods.”

“But if I do not keep that bargain, if I should fail…” Guilt swept through him.

“Then your desire for Delil is not strong enough for you to test your faith.”

“Do you know what the gods want of me?” His voice broke momentarily.

“I have not listened to the gods since leaving the Blasted Lands.” Drask looked forward again. “They have been trying to speak to me, trying to get my attention. I suspect they would like their power back.” Drask looked his way again and raised his right hand. The silver there had grown, was sweeping up his arm all the way to his shoulder. “I imagine they want you to convince me to talk to them. Or they want you to kill me, Tega and Nolan.” There was an edge of menace in the man’s words that made it clear he would not die easily. “I will understand if you try. I have killed more than a few people I considered worthy of friendship because the gods demanded it. I will defend myself, Andover. If you attack me, I will kill you. Know that.”

They rode in silence for a long while. Tega stared at Andover as if she did not know him any longer. Perhaps that was true.

When Drask spoke again, his voice was calm. “You have met all of the Daxar Taalor, as have I, Andover. That is rarer than you know. There are fewer followers of Ydramil than you might think, because to truly be Ydramil’s follower, you must visit with all of the gods.”

Drask studied his own hand for a moment. “I do not ignore the gods because they have offended me. That is what you must understand. I do not ignore the gods at all. I am merely doing what Ydramil has always said to do.”

“And what is that, Drask?”

“Ganem is the Mirror King. Ydramil is the God of Silver, the God of Reflection.” Drask looked his way. “I am considering what my options might be. I am reflecting on the changes in my life as Ydramil has always asked of me.

“It is not all of the gods that have made an offer to you. Ydramil would not. Ydramil understands my heart.”

“Then why would the other gods ask me to kill you?”

“They are war gods, Andover. They will always ask for blood. It is their way.”

“Then perhaps if I offered them something else?”

“You can ask. I do not expect you will like the answer.”

Tega left her body, as she had done before her transformation, and dreamt herself a new form as her master had taught her to do.

The storm crow soared high, indeed, as high as the mountaintops, and then moved over the City of Wonders.

It was not hard to find Desh Krohan. He was in his chambers as she suspected he would be. It is not always easy to know a wizard, but it is far easier to know a man.

He did not need to look hard to know who she was.

Desh smiled and held out an arm. “Tega! I’d feared you dead. You have not responded in a very long time.”

Rather than land on his arm as she might have in the past, Tega took her own shape and settled on the ground beside him.

He was still looking surprised by her transformation when she hugged him fiercely. She’d had no plans to cry. She’d meant to merely let him know all that had happened but instead she found herself burying her face in his robes and wrapping her arms around his lean chest.

He said nothing. Instead he merely held her and let her grieve as she needed.

“They are all dead and it is my fault. I failed you a thousand times, Desh.”

“You are alive, Tega. You have not failed me. I have failed you. I should have never sent you to that miserable place.” He spoke into her hair and placed a dozen paternal kisses on her scalp.

After a time she could breathe again and pulled back from him.

Words were not enough sometimes. Instead of trying she touched her fingers to his head and showed him what had transpired. He seemed far less surprised than she would have expected. Then again he was on a floating city and an army of statues was moving about. Some events make the impossible less outrageous.

He showed her as she had shown him, and Tega burst into tears anew to learn that one of her teachers and friends, Goriah, was dead.

She was not alone. When Tega cried her grief out, Desh Krohan joined her. They held each other through the emotional storm and when it was mostly over Tega looked at him and said, “We could bring her back.”

“I’ve thought of it. I’ve considered it often. I have preserved her body for the possibility, because I do no want to bury her and I do not want to burn her. I do not want to lose any of my Sisters any more than I would ever want to lose you.”

“We could. The Daxar Taalor brought Swech back from the dead. That’s what Drask said.”

“How?”

“They are gods.”

Desh shook his head. “Even gods have their limits. Or at least they should.”

“There was something about her body. She was not in it and they cared for it. So bringing her back was not so hard for them.”

“Resurrection is almost impossible. To heal a wound is one thing. To put a spirit into a body and bind it is another.”

Tega shook her head. “You are thinking like a sorcerer, not like a god.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean a sorcerer must find the energy to do these things. Magic has a cost. You have always said this. The cost is the energy. Or the ability.” She waved her arms around. “This city, the Silent Army, they exist because you could draw on the deaths of thousands to rebuild, yes?”

“Yes, of course.” Desh looked at her carefully, like a parent looking for signs of a fever. “What is your point, Tega? I’m not going to kill a dozen people, even my enemies, in order to bring Goriah back. That is why those magics are forbidden. The temptation is strong, always, but it’s the wrong approach.”

“Desh, I have the power. It is inside me. Drask has the power inside him. Whatever we were supposed to find or not find in the Mounds, the power is in us.” She paused and thought of Drask recreating the Blasted Lands and bringing Brackka back from dust and ash.

“I have the power of the gods inside me, Desh. All three of us do. It is wondrous and terrifying.”

“Have you used this power?” He was calm as he asked, but he was also cautious.

“No. Of course not. I have already caused disasters without the power I have now.”

Desh nodded.

“That is why I am here. I wanted to give it to you. I think I can do that.”

Had she scalded him with boiling oil he could not have reacted as deeply.

He did not scream. He did not rail. Instead Desh looked at her as calmly as he could and shook his head. “I would not want it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I would want to use it.”

“But shouldn’t you?” Tega stepped closer to him, only vaguely aware that he had stepped back. “You could bring Goriah back. You could end this war.”

“No, Tega.” He placed his hands lightly on her shoulders. “Once upon a time I think that was what ruined Korwa. Too many people with too much power fought against each other and destroyed that place. Do you see? The power of the gods should not be wielded lightly.”

Tega frowned. “But the gods have cheated! They bring back the dead of the Sa’ba Taalor!”

Desh smiled. “How about we come to a compromise, then. We could bring back Goriah, if you truly want. But nothing else. Instead I would ask that you refrain from using any more of this power, in case, as I suspect, it could cause too much damage.”

There was no hesitation on her part. Tega smiled and nodded and once again hugged her instructor and friend. He hugged her back and she felt, for the moment, happier than she had in months.

“There is someone I need you to meet first, Tega. He has spoken with Goriah. He has asked her many questions.”

“I thought that forbidden, Desh.”

“Not to an Inquisitor.”

Within the hour they met. Tega looked at Darsken Murdro and was intrigued. She had never met a man with darker skin or eyes and no man she had ever seen wore his hair in so many braids. Even the Sa’ba Taalor she had seen, many of whom braided their locks, had never managed so many braids of varying lengths, all tied together.

When he smiled his face lit up like a child’s. She liked him.

Pella and Tataya were there, along with a small, muscular woman introduced as Cullen. Cullen had a ghost. She also had something hidden within her that felt like it had all the power of a tidal wave locked in a bottle.

Desh explained enough to let Darsken know that bringing Goriah back was possible without sacrifices.

Not far away Tataya and Pella were still mildly shocked to see Tega, but happy for all that. After everything that had happened they’d feared she was dead and that they had lost another of the family.

Jeron was missing. Tega knew of his name but that was all. He was not in the city that they could see and there was no word from him. The sorcerers had lost enough for now.

“You can bring her back?” Tataya spoke softly and moved to Tega, her arms moving around Tega’s shoulders and her body pressing to her from behind. She leaned into the embrace, taking comfort from the Sister. Pella looked closely at Tega and frowned in concentration.

“I cannot,” Tega shook her head. “But Desh can. I can only provide a means.”

Pella nodded but said nothing. Half of sorcery is understanding how the world functions. Pella looked at Tega and understood.

Desh looked at Darsken Murdro and asked only one question, “Would Goriah want to come back to us if she could?”

Darsken looked carefully at each of them. “Yes. But she knows the rules of sorcery and necromancy and would want no sacrifices to bring her back.”

“Then she will have none.” Desh nodded. “We will try once and only once.”

Tega smiled. “I have to leave soon. I have to get back before I am missed. I think there are things that still need to be done from down below. So we should work quickly.”

“What are they doing?” Deltrea looked at the gathered people and worried at a spectral fingernail. She was always curious, but now she seemed more concerned than anything else.

“They try to bring back the dead.”

“Not me I hope. I don’t think I’d like the shape of my body after all this time.”

“No. One of the other sorcerers.”

“Hmmph. Just as well. I wouldn’t want to be alive again.”

“Liar.”

“Maybe so. Still, no one has asked me.”

The short blonde woman who clung to Desh Krohan like an infant with her father looked their way for a moment and smiled timidly. Cullen smiled and nodded. Deltrea realized she could be seen by the girl and immediately waved and smiled as well.

“See? That one I like. Not nearly as rude as the wizard.”

“I think they are all wizards.”

Deltrea moved closer. “Is that the one they’re bringing back?”

There was only one body on a table. The corpse was pretty as corpses go, but still only one more corpse as far as Cullen was concerned. She couldn’t imagine wanting to be reborn into the world after all that had gone wrong. Trecharch was gone. Her home, her people, almost all of them destroyed and instead of trying to stop the enemy, the group here worried about bringing back one person. She wondered idly what made that one so special but decided not to dwell on it.

She didn’t really know what to expect but it was a simple enough affair.

Desh Krohan made markings on the body of the dead girl. Some might have seen his caressing of flesh as obscene, but he obviously took no pleasure from it and he broke a sweat as he concentrated. The little blonde girl stood beside him, and he reached for her at one point and their hands clutched together.

Then the lights came. Cullen felt like she was seeing the sun for the first time. The lights were warm and bright and comforting even though their intensity scared her a bit.

The lights ran from the girl to the sorcerer to the corpse and there they danced along each and every mark that the sorcerer had made before they sank into the cold, dead flesh.

After a moment the corpse shook and took in a breath before groaning and sitting up.

She was lovely. She had cold features, but they were structured well. High cheekbones, full lips, blue eyes and hair so blonde it bordered on white.

Deltrea looked at her and spoke with a shocked voice She did not speak of the miracle they had just seen instead she said, “You fancy her.”

Cullen waved the comment away. Who she fancied had never been a part of her relationship with Deltrea and wouldn’t be a part of it now.

“I can feel it, Cullen. Why didn’t you ever say?”

“I fancy men and women alike, Deltrea.” She muttered the words, while not a dozen feet away the miracle workers held onto their resurrected friend and hugged.

“Well, yes, but you never said.”

“You talked of your rutting. That doesn’t mean I ever wanted to talk about mine.”

“But we’re friends, Cullen. I told you everything because we are friends.”

“I saw how you treated a few people like me. You smiled in their faces and then said hateful things.”

“I would never do that to you.” Deltrea looked genuinely wounded.

“I never wanted to take that risk. In any event it is done.”

It was not, however.

The recently reborn looked to the other blonde, the smaller one, and swiftly grabbed her hand.

“I need a favor from you, Tega.” The way the woman spoke, it was not really a request.

“Just… Only this time, Goriah. Because you are owed that much.”

Goriah kissed the other girl’s cheek and then closed her eyes.

Desh Krohan said, “What are you doing?”

Goriah replied, “Revenge.”

The First Advisor merely nodded his head.

They were gathered together at the estate of Lanaie, though she was not there. Once again she was walking the palace with Brolley Krous and learning what secrets could be gleaned while with him.

Swech was restless. She was back in her body and wanted combat, as is almost always the case with the Sa’ba Taalor, regardless of the body they might inhabit. It was not that she was impatient, merely that she needed to refamiliarize herself. Limbs were different widths and lengths, joints were more fluid – thank the gods – and muscles were just different enough that she felt like her whole body was wearing a new boot.

To that end, rather than pace and drive everyone mad, Swech stretched and practiced her punches and kicks as she had been taught. From time to time N’Heelis called out a compliment or a suggestion and she smiled and listened. It was good to be among her people again.

Glo’Hosht did not pace. The King in Mercury looked over a map of the city that was several layers deep.

“Here, I think, is where your people can do the most good, N’Heelis.”

The King in Gold moved over to look and Swech stopped her practices long enough to look on and learn.

“Swords and blades are very nearly useless here. I think chains and staffs a better way.” N’Heelis spoke casually enough. Of all the kings it was possible that they were among the closest. They had always worked well together and likely that would never change.

Swech moved closer and looked at the map. They were examining the Mid Wall.

“That is where the Silent Army is strongest.”

N’Heelis nodded and pointed. “It is also where they are weakest.” She smiled and crossed her arms.

Glo’Hosht stood up suddenly and backed away from the table. As he moved, his arms and then his legs twisted and popped. Bones snapped and the king fell to ruined knees.

It only took seconds. The King in Mercury screamed, a loud, harsh bellow, and then the flames erupted. Not at one sleeve or another, not at the bottom of the king’s cloak or at the top of the woven hood the king always wore, but from everywhere at once. This was not the heat of the forge. It was hotter.

The fires roared along the king’s body and if there was a second scream it was torn away by the fury of the flames.

N’Heelis did not have time to react. Swech did not have time to react. No one could have. The King in Mercury exploded into flames and then burned away into nothing before anyone could hope to assist. Fine soot rained down from the spot. Scorch marks painted the ceiling above where Glo’Hosht had been. The whitest ash, so fine that it shivered away in the breezes caused by motion a dozen feet away, was all that remained.

Swech sought comfort, as she always had, in the voice of her gods. The Daxar Taalor did not answer immediately.

Even the gods were caught unawares.

She took no comfort from that notion.

Eleven

The greatest rivers in the whole of the land all ran to the same spot, Lake Gerhaim. The lake itself was a sight that many could barely believe. Surrounded on all sides by low hills, almost any place a person stood afforded a view of the clear blue waters and the numerous villages and towns that all led to Goltha.

Goltha was a city of wonders in its own right but never had that name. The title given to the city was the Jewel of the Empire. Commerce from all portions of the country came through Goltha at one point or another, and even in winter the rivers were too wide to freeze completely. Goltha lived off the taxes claimed and the people who came to her for fortune. Not everyone succeeded, but all who came to the city knew they were in a place of magic and power. The magic was mostly for show: courtesans and street magicians, an occasional sorcerer and a thousand charlatans. The city embraced all who came so long as there was coin in the transaction. That was one of the less pleasant titles for Goltha: the Whore of Fellein.

Whore or Jewel, Goltha was very well protected indeed. Because so many wanted to seize the area, the Empire had long since made defending Goltha a priority. There were great iron gates that could be closed against ships from any or all directions. Water could pass through, but boats of any size would have to be given permission to enter once the main gates were shut. Those gates were among the greatest creation of the sorcerers of old. They had rusted, true, but not as much as they should have and never enough to weaken them in hundreds of years.

In addition to the gates there were three great walls, each higher than the last. The walls were solid in all directions save one: the waters of the lake were not blocked. That was why they had the great gates.

There were entrances in the walls, of course, but they could be barred and braced.

The sun had not yet risen when the northern and southern gates of Goltha’s outermost wall were set ablaze. The fires were carefully set in the deepest part of the night and the guards who stood outside those closed gates were murdered before they could sound alarms. The eastern gate was set ablaze as well, but only after the other two. City Guard and citizens alike did what they could to stop the fires but they were massive indeed.

By the time the sun rose the gates were in ruins. Metal hinges and bars do not stop wood from burning and whoever started the fires used a great deal of oil and wood to make the blazes burn hot and fast.

Among the soldiers was Captain Leno Nethalte, in charge of the archers who had successfully slaughtered their enemies along the Inbrough River. He did not fight the fires or waste his men on that action. Instead he ordered the First Wall stationed with archers and spearmen alike. All brought shields, the better to defend their positions. All brought extra arrows and spears because one never knew how long a siege would last.

The ruined gates were quickly replaced with heavy lumber and stones to support the wood. Great wooden braces were rigged as quickly as possible.

The soldiers of Goltha were as prepared as they could be for the attacks that they knew would come their way. Alarms were sounded and the Gerhaim Gates were tended to. There seemed no issues from the north, east or west, but the Southern Gates were drawn against the black ships heading for them. Rumors of the ships had long reached the city, of course, but the reality was unsettling.

The gates were massive affairs. The walls that held the mechanical wonders were eighty feet in height and blocked off a portion of the river itself on each side. Many a brave soul had walked out along those stone barriers over the years simply for the view the gates afforded. The gates were seventy feet in height and were checked regularly by the sorcerers to make certain that everything functioned as it should. There were parts to be oiled, of course, and the metal itself, while enchanted, still required a good cleaning now and then. That was, as far as most sorcerers were concerned, why apprentices existed.

When the alarm was sounded and the gates were sealed the noise alone would have scared off the dead. Horses had to pull the latticework from below, down in tunnels along the waters. They were strong animals, and the apparatus was well kept, but still it took time to work the defense. The rumble and squeal of metal on metal as the pieces were drawn across and locked in place was a din that only a few ever heard and forgot.

That was all the alarm needed to have most of the people at the smaller towns around the river’s end looking on in anticipation.

The first of the massive vessels turned and collided with the great iron gate. The ship shook, the gate shook. Nothing fell apart.

The figures that came off the ship and started scaling the sides of the gate were unexpected. The gate itself was a massive affair and while some marveled at the thing, few ever consider scaling it, at least when they were sober.

The gates were not solid. If they were, water could not pass through and the city would suffer. There were rather substantial holes in the gates but the bars used to forge the entire thing were thick and, as has been mentioned before, crafted with sorcery to back up their strength.

Once every six months the gates were closed and examined to make certain their integrity held. In all of the years of repairs and examinations it never occurred to anyone that invaders might try to climb the deterrent. The metal was harsh and uneven; holding on would be painful at the least. Handholds could be had, but not very easily and one would have to reach a great ways to grasp the next spot.

The Sa’ba Taalor scaled mountains with regularity. The gates were not a challenge.

Archers were deployed. Because the gates were important, there were always soldiers to look after them. The archers took positions atop the walls of the gates as quickly as they could and waited.

The Sa’ba Taalor had arrows too. Those atop the gates braced themselves and fired at the archers, keeping them busy. The Fellein used crossbows for the most part but here, the archers used longbows. The range was better and the speed was a blessing. Also, the king of Goltha, Kordis Neiller, preferred longbows, as he was a hunter.

More ships rammed against the wall with no noticeable damage to either side. More of the Sa’ba Taalor scaled the gates.

Further out, on both sides of the river, the armies that had previously been disgorged and now had the newly anointed with them continued on, unwavering.

The Fellein marked by the gods had made their decisions and the Sa’ba Taalor kept them to those choices. They were made to run with the People of the Forges, to eat with them and to fight with them. Those who did not fight well died. Those who fled suffered a far worse fate.

The Daxar Taalor did not brook cowardice. The first warning came in the form of crippling pain to any who tried to escape or to betray their new gods. Crippling pain meant just that, and the traitors died quickly. Those who survived did not usually try again. If they did it was time for a short lesson in what angry gods can do.

There were no dogs in the Taalor Valley. The Sa’ba Taalor encountered the creatures quickly enough and came to respect the animals for their loyalty and savagery. The freshly anointed who failed the Daxar Taalor were made into the equivalent of hounds. They were bent until their shape was that of a dog and their jaws were reformed, their teeth made long and vicious.

They suffered, as naughty children often do, and were told that the only escape was death, or to prove their loyalties once and for all.

The hounds led the way into combat, willing at last to prove themselves to their new gods.

Their feet and hands ended in long, thick claws. Their faces were warped into nightmarish lumps with too-long jaws and wide, sharp teeth. It is hard to say if the Daxar Taalor enjoyed creating the nightmares, but the Sa’ba Taalor loved setting them on the people ahead of them.

The hounds ran ahead of the armies, and they reached the gates while the soldiers from Fellein were still trying to keep the Sa’ba Taalor from the black ships at bay.

The screams of the people below made a few archers turn their attention from the approaching gate walkers.

While the fight was forming on two separate fronts, more of the Sa’ba Taalor from the ships attempted to use the gates to gain entrance to where the great locking mechanisms were housed.

Alarms were sounded and reinforcements charged to assist before the black ships could make their way inland.

In the chaos it was understandable that boats coming from the Parmahar got past without even being noticed. They had little in common save that they were all designed for fishing. They sat low in the water, a sure sign that their holds were heavy with fish, and while there was cause for panic to the south of the city, there was business to tend to in the east and on the docks.

Meggs, a dockworker with connections in all the right places, looked to Dockmaster Toast and shook his head. He spat and snorted in the cold air coming from the waters.

“You seeing this? What do they plan to do, sell fish to fishermen?”

Toast looked at the boats with no real concern at first. “Not like they’ve much of a choice, is it? Where else they gonna sell fish? In Canhoon?” He pointed to the small speck in the air to the west. “Way I’m hearing things, that dot up there is Canhoon. Can’t sell them fish if they can’t reach them.”

Toast spoke with a bit of pity for the bastards. They’d come all this way and all they were going to get for their efforts was being taxed by him before they could settle in. That was the way of it. The docks were expensive to keep, and with the fuss going on to the south he doubted he’d be seeing much business from that direction, either.

“Could be refugees.”

Toast shook his head and followed Meggs’s example. He spat at the waters. “Emnol!”

Toast’s son Emnol was a good boy, but just barely. He looked the part of a girl and more than once he’d been warned to keep his eyes alert when boats came in. He was thin, had his mother’s fine face, and was too trusting at the age of ten.

“Aye, Dad!”

“Go find the City Guard. Tell ’em we might have refugees coming in.”

“What’s a refugee?”

“People looking for a place to stay that can’t afford to ask.”

The boats were still at a distance, but they came quickly. The sails were stretched and took the wind, the oars stroked hard and the vessels fairly jumped with each sweep of the long oars, and along the sides of the vessels stood the shapes of men.

And now Toast could see more clearly, the figures were the stuff of nightmares. Great shapes dressed in leathers and armor, carrying every imaginable type of weapon.

The boats came closer still, and from their decks he could hear the sounds of men calling, bellowing the same word again and again, “Durhallem,” with every beat of the oars on the water.

From behind the boats tremendous wakes spread, and despite the hellish passengers aboard the boats, the water caught the dockmaster’s eye and would not let it go.

“Where the hell are those City Guard?”

“If I knew I’d surely tell you,” commented his friend. “What is it that stirs the water so much? Are they towing other boats?”

“No. It doesn’t make sense.” He shook his head. “Besides, we have other concerns. We need to get away from here before they make shore.”

The boats did not slow down, but instead veered left and right, running alongside the docks and revealing the reason for the odd wake: several long ropes ran behind each of the boats, with hands holding onto those ropes from the additional Sa’ba Taalor that rode along. The people swimming toward the docks were the enemy he had been hearing about.

“This can’t be real.” Meggs’s voice was strained. “What are they?”

“They are the enemy of our people,” Toast’s voice was strained. “We need to leave here. We need to alert the City Guard.”

Meggs nodded his agreement and the two of them moved a few paces back, not quite daring to look away from the hell of flesh coming their way.

The ones holding onto the ropes let them go and then swam hard for the docks, grabbing at the wood or swimming alongside the edge of the docks until they could reach ropes or ladders.

The first of them that rose from the waters was not as large as some of the demons on the boats had been. Toast would easily claim this one was little more than a boy in stature, but that did not make the leather-clad creature any less frightening. It had horns running from its jaw upward and its exposed skin was deathly gray.

He was still looking it over when the thing pulled knives from sheaths at its hips and moved toward the two of them.

Toast shook his head and stepped back again.

The creature did not seem to care. If anything, it ran faster. It had taken but five long paces before Meggs was running, his body turning toward the distant hills and his legs pumping furiously.

The shape moved past Toast and he saw one scarred arm moving forward, releasing a knife that slid through the air as gracefully as any arrow had ever flown. The knife rammed to the hilt into Meggs’s skull and his friend flopped to the wooden dock and did not move.

Toast looked at the creature and it, in turn, looked toward him.

He shook his head, silently begging.

The creature’s eyes glowed inside his horned helmet. No, not his. The way the hips moved, the shape of the body. Not a boy at all. A woman.

She held up the bloodied knife in her hand and then pointed to his lower body. The wound was in his thigh. The blood ran in a torrent down his leg and the dockmaster felt lightheaded as a fine clear note rang in his ears.

He did not die as quickly as his friend, but Toast died just the same.

By the time the City Guard arrived, the Sa’ba Taalor had climbed to the docks, either from the waters or from the boats.

Most of the cargo holds held the mounts, and their riders went to them quickly, grabbing armor and weapons.

Tusk looked at Stastha and smiled. “As promised, first kill for seeing to the mountain raid.”

“I am glad. I did not want to go to the city. I wanted to be here, for this.”

Tuskandru nodded his head and hefted his axe.

“I prefer to stand on the ground myself, Stastha. I do not like falling.” The king looked toward the head of the dock, where several men in armor and one young boy were looking back. “Time to kill this place.”

He started walking and each step he took had the dock groaning under his heavy tread.

“Do we sound the horns, Tusk?”

“No.” he shook his head and readjusted his helmet. “Lead the new followers of Durhallem for a while, Stastha. I feel a need to kill.” The words were spoken cheerfully enough and she understood. Now and then leading was a task. Sometimes it was best just to find a target.

The City Guard stood and prepared themselves for the man coming their way. Tusk’s tread increased in tempo and by the time he’d reached the guards he was running.

The assault was as brutal as one would expect from the head of Durhallem’s army.

The boy ran. The soldiers did not. The first of them tried to meet Tuskandru full on, sword against axe. The man was skilled, and blocked the first blow Tusk aimed for him. While he was recovering from the shock of metal on metal, the king leaned in and smashed him in the face with his great helm. Fangs from a dead Pra-Moresh carved a wound in the guard’s face. As he staggered back screaming, the axe finished him.

Tusk grinned and swept the axe in a wide arc, catching another guard in the hand, slicing fingers away.

The guard screamed and reached for his sword with the other hand, his face a mask of pain. Tusk’s body smashed into him, sending him staggering. The sword came free at the same time that the guard fell to the ground.

The guard never had a chance to rise. By the time the slaughter was done Tuskandru had moved on, heading for the city proper and any target that might strike his fancy.

Stastha chose to follow after him. He did not need protection, but best not to divide the army this early on.

The hills above Goltha were littered with mansions and villas. The view they afforded of the vast lake, the city itself and the surrounding towns was spectacular.

King Kordis Neiller did not live on the hillsides above the town. He lived in a castle deep in the heart of the city as his ancestors had for quite some time.

The horns sounding to the south were not a surprise. He’d known of the black ships for some time and had made preparations should they make their way through the river gate.

It was the messengers coming with new notes of alarm that caught his attention. First, the City Guard to the east had not sent a runner. That was hardly a cause for alarm by itself, as the man in charge of the Guard was often lax in his reports. It was the culmination of other situations. The north was quiet as well. The soldiers sent that way to keep an eye on the Sa’ba Taalor who’d escaped the river assault had not reported back yet, and that was a problem.

The court sorcerer was a capable man named Theran. He was often aloof and seldom pleasant, but he was capable and that was enough. The wizard didn’t much look like a wizard. He was too young and did not carry a staff, a wand or any signs that he could perform sorcerous deeds. He was also as humorless as any man Kordis had ever met. He gave daily reports about the approaching Canhoon and shared the latest information and theories as to where it would land and how much potential devastation might occur as a result of having a city the size of Canhoon dropped on the lake, or worse, dropped on the city. The results of the latter would be horrid, of course.

The results of the former would be, well, they would be slightly less horrid.

Theran said that the Sooth anticipated vast troubles in Goltha today. To that end the military was ready. The City Guard, well, he was hopeful.

The city was as prepared as it could be.

“Are you quite finished?” He looked to his cousin, who was currently working to fasten the last of the straps on the king’s breastplate.

“Almost. I should rather you not die because I can’t pull a leather strap, your majesty.”

He took a deep breath and felt the way the armor constricted. Enough to let him know he was secure, but not enough to steal his breath. “You’ve done well.”

The king looked out the window of his room and faced the west. He could see a disturbance near the docks. It was not small.

To the north, there was calm. To the west, there was–

“What goes on to the west, Arthun?”

“Have the soldiers returned from routing out the gray-skins?”

“No.” he frowned and looked on. “I don’t think so.”

There was motion near the very top of the hill that hid the city from everything to the east. The people were far enough away to look like little more than ants, but whatever it was they brought with them was larger, easily seen as it came to rest.

He turned to Arthun for answers. “What are they doing up there?”

“Are they building something?”

The first of the rocks fired from the catapult missed the king’s palace but shook the earth and then rolled on to smash a hole in the eastern wall.

“By the gods!” King Kordis Neiller shook his head and moved toward the window, not believing what he was seeing. The Empress had sent messages of mountains exploding, armies of the dead and far stranger things and he could look east and see the City of Wonders with his naked eye, but this was a different affair. This was a machine that threw rocks the size of an ox and shattered walls.

“Go! Sound the alarm! We are attacked!” That last was a redundancy, of course. The city was already attacked, but this was closer than he cared to think about. Hearing about attacks on Canhoon, or retaliation from the archers under his command, that was all quite different from watching a wall destroyed only a hundred yards from his window.

Kordis’s heart thundered as he moved to the stairwell leading to the main courtyard. People were screaming and he knew they would be.

“Where is Theran?” he bellowed his question even as he strode into the courtyard, feeling the thump of his sword against his side, the slap of his axe closer to his hip.

“I am here, sire.” Theran’s dark eyes looked at him from near the stables. The man was dressed in regular pants and a decent jacket. He didn’t look the part of a sorcerer. That was part of the problem, of course. A wizard should look like he could cast a thousand different sorts of death at an enemy and the man was just there, with his dark hair and dark eyes and a face that still couldn’t gather a proper beard after months of trying.

“Speak to the messengers as you can, and let them know we are attacked. Let Canhoon know that we are under siege from at least two directions. There isn’t a damned thing they can do to help us but they should know what they are facing if they come this way.”

“Yes, sire.” Damn, but he didn’t like the sorcerer. The man was polite. He was obedient. He still made Kordis angry.

Theran’s eyes grew wide. “Sire!”

He looked in the direction that the mage was staring and faced his death. From the west a vast stone came toward him. It rolled in the air and froze him to his spot. He should have run. He should have prayed to the gods, he should have done so many things, but all he could do was stare at the impossible sight. The stone was growing larger by the instant and his legs refused to move.

The sorcerer stepped to him and held out both arms. The rock came closer, faster and then bounced in the air without touching either of them.

The missile rolled across the air and then smashed into the side of the stables, scattering shattered wood and hay as it rolled on.

Kordis looked at Theran. The sorcerer trembled with strain, even now doing his best to push the stone to where it would do the least damage.

Theran spoke with a voice that trembled from effort. “My liege, I suggest you get away from here before the next stone comes. I don’t know that I can do that a second time.” Suddenly Kordis liked the man better than he had before.

He also took the advice given and ordered his horse brought to him. The great rock might have taken most of his attention but he was aware of other men in armor joining him. It was time to make themselves known to the enemy.

“Where is the greatest gathering of the enemy, Theran?”

“To the north, sire.”

“The north?”

“Yes, Majesty. There is a very large army coming from the north. Smaller from the west, and we have heard no reports from the east, but we can make assumptions.” The wizard was eyeing the hills dubiously. “I shall do what I can about that.”

“I thought you were not to fight my war.” It was a point of contention that the sorcerers were only to offer advice and information.

Theran gave him a dark look. “Well, yes, but I live here too, you know. I would rather not just watch on and die if I can do something to prevent that.”

“Remind me to continue this conversation if we both live through the day, sorcerer.”

Without another word he mounted the horse and gestured to one of his soldiers who was carrying a horn.

The alarm was sounded, and the king turned toward the north and away from his city. There was a battle on all sides and he aimed himself at the largest force.

Goltha was a large city, with broad streets and a very large military force. Though it was true that every male citizen of Fellein was required to serve in the Imperial Army, Goltha also demanded service. No one could own land in Goltha without serving. No one could marry, no one could survive the taxes levied if they did not serve. The difference here was that the rule applied to men and women alike.

When the alarm was sounded the cavalry responded. The first horn had them dressing for battle. The second had them lining up at the royal stables – what was left of them – and gathering their horses. The third horn saw them assembled, the king in the lead.

And then they rode north, charging along the main road, lancers at the front, spearmen directly behind, and archers after that.

They were not alone in the charge. The northern barracks of the infantry was ahead of them, each with a spear and a sword, some with bows as well.

The gates were closed behind them, the City Guard alerted and made ready.

By the time the king and his cavalry arrived at the northern front the infantry and archers had dug in.

The infantry had set their long shields in a vast barrier and set their pikes and spears in a thick, layered wall of sharp points. The shields did not hold themselves and the soldiers waited as patiently as they could as the massive column of the enemy came their way.

Kordis looked at the barrier of flesh, wood and steel and nodded his approval. The archers were ready. Three layers deep, the bowmen waited for the command to be given and behind them more spear men prepared for combat.

They did not wait long for the warriors of the Sa’ba Taalor. The beasts they rode were terrors. There had been reports, of course, but the stories never seemed capable of doing justice to the reality. There was no exception here.

King Kordis looked upon the warriors of the Blasted Lands with the clawed, hellish mounts, saw the odd light in the eyes of man and beast alike, and swallowed the gasp that wanted to escape him.

The first of the enemy rode forward, a behemoth of a man with heavy plate armor and a sword of impossible size braced on the saddle of the monster he rode. His face was hidden behind an iron mask with a scowling visage.

He rode two dozen yards ahead, while the army of men and monsters waited behind him, several holding banners that matched the face on the giant’s armored helmet.

“Would you parley?” the man called out as if the answer didn’t actually concern him.

“On what would you parley? You stand at the edge of my city and your people already attack from three other directions.”

“I am Tarag Paedori, Chosen of the Forge of Truska-Pren and King in Iron. I rule over all of the armies you see coming at you from every direction. If you would hope to survive what is coming for you, now is your one chance to negotiate.”

Deep within the eyes of that mask, the silvery glow showed King Kordis exactly where the eyes of his enemy were and that they looked directly at him.

“What would you ask to leave this city in peace?”

“Surrender your crown to me and I will spare the lives of every person in Goltha. No one will be killed who does not raise a weapon.” He paused for a moment and tilted his head. “There is another king already here, who would not offer you any similar kindness. He and his will kill all of your people unless I command him to stop.”

King Kordis considered that. He was puzzled that there was more than one king, but didn’t have the time to ponder the implications.

“What of the Empire?”

“We are already at war with the Empire. We are already at war with you. But if you lay down your swords and offer me your crown, we will let all of you live.”

“And if we do not agree to these terms?”

“Trecharch fell in days. You will not last any longer.”

Kordis’s eyes remained locked with that silver gaze as he gave his command. “Archers, at the ready!”

As one the archers obeyed, nocking arrows and preparing to draw.

Tarag Paedori looked his way, his face unreadable behind the iron mask.

“You would kill me without even a counteroffer?” The man sounded exactly the same. If he was afraid he hid it very well.

“You have asked what I cannot give to you. Your people have already attacked my home, my people. How can I bargain with you when you attack from all fronts?”

“How can you not when you know we will win and crush you?”

Kordis smiled and shook his head. “I know no such thing.”

The King in Iron climbed from his mount and held the massive sword, letting the blade’s tip lightly touch the ground. From the side of his beast he pulled a shield as tall as a young man and held that as well.

“I may not survive the arrows of your archers, King Kordis. I may not survive this combat in any event. But my people will follow my orders and will seek to kill you. All of you. Every child. Every soldier. Every wife. All of you will die if you do not surrender.”

“Your people cannot kill us if you are all dead, Tarag Paedori. Archers, ready!”

The archers obeyed, pulling the bows and holding steady.

Tarag Paedori called out in a language unknown and the result was immediate. The riders moved forward and spread out even as Tarag Paedori himself moved forward, raising his shield until it blocked most of his body.

Kordis screamed, “Fire!” and the archers loosed a volley of arrows across the distance. The riders were fast to draw shields and raise them into the air, forming a wide wall to the front and above the mounts and riders alike.

Arrows rained down, some sticking in shields and others sticking in flesh. Even as they did so, the King in Iron bellowed an order of his own and the whole force moved forward.

The wave of shields and bodies parted only in one spot, where the shield of the king remained, where his helmet still glared at Kordis and his people.

Most of the archers managed a second volley of arrows before the riders were too close. The animals and riders moved fast, and charged the massive shield wall that King Kordis had prepared against assault. Spears, pikes and shields waited. The first of the mounted riders came forward and moved ahead of the wall. The archers could not fire without risking hitting their own on the closer side; the mounted rider, a woman with a spear in her hand, nodded approval of the structure.

Rider and mount strutted before the entire expanse of barrier and throughout her spear was held at a resting position. When she was finished moving in front of the barrier she nodded to herself and then rider and mount leaped. That was all there was to it. The wall itself was nearly six feet in height. No horse could clear it without being impaled. The beasts of the Sa’ba Taalor were not horses, he’d known that, but he did not expect them to jump the wall as easily as a cat might leap onto a table. But that is what happened. The great monster rose over the wall and then crashed down, and the rider hurled her spear even as the beast turned toward the soldiers making up the wall.

King Kordis had a perfect view of their faces as the great monster lashed out and ripped two soldiers away from the barrier. The wall foundered there, falling as the men were pulled away.

The spear was hurled with terrifying force and drove into the first of the archers, throwing the man sideways with the force of the impact.

By the time the spear had finished its travels, a dozen more of the hellish riders were coming over the living hedge, their beasts roaring out in battle cries that sounded as unsettling as the riders themselves. One of the mounts did not quite clear the barrier and took a spear in the shoulder that ripped a great wound all the way down its length. It fell on the barrier and knocked more shields and soldiers aside. After that, chaos. The wall did not hold, although the soldiers did their best to push forward against the rising tide of the enemy while trying to defend themselves from the great claws of the monstrous mounts. Soldiers took strides forward and then were hauled back and torn open. In the face of that fury the ranks collapsed and despite no order being given, several archers took aim and only added to the chaos. Some might have hit their targets, but not all of them.

The great wall of Sa’ba Taalor that crashed against the remaining wall of spearmen took down their enemies, bloodied and bloodying with the same zeal.

Soldiers retreated. Sa’ba Taalor charged forward. The sheer savagery of the assault left Kordis stunned and speechless.

Enough!

Kordis shook off the unexpected sight and drew his sword. Around him others did the same. Lances were no longer an option; there was simply too much chance of crushing and impaling his own. But swords were a different matter. The horses charged down toward the Sa’ba Taalor and responded to the simple pressure of knees into sides. Horse and rider worked as one, and the king swept his sword across the side of one of the mounts as it came past him, roaring. The sword smashed into heavy armor and cut but not deeply. The impact ran up King Kordis’s arm and he grunted.

One of the gray-skins saw him and swept a long mace at him, but instead of striking the king, the weapon shattered his horse’s face. The horse, well trained or not, was unprepared and dropped, screaming its agony into the air.

The animal fell and so did he, rolling as best he could in full armor. The impact was brutal and surely the gods favored him as his horse did not roll over him during the crash to the cobblestones.

Hooves and legs moved around him as he tried to rise and one of the great mounts landed on horse and rider alike not five feet away, taking both to the ground. He saw the thick claws hook into the flesh of the horse and peel it back with terrifying ease, revealing meat and blood and bone. The teeth focused on the man and savaged his neck, nearly tearing the poor bastard’s head away.

King Kordis made his feet and gathered his sword, sweeping the blade toward the mount. The animal was faster than he’d have imagined and ripped the blade from his hand with one claw. The great, armored face roared. The rider above swept a chain over his head and brought it down on the man next to the king.

He changed targets, Kordis was certain of it. The man had planned to attack him and changed his mind.

No matter. The sword was gone but he was not without weapons. His axe came free and he swept it into the chest of the closest of the gray-skinned enemy. The man blocked his blow and shoved him backward into the side of a horse still standing despite the nightmarish mounts. Kordis stumbled and was hit again, by what he could not guess but pain crashed down his side and across his back and he stumbled but righted himself.

This was so much worse than he’d expected. The lines of combat were supposed to be formal. He’d trained for years with his sword, for years with his axe. He was a proficient archer and a skilled horseman! But in seconds it all fell apart. Where were the guards who were supposed to ride with him? One he’d seen killed but the rest could have been anywhere at all and he would have never known.

A gray savage strode forward and smashed into him, using a heavy shield to send him backward once, twice, a third time. Kordis grunted, staggered back and fell to the ground on his ass. Each blow of the shield had hurt, but none of them broke anything.

He came up as quickly as he could and took his axe to the shield bearer; the blade sank into wood and metal but before he could pull it back the man smashed into him again, using the shield to cast him aside. The axe remained where it was, the gray bastard grinned at him and kicked him in his chest plate, sending him sprawling.

They were everywhere. Soldiers from both sides attacked, hacking with blades, swinging axes, maces, sticks, whatever they could find to attack with after a few moments of heavy struggle. People fell. Some got up while others were stomped into the ground by hooves, boots or clawed feet.

It was overwhelming! King Kordis could scarcely breathe. Hot blood from someone or something spilled across his face and into his left eye. His weapons were gone but he swung with his fist and hit someone. He wasn’t even sure who, exactly, only that they’d felt the blow.

A body smashed into him from the left and another from the right and yet another was pushed into his chest as someone brought a curved blade down and cleaved the poor bastard’s head open.

Kordis lunged forward, hoping to at least manage to find a shield or a blade to use. He was dealt a blow to the side of his head that dropped him again to the ground and left his ear feeling like a hot iron was pressing into it.

The hands that grabbed him were not friendly. He was lifted and spun and thrown through the air and then left to crash into the ground once more.

When he rolled over to stand, the boot that caught him in the side felt like a mule kick to the ribs.

He could not rise. Someone was standing on his back and pressing his face into the dirt at the same time. He tried to move, but was pinned properly. Looking up as best he could he saw the gigantic form of the King in Iron over him, watched the man hack a soldier with the massive sword he wielded and felt the blood of the man wash over him.

Tarag Paedori reached down and caught him by his arm, hauling him to his feet and dragging him along through the crowd of combatants. He did not have a chance to collect himself or even take his feet properly.

“You should have surrendered, Kordis! Your life would be easier, yes?”

Tarag Paedori held him off the ground by his arm and roared, “Here is your king! Here is Kordis!” then threw him to the dirt again.

He had enough time to look up before that great sword of the King in Iron came down and cut his neck open. Kordis’s life ended a few seconds later.

Tarag Paedori looked down at the king of his enemies and nodded. It was good. It was proper. They had met in the field of battle and he had won.

Now he would claim his prize. The dead man’s head was mostly severed. One cut and it came free.

“Take their heads! As many as you can. We will bear them to the palace and let them know what they will face!”

A javelin was all that was required; he drove the tip of one into the bloodied stump of a neck and then raised the head up high for all to see.

“Take them! Take them all, and if your enemy is still alive, take them just the same!”

He rode forward, prize held high, “For Truska-Pren! Take them all in his name!”

His followers listened, and they obeyed.

The best of armies can be weakened by the loss of a leader. In this case the armies of Goltha did not flee, but they writhed and howled and were taken by the tide of the Sa’ba Taalor.

An army is hard to miss. A single individual is often harder to see. Theran did not stride angrily up the hill, either; he approached with extreme caution, knowing that an army waited above and that they were currently raining destruction down on the buildings behind and around him.

King Kordis amused him. The man was standoffish at the best of times and while he was a competent enough ruler, he was not a very good person. He was self-centered, a whoremonger – it did not matter how much a whore cost, he or she was still a whore and Kordis gleefully indulged in both sexes – and believed that the sorcerers should do his bidding. Some fool had told him that wizards could make the sky rain diamonds and since hearing that he’d tried several times to convince Theran to give him a ransom in the gems. The argument over that particular debacle lasted over a year, and only really came to an end a short time ago, when Desh Krohan leveled several miles of forest. After that the king looked at Theran with a great deal more apprehension and possibly even respect.

All of which meant nothing at the moment. The king was off to the north and trying to stop an enemy that was, frankly, terrifying.

And Theran himself was trying to do the same. He doubted either of them would have much success.

Are you there, Corin?

Of course, brother. I am with you. How fares your war?

I haven’t seen them yet. He paused a moment as a loud groan filled the air and a moment later another boulder rolled through the air, whistling and hissing as it rose higher and higher. I am close, however.

How close?

I will see them in another few minutes.

What will you do?

What else? I will attempt to destroy their rock thrower and as many of them as I can.

You are worth more than a rock thrower. Be careful.

He chuckled at that. Rest assured of that. I have no particular desire to die this day or any other.

Corin had been his source of information and the voice he heard the most as he dealt with news of the war on Fellein. It was the other man’s voice that had warned him of the ships coming their way, of the great army coming from the north. He had sources everywhere. He had not known about the eastern attack, but he had definitely warned of all others and had allowed them the chance to strike at the western wing of the attack before it came to the city proper.

Corin was his source for all the news that he needed.

Now, however, he was on his own. The Sooth were being stubborn and refused to share. Corin was easily one of the masters when it came to the Sooth and if he could not get a straight answer from them then surely they were in troubled times.

Theran did not hurry up the hill, but neither did he take his time. When he reached the crest he was wise enough to drop to the ground and look over the edge.

The closest of the enemy was close indeed. The gray man stood only four feet away and looked back at the war engine that his people had created.

The ground was mostly level, with a gentle slope, and the machine that rested on that slope had been stabilized quite well. The framework was built mostly of wood, and in the center a vast arm lay cocked back and ready, with a collection of stones and chunks of wood in a cup large enough to hold a couple of men. Two women were adding more wood to the collection, heavy branches that were burning properly. The wood inside the collection must have been treated for it caught fire easily.

It was the fire that made him move. The vast rocks had done enough damage but the fiery logs scattered among the rocks the size of melons? Theran could only imagine the destruction they would cause.

He focused on the engine itself and used what was already available to work his sorcery. Before they could do whatever it was that would send the rain of stone and fire down on Goltha, Theran forced heat and pressure through every part of the device.

Wood bulged and cracked and exploded in seconds. Several of the gray-skins were caught in the explosion that sent daggers of burning timber in all directions. One of the women lighting the fire staggered backward with a brand burning through her ruined face and fell dead – please, by all the gods, dead. That he could make anyone suffer that way was enough to cause Theran nausea. Several others cried out in pain or challenged whatever might have attacked them in their own language. Words alone did not make speech. Their need to attack and stop whatever had assaulted them was obvious.

It was enough. As far as Theran could see there was only the one machine and that was now burning and ruined.

He backed up as carefully as he could and prepared to flee.

The javelin took him in the side of his neck and drove deep. Theran did not die, but he fell flat and could not move. None of him would move. Not even his smallest finger. He could not shift his eyes, so all that he saw was the boots that came toward him, muddied and well worn.

The voice that spoke was unknown, but he heard the words and understood them.

“My king! We have a sorcerer here. One of the Fellein that can cause magic.” There was a pause and he could nearly feel the eyes that scrutinized him. “I wonder what Ordna will think of him.”

He had no idea who Ordna was. It did not matter. He could do nothing in any event.

In the south the black ships wallowed, stuck against the great iron wall that stopped them from going into Lake Gerhaim. The Sa’ba Taalor attacking the gates were at a disadvantage until their hounds arrived. The vile creatures roared and snapped and took arrow after arrow, distracting the guards from the attack coming from the archers off the ships and keeping them from paying much attention to the gray-skins climbing over the iron gate itself.

The iron was uneven and sawed at skin and leather alike. Many of the Sa’ba Taalor used their tools to make the transit easier, hooking metal with axe heads or wrapping their hands in leather before going further. In any event they progressed slowly across the distance and finally reached the vast openings where the gate rolled out across the waters on hidden tracks in the water.

From there it was only a matter of time. The mechanisms were mostly on a level below the ground and they climbed past the worst of it on the gates themselves, through waters deep enough to require swimming. Those who could not swim were forced to crawl higher in the hopes of finding another way, but remarkably few sailors fail to learn how to swim.

The locking mechanisms that kept the gates extended were guarded, but not by a large party. It was not long before the Sa’ba Taalor seized the areas and then started puzzling out how the devices worked.

Trial and error. Fifteen minutes after they accessed the locking mechanisms the Sa’ba Taalor managed to unlock the gates. After that all they had to figure out was how to make the gates part and recede.

Callan and his crew moved along the river at a steady yet impossible clip. He could not have traveled at the speeds he was managing, and yet he did. Miles of river roared past, though there was little breeze and no indication that he or his ship could possibly be going at such speeds.

Daivem Murdro still stood by his side, looking toward the horizon. He studied her face, the explosion of braids that ran down her back. She was dressed in a white cotton top and a skirt made from a fabric he had never seen before.

Ahead they could see the great gate had been closed. He had only seen one of the massive gates in that position once before and that had been on a different river heading for Goltha.

“That’s going to be a challenge, I fear.”

“We are not worried about reaching Goltha this day, Captain Callan. We are here to visit the people who killed your crew, yes?” Daivem smiled at him, mischief in her eyes. She held no weapons save her walking stick, much like her brother’s but with fewer skulls carved into the hard wood, but she did not seem at all afraid of the Sa’ba Taalor.

Callan could not say the same. He was bloody terrified of the very notion of running across the gray-skins a second time. But he would do this, because he owed it to his crew. They’d been murdered brutally and much as he wished he could forget that, he could not. He could not forgive it, either; they were a mostly honest crew who wanted little but to make a living and he’d sent them into danger and watched as the Sa’ba Taalor slaughtered them.

And the bastards had let him live. That was the worst of it, really. That was the unforgivable sin. They’d left him alive to suffer with what had happened. He wanted them dead for that.

He blinked back the sting of tears.

Daivem looked his way and nodded. “Sometimes the pain of witnessing so much death is enough to drive anyone mad.”

“So let’s do this. Let’s give the dead their satisfaction.”

Daivem nodded and then pointed toward the black ships. Shapes scaled the great iron gate and at first he thought they might try to pry the locked bars apart but instead they moved sideways over the crisscross of bars, heading across the vast river in both directions, crossing over the locked gate like ants moving over a tow line.

“What goes through their minds?” Callan spoke mostly to himself.

Daivem answered just the same, “They want to force the gates, I suppose.”

“Is that even possible?”

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen the gates of Goltha before.” She frowned a bit, smiled a bit and then bared her teeth in a wide grin. “They are glorious, are they not?”

Callan grinned back. “They are impressive, but not so much of a pleasure to see when you are waiting for them to part and lined up seven boats deep.”

“What shall we do about these black ships, Captain Callan?”

Callan looked at the gathered ships. There were enough of them to be sure. Twenty or more of the vessels were pushed up along the gate that would, he suspected, be opened sooner rather than later.

There was no possible way for them to destroy the ships. Perhaps if there were a sorcerer or two on board that would be a hope, but no, there was just Callan, a few of the Louron, and a crew of dead folk who seemed to share a similar goal to his.

“You’re certain none of you are proper sorcerers?” He offered Daivem his best smile, as if that might possibly make her change her mind.

“We are not, but we are willing to learn.”

“I’m afraid that might take more time than we have. So let’s see what we can do to cause chaos and then try to avoid dying for as long as possible.”

The Brellar ship he rode on moved forward as it had before, and Daivem nodded.

Ten minutes later they had reached the first of the great black ships. From above, on the decks of the ship, a dozen or more looked down at his vessel and seemed to stare specifically at him.

Whatever it was the people on that ship said, he did not understand the words.

Rather than turn away, Callan drove the prow of his ship into the solid side of the Sa’ba Taalor vessel. Wood shattered. The two vessels became one and the newly formed shape wept water as the river rushed past broken boards on both of them.

Callan smiled and reached for his sword. If he was going to die, he was going to do his best to avenge every last sailor he’d seen killed.

Near him, not speaking, but still unsettlingly active, the dead who’d sailed with him came forward and drew their spectral swords.

Tuskandru looked back the way he had come and smiled tightly. He was tired, but it was a good feeling, one of satisfaction after a day of hard slaughter. As far as he could see his people moved behind him, ready for more combat.

Stastha moved closer to him, her long-handled axe held over one shoulder, and nodded. “We have captured a few, those who surrendered. One says he is the lord of this city. It is his to rule. He would speak with you.”

“Of course he would. He wants to surrender or to parley.”

“Will you talk to him?”

He looked at her and studied her face. She had four new wounds on her chin and across the side of her head. She was smiling as much as he was. It was good to please the gods.

“Bring him to me.”

He leaned back into the side of his mount and smiled. Brodem grunted and rumbled but supported his weight with ease.

The man brought to him was wounded, but not dead. He was soft, and dressed in clothes that were for show and had little to do with anything but looking as colorful as possible, near as Tusk could tell. He had armor, yes, but it covered only his chest, and the metal was soft enough that it had been dented several times and showed every sword blow as if a knife had scraped at mud.

“What is your name?”

The man looked at him and held his head high. “I am Levron of Goltha. I am tasked with ruling this city.”

“You are not doing so good a job.” Tusk smiled. “The city is mostly mine now. And what I do not hold belongs to other kings.”

“Why have you done this thing?” Levron stared at him, lips peeled back and eyes narrowed. He wanted to kill Tusk. Tusk respected that.

“Because my gods told me to. Because the air here is sweet and I like the view when I look down at the lake. Because that city is coming here.” He pointed to Canhoon, which over the course of only hours had grown much larger and loomed above the far side of the lake. “And I want that city. I want to destroy it and the people who are there.”

“What has any of that to do with us? Why do you attack my people?”

Tuskandru looked down at Levron. The man was not restrained, and yet he did not attack. He wanted to. Tusk could feel how much the man wanted to attack him, to kill him.

“Why don’t you do it? Why don’t you attack me, Lord Levron of Goltha? I am here before you right now. You will never have a better chance to kill me in your life.”

Levron blinked at the notion. “Because I am surrounded by your troops.”

“Why should that stop you? What do you fear?”

“I would stand no chance.”

Tusk shook his head. “And so you do not even try?”

“To what end?” The man’s voice trembled with emotion.

“What are you afraid of? Failure? Death? Disappointing your gods?”

The man did not answer.

“Had you fought you might have won. I am tired and have spent hours in combat.” He held up a hand to show how the fingers trembled slightly. “Braver than you have fought me and some have bled me. They died, yes, but better to die trying than to simply fail because you will not.”

“You don’t understand.”

“You are right and I do not want to. My gods have tasked me and I obey. If I die, it is what the gods want. If I live it is to serve them.” Tuskandru shook his head. “Had you tried, perhaps I would have spared you. I might have offered you a chance at surrender. But to avoid fighting because you might not win? That is cowardice.”

He looked to Stastha. “Kill this dog. He is not worth my efforts.”

Stastha nodded her head and turned to the man. Her first blow rattled his eyes in his skull. She hit him again and again while he tried to fend her off. She did not waste her weapons on the task. He was not worth the effort.

Far to the north the palace was untouched.

“They have stopped throwing stones now. They should come down and join in on the actual fight.”

Stastha nodded her head and once again pulled her horn. She blew several sharp notes and waited. Soon enough other horns throughout the city responded.

Tusk nodded his approval. Then, “How did Tarag Paedori get across the river on the other side? I did not see a bridge.”

“There was a man there who took people across the waters on a boat as long as they could pay the coin.”

“I wonder if he paid.”

“If he did, it must have taken many trips across the river.”

Tusk shook his head. It was a question he did not want to think on any longer. The sun would be setting soon and he wanted to make camp and rest.

“Clear out the closest buildings and prepare. We will camp here.”

They did not stay in the buildings, but they made use of them just the same. They were good walls, made of stone and worked to help barricade any possible ways to attack.

Twelve

“The reports are not good.” Merros looked at the others around the table and shook his head. “The city has not been completely taken, but King Kordis is dead and a lot of the area is overrun with Sa’ba Taalor.”

Desh Krohan shook his head. “We have not heard from our messenger there, Theran. He has been the main source of communication with the royal house and as much as I dread the notion it’s very possible that he’s dead as we’ve heard nothing at all and cannot locate him.”

The sorcerer did not outright say that was why he wanted his people left out of the war but he cast a glance in Merros’s direction that made his feelings known.

There was nothing for that, Merros knew. They were beyond the point where anyone could choose not to be involved in what was happening. There were too many dead and dying and too many caught up in the growing maelstrom of conflicts.

“We are less than a day from landing, according to your calculations, Desh,” the Empress said. “I know that the air is warmer, and I can see that we’ve been descending for the last few hours.” Nachia stretched and rose from her seat, once again starting to prowl the throne room. “On the bright side at least it doesn’t look like we’ll just fall from the sky. That would put an end to the war, to be certain.”

The Sisters stood nearby, not speaking much, but listening. All three of them. Not that Merros wasn’t glad to see Goriah healthy, but there was that whole part about her being dead that made him feel less enthusiastic. Wasn’t it Desh that had told him there was always a price? If so, what had the price been? Who decided who could come back from the dead if not the gods?

When it came to that last, he preferred the gods stay silent, for that matter. Dead should be dead.

Goriah looked his way, but her face was half hidden under her hood and he could not read her eyes.

“Goltha is falling,” Merros said. “We have committed a great deal of our ground forces and they are not enough. We can’t call any more to the city because there’s no one else willing to offer their soldiers.”

Nachia waved a dismissive hand. “Can’t blame them. In the same position I’d act the same way.”

“The city is literally attacked from all directions, and we are very likely going to be neighbor to Goltha within a day. Even with the chaos that causes, we cannot escape the fact that the Sa’ba Taalor are coming for us and so far our best defense is a gathering of statues that listens to no one but themselves.”

“Well, Merros, I can think of worse defenses. They killed a few hundred of our enemies near as we can tell.” Nachia paused for a moment and frowned. “Did we find the rest of the bodies?”

“Yes, Majesty,” Desh answered. “They have since been pushed out of the city by the City Guard. We took the time to move them through the tunnels we think they used to enter. It made more sense than trying to throw them over the Mid Wall.”

“How many were there, exactly?”

Desh shook his head. “Hard to say. Most of them were in pieces.”

“So the Silent Army has kept us safe despite the best efforts of the Sa’ba Taalor. That’s something.”

Merros shook his head. “The lake is our best bet. That is easily the biggest body of water I have ever seen outside the ocean. Have you considered what happens when we land? The water is very deep there. We might well sink straight on down and drown.”

Desh shook his head and frowned. “I have to believe otherwise, Merros. The Silent Army has lifted us into the air and taken us a very, very long way. I can’t believe that it’s an accident.”

“You said this happened before, Desh?”

The First Advisor nodded. “I’ve forgotten the details. I don’t mean completely. I knew that the city had moved before, but only as a sort of vague notion. It was close to six hundred years ago and no matter how much I have increased my own lifespan over the years, memories don’t seem to hold as well.” He shrugged. “Maybe the mind simply can’t hold on to everything. I had to look through volumes of books to be certain that the city used to be in Gerhaim.” Desh tapped the map in front of him. There was the image of Gerhaim and the scattered towns and cities around it. “I found an old illustration, so old that it’s crumbling now, but it showed Canhoon here.” He tapped the center of the lake. “Right in this spot. There were bridges. Three of them, that connected the city to different parts of the land around it. I can’t remember them clearly. I know they were there and if I try hard enough I can almost see them the way a word sometimes slides around in your mind without letting you catch it.

“It’s the most amazing thing. I had convinced myself that the city had always been there, back in the east. I painted over the truth and never even noticed.”

Nachia shook her head. “I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday. I can’t imagine holding as many years as you have in your head, Desh.”

Merros nodded and tried to push the notion aside. “So we can assume the city will float, or find the right spot, or that the Silent Army will move it into the proper location. What we cannot assume is that the Sa’ba Taalor will just sit back and wait for us to settle in properly.”

He shook his head and looked over at the Sisters. The little blonde that had latched onto Desh, Cullen, was there as well, though she was staring off at the far corner of the room and talking to herself again. Desh said she was important but he could not or would not discuss why.

Nachia shook her head and reached for a cluster of grapes. She was one of the only people he’d ever seen that just took the seeds and chewed them up as well. He wondered if it was because spitting wasn’t the proper way for royalty to be perceived.

“The thing to remember is that the city itself is ready to fight. We’ve seen that already. We have hundreds of the Sa’ba Taalor that were killed by the Silent Army. They may not be able to reach beyond the city, but thank the gods, they are perfectly willing to handle what happens here.”

“And if we should, for some reason, need to ever leave the city? If we should have thousands of those bastards come here on their black boats?”

“There are no solid promises, Merros. We know that. But it’s something. They’re made of stone. They killed more of our enemy than anyone else seemed to have managed, no offense to anyone in this room.”

“The trouble, Majesty, is that they are not following your orders or the general’s or mine, for that matter,” Desh pointed out. “They are following, according to what they already said, the orders of the gods.”

“Yes, but those orders include protecting the city.”

“And you, Majesty.” Desh nodded his acknowledgment. “What they don’t guarantee is that the orders from the gods won’t suddenly change.”

“I have no guarantee that you won’t try to take over the seat of power, Desh Krohan.” She took the time to chew on a grape before continuing, her eyes never leaving the First Advisor. “You have never attempted it in the past, but that doesn’t mean you won’t in the future. There are no guarantees of anything in this world, Old Man.” She pointed to the Sisters. “Not even death, apparently.”

Desh looked down at the table. There were laws against necromancy and while Merros was not sure if what he was looking at qualified, he knew that if she wanted, Nachia could have done something about Goriah’s presence.

She was not foolish enough to attempt it. Having seen what Desh Krohan could do, no sane ruler would consider attacking his loved ones.

There had been a trust once, between First Advisor and Empress. Merros didn’t know if it was merely wounded or if it was shattered. Only time would tell.

“We must prepare for whatever comes. Desh, you and your sorcerers can no longer remain as isolated from this as we would all wish.”

Desh stared but did not respond.

Unlike most people, the Empress continued despite his silence. “It might be required that you and your brethren live up to the standards of the past. I am counting on the Silent Army to handle the worst of what comes our way. I have faith in General Dulver and his troops, but the numbers we have already seen are…” She shook her head.

“What must happen will happen, Nachia.” Desh stood up. “We have already discussed the matter. We will do what we must. We have already killed one of their kings.”

Merros looked toward Goriah as those words were spoken. The Sister’s mouth pulled down in a scowl, and her hands clenched.

She looked back at him and moved in his direction.

“Has the death of one of their kings altered anything?”

Nachia’s question was the very one on Merros’s mind.

“Not in the least.” Desh shook his head and pointed to the marks on the map where they had had their one victory against the enemy. “I can’t say it has made them any more or less violent. The Sooth say that we killed a king here. We know that another king is dead by sorcerous means. But we have no way of knowing if they choose new kings by election or–”

“Their gods decide,” Merros interrupted.

“What’s that?”

“Their gods decide. I traveled with these people. I heard their stories. According to what they told me, Tuskandru was made king because his god, Durhallem, picked him.”

Desh looked at the map again for lack of anything else to look at. “Then I hope their gods make miserable choices.”

Nachia sighed and shook her head. “So far they seem to be doing well enough.”

Merros nodded and so did Desh.

A few moments later the meeting ended.

Merros headed for his quarters and realized that Goriah was following him. “How may I help you, Goriah?”

“You are angry with me. With my presence.”

“No, milady, I am terrified by your presence.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

“I don’t think you do, respectfully. You work with sorcery. I have done my best never to know of its existence. I saw Desh Krohan destroy miles of terrain.” His voice shook and he did his best to control himself. “I saw him burn the night and the ground. Not ten minutes ago I listened to him talk about the fact that his mind can’t hold all of his memories because he’s hundreds of years old. He’s got so many memories that they no longer fit inside him.”

Merros looked at the striking beauty before him.

“He told me that all of the Sisters are unnaturally beautiful because it gives you an edge in listening to conversations and negotiation.” He shook his head. “I learned an entire language in seconds because Tataya and you felt I should.”

Merros was unaware of moving closer to her until he was looking into her eyes. “I’ve admired your beauty. I have been amazed by your grace. It hurt my guts to hear of your death, Goriah.”

His hand touched her arm. “You are alive and I am happy for that, but how are you alive? How are you back when I saw your body with my own eyes? How are you back, but others are not? Why is Wollis March still dead? Why is Emperor Pathra Krous still dead? Why did I not know that a gray-skinned bitch hid inside the body of Wollis’s widow? How could I fall for her? None of this makes sense to me, Goriah. None of it and I can’t sleep. I can’t make myself understand why nature itself bends to some people and not to others.

“I’m a soldier. It’s all I’ve ever been. What good is a sword against what you and yours can do?”

He was trembling. His voice shook.

Goriah nodded slowly and looked into his eyes. Her hand touched his, lightly, and he managed not to flinch.

She said, “I came back because Desh missed me too much. I came back so that he could not mourn me when he should be trying to save this city.” Her hand touched his face. “I am back because there was a rare opportunity. I killed one of their kings because he killed me and I wanted revenge. Without it I could not keep my mind whole. I wanted to burn that nightmare out of existence and so I did. I can do these things because while you mastered the sword I studied different weapons. I studied nature and the world so that I could learn how to bend them.”

A second later her lips were close enough to kiss and moving past until she was whispering in his ear. “I came back because there was a once in a thousand years’ opportunity, and Desh Krohan seized it. He considered necromancy. He thought hard of taking lives to bring me back, but in the end he could not even take the lives of our enemies.”

Her arms, long and elegant, hugged against him for a moment, the kind embrace of a friend, not the embrace of a lover.

“I came back so that Desh could sleep at night. I killed the king so I could sleep.” Goriah pulled back from him enough so that he could look into her eyes and she could return the favor. “What will it take to let you sleep again, Merros Dulver?”

He wished he had a good answer.

The city was descending from the sky. The sun had set behind them and the stars were out and clear, save where the city’s mass blocked them. The Great Star illuminated the edges and offered hints instead of details.

Drask looked at the city of Canhoon and nodded.

“What are you smiling about, Drask?” Andover’s question was innocent enough. The boy had not yet decided if he would try to kill Drask. Despite his many changes, Andover could still not easily hide his thoughts. His face was not yet a proper mask.

“This is coming to an end, whatever it is. We no longer chase the city. It lands as all birds must land.”

“Are there birds in the Blasted Lands? I don’t recall ever seeing one.”

“There are birds. They are very, very large and feed on, well, everything. You are fortunate not to have seen one.”

Andover thought about that for a while and nodded. Tega rode up ahead, and Nolan rode with her, occasionally murmuring to himself; sometimes he laughed and other times he cried. He made words now and then, but not often.

Drask rode forward, until he kept pace with Tega. She looked his way and offered a weak smile.

“You were gone for a long time, Tega.” It was not a question, merely an observation. Still, she flinched just a touch as if afraid he would strike her.

When she made no answer he continued on. “You have brought back one of your own.”

“She was close to me, and she was murdered without ever being a part of your war.”

“It is not my war, Tega. It belongs to the gods.”

“They brought back Swech.” Still she cringed. She tried to hide it but she was terrified.

He nodded his head. “What they did took power. What you did took power. You both had the ability and your own reasons.”

“I thought you would be angry, Drask.”

“I have no place in your actions. I am merely observing.”

“You are reflecting,” she corrected.

A smile played at his mouth and he nodded in the way of her people. “Yes. Reflecting is a good word. It is strong and accurate.”

“What do you reflect upon, Drask?”

“What we are becoming.” He raised his hand again, the most obvious change in any of the three of them. In the past it had been a miracle, yes, but stylized. There had been markings made by the gods on the metallic surface. Now it was clean of those marks.

“What are we, Drask?” Her voice shook. That was the thing about the Fellein: they seemed determined to torture themselves with doubts about the universe and their place in it.

“I am Drask Silver Hand. You are Tega, apprentice to Desh Krohan. Nolan is… Nolan. The only thing that has changed is that we have been touched by the gods in a way they did not intend. I do not have a name for what we are or what we are becoming beyond that. We are changing, but the changes are physical, Tega. You are still you. I am still me.”

He pointed to the City of Wonders. “In your life did you ever imagine that you would see such a thing? A city that floats in the air, and moves hundreds of miles.”

“Why did you… Why did you bring back the Blasted Lands?”

“That is easy. They have been there all my life and I find comfort in them. I spent my youth hunting in the winds and storms.”

“Do you think I could bring back Tyrne?”

Drask shook his head. “Durhallem rests there now. He is a god. We have power but his is greater. You could bring Tyrne back, but if you tried to place it over the mountain or to move the mountain, Durhallem would fight back.”

“Do you really think we could move a mountain?”

Drask looked at her for a moment, studied the minutiae of her face. She was easy to understand. Like Andover, she had not truly learned to hide herself behind a mask.

“I raised the Blasted Lands, Tega. You raised the dead.” He gestured to Nolan, who was currently drooling on his own hands and seemed fascinated by the puddle forming in his palms. “Nolan was dead. I killed him. I felt his neck break. Yet he moves, and he feels, and perhaps even thinks.”

“I used sorcery. I brought Goriah back with magic, not with–”

“You used what you know. What you are comfortable with.”

Tega shook her head.

“It is frightening to you. You have so much power in you and you are limited only by your own desires. That is why I reflect. I must understand what I am capable of. I must consider what is coming. There are gods at play here, Tega. Gods that move mountains and cities and have fought against each other for a very long time. So long I don’t even think they know why they fight any more.

“What will you do when the city lands, Drask?”

“I will go to it. I will see what happens when gods meet.” He looked at the city again. It was a magnificent sight. “What will you do, Tega?”

“I will go too. I will stand with my friends, even if that means that you and I must stand on separate sides.”

Drask nodded. “I do not yet know where I stand, Tega. We shall see.”

While he looked at the city above, a small shape dropped over the side. Whatever it was, it moved as it fell. A few seconds later another shape dropped. This one was definitely humanoid.

The world continued to be interesting. Drask said nothing, but reflected on that.

“What will you do when you get to Canhoon, Andover?”

Andover looked at Tega. During the few times they had spoken, he discovered that she still fascinated him. He had thought that was gone, but after speaking again, the old feelings were back. They had just changed. There was no burning desire to fuel his fascination. It was not lust. No. Not true. It was not lust alone. She was unique in the world as far as he knew.

Still, there was Delil to consider. He remained uncertain whether she would want to come back. And if she did, whether he would act on her behalf.

“I will decide when the time comes.” He did his best to smile, suddenly selfconscious of the changes in his face. “I know what the Daxar Taalor want. I am to be their champion if the Empress declares a single champion for combat.” He looked at his hands and then back at her. “I do not know why I was chosen. I only know that I was and that I am grateful to the gods for all they have given me.”

“I should have stopped them, Andover.” Her still, calm face broke and tears threatened to fall from her blue eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“Menock and Purb and the rest. I should have told them to leave you alone. I should have–”

“No.” He carefully put a hand on her shoulder. The metal was stronger than flesh and sometimes among the Sa’ba Taalor he’d forgotten that fact. He would not do so with Tega.

“You are not at fault, Tega. I am not at fault. They were predators and they wanted a meal they could play with. Nothing more.” He shrugged. “I had my revenge on them. I maimed them. I made them weak forever.”

“If you had never been broken by them…”

“I would have been in Tyrne when Durhallem made the city his own. I would be dead. Or I would be wandering in the city up there, hoping to find a home and food.”

Tega nodded and sniffed and tried to hide the misery she felt.

“Tega, what has happened is what has happened. The past is gone. I was not the same person then. I was much weaker. I lived and breathed and hid in fear. That time is gone. I fear nothing. I have faced my fears and learned from them. The gods gave me that.

“So many fear death. I still understand that. I fear for anyone I care for, I grieve for Delil. But I do not fear pain. I do not fear injury. Those are only parts of life we cannot always control. They have no power over me.”

He sighed and smiled, fully aware that his smile unsettled her. “That is a gift, Tega. I received that gift because I was wounded. I would have died from the poisons in my hands, but you changed that. Do you understand? If not for you, I would have died. If not for you, I would have never met with Desh Krohan and I would have never met the Sa’ba Taalor. Whatever else might happen in this world, Tega, I am here now because of you.”

His iron hand moved from her shoulder and very carefully raised her fingers until they were close to his face. He looked over her fingers to stare into her eyes.
“All that I am, everything that I do, is because you cared enough to stop for a boy who could not help looking at you.”

The look she threw his way was not one that he easily understood. She had never regarded him with that expression previously and he had no idea what to make of it.

“What will I do when I get to Canhoon, Tega? What I must. Whatever I do, know this: you helped me more than any person ever has and I am forever in your debt. Thank you.”

Tega nodded and rode forward.

Andover looked up to Canhoon, where another body fell from the sky.

The snow was melting but was not yet gone. That was good. It worked to their advantage.

Swech nodded her head and then raised one hand, speaking without words to the others.

The night air was still cold, the ground still frosty enough, and the Mid Wall was dark. The time had come to try their luck.

Evenly spaced along the Mid Wall, the stairs leading from the ground to the top of the wall were unguarded. What need of a guard when the unkillable Silent Army was already performing that duty?

The Sa’ba Taalor were vastly outnumbered. There were just over a hundred of them. There were at least ten times that number of the stone men with their swords.

They would work in teams of three.

The stone soldiers stood at their posts, some looking over the wall, others looking into the city. The stairs were easy enough. At Swech’s order the groups went up the access points to the top of the Mid Wall and did not wait to be engaged.

Three lengths of heavy rope and three metal weights. Swech threw her bola at the first of the Silent Army that she encountered. The soldier stood at attention. The bola wrapped around his legs at the knees and he turned toward her, his face expressionless.

He started moving his legs, trying to untangle himself, and Swech stepped closer. The mace was heavy and spiked and took a large chip out of the soldier’s face. As he turned toward her and reached, Jost came in low and jammed her staff between his legs, throwing her weight into the move. One foot was off the ground already as he tried to break away from the bola. His balance off, the soldier fell backward, arms flailing. Deras, the heaviest of them, smashed his weight into the soldier from the front and sent him careening over the wall. Momentum did the rest. Swech watched exactly long enough to see the soldier grab at the small lip of ground that still existed beyond the Mid Wall. He caught it and it crumbled, and ground and statue alike soared down toward the earth several thousand feet below.

The next one in line had turned toward her by the time she reached him. He swept his sword from the scabbard and Swech smashed her mace into his wrist, which promptly broke into two pieces. Hand and sword hit the ground. Swech brought her mace around in an upward trajectory and drove the soldier back as she shattered his chin.

As he stepped back Jost was there, once again using the staff to trip up the stone man’s feet. As he staggered, Deras used a heavy staff and shoved at the soldier’s chest. He stumbled further, off balance, and Deras hit him again. Jost was still there, her staff catching the guard at his knees and keeping him off balance.

The stone man fell over the wall and Swech watched history repeat itself.

Further along the wall she saw N’Heelis catch a soldier’s arm, shift his hips and throw one of the stone men over the wall.

Beyond him, a Sa’ba Taalor named Rander soared over the wall when he tried to use mass alone to fight the Silent Soldier. Like the stone men before him, he fell several thousand feet. Like his predecessors, he likely shattered on impact.

The Silent Army were bracing themselves now and that made life more difficult, but not impossible.

It merely meant they had to change tactics.

The next bola was thrown by Jost and wrapped itself around the face of a stone man. The soldier reached for the weapon around his neck and face and while he did, Deras took a turn entangling the soldier’s feet. The stone men weighed too much to wrestle down to the ground. Their flesh was stone. Their muscles were unmovable if they set their minds to not being moved. But creatures of all size must obey the rules of physics, which was where the training of N’Heelis and Wrommish came into play. They could not fight the Silent Army with conventional weapons and win, and so they tried a different method.

Ultimately there were too many of the soldiers and they knew it, but they did what they could.

The Soldiers were not foolish and learned a new trick. They kept their feet fused to the stone wall they’d grown from. They could not move as quickly but they could not be thrown.

That possibility had been discussed, and as soon as the Sa’ba Taalor saw that their enemy had grown wiser they dispersed, moving away from the area as quickly as they could and dodging the attempts to grab them.

Four of the Sa’ba Taalor died in the conflict. Over fifty of the Silent Army were thrown from the wall before all was said and done.

That was a victory in the eyes of the Daxar Taalor and that was enough for Swech.

They were clever moving through the city. No one gathered in groups and no one made their way back to their gathering place in the same directions.

The house of Dretta March was no longer available, but Swech had purchased several buildings and some of them were better suited than others. They gathered in a warehouse that stored raw goods and they were careful to leave a barrier between themselves and the rest of the place. The barrier was built of barrels and crates of supplies. It was heavy and solid.

They were also wise enough to have guards.

After the raid Swech took her time getting back. She moved through parts of the city that were desperately overcrowded, fully aware that Jost followed her.

As she went, Swech changed her appearance a bit, switching her scarves for lighter colors and drawing out a bright shawl to cover her shoulders and hair. She walked differently, too, moving like an elderly woman and doing her best to look like someone who was harmless, but not a victim.

That had been a problem earlier in the week when a group of men tried to separate her from her purse. Fortunately they’d been weak and easily dissuaded.

When she finally stopped, the younger woman caught up with her and they moved among the waking crowds. The sun was not risen yet but the sky was growing lighter. Many of the people in the area were already rising. They had no choice. The world they moved on was dropping slowly and whether they wanted it or not, people had to respond to the change. Mostly that meant they were gathering their supplies again and preparing to flee if everything went wrong. Town criers had been notifying people of the descent for the last two days, but the melting ice and the warming temperatures would have told anyone who wasn’t brave enough to look over the Mid Wall to see what was happening.

“What happens next, Swech?”

“We wait.”

“What are we waiting for?”

“The gods will tell us when they are ready, Jost. In the meantime we must wait. I know that is not what you want to hear, but we must be patient. The Silent Army is probably already looking for us.”

“I just. I feel incomplete not having a king.”

“You have a king. N’Heelis is with us and will guide us.”

“What of Glo’Hosht? What of the King in Mercury?”

A beggar looked their way and raised a hand in supplication. Offering coin was often an invitation to get more beggars active. Swech moved on without acknowledging the hand and the beggar went back into a knot of clothes in the alleyway.

“Glo’Hosht is dead. You saw what they did.”

“But who will be our new king? Why has Paedle not chosen?”

“Jost,” Swech kept her voice conversational though she was tempted to roar, “never question the Daxar Taalor. It is foolish and solves nothing.”

“But…”

“No. They are the parents. We are the children. They guide and love us and we accept their wisdom. If Paedle has not announced who will lead, that is Paedle’s decision. In time, when we must know, we will know. Paedle must judge all of her followers and decide who among then, if any, is worthy to stand in Glo’Hosht’s place.”

Jost sighed. “You are right. I know this. I followed Wheklam’s wishes to get here, and I had never spoken to Wheklam before.” She touched the new Great Scar on her face as she spoke, moving her fingers under the scarves that hid her face away.

“We must get back. The sun is rising soon and we tend to stand out here.”

Jost nodded and the two of them quickly climbed to the rooftops. Swech had learned her way around them well enough.

From one of the higher roofs the two of them could see the view beyond the western gate of the Mid Wall. They could see the vast lake that was Gerhaim in all its glory and they could see the sun reflecting off the calm surface.

“Gods.” Jost’s voice was very small.

“Aye. I thought we’d have hours but the city has moved faster than anticipated. We need to get to the others now.”

Below, the waters looked close enough to touch. The land and the river were still under them but only for the moment. The river was marrying the lake below them and even from here they could see the massive city on the not-so-distant far shore.

An hour at most before city and lake met.

It was time. The Great Tide surely would wait no longer. The time had come.

Both moved carefully. Both smiled as they did. Some prayers are answered sooner than later.

The warehouse was as she expected it to be: secured. Swech and Jost entered from the roof, sliding through the trap door that Swech herself had worked on when she was Dretta March.

She thought of him again. What was it about Merros that haunted her? She didn’t let herself worry. There were other considerations and there they came first. Still, she missed his touch. She missed his babbling conversations and the way he felt against her.

No.

No more of that. She had work to do.

Most of their people were already gathered. Some were missing, mostly those in the flesh of the Fellein. She understood how difficult it was to escape from the other life. There were people in and among the Fellein that insisted on being with the hidden Sa’ba Taalor.

“We are much closer to the water than we expected,” Swech said as she settled in. “I think we will land within hours.”

Her rump had barely met the floor when the air in the room shifted. Heat bathed her body and those around her. N’Heelis looked around but did not seem worried. That was enough to make her stay calm.

The voice of Paedle moved through her, and from the responses of others around her was carried to them as well.

RISE KING SWECH. RISE AND BE SEEN BY YOUR BRETHREN. There was no question of what had been said. There was no chance of misinterpretation. Still, it took a moment for her to obey.

She did not claim that she was unworthy. False modestly is foolish to begin with, but twice so when dealing with gods. Swech stood, and the Sa’ba Taalor with her stood as well. All but one offered the same obeisance as was given King Tarag Paedori. They lowered to one knee and held out their arms, a weapon placed in their hands with grip or hilt offered in her direction. Their lives for her to take or spare as she saw fit.

The only exception was N’Heelis. He did not bow, as kings do not make the same obeisances. Instead he smiled and moved toward her. When they embraced she held him tightly. He had always been one of her closest, dearest teachers.

“I am proud of you, Swech.” That was all he said.

Paedle did not speak again, not at that time. There was little they could do by way of celebration, but that was just as well. The King in Mercury had no need of celebrations.

Darsken Murdro stood at the top of the Inquisitors Tower, which was one of the largest constructs in all of Canhoon. The building was not decorative in the least and most who passed it had no idea what went on there. That was deliberate.

The Inquisitors did not want to be known. They wanted to be ignored until such time as they were needed.

Darsken did not much care at that moment what the Inquisitors wanted. He was worried about his little sister.

Somewhere out in the waters the fighting continued. The gate had been opened and the vessels of the Sa’ba Taalor moved into the waters, but they did so slowly. Most of their black ships had been wounded and a few of them were sinking. That was the result of interference that should not have happened.

When Captain Callan climbed from a watercraft that did not belong to him and told his sorrows to the Louron, one of the Inquisitors present was Daivem, Darsken’s younger sibling. She did exactly as he would have wanted and when Canhoon was mentioned, she contacted Darsken himself. The message was short and to the point and asked if he knew Callan.

When she reported more of what the captain had to say, Darsken thought about the laws of Fellein and the proper actions, and told her to do what she must.

And now his sister was down below, moving on a ship that was locked in the Shimmer.

The Shimmer, for better or worse, was the gift of the Louron.

Not long before, the black ships had tried to attack Louron and learned the hard way that the people were protected. They surrendered to the inevitable only after losing several of their people and the crew of one ship. Louron was not like other places. Louron was blessed.

On rare occasions, the Shimmer could be coaxed into fixing itself onto an object. Currently the ship of Captain Callan was one such item. The vessel was still intact. It should have been shattered by impact after impact with the black ships, but the Shimmer kept it safe.

The Shimmer was a mystery, even to the Louron. It existed. It was. It was not under their control, but they could interact with it, and sometimes it would listen to requests. Not for the first time Darsken wondered if the Shimmer was truly a god that rested or if it was something entirely different.

For those coming to Louron, it was often a threat. The Shimmer seemed to know what the intent of travelers was. Those who meant no harm seldom encountered the ripples in the air. Those who felt otherwise vanished from sight, never to return. They did not die. The Louron would have known. Instead they traveled the Shimmer and moved to other worlds, beyond the one known to the rest of Fellein.

The people riding on the small vessel and harassing the Sa’ba Taalor were safe enough. There was always the chance that they could be attacked. There was a possibility that they could be sunk, but neither was very likely. The Shimmer protected them.

The massive craft of the Sa’ba Taalor were a different thing. They were vast. Certainly the largest ships that Darsken had ever heard of, but though they were truly well constructed they were not unbreakable.

Still, there were many of them and even the ones that were damaged and foundering were not without dangers. The Sa’ba Taalor were relentless. The shore was half a mile away in several cases and still they swam across the frigid waters to reach the shoreline and continue on with their quest to conquer everything before them.

Darsken clenched his fists and did his best not to grind his teeth.

His sister was probably perfectly safe, but she was his sister and he worried.

The shadow of Canhoon appeared on the water, a hundred times larger than the black ships, as the sun began to rise. Darsken never noticed. He was too busy looking at one very small vessel to pay attention to shadows that drifted somewhere behind him. He faced the east and the brightening light of the new day’s sun. He did not care about the glare. He only cared about his sister.

The sun rose.

The City of Wonders fell.

The higher the sun climbed, the lower the city dropped. Well before the sun climbed to its zenith, however, the city had finished its descent.

Tuskandru, Tarag Paedori and Pre’ru stared at the falling wonder dubiously. It was really spectacularly large.

“Do you suppose the lake will flood the lower part of this city?” Pre’ru asked conversationally. Tarag studied her. When he had been a much younger man Pre’ru had been a soldier of great repute. Then he had been a mount to Lored, who was, if one was completely honest, a bit of an ass. Now he was a woman and a king. The Daxar Taalor followed their own agendas, to be sure. Pre’ru was only marginally smaller than before and just as muscular as ever. All of the scars he remembered on the great man were still there on the woman.

Tarag said, “Four rivers surround us. I expect there will be a lot of water, but it will mostly go up the rivers. The path of least resistance.”

Tusk frowned. “The rivers? That is a lot of water that the lake will push against. In my experience water can be a very hard force to argue with.” He paused and added, “I haven’t much experience with water though. I prefer flesh and steel.”

“We will know soon enough,” Tarag replied.

“Aye.” Pre’ru could not look away from the city falling slowly from above. Canhoon fell as a feather falls, that is to say slowly, but without the shaking and dancing. A pity that, as Tarag would have loved to see the chaos that sort of motion caused.

“Why do you suppose the Fellein brought their city here? Why not stay where they were and fight?” Pre’ru was full of questions.

“Perhaps they hope the water will stop us.” Tusk looked away from the descending land mass long enough to look at the black ships. They were hard to see past the early morning mists that rose from the massive lake. “I do not think they are right.”

Tarag looked at the ships, too, though they were little more than ghosts at the moment. “They’re sinking.”

“Yes, but that is only half the fleet and the others are on their way. Even without them, however, we can find boats as we did before.”

“The Silent Army might have ways of handling boats. Or the wizards.”

Tusk nodded. “Why has no one killed the wizards yet? Aside from you, I mean.”

“I do not think all of them kill easily. Remember the lightning.”

“I was there. I will never forget it.”

“Swech is a king now.” Tarag contemplated those words ever as he spoke them.

“She is a very skilled killer. I think the choice a good one.”

“Of course. The gods do not make errors.”

Pre’ru looked their way. “Who is Swech?”

Tusk smiled and answered. “Swech is very faithful. She has also killed more people than anyone I have ever met, and that says a great deal.”

Tarag Paedori nodded. “I am glad the Great Tide is upon us. I do not like to think about how things would end if Swech set out to kill us.” Before the Daxar Taalor declared the actions against the Fellein, the seven kingdoms of the Sa’ba Taalor had fought against each other, and the individuals of the Sa’ba Taalor warred among themselves besides.

Tusk frowned and nodded slowly. “Glo’Hosht was good enough not to assassinate kings. Swech has already assassinated an emperor.”

“Exactly so.”

The three kings grew silent as the city continued to descend. They were only moments away from the vast, inverted mountain of stone touching the nearly still waters. Even past the mists the reflection of the gigantic city was impossible to miss.

Tarag said, “Had I not seen the gods move mountains already, I would have thought this beyond any power.”

“Where will Truska-Pren move, Tarag?”

Tarag Paedori looked to his fellow king and said, “You will know in minutes.”

The water surged as the lowest tip of Canhoon touched the waters of the lake. There was a sound of distant thunder to the south and Tarag smiled. “There. Just there. The southern reaches of this land are changed now and forever.”

Tusk nodded and smiled and watched as the City of Wonders slowly sank into the lake, sending water in all directions, not as a wave so much as a surge. The water rose everywhere at once, and as it rose it slowly crested, moving across the lake in a circular ripple: a stone thrown in a pond.

Pre’ru said, “We will soon know if half this city is sunk in the waters.”

As they were currently occupying the king’s palace they were not particularly worried. They were several hundred feet above the current water level.

The waters rose and rippled outward, and as they watched, the docks and the buildings within an arrow’s flight of the docks were slammed with water that shattered wood and buried the lowest buildings.

Tusk looked at the devastation and grinned.

The water continued, lifting the docks and throwing them aside, shattering the structure and sending the boats that were tied along the structure sailing through the air. The vessels rained down destruction on still more buildings as the water rose and surged and ate everything it touched.

Tusk started to chuckle, and his hands reached up, and got a companionable grip on the shoulders of both kings standing with him as the waters surged higher and the city sank lower.

By the time Canhoon had settled in the exact center of the lake and the water had risen enough to wash away all evidence that a dock had ever existed, Tuskandru was howling with laughter.

Pre’ru looked at Tusk and shook her head, an amused expression on her scarred face. “What are you laughing about?”

Tusk grunted out the words as he continued to laugh. He gestured with the hand that had been on her shoulder toward the devastation. “You see? The Great Tide is upon us, indeed!”

Pre’ru laughed and shook her head at his antics. She had not known him in the Taalor Valley where among his many reputations he was known as a jester.

Tarag Paedori smiled too, as the waters started to recede.

“Oh,” he said. “I think we can do much better than that.”

Desh Krohan looked from the highest of the palace windows and next to him Merros Dulver gripped his sword hilt in fingers turned white by the pressure.

Nachia stood between them, and did her best not to scream with joy. They were settled. Until that last moment she’d continued to fear that they would sink to the bottom of Gerhaim and either learn to breathe water like the fish, or die.

“Well,” Merros said. “That could have gone much worse.”

“Still could,” Desh pointed to the black ships. They were, as one, turning toward Canhoon.

“I’ve enjoyed our chat, but I have to prepare for war.” The way he said it, Merros sounded like it was farewell.

“Don’t go.” Nachia’s voice was small.

“It’s not an option, Majesty. I am in charge of your armies and I intend to see that you have an empire to lead.”

Desh sighed. “There are more black ships coming this way. They are a day out yet, but they will get here soon enough.”

“Sink them!” Nachia turned her head so sharply to glare at him that muscles pulled and twitched like fire under her skin. “You, or your Sisters or any of the sorcerers here in Canhoon! Sink the damned ships!”

“Majesty, we don’t have the power–”

“If you found the power to raise the dead and lift a city, then find the power to sink those gods damned ships!”

“Nachia.” Merros’s voice was soft. “No. Don’t. We have the Silent Army. We have the Imperial Army. If you must use sorcery, wait until the last. Don’t lose that last defense.”

Without another word Merros left the room, shoulders squared and cape snapping with every stride.

Nachia shook her head.

Desh moved up behind her and placed a hand on both her shoulders, and she leaned back into him as she had on a hundred occasions through her life, already regretting snapping at him earlier.

He demanded no apologies, but instead simply held her.

“We’ll prevail, Nachia. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Don’t make false promises, Old Man. It belittles us both.”

Down below, horns sounded the assembly and from a dozen different quarters the soldiers came, moving from their barracks and assembling in the vast yard of the palace.

Somewhere in that crowd Merros Dulver would be speaking, talking to the forces left to him in Canhoon and preparing for the inevitable assault.

The Sa’ba Taalor were monsters. They could not be reasoned with. They wanted death and destruction. They wanted to crush the Fellein Empire and they were doing a fine job of it.

Somewhere below the very best of the Imperial Guard were gathered together to defend her. Nachia did not care. She preferred that none stay behind, none defend her. The Empire was more important than the Empress. It had to be. If not, why was she so worried?

Theran stood trembling on the shore.

His head ached. His body was cold and he could not stop his muscles from shaking even though he stood still. It was like a fever, but a thousand times worse.

He was recovering from what they had done, but it wasn’t easy. Someone had pulled the javelin from his neck. He’d heard bones crunch and felt his body go numb in the places where it did not scream.

The one with the skull helmet had spoken to him, his accent thick. “You have metal where you are from?” The man grunted and sat him up. “I mean the type touched by gods. It heals wounds.” Thick fingers probed the wound on his neck. “We heal you now, so you can talk to us.”

The pain had been enough to shatter him. He bucked, he kicked, he screamed and they held him still as white hot metal ran across his neck. Or at least it felt like it did until the pain vanished.

The man with the skull helmet moved his head for him and nodded. “Better.”

The giants around him were terrifying. There were easily a hundred, but he could see the leaders clearly enough.

That had been half an hour earlier. After he recovered enough to stand, they did worse to him. Now, they stood around him, the largest of the people, the ones he sensed were in charge.

“I do not think he likes us very much.” The one who spoke wore a vast helmet shaped like a monstrous skull, the mouth of the thing filled with teeth of varying sizes, all of them sharp and the smallest of them longer than his middle finger.

The woman next to him was large and scarred and had been the one to cause him the greatest agony in his entire life. A pain so large that five minutes later he was still trying to recover from the memory of it. He had screamed, begged and even tried to use his sorcery, all to no avail. He was too scared to concentrate on magic and his words apparently made no difference to the people around him. They were the Sa’ba Taalor, and he was ready to piss himself at the sight of them up close.

The coin she’d shown him was very large and made of gold. Her hands were smaller than the largest of the giants’ but not by that much. The golden disk filled her palm.

He’d looked at her and shaken his head at first, having no idea what was about to happen. The metal was pressed into his forehead. Her palm kept it there and her fingers moved into his hair as if she meant to caress and tease him.

Then the burning started. Theran felt the heat start and jerked, trying to get away, but her fingers pulled his hair tight and even as he tried to move his head one way and then another she did not let the pain escape. He wet himself. His arms and legs twitched and kicked and he beat at her as best he could with his hands tied behind his back and one of the bastards standing on his calves while he kneeled before the bitch who tortured him. If he could have, he’d have spat in her face, but he was too busy praying for death and his eyes were screwed shut as the metal melted across his forehead.

As intense as the pain was, it only lasted a few seconds and when he looked up she was still there, looking at the palm she’d pressed into his head.

There was metal left over, hot and steaming, and she had painted it across her cheeks in two nearly white-hot streaks that had cooled down and now looked almost like the golden trails of tears. Her flesh was not burned and he could not understand that. He did not want to know what his forehead looked like. The coin she used had been quite large.

The pain was gone. Theran was grateful for that much. It was all he had. They’d let him stand when they were done and he wanted to run, wanted to hide away, but he found he was too exhausted to do more than stand and shiver.

The last of them finally lifted the faceplate on his great helm and revealed a face that glowered just as well as the iron visage that hid him away.

They spoke among themselves and he listened. Currently he was not capable of much more. The pain was gone, but the memory of it lingered and now it seemed he had a fever.

The biggest of them, the one with the iron helmet, studied him carefully. Each of the man’s hands looked large enough to cover his face.

“I do not care if he likes us.”

Their words were not the common tongue of Fellein or any of the other languages he knew but he understood them well enough. They had their own sorcery then.

NO. NOT YOUR SORCERY. THAT IS WHY YOU ARE HERE. THAT IS WHAT WE WILL NOW UNDERSTAND.

The words smashed through his mind and Theran fell backward, his limbs moving and dancing, his teeth clenched in a sudden fit that threatened to break his teeth in his mouth. He could not breathe, could not control his movements.

The gray-skins around him watched on, not speaking, not moving, but staring as if he were a new form of bug they had never seen.

The thunderous voice was gone, but the presence that roared at him was not. He could feel it probing him, moving under his flesh, peeling his self away layer by layer as it examined him in great detail.

It was a violation that made control of his body impossible, and he continued to seize and kick for the eternity that the assault lasted.

When it was done Theran groaned. It was the only sound he was capable of.

When he finally had recovered enough he stared out at the waters, at Canhoon where it now rested, a city that had fallen from the sky.

He and the people around him stood on the edge of the waters amid the destruction caused by the city’s arrival. There was debris, of course. There were also corpses, though not as many as he might have expected. A great number of the citizens of Goltha also stood nearby, though they were not there by choice. They were injured or too scared to fight. In any event, they were there and they watched on as well.

The woman spoke to him.

“You are a sorcerer. You can make magic.”

It wasn’t truly a question, but he sensed that she wanted a response and so he nodded and said, “Yes.”

“You have spoken to a god. You have been judged by the Daxar Taalor. They wish for you to obey us.”

Theran sighed and nodded again. “Yes.” He liked to think himself a good man, but he was not strong. He never had been. One of the reasons he loved Goltha was that his vices had always been easy to accommodate. Women. Otha and other narcotics. Whatever helped him feel pleasure, he could access. A good man, but weak.

So very weak.

“We want to cross the waters. As they are, we would sink. You must freeze them.”

Her hand touched his hair again and he flinched. She lifted his sweaty bangs from his face and looked at the damage she had done to him with a coin and her hand. Her palm was unmarked. The gold on her face shone. Once again her fingers moved through his hair.

“You and I, we are linked. I have marked you and made you mine. The gods have willed this. You will obey me. You will do as I say. If you do not, there will be pain.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

Then he tried to reach out to Corin. He wanted only to warn them.

The pain was so much that he fell forward and vomited. His body felt broiled in heat, lit afire from the very inside of his bones outward. He could not move. He could not scream.

An eternity later the pain was gone. There was no lingering aftermath. It simply was not there.

“No.” The woman shook her head at him. “You will never speak to them again. If you try, you will hurt.”

Theran sobbed. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.” He nodded his head so hard he feared he might break something.

“Freeze the lake.”

“I can’t.”

He screwed his eyes shut again, fearing the titanic wave of agony. It did not come.

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why can’t you freeze the lake? Your people move cities through the air. Your kind brings lightning from the air. Why can you not do this?”

“Sorcery takes power. It has a cost. If I tried to freeze the whole lake, I would die. It would drain all of my life from me.”

She nodded her head and looked to her two companions. Though they spoke, he could not understand the language. The one with the skull helmet looked to him and then pointed to the people gathered together nearby.

“Then use them.”

“What?” He could not keep the shock from his voice.

“If you cannot do this thing alone. Use them. We will only kill them in any event.”

“I cannot do tha–” That was all he could mutter before the pain ruined his world again.

The woman said, “Use them.”

“Yes.” He cried as he spoke, but none of them cared.

She crouched down next to him as he once again became aware of the universe beyond his personal agonies. For the first time he looked into her eyes and realized that they shone with their own light. He might have been fascinated were he not so utterly terrified. “If you betray me, if you attack any of us, your pain will never end. Do you believe me?”

“Yes.” He nodded as hard as he could.

Her hand found his hair again and stroked through it. “Freeze the lake. Whatever it costs.”

“Yes.”

Theran didn’t trust his legs. He crawled through the muck and the debris, barely aware of what was beneath him even as he slithered over the corpse of a dead woman and her dead child.

When he reached the waters he reached forth with his hand and the gray-skinned monster that promised him pain crouched over him. Her hand moved over his chest and belly like a person petting a dog, or restraining it. His body moved over more corpses, dead and drowned, but he didn’t dare change his course.

“Not yet. Not yet, no.” She looked out at the waters, and the black ships that were crawling closer to the city.

One minute passed. Then three, five, ten and finally, “Now. Do it now.”

Theran did not dare disobey.

His hand touched the water and the water screamed.

Where his fingers touched, the ice started and grew quickly. The saturated mud under his body rose as ice formed, and the beach and shoreline all along the way did the same.

The surface of the water was not all that froze. He dared not take that chance. Instead he pushed with all that he had and the lake howled at the sudden change in climate.

A crust of ice ten feet deep formed in seconds and raced toward Canhoon.

Theran was aware of the screams behind him and felt his eyes sting once more with tears. They had to die. It was not a choice, still, he felt their deaths as they happened, felt the life ripped from body after body, torn from flesh that fell lifeless to the ground.

No matter their pain. He had already endured worse. He could not dare it again.

He was a good man, but he was weak. He kept telling himself that as the water froze and the air steamed with the change in temperatures.

The woman’s hand moved lower, until she touched his privates. “Good. That is good.” Had she been the most perfect female he had ever seen he could not have grown hard for her. She was a terror to him, a scarred, hideous beast that would haunt him for as long as he lived.

“Come now.” She stood up and looked out at Canhoon in the distance. “It is time for us to run.”

Around them, all along the shoreline, horns sounded a cry to war.

The Sa’ba Taalor moved, stepping onto the ice with ease, their great mounts moving with them.

Theran could not guess how many of the hellish folk there were. The fog from the frozen waters was too thick to give the faintest hint.

He could not see the corpses that he left behind, either. That was for the best. He had felt two of them freeze beneath him as he touched the water and he would never get past that sensation in a hundred lifetimes.

Thirteen

Captain Callan looked at the ice and shook his head, simply shocked beyond his ability to understand for a moment. One thing to hear about sorcery. One thing to even travel faster than a man should ever manage. The ice was a different beast. It was an actual impossibility made reality.

“How is that happening?” He watched as the ice overtook every one of the black ships around them. Waves froze in an instant and even the ship he stood on – a ship that had managed not to get destroyed by a dozen impacts with other vessels, that had traveled miles in minutes against all possibilities, even so incredible a boat as that – was slowed and then suspended in the ice.

Daivem looked his way and frowned. “Powerful sorcery. More powerful than any I’ve seen, besides that city.”

They’d watched as Canhoon dropped softly from the sky and landed. They’d felt the surge of water lift all of the ships around them and theirs besides. It had been an experience not easily prepared for.

The air was warm with spring. The trees were blooming along shorelines that teemed with green, but now the whole of Gerhaim, virtually an inland sea, was frozen in minutes. Heavy mists rose from the ice, making even the closest of the ships little more than a silhouette, but still he could see the Sa’ba Taalor’s shadowy forms as they climbed from their trapped ships and started walking across the ice. Hundreds of the bastards were heading toward the island city.

“I don’t see how we can go after them at this point,” he said. “I mean, it’s one thing to hit their ships and another for a small crew to try to kill that many.”

Daivem nodded and then pointed. “Still, your crew will try, yes?”

Sure enough, the ghosts of his crew were scaling down the sides of the ship.

“What can they possibly do?”

Daivem frowned and shook her head. “Nothing. They are dead. They can do nothing once they leave the ship, except remember that fact.”

He wondered for only one moment what she meant. As they left the ship and walked a short distance, they flickered out of sight.

“Where are they going, Daivem?”

“To where the dead go. I am not dead and cannot say beyond that.” She sighed and looked his way. “I hear that they go to a place of peace. I hope that is true.”

“What do we do now?”

The Inquisitor looked at him and shook her head. “This was never my fight. Never Louron’s fight. This is your battle. We have merely provided you with a means to get here.”

He looked at the woman for a while, not sure how to respond. “How do you mean?”

“You asked for our help and we gave it. But you have lost your crew. What you do now is your decision, but we will not be staying.”

“Where will you go?”

“Home. The same way we got here.”

“With this ship?”

“No. We will follow the Shimmer.”

Callan nodded. He’d understood that something unnatural to him allowed the ship to move so quickly and he’d certainly seen the distortion around them. The Shimmer was as good a name as any for it.

“Do you come with us, Captain Callan? Or do you stay here?”

Callan looked to the city and felt the ship beneath him and was uncertain.

Drask looked down at the ice and nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

Andover looked his way. “What do you mean?”

“Why swim when you can walk? Freezing the lake was sensible.”

Whereas the Fellein were unsettled by the notion, neither Drask nor Andover was particularly shocked. Both had seen the actions of the gods.

Tega looked on and then shrugged. A moment later the mount under her moved forward.

Why it obeyed was something that Andover could not fathom. The mount had been Delil’s and she was not only dead, but now she was gone as well.

The night before, with Canhoon only a short distance away, he had taken her shrouded body and laid her upon the ground. He had uncovered her face one last time. She was perfectly still, but had not decayed. The Daxar Taalor had given him that. Or perhaps it was Drask. He hadn’t bothered to ask.

He touched her face one last time then covered her and set about the task of building her funeral pyre. He did not ask for help, but Tega and Drask gave assistance just the same.

There were no tears shed, but he felt the loss of Delil deeply.

In the end he could not decide if she would want to come back and so he left her death in the hands of the gods. Had they wanted her back they would have brought her back as they had Swech. Her body burned hot and the blaze was bright enough to light the area.

Eventually he slept and when he awoke all that was left of Delil was ashes.

Andover stared at the frozen lake and followed Tega and the silent fool who rode with her, Nolan.

Drask rode out onto the ice beside him. Theirs was a comfortable silence, at least for the moment. There were decisions to be made and that time was upon them.

“You should present yourself to the Empress.” The words were unexpected and Andover looked to Drask and shook his head.

“You jest.”

“Not at all. You were sent on a task by her cousin, the Emperor. You return now from that task and you should present yourself.”

“I suspect the guards throughout the city might object.”

“They might indeed, but you will be safe from them. Tega and I will see to that.”

“You discussed this then?”

“Yes. It is a matter of protocol. This is not your war unless you choose to make it your war, Andover. You have been tasked with a duty by gods, yes, but your Emperor also tasked you with a duty.”

“I don’t see how I can go back before them. I’ve changed.”

Drask sighed. “An honorable person is only as good as the vows they choose to make and keep. You have made vows. Would you not discharge them properly?”

“What will the Daxar Taalor say about it?”

“The Daxar Taalor were the ones who taught me about honor. There is a time and a place for conflict, Andover. If you choose to fight for the Daxar Taalor that is acceptable, and you may present yourself as their champion if they have, as you say, chosen you for that purpose.”

“They have.” He did not take offense from Drask’s words because he understood the meaning.

“Then you have even more reason to present yourself to the Empress. Fellein has suffered greatly and will continue to suffer. That is the way of war. One side must win and one side must lose and the losers are seldom pleased with the outcome. There is death, there is destruction, there is disease and often poverty. In this case there are also the Seven Forges. Five have now been relocated. They will change the very shape of the land in all directions. That change can be gentle, or it can hammer Fellein into a new shape as it does now.”

“Why do you say these things, Drask?”

“Am I not one of your instructors? Do you see any of the others here?”

Andover nodded.

“You speak for the gods on this and you must let the Empress know that she has an option aside from all-out war.”

“Drask, do you not want a war?”

“What I want does not matter. The war is already happening and is the will of the Daxar Taalor. It is also their will that you are their champion and must present yourself as such. It is not me who suggests an alternative to combat, Andover Iron Hands. It is the Daxar Taalor.”

Drask looked his way, his eyes glowing in the light. Andover knew the man, respected him, and still, even after all this time, found him unsettling. He was the only other member of the Sa’ba Taalor that Andover had ever seen with symmetrical Great Scars. He had the balance that Andover himself was seeking.

“As you wish, Drask.”

Drask shook his head. “No. As the gods wish. In this I will act as their agent. You will reach the Empress safely.”

That was all there was to say for the moment. They moved on, the mounts carrying them with ease.

The ice was thick enough to hold them and the mounts were fast. The heavy fog hid them and only hinted at the great obstacle before them. They rode hard and though he wobbled for a moment, even Nolan reacted properly. The man’s hands moved to Tega’s waist and held to her as she leaned forward over the shoulders and neck of the beast.

Drask leaned forward as well when the mounts moved faster and Andover followed their lead. The brutes tore across the frozen lake, claws adjusting when they started to slide, their speed whipping back the hair of every rider.

The city of Canhoon was a massive affair, indeed, easily dwarfing Tyrne. Andover had enough time to look at the vast wall ahead of them and the shapes of men that stood along it.

The wall was too high for even the mounts to hurdle and though he knew that, he kept moving forward at the same frightening pace. Tega or Drask or the gods themselves would have to either open a way or peel his broken body from the stone surface.

The shapes atop the vast wall moved, and Andover reached for his shield. They might have arrows or spears and both he and Gorwich would need the protection if it came to that. Closer still they rode and then the air flickered around him and Andover grunted, surprised to find himself in a different location.

The sun glared down, no longer hidden behind a veil of mists. The ice was gone and the ground beneath their feet was dirt and cobblestones. The yard was vast, and that was a blessing. Even the fastest mounts needed room to stop. They managed, though Andover almost fell on his ass at the sudden shift in speed.

There were easily thirty men in Imperial armor less than a hundred feet away. They were practicing with swords, and they stopped as the mounts and their four riders appeared.

For one moment he had no idea what to do and the ghost of the boy who had once been maimed by the City Guard wailed from inside his belly.

The soldiers moved quickly, forming into a proper rank and replacing swords with spears. A good sword would wound a man in close combat. A good spear would do the same but had the advantage of range. Before he had been trained by the Sa’ba Taalor and the Daxar Taalor, Andover had considered spears to be little but sticks with a pointy end. He knew better now.

Andover climbed down from his mount and patted Gorwich on the side. He looked to the men coming his way, most of them with swords drawn, and casually pulled his axe from the side of Gorwich’s saddle.

“That is enough!” Andover barely recognized his own voice. “I am Andover Iron Hands, and am here to speak with Empress Nachia Krous and with Desh Krohan!”

The man in charge of the group looked at him and nodded. He seemed absolutely unimpressed. “I am Captain Alaire of the Imperial Guard, and you will stand down or you will die here and now.”

Tega spoke up. “I am Tega. I am apprentice to Desh Krohan. We will wait here while you pass a message to the Empress and her First Advisor.”

Drask said nothing. He merely sat tall in the saddle on Brackka’s back, his hands in easy reach of enough weapons to terrify anyone who knew what he was capable of.

Nolan giggled.

It wasn’t long before the four riders were escorted to see the Empress.

Nachia stared at the four who came into her throne room. They were hard not to stare at. The last time she’d seen Tega and Nolan they were on their way to examine the Mounds. The last time she’d seen Drask Silver Hand, her cousin had still been Emperor.

As for Andover Lashk, the only reason she really recognized him at all was because of his hands.

“What did they do to him?”

She whispered the words to Desh, who looked at Andover and spoke back just as softly, “I couldn’t hope to tell you.”

Drask Silver Hand was the first to approach and as he did he dropped into a formal bow, his arms spread to his sides and his head lowered. “Empress Nachia Krous, I return to your lands in troubling times.”

“Indeed, Drask. The world has changed a great deal since last we met.” She spoke formally as did he, and she sat on her throne and did her best not to fidget.

Andover came forward next. He had changed a great deal. He’d left Fellein to be an ambassador between two different civilizations and came back dressed like a member of the Sa’ba Taalor nation, with gray skin and scars too numerous to count.

“Majesty, I am Andover Lashk, called Iron Hands.” He bowed formally. “I come before you as a citizen of your Empire, returned from a long journey. I come to you as a messenger of the Daxar Taalor.”

That earned him an arched eyebrow. Part of her wanted to react more substantially, but there were protocols to consider.

As was often the case Desh Krohan was on one side of her. As Andover gave his speech Merros Dulver moved into the throne room and to her other side. His eyes scanned Drask, and his face spoke of a dozen sorrows. They had never become friends, exactly, but they’d shared a deep respect for each other and now stood on opposite sides of a conflict.

Desh spoke for Nachia at her signal. “You bear the hands of Andover Lashk. In most other ways you have changed a great deal.”

“I have been in the presence of seven gods, Desh Krohan. I have spoken with them and been blessed by them. These are events that change a man. I remember you well. You were kind to me when my hands were ruined. You have never done me any unkindness.”

Nachia nodded. “What message do you bring to me, Andover Lashk?”

“The Daxar Taalor, the gods of the Seven Forges, offer you one last chance to avoid all-out war. Even now the Sa’ba Taalor surround this city. They are prepared to attack, but they have stayed their actions long enough for you to consider the path you choose.

“I have been chosen as their champion. Should you decide that your Empire is best served by singular combat, I am the opponent your champion will fight.”

Nachia leaned back in her throne.

“And how long do we have before this offer expires, Andover Iron Hands?”

The man in front of her was larger than the lad who left her Empire. He was almost as large as Drask, who was a terrifying sight to behold up close. Andover’s face was ritually scarred and he looked enough like Drask that it was unsettling. A different shade of gray, fewer scars, though still a substantial number, his hair not as black. His eyes glowed with silvery light, however, and his garb was little more than black pants and a leather vest.

And an axe made of glossy stone.

Andover tilted his head.

“The Daxar Taalor offer you one hour to decide.” He stood to his full height and looked directly at Merros Dulver. “This will be the last offer of peace from the gods.”

Merros looked back, one hand on his sword. He did not seem the least bit intimidated.

Nachia nodded. “There is a chamber down the hall where food can be had. Two guards will escort you there. Please do not leave that hall until I have summoned you back here.”

Andover bowed again and so did Drask. Then the two of them followed the Imperial Guard out of the room.

Tega and Nolan did not leave. They were not representatives of the Sa’ba Taalor.

Merros looked at Nolan March with an expression of deep sorrow. He had the unpleasant task of telling the soldier that his mother was gone as well.

Desh nodded to Tega and she moved to him, almost immediately being folded into a protective embrace.

Merros walked toward Nolan and sighed. “I am sorry, Nolan March. I must inform you that your mother has passed.”

Nolan looked at him for a moment and then looked at the far wall.

“He’s addled,” Tega said. “He was injured in the Mounds, and injured badly. We do not know if he is capable of thought.”

“If he is not it might be a blessing.” Merros looked at the young man for a moment and then moved back to Nachia’s side.

He looked toward his Empress and said, “That was Andover Lashk?”

Nachia said, “We’ve less than an hour to decide if the Sa’ba Taalor will attack us or if we will choose a champion to fight for me.” She gestured toward the door. “Against Andover ‘Iron Hands’.”

Desh nodded. “That was Andover Lashk. Now he’s apparently a full member of our enemies.”

Merros shook his head and sighed. “I’d dearly love to know what training regimen they used.”

Nachia scowled, “Perhaps we can ask them after the war?”

Desh came straight to the point. “If you were to choose a champion, who would it be, Majesty?”

She walked over to the closest window without answering. Outside was her city. Beyond it was a frozen lake blanketed in fog, and covered for far too great a distance with the Sa’ba Taalor.

“How many do you suppose are out there?”

Merros frowned. “Fifteen thousand at the very least.”

“I know the Silent Army is on our side, but that is a lot of enemies.” Nachia stared at them as if by looking she could somehow make them go away. It wasn’t going to work that way, of course.

“I don’t know that Andover Iron Hands is all that formidable.” Merros spoke, but he seemed distracted. She knew that he was simply trying to calculate all of the odds.

Tega spoke up from the comfort of her instructor’s arms. “I have spent time with him. I know that he hasn’t truly been gone from here all that long, but you’ve seen the transformation and he told me that he literally fought thousands of enemies thrown at him by the gods in order to prepare him for this. He is likely as dangerous as he looks.”

“Well then, what shall we do?” Nachia asked.

Desh looked her way. “It’s one champion or a massive army. You could always try to find a really good champion.”

The debates began properly at that moment.

Who can say if the Silent Army was aware of what was going on in the palace? They stood along a massive stone wall and stared out toward the vast armies of the Sa’ba Taalor which, shielded by fog, made noise as they settled themselves and prepared for the coming combat. For some time, the stone sentinels watched as the masses of invading forces came their way and they did nothing.

And then they changed their tactics.

The stone army slipped through the Mid Wall and stepped out along its edge. Their spears were held in position. Their stone faces offered nothing.

The Sa’ba Taalor, unfamiliar with much of the ways of sorcery, saw the changes and stared, shocked. How clearly they could see was a mystery, but they noted when the soldiers vanished into stone and stepped out of the wall.

The gods had spoken, had said that none should attack as yet.

They had not said that none should defend themselves.

The Silent Army looked on for a few moments, and then one of them hurled a spear. The throw was strong and fast and the point of that spear rammed through the shield of a follower of Truska-Pren and then through the heart behind that shield.

Tarag Paedori looked at his fallen follower for only a moment and then roared, “We are attacked! For Truska-Pren!” The horns sounded. The forces of the King in Iron moved forward.

It was only seconds later that the rest of the kings called for battle.

“What was that?”

Merros moved to the window and looked down. “We’re attacked.” His voice made the words seem inevitable, and perhaps they were. The world had already changed too much and there were too many forces involved for calm to be maintained.

“Why are we attacked?” Desh Krohan moved closer to the window and wall and studied the situation. “The Silent Army are no longer at their guard positions.” He shook his head. “It might be they started this.”

“Yes, well, I’ll try to remember to yell at them later.” Merros shook his head. “Please relay the call to arms to my battalions, Desh.”

The sorcerer nodded. With a thought Desh Krohan told his followers what they needed to hear and they, in turn, passed the information on to the leaders of the Imperial Army.

Even as the massive surge of the Sa’ba Taalor charged across the ice once more, the horns of the Imperial Army called for a defense of the city.

From the barracks houses and the ready stations that had been hastily assembled, the army moved, taking up arms and grabbing shields. From the throne room they looked like ants, but they were well-organized ants as they scaled the steps to the top of the Mid Wall and prepared for battle. Shields were set to the wall, adding height and strength to the barrier. Archers readied their weapons. Spearmen set their long spears into position between the shields, wedging hard iron tips between the flagstones so that the points thrust outward and toward the sky. Shorter spears were readied for close combat.

“Desh?”

“Yes, Merros?”

“Could you melt all of that ice?”

“Beg pardon?”

“The ice. The damned idiots we’re dealing with are standing on ice. Could you melt it?”

Desh frowned, thinking.

Tega didn’t hesitate. “Done.”

And just like that, it was.

The ice shattered violently and as it broke apart the shards melted into water. The charging forces of the Sa’ba Taalor fell fast and hard as the effect continued to ripple outward.

Just as the gray-skins had somehow managed to freeze the lake, Tega now reversed the effect. Merros looked at her and damn near kissed her.

Drask heard the horns, of course. He knew what they meant the second they sounded.

“We are at war,” he said to Andover.

Andover nodded and rose from the food he’d been picking at. Pabba fruit. He would never tire of it.

The two guards with them heard as well and reached for their swords. Under the circumstances that was to be expected. Drask stepped toward the first of them and drove his silver hand into the man’s skull, cracking it like a soft-boiled egg.

Andover kicked the table where he was eating across the distance between him and the other guard. The table was small and got good clearance. The guard was fast with a sword and slow with defending himself. While he was pushing his way past the wooden obstacle, Andover cleaved him in half with the obsidian axe.

The two emissaries did not speak to each other. Instead they pushed past the door and headed for the stairwell leading down.

Then Drask said, “You may never have a better chance to kill the enemies of your gods.”

Andover shook his head. “Tega is there. She would stop me, even if the sorcerer could not.”

Drask nodded his head and kept moving.

“You could stop them too, Drask.”

“As I have said, I am not certain where I stand. I am still reflecting.”

Andover shook his head. “The time for reflection might have passed.”

“No. But it soon shall.”

In her chambers, Cullen sat up abruptly. The pain was no stronger than before, but there was a sense of urgency, a sense that whatever it was she had been waiting for was soon to come.

Also, there were horns sounding. Deltrea looked to her and shook her head. “You’re going to do something stupid, aren’t you?”

Cullen reached for her arrows and bow.

“I am going to help defend the castle. You’ve seen these animals in action. They’ll kill everyone if they break through the walls.”

“There are two walls between us and them, Cullen. Two. And they are very large walls, with many soldiers.”

“Then I will simply look foolish while I wait.”

She stopped speaking. That pain in her guts was now roiling.

“Almost time,” she said quietly.

“Almost time for what, Cullen?” Deltrea’s voice sounded worried and desperate. “Gods sake, almost time for what?”

“For whatever I’m becoming. Oh, GODS!”

The pain was as vast as Trecharch. It filled her. It seethed through her. Cullen dropped her weapons and fell to her knees, crawling toward the window, looking to the north and east. Whatever was happening, it was happening now.

The Sa’ba Taalor swam. There was no other option. They had spent their lives preparing for this and so they swam.

The waters were not as deep as one might have expected, but they were deep enough. Several of the more encumbered warriors sank to the bottom of the lake, only to find that they only dropped ten feet or so. There had once been a city here and it had been locked into the land under the lake. That land was still there.

Tarag Paedori held his breath and moved, reaching for the straps that held his armor in place, pulling them as calmly as he could even when he felt like he was drowning. Truska-Pren comforted him, the god’s presence keeping him calm. The chest plate fell away. It was enough as a start. He reached for his dagger and cut at the straps as he walked, concentrating on cutting his way to freedom.

When he rose from the waters the helmet came off his head. He rose in little but pants, his sword held in his hands.

He rose angry, and sought to take out his fury on an enemy.

The wisdom of Tuskandru could not be denied. The man never wore armor and he was already wading to the shoreline and roaring Durhallem’s name at the stone enemy they all faced.

The first of the moving statues to reach him tried to skewer Tusk with a spear. Tusk dodged the weapon and crouched low, water spilling from him in a cascade.

The man sported a short sword, an axe with two blades and a flanged mace. He reached for the mace.

That was as long as Tarag could look toward his counterpart before he was engaged in the battle himself. A spear was hurled his way and he twisted his body roughly backward even as he swept his sword in the direction of the weapon. The sword did him no good. The movement however stopped him from being gutted by the head of the spear.

He charged, pushing out of the waters and onto the land along with dozens of his brethren.

The Silent Army was powerful, to be sure. They were also vastly outnumbered and every last one of the Sa’ba Taalor who stepped onto the land wanted them dead.

A stone sword came for him and he blocked it, sending the blade singing along the edge of his great sword. The pommel of his sword was a heavy counterweight for the blade. He used it to break the stone blade in half and then shoved himself at the stone man wielding it. For most the forward shove would have achieved nothing. But he was Tarag Paedori and he knocked the stone man back.

Even as he struggled against the defender of Canhoon, two of his people came to his aid. A sword rang off a stone arm. A hammer broke a stone knee.

A broken stone blade cut the arm from the other sword bearer and Tarag once again struck with the pommel of his sword, this time to hook the knee of the stone man and make it buckle. The silent warrior fell and Tarag pushed past him, leaving him to the mercies of the other Sa’ba Taalor.

A spear tip cut a line of fire across his chest and he felt blood flowing. The wound was not deep and he thanked the gods, even as he grabbed the stone spear that had been thrown at him and dropped his massive sword. The blade was too unwieldy and could not cut stone. The spear was a better weapon under the circumstances.

The butt of the spear broke the nose of a stone man’s face. And the length of the pole let him knock his enemy staggering.

All around him flesh met stone, stone met steel, and enemies clashed on the narrow strip of land around the city of Canhoon.

Tarag Paedori roared his god’s name and continued on, reveling in the glory of a proper savage battle.

Behind him, around him the Sa’ba Taalor moved onward, pushing themselves against an army of stone.

Swech listened and obeyed. She once again climbed to the roofs and along with her a dozen others. They carried few weapons and they spoke not at all. The war was on. The Great Tide crashed along the edges of the city and Paedle told her it was time.

There was no need for ceremony, she merely needed a decent view.

Once high enough Swech looked to the north and east and nodded. Morwhen. The city was famed for its barbarism and the warriors it created. The first she heard of the people, they were to be the probable salvation against the Sa’ba Taalor, as they allegedly matched her people in savagery. For that reason the gods waited until most of the soldiers from Morwhen were on the move and heading for Canhoon before Paedle told her it was time.

She merely looked and willed the change and it happened.

Swech was the conduit for her god’s power. She was not a sorcerer and had no desire to be one, but she was the focus of Paedle’s will in this world and so she let the god’s power flow through her and she felt the earth shift and the heat boil and reveled in Paedle’s glory as the god was reborn on the site of Morwhen.

A war raged but still the lake and the city and the area rocked with the ferocity of the eruption. The recently unfrozen waters rippled and danced and waves slashed the relative calm.

Even before the water shifted the sky grew bright. Six gods had taken new places. The last would come soon.

Her mission accomplished, Swech sighed and prepared herself for her next task. The palace had to fall. The armies of the Sa’ba Taalor fought against the Silent Army.

All save those who were already past the Mid Wall and even the First Wall.

People like her.

They moved, silent and hardly worth noticing in the madness of the moment.

The ice was gone.

Callan stared at the waters and the black ships that faltered and foundered around him. They had no crews. The whole lot of gray-skins had run off to join the fight.

The smaller boat he’d ridden to the lake was still in fine shape, but there was no crew left.

The fogs had not dispersed when the water melted. They had thinned, but not vanished, and he looked to the shore and saw the vast army of the Sa’ba Taalor and shook his head.

“There’s nothing I can do here.” He looked for Daivem. “I suppose I’ll go with you.”

But the woman was gone, as were the others from Louron.

With no other choices that he could think of, Callan took down one of the smaller boats for reaching the shore and lowered it into the waters. He was well past the last of the foundering black ships when the rest of the Sa’ba Taalor fleet rode up the river.

There was no thought of going to Canhoon until that moment. The abandoned vessels were between him and the black ships and he was fine with that notion. He might have gone for the side of the river but more of the Sa’ba Taalor were there. Likely the ships would gather them for the next wave to attack the city.

In the meantime, he had to go somewhere and the city seemed his best bet.

Give or take the invading forces.

“I suppose we’ll have to see about going around them.” He said the words as if he could convince himself to avoid the fight.

He knew in his heart that wasn’t going to be possible. There were too many of them and only so much land around Canhoon to step on.

He needn’t have worried. Even as he considered the notion of how best to avoid being trampled under the gray-skins, they managed to breach the closest gate in the Mid Wall and started pushing inward.

Tuskandru did not break down the doors to the great gate. That was entirely Brodem’s doing.

Tusk had been trying to reach that damnable door for a long while and his muscles burned and he stank of blood and sweat. It was a lovely thing to finally have a full battle against worthy opponents.

The stone men did not die easily but they did die. He had that in common with them. Not the dying part, but the hard to kill part. His lip was split and two teeth had been knocked from his mouth. There were a dozen cuts across his flesh and some of them were deep. He would worry about them later, after the enemy had fallen.

He was still considering that fact when Brodem managed to get over the wall.

The Silent Army was very busy trying to stop the Sa’ba Taalor. The mounts were busy too, trying to find a place to get out of the water. Brodem took advantage of the situation and pounced on one of the stone soldiers. He knocked the stone man down at the same time as he got enough momentum to climb the wall.

There were spears in the way, and shields. He took the path of fewer points and knocked a shield aside. Once at the top, flesh and blood soldiers – who did the sensible thing and died when Brodem slashed and bit at them – replaced the Silent Army. Several spears came for him and most were knocked aside by the heavy leather armor the mount wore. A few cut deep and he roared his outrage at the wielders and knocked them aside as he charged for the stairs and the level ground.

Other mounts tried to conquer the wall and most failed, though a few scrambled to the top. More spearmen and archers waited for them. Brodem left them to their own devices.

The great gates were closed, as one would expect. They had been barred for a while and no one tended to them. There was no need, as no fool in their right mind would consider opening the doors while the city was in the air.

A lack of opposable thumbs can be a deterrent, but Brodem managed just the same. His muzzle knocked the heavy beam blocking the gates twice, three times and finally a fourth before the barricade was shoved aside. After that the pressure of bodies fighting against the wall took care of the rest. Sa’ba Taalor and Silent Army alike spilled into the city proper and flooded into the area like water.

Stone soldiers held no interest for Brodem. They did not bleed. So he went up the stairs again to kill as many of the pink skins as he could.

Tusk appreciated the assist and took advantage of the opened door. The Silent Army tried to fight on and Tusk did the same. All around him the stone warriors pressed against the Sa’ba Taalor, cutting and beating at flesh. The followers of the Daxar Taalor defended themselves and conspired to destroy the stone warriors.

Stone is stronger than flesh, it is true, but the Sa’ba Taalor carried weapons and were not afraid to take injuries even as they wore through the Silent Army’s defenses.

Canhoon was breached, and the Sa’ba Taalor roared the names of their gods as they charged into the city that had escaped their fury before.

Desh ran toward the room where Cullen resided. He felt her pain, her confusion and knew he had to get there before it was too late.

Opening the door was easy enough. The young woman was kneeling on the ground, groaning and sweating in a feverish daze.

“One left. Only one. Have to stop it.”

“Stop what, child?” Desh moved to her, trying to come to her aid, but she pushed him aside and shook her head.

“The gods move, Desh Krohan.” The voice spoke in the old tongue, a language that had not been lost so much as it had changed. The Sa’ba Taalor still spoke it, but this form was archaic. The words were just different enough to make Desh’s mind and heart ache to hear the tongue again. It was Cullen’s mouth that spoke them. It was Moale Deneshi, once his lover, who uttered them.

She said, “The gods move and there is only one more location to allow them to cover this land. They will own everything unless we stop them.”

“How? How do we stop them?”

“How does one ever stop a god, Desh? With sacrifices.”

He didn’t have to ask what that meant. She had come back from the dead but had no intention of staying. The power inside of her was that of the Mother-Vine and it existed for one reason only.

The Mother-Vine intended to live again. The question was where it would reside.

“Where does the last mountain rise? Do you know?”

Cullen shook her head. “No, but we must stop it. We must!” She writhed, her body shaking with effort, glistening with sweat.

The Sa’ba Taalor had breached the Mid Wall and would soon be trying for the First Wall of the city. The Imperial Army was gathered and would do their best to repel the enemy, but who could say with certainty if they would succeed? The Silent Army was being crushed, pushed back by sheer numbers, but he had to guess a great number of the enemy were falling in the process. It made no difference to the Sa’ba Taalor. They were fanatical in their actions. They would not stop unless their gods decreed it and their gods would not, not unless a champion was chosen to fight against the abomination that used to be Andover Lashk.

Even then, they would move the last of the mountains. The Daxar Taalor had their plans and Desh had no doubt that claiming Fellein was among them. Even if their champion lost, he knew the last mountain would go in place.

“We have to find out where. That’s all there is to it. I have to visit with the Sooth.”

No part of him wanted that. The last time he’d been drained and nearly crushed by the energies needed.

“Too late for that, I think. I can feel the shift in the world around us. I just can’t find the spot where this will end.”

Desh scowled. He was not a man who ever liked not getting his way.

Unfortunately, it seemed that gods had more pull than even the greatest sorcerers.

“Tega!” he yelled her name out loud and in his mind as well. Perhaps there was a way around the problem. Perhaps the power she had acquired would allow her greater access than others could manage.

She came to him, trailing Nolan March, who was smiling and giggling softly.

“Tega, my dear, there is one more volcano to rise in Fellein. All signs point to it. Is there any way you can discern where it might rise? I would call on the Sooth, but I’ve been told there’s no time.”

Tega shook her head. “But maybe one of the Sa’ba Taalor could tell us?”

“Well, yes, that’s possible, but who?”

“I have called to Drask Silver Hand. He is coming.”

“No. I am here.” Drask spoke from the entrance to the chamber, where he stood with his arms at his sides and his head tilted slightly to the side, a sign of curiosity among his people. Desh looked the man over again, and was unsettled. He was really very large, but that wasn’t what made Desh uncomfortable. It was that, despite his size, Drask managed to move so quietly. Too many of the enemy were like him and moved without making a sound.

Drask looked at him with silvery eyes and no discernible expression on his face. “What is it you want to know, Desh Krohan?”

“Where the last of the volcanoes will show itself.”

“Truska-Pren has not shared that knowledge.” He looked at Cullen on the ground, his eyes moving over her shape. “He, perhaps, is finding the place of best strategic value.”

Desh nodded. “Can you guess?”

“I have not seen your maps of late, but if I could, yes.”

“Then we should go to them.”

“Advise your guards not to attack me again and I will keep my peace.”

“And where is Andover?”

“He is nearby. He will come if I call to him.”

Tega shook her head even as she reached down to help Cullen to her feet. “We need to find the maps and worry about Andover later.”

“There might not be a later if we aren’t quick about this.” Desh moved to Cullen’s other side and Drask sighed. He moved quickly, sliding past Desh on the side and lifting the girl in his arms.

“Now we can move faster.”

Desh nodded and bit his tongue before he could make a foolish comment. Ego clashes over women had no place in the moment, even though a part of him wanted to protect the spirit that had once been his life mate.

He led the way and had the group of them back in the throne room in short order. The guards eyed Drask with suspicion, but the presence of the First Advisor meant they didn’t do anything foolish.

Nachia was not on her throne. Instead she was looking at the maps spread across her table and making small marks on the actual map of Canhoon. Most of the marks were made with ashes from the fireplace. They could be wiped away if need arose.

She looked up as they entered and tensed for a moment. Upon seeing Desh, the tension faded.

“Is she well?”

“No, she is not,” Cullen answered for herself. “She is boiling in her own blood. The thing inside her wants out.” Even as she spoke she wriggled impatiently until Drask set her down.

Her legs barely seemed to hold her weight, but she managed to get to the closest chair and settle herself.

Drask nodded to the Empress and made a formal bow before he moved to the table and the largest map of Fellein. He did not ask to examine the piece but rather moved it around until he could look at it properly.

Nachia looked to Desh with a questioning expression. He spoke clearly and concisely. “Drask is trying to calculate where the last volcano might rise. There is only the one, you see, and Cullen and the Mother-Vine are sure it will settle itself soon.”

“There’s another?”

Drask looked at the small cup of ashes that Nachia used to mark her map and plunged one thick finger into the mess. He looked at where marks had already been made for most of the volcanoes and smudged similar marks for the ones that had not yet been placed. Far to the south at the edge of the river, on the western side, firmly between Louron and the rest of the area. Then to the northeast, where Morwhen had been.

“The placement is not an accident. The Daxar Taalor mark the land where it will offer them the best possible strategic value.” He pointed. “Each of the gods has a reason and a place they want. The Guntha Isles were claimed by Wheklam because they were the best place to change the winds along the entire western coastline of Fellein. From there the trade winds can send ashes and worse along the waters. They already have. Roathes is no more because of that placement. Louron will fall when Donaie Swarl wills it.”

His finger pointed to where Tyrne had been. “Tuskandru and Durhallem chose to show a display of power here. The city was destroyed and Durhallem rose.”

“Tuskandru did not place that mountain.” Nachia frowned. “It was your King in Iron.”

Drask’s eyes locked with hers. He spoke very clearly. “No. That was a display of superiority over you. A show of power. You saw what he wanted. Tarag Paedori wanted you to see his command, but the King in Obsidian is the ruler for Durhallem and could be the only one to move the mountain.”

Desh stared at Drask and nodded.

Drask continued, “Paedle has taken your Morwhen. I do not know why.” He stabbed at where Elda used to stand. “Like Elda, both places were large cities and they are placed well enough to allow the surrounding of Fellein. From these places the followers of the gods, the Sa’ba Taalor, would be able to cover large areas. That might be enough.”

Desh spoke up. “Morwhen was known for the formidable soldiers they trained. The same is true of Elda. A very large portion of the military to the east was trained in those areas.”

Drask nodded his head. “As with Wheklam, the gods could force their hearts to spew fire and ash in these places and cover much of Fellein.”

Another jab of his finger. “N’Heelis and Wrommish have claimed your north. The heart of Wrommish now beats along your mountains, and from there the volcano’s fury can be unleashed along either side of the mountain range, all the way to the southern seas with little effort.”

“What do you mean?” Nachia looked hard at the map.

Desh answered. “Heat from the volcano could run along the edge of the mountains and change the way storms grow, or funnel fire and Plague Winds through the whole area.”

Drask nodded. “It is a good position strategically. There is no one up there, or at least few according to your map, but the coldest winters could be made milder or worse with Wrommish’s desires.”

Nachia crossed her arms and looked at the map. There were a lot of large Drask-finger smudges on it. “So where the will the last volcano show itself?”

“There are many possibilities.” Drask leaned over the map. “The Daxar Taalor have moved their hearts. They do not follow the same pattern that existed in the valley. Now they are spread far and wide and the center of this place is empty.” Drask almost reached for the ashes again and then stopped himself.

“If they wish to control all of Fellein, they must cover the northwest. That would mean placing the last heart in ruined Trecharch.”

“I can’t imagine them wasting their time, really.” Nachia shook her head.

Drask shook his in return. “You are thinking of immediate effect. Gods have centuries. The Wellish Steppes and Trecharch are not currently held by the Daxar Taalor. They have been claimed by the Sa’ba Taalor and that is not the same thing.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No. The faithful are not the same as the godly. To own the land completely they would have to place a volcano in any part of that area. It might be Trecharch, it might be over the Wellish. Those areas are currently vulnerable.”

“So, there?”

“A strong possibility. However, Truska-Pren is also the god of armed combat and armies. In times of war, his king rules over all others. For that reason he might prefer a central location.” His finger tapped the map directly over Lake Gerhaim, where the City of Wonders now rested.

“My people have been directed here. They were told to face you at this time and this place.” Drask studied the map carefully for several seconds without speaking. No one interrupted. It was obvious he was thinking hard. “It is possible that this was predestined.”

“What do you mean, Drask?” It was Tega who asked this time.

“First let me finish with the previous question. Truska-Pren, being the center of a war situation, could well decide to claim Gerhaim. That would mean taking this spot or the city of Goltha, or even pushing into the center of the lake. It might mean being north or south of here, or even just blocking off the river from the west, sealing the rest of the mountain range.”

“What? Why?” Merros Dulver came into the room as Nachia was talking. It was obvious that he’d come in a hurry and though Desh had not summoned him he suspected someone had. It could have been Tega or it could have been Nachia.

“The reasons gods do anything are unknowable. Even if they tell you, they only say what they want you to know.”

Desh bit back a snort of laughter. To him the gods sounded a lot like the Sooth.

Drask continued, “It is possible that what the Daxar Taalor plan to do is push all of Fellein back to the east and lock them in the Blasted Lands and the Taalor Valley. That would suit their desires for revenge. So those are the main locations I think could be chosen. A smaller chance is that the gods plan to leave Truska-Pren where he currently resides, and to encompass all of the Blasted Lands as well. I do not think this likely.”

Drask stepped back from the table and crossed his thickly muscled arms over his broad chest.

“So what were you saying about this being predestined?” Nachia looked the man over as she spoke.

Drask leaned down and tapped the map again, his finger striking where Canhoon now rested.

“This place. Even with all that my people have done to capture Goltha, they have not completed the task.” His finger slid along the edge of the massive lake. “There are too many towns here, and Goltha has a large population. Taking a palace and killing a king is not the same as taking a kingdom.”

Once again his arms crossed.

“Now, add in Canhoon, and you have the largest single population of the Fellein ever gathered. Am I right in that?”

Nachia nodded. “After the loss of Tyrne, Elda, Morwhen and Roathes? Most certainly.”

Drask nodded again and Desh felt a cold hand slide through his guts and make a fist.

Drask, ever perceptive like most of his people, must have noticed the expression on Desh’s face. “You understand, don’t you, wizard?”

“Understand what?” Nachia was not a foolish person and she did not like being left in the dark.

Drask spread his arms to encompass everything. “Canhoon and Goltha together could be very easily seen as one city. The size of that city would likely rival the size of Korwa before it fell.” Nachia’s face crumbled. “No one knows what destroyed Korwa. For all we know, it was the gods themselves.”

Fourteen

Plans were in action. Her followers were moving through the catacombs of the palace and were ready to strike. Swech crouched in the hidden tunnel that allowed access to the throne room. One step and she could be in the room and killing.

All they waited for was a signal from Swech. One call and the deaths would commence, but instead of calling out, she was listening to Drask Silver Hand explain that none of it would matter because they would all be dead.

“Is this all supposition, Drask?” The wizard asked the question that was likely on everyone’s minds.

“Of course. I have not asked the gods. They have not told me as much. We are not currently talking.”

“Why not?” The Empress this time.

“Because Tega and Nolan and I took their power.”

Desh. “Beg pardon?”

“That is what was hidden in the Mounds. Under a thousand feet of rock and the remains of all the dead of Korwa there was a lake of energies. We bathed in them by accident and absorbed them.”

Drask peeled away his shirt and revealed his arm for all of them to see. Swech barely suppressed a gasp. The silver she had seen on numerous occasions now spread up past his shoulder. It was growing inside him and that was impossible.

No. Nothing was impossible for gods.

“So what do we do now?” Merros spoke and her insides swam with ice. To have him so close. She did not want him dead and the gods had been kind, but for how long if he was in the same room with her targets?

“Choose your champion, or fight this war. Either way the last mountain will move and we still don’t know where. But if I am right and the mountain is to settle here, then all we do is a joke and nothing more.”

Merros looked around the room, nervous, tense. She knew he hated sorcery. He’d told Dretta March that a dozen or more times.

In the room with Merros and the rest she saw a younger man. His face was familiar and she once more bit back a noise. Dretta March was dead, but she’d have given her life for one glimpse at Nolan March. The boy was talking to himself, muttering small words again and again and no one in the room paid him the least bit of attention.

No. She had no time to consider the fates of dead women’s children. She had no time to consider her own for that matter. Still her hand moved to her abdomen unconsciously.

“Is this truth, Paedle? Will this city be taken by Truska-Pren?” She spoke only with her mind. She did not need to utter words.

Paedle’s voice was soft and calm. FINISH YOUR TASKS, SWECH. WE WAIT FOR THEIR DEATHS.

No answer then.

Fair enough. The gods had always kept her. They had never betrayed her trusts.

The sorcerer first. If he lived, she would not be able to finish her tasks.

Tarag Paedori ached. A hundred wounds covered his body, most of them mere scratches, but he ached from all of them. The stone men were not dead. He did not know if they could die, but most of them were broken and seemed incapable of further motion.

All it cost was a few thousand Sa’ba Taalor. Had anyone asked him if it were possible to lose so many of the Daxar Taalor’s chosen he would have laughed at the notion. But these were not the normal enemies. They were stone and stone does not bleed.

Pre’ru’s people bashed at the great gate into the city and above them the Fellein fired down arrows. The orders were given and most of the Sa’ba Taalor raised shields over their heads to avoid the deadly fire.

Tarag had no arrows or he’d have killed them all. Instead he satisfied himself with finding spears and javelins and doing what he could.

The lancers came from the left. The spearmen came from the right. Fellein soldiers, fresh and ready for combat. Soldiers who had not just spent hours in hard effort against stone soldiers.

Tarag nodded his admiration. He would likely have done the same thing were he in a position to.

Of course, there were a few who could offer surprises on his side, as well. The arrows did not come to a complete stop but they slowed and then faltered even more.

“Form two walls!” He bellowed the order and heard it repeated and the Sa’ba Taalor did as they were told. Shields were raised to the left and to the right, and the worn, shaking soldiers set shields in a barrier against the approaching enemies.

The lancers came without their mounts. Their horses were dead. They came just the same, bearing spears and short swords instead of their usual weapons. Still they had the advantage. They were rested and fed.

Tarag Paedori did not care if they were rested. They would die. As the Fellein approached he waited and then, “PUSH!” The walls of shields pushed into the enemies approaching as the Sa’ba Taalor held their wall and charged forward.

A few arrows came down and hit flesh. A few more of the chosen fell, but others walked over the dead and dying to take their places in the walls.

While above the combat N’Heelis and Swech’s forces cut away the archers, quickly eliminating their targets and moving on to the next. As often as not the archers dropped from the wall and landed on the bloodied ground at its base. Any that lived were quickly eliminated.

Pre’ru roared her approval as the doors finally splintered under the assault from the rams. Several houses had given up their wood in order to make the battering posts but it was worth the effort. The great posts were dropped to the sides and the Sa’ba Taalor surged past the final wall of defense for Canhoon.

There were more soldiers. There were also civilians, who had held too much faith in a wooden gate. The latter ran back, fleeing the scene. The Fellein solders came forward, marching in unison and forming proper barriers.

Pre’ru gave a sharp whistle and the mounts came in. There were fewer of them than there had been, but the remaining war animals did their part. They came in hard and fast and charged at the Fellein. The soldiers facing them were brave enough, but they were shaking already, the ranks falling apart.

No, Pre’ru realized. The Fellein were not moving in fear, they were letting something past.

The dogs were everything she had heard them to be. They were fast and savage and fearless. There were also a lot of them.

They came in low and worried at the mounts. The mounts stepped back and tried to understand what had just happened because, as Pre’ru knew from experience, few were the creatures that would willingly take on a mount. Still the fighting continued. The enemy had spears and they used them. Several attacked the mounts who were distracted by the dogs, but most threw harder and aimed for the masses of the Sa’ba Taalor.

Her people knew how to respond and so they did. Arrows flew, spears were thrown and some even took on the hounds, hacking at the animals as they fought against the mounts.

Pre’ru caught motion from the corner of her eye and turned to look at the wall she had just breached. There was movement; she was not wrong. The stone shifted and as she watched on a man walked from the stone, pulled from it, was birthed from it.

The Silent Army came forward again.

Pre’ru did not have time to question it. She instead called to arms, alerting all around her of the new attack. She had not seen the shattered remains of the Silent Army drawn into the stone of the Mid Wall like ice melting into a puddle of water.

She saw instead the end result of that action on the far end. The Silent Army lived again, unmarred, born of a different color stone, and ready to repel the enemies of Fellein.

Had she known more of sorcery she might have been prepared. She chose not to waste time thinking on the matter. The enemy was upon them and she would kill them all if she had her way.

“Ordna!” She called her god’s name and charged the closest of the stone men. She would live or she would die but in all cases she would serve her gods and do them proud.

Merros read the message quickly and reported.

“The last wall is broken. The Sa’ba Taalor have reached the inner city and are on their way here.”

Drask nodded. “As I said. Your best chance is to choose a champion. Andover Lashk is a very skilled warrior, but he has doubts inside of him and those can be exploited.”

“What sort of doubts?”

“He fights for the Daxar Taalor out of a sense of gratitude and honor. He does not fight with the love and devotion that most of the Sa’ba Taalor fight with. He does not believe he will be doing the right thing if he dies in his efforts.”

“How do you know that?”

“We walked a long ways before reaching your city. We had time enough to talk.”

“You think I should choose a champion?” Nachia paced. She was nervous. She had to be.

“Yes.” Drask looked at her and nodded his head slowly.

“Who should I choose?”

“Someone who can win.”

Merros sighed and stepped forward. “I will gladly be your champion, Nachia.”

Nachia smiled and him and nodded. “I know, and I love you for that.”

Then she pointed to Desh. “Go get ready for combat.”

Desh looked as if his pants had suddenly fallen away and left him with his privates flapping in the cold wind.

“Beg pardon?”

“You are my First Advisor. You are my champion. Prepare yourself for battle against Andover Lashk.”

“I don’t see how you expect me to–”

“Go! Prepare yourself! You will be fighting for your life and the life of Fellein!”

Desh looked at her for a long time, not speaking, his eyes studying her face. Finally he nodded.

When he’d left the room she sank back on her throne and shook her head. “I’ve lost my mind.”

Merros crossed his arms, a small smile playing on his face. “No. I think it’s brilliant.”

Tega shook her head, “What have you done? One way or the other you’ve condemned one of those men to death.”

“There’s no choice in this, Tega.” The Empress suppressed a desire to argue. Merros could see her working to maintain her calm. “Andover is an unknown quantity. He could very well be as dangerous as Drask. We do not know. So I chose someone that could hold his own against any soldier. I chose someone who has power and skill and a long history of thinking his way out of problems.”

Tega shook her head. “This is madness.”

Drask looked her way. “No. This is war.”

Tega bristled and walked closer to the man. He was almost twice her size and she did not seem to care. “And have you changed sides, Drask Silver Hand?” She looked up at him and he looked down, their eyes locked in a staring contest.

“I remain uncertain as to where I stand on this conflict.”

“Why?”

He shook his head. “Because I have not made up my mind.”

“No, I mean why now, after an entire lifetime of devotion, do you question your gods?” Tega jabbed her fingers at his stomach like a dagger. He did not seem to notice. “Your entire life you’ve answered without question. You followed the orders of your gods until you reached the Mounds. So why change now?”

Drask nodded his head. “I see. You want to understand my reasoning. That is simple. For the first time in my life I am aware that my gods have lied to me.”

“Shouldn’t you be punished for thinking that way?”

Drask nodded his head. “Yes.”

“But they have not punished you. So again I ask, why?”

Drask crossed his arms and refused to answer. Or, perhaps, he was considering the best way to answer. His facial expression was not querulous so much as it was baffled.

The dogs did their work. Many of the mounts were wounded, and badly. They bled freely from gashes along their sides and bellies and across their flanks.

The mounts did their work, too. The dogs were dead. Tuskandru’s body warred with itself. On the one side he was tired and bloodied. On the other he was exhilarated and happy. He lived for this and this alone. He warred. He served his god. He had offered up a hundred sacrifices to Durhallem today and that did not include the stone monsters that came back from the dead and fought again.

The obsidian stick hissed and melted and burned with the fires of Durhallem as it sealed his torn flesh. He would have howled out his pain, but he was a king and had to set an example. The spear had cut him from neck to groin and now that ruptured flesh pulled itself back together and seared itself shut.

Tusk closed his eyes and smelled his own flesh burning. The scent mingled with the blood, the mud, the death all around him. It was a heady aroma.

When he opened his eyes the fighting had slowed. And then, surprisingly, it stopped.

The pain had been too much to let him listen but he heard now. There would be a fight between champions. One battle to choose who would win.

Tusk shook off the last of the pain and moved toward Tarag Paedori. The King in Iron was currently the King in Torn Pants. Most of the rest of his clothes were gone, discarded in the water or shredded by combat.

As he walked he grew angrier.

“Who is this champion?”

He nearly barked the words at Tarag, who looked at him and shook his head. “Andover Iron Hands.”

Tusk’s rage at that moment was nearly white hot. He clenched his fists until knuckles popped and tendons pulled.

“Say again?”

“It will be the same words. Andover Iron Hands is the chosen of the Daxar Taalor for this combat.”

“And what are the terms?”

“You already know this, Tuskandru.” Tarag Paedori’s words were surprisingly gentle. “If Andover Iron Hands wins, then we win. If he loses then we go back to the Seven Forges.”

“You and I know this cannot be. Six of the seven have moved.”

The King in Iron nodded and lowered his head. “Yes, and regardless the seventh moves soon. We do not go back to the Taalor Valley. We go to where the Forges now rest. We are victorious in that, but we might not keep this city.”

Tusk’s mouths opened and closed.

Tarag leaned in closer and put hands on both of Tusk’s shoulders. It was a calming gesture and because it came from his friend and a fellow king, Tusk allowed it. “The Daxar Taalor have spoken, Tusk. We have no further claim in this.”

“Aye.” His voice was hoarse. “Then I will retreat with my people.”

“What?”

“Why stay here?” Tusk frowned. “We have either already won or already lost. In any event, there is nothing for us to do here. I will retreat with my people and we will rest.”

“What if the Fellein do not listen? What if their champion loses and they decide to fight on?”

“Tarag, King Swech and her assassins are already in place. You know this and so do I. Regardless of betrayal, the Empress will fall today. One way or another.” Tusk sighed. “I will fight for my gods. I will serve my gods. If they tell me right now to wait here, I will wait. But otherwise, the fighting is done and I am tired. I would rest before being called back to war.”

“Where will you go?”

“Only to the wall for now. I am tired, not foolish. Call if you need me.”

Without another word to his fellow king, Tusk walked away. Moments later the horns of Tuskandru’s people called a note that none had ever heard from them before. Moments after that the Obsidian Army retreated. Those that still could. Those that were still alive.

Fifteen

Andover Iron Hands paced the courtyard that had been designated for the final battle. The ground was level, the dirt soft but not so soft that one could sink into it.

The wall at the edge of the courtyard carried several different sorts of weapons, but Andover did not bother looking. He carried his weapon of choice: the axe created by the gods themselves to help him win this combat.

He had not expected Desh Krohan as his enemy. The thought made him want to piss himself.

Desh Krohan was known for his powers of sorcery. He had killed men from half way around the world with a word. He had helped raise the Silent Army, which even now was guarding the access points to the courtyard. The Sa’ba Taalor stood on one side of the area, the Fellein on the other and, in the middle, in the courtyard, Andover looked at both sides.

Desh Krohan had not yet shown himself. Still there was plenty to see. The Sisters stood on the side of the Fellein, and next to them Tega watched on. General Merros Dulver stood there as well, next to the Empress, who stared hard at Andover and made him feel uncomfortable, if only a little. She was the enemy here, today. She and her Empire had crushed down the Sa’ba Taalor for far too long. They were weak, and they were soft and they were fatted like calves and ready to be sacrificed to the gods.

And yet….

Brolley Krous, who had almost started this war on his own, looked on from the other side of his sister, his face unreadable. Next to him Queen Lanaie stood, her arm wrapped around Brolley’s bicep.

On the other side Andover could see Drask Silver Hand standing near Tarag Paedori and several others he did not recognize. Drask did not stand still. He talked with the King in Iron and then moved on.

He knew there were more of them within the city. He could not see them, but they were there.

The Fellein parted and the striking shape of Desh Krohan came forward, dressed in his robes and nearly gliding across the ground. Was he as massive as Tarag Paedori? No, still he struck an impressive figure. His hood was up and his face lost in shadows and he seemed, at all times, to be staring directly at Andover, even when he was obviously looking elsewhere.

Tega stared at him, and Andover felt his stomach freezing over again. He had loved her once, or thought he did. And now she was looking his way and he couldn’t quite make our what was going through her head. Was she angry with him for his choice to be the champion of the Daxar Taalor? Or was that pity, she with the knowledge of what her master could do and how very easily he would kill Andover?

Back in Tyrne there had been a man to announce the combats. Andover remembered him. No such man was here.

Desh Krohan entered the courtyard. One second it seemed he was near the Empress and the next he was only paces from Andover.

Tarag Paedori moved onto the field. He carried no weapons and still he intimidated.

“We all know why we are here.” It was not a question, still Andover and Desh alike nodded their heads.

“Step back and choose your weapons.”

Both stepped back and Andover considered the javelins and spears. Finally he grabbed one of the spears and hefted it.

Desh Krohan took a spear as well, which rather surprised Andover.

Tarag Paedori stood at the edge of the wall and bellowed, “Begin!”

Andover sighted and threw his spear. Desh Krohan did the same. Andover’s spear cut the air and struck the sorcerer in the chest, falling to the ground.

The wizard’s spear tore through Andover’s shoulder, easily slicing meat.

Andover moved in, ignoring his bloodied arm and gripping his axe. The sorcerer moved, not foolish enough to wait for an attack. He stepped to the side and Andover swept the axe toward his chest.

The blade hit the wizard’s robes and cut through them where the spear had failed.

Desh Krohan let out a yell and backed away, looking at the axe. Andover did not wait. He came in hard and fast and used his body mass to knock the man sideways. Before Desh could recover, the axe was whistling down at his head.

Desh reached out with his hand and caught the edge of the blade. The obsidian blade sliced into meat and through bone, taking Desh Krohan’s fingers.

The wizard fell back, bleeding freely from his wounds. Tega let out a yelp of dismay and Desh Krohan stepped back again and this time he nodded.

The obsidian axe exploded. Had Andover not had the weapon behind him it would have surely killed him, but instead it only tore muscles away from his right leg.

The pain hammered at Andover. Chunks of the obsidian blade now shivered in the muscles of his thigh and brought about exquisite agonies.

Desh Krohan held his wounded hand and stared at Andover. Andover in turn pulled the largest pieces of the axe from his leg. Had he had hands of flesh he would surely have lost the one holding his weapon. Even now his fingers screamed and his palm ached and his wrist felt like it was broken. It was not. He tested that theory before he moved forward.

The sorcerer waited for him and Andover reached out, planning to throw the man to the ground.

Instead it was he who was thrown. Whatever the man did, it knocked Andover back a dozen feet and left his body twitching.

He looked at the sorcerer with an effort. Desh Krohan stood in the same spot and slowly raised his good hand, letting the other bleed. The flow of blood was weakened, but not gone. Andover didn’t think it was blood loss alone. The man was healing himself somehow.

Iron fingers clutched at the dirt and he made a fist.

As Andover rose he sighted and as he stood he aimed. A moment later he was hopping toward the sorcerer and the man was preparing. He had cost Desh Krohan fingers; he suspected he would not be long for this world if he did not win quickly.

The dirt hit the sorcerer. It slipped under the cowl covering his features. Desh Krohan stepped back and shook his head, momentarily blinded with any luck, and Andover charged. His leg was weak but holding him. His fist went into the cowl and struck flesh and bone.

At the exact same moment, the wizard slapped him in the chest. Andover flew backward, his eyes blinded, his ears ringing with a deafening peal, and he did his best to roll as he smashed into the ground and bounced all the way to the distant wall.

His muscles did not want to respond, but he still managed to reach his hands and knees.

Andover blinked furiously as a great blue veil of afterimage covered his vision. There was sight, but it was blurred.

He managed to stand, but only with a great deal of effort.

“Easy, Iron Hands. Easy. You’ve won.”

Andover recognized the voice of Tarag Paedori and slumped a bit.

He was doing his best, but the pain was overwhelming.

His eyes finally focused enough to let him see Desh Krohan lying on the ground. The man was breathing, but he was not moving much beyond his chest.

Tega and the Sisters moved to him, surrounding him.

“Get me metal! Iron Hands needs aid.”

“Is this a victory? Or is this a draw?” Tarag cried. “Neither of our champions can fight any longer.” He looked toward Nachia Krous as she called from her side of the courtyard.

Andover spat blood that tasted wrong in his mouth. He worked hard to form the words as he forced himself to stand. “I am not dead and I can stand.” He was shaking as he reached for another spear. “If needs be, I can still kill your sorcerer. Do you want that, Empress Krous?”

To make his point clear he walked toward the downed sorcerer. All around him the Fellein looked on, genuinely horrified. The Sa’ba Taalor remained calm, waiting to see the outcome of Andover’s words.

His skin was black in places. He was burned and very badly, he knew that. It was not the fire of the Forges. That would have caused him no injury. It was the fire of the storms. The light striking his chest had been lightning. The roar had been thunder. He looked at the iron hand that held his spear. It was smoking. The metal was scorched but seemed unharmed.

Tega looked up at him and pulled Desh Krohan’s broken face into her lap, using her body to protect him. Andover did not look her way.

“I do not want to do this, Empress! I have a great fondness for Desh Krohan, but you have made him your champion. Do you accept defeat or do I kill him?”

He walked on, ignoring the parts of him that howled for his attention. It was only pain and life was pain.

No one spoke. Not from either side, but Tega sobbed softly and broke Andover’s heart again.

“Please, Empress. Do not make me kill this man.”

He raised the spear, prepared to bring down a deathblow.

Tega looked at him with wet eyes and shook her head.

Nachia Krous, Empress of Fellein, looked at the sorcerer on the ground and then looked at Andover Lashk.

“Fellein yields.”

Andover nodded and dropped his spear. The war was over.

Tarag Paedori nodded and three of the Sa’ba Taalor moved to Andover’s side. The clothes were carefully peeled from the vast, blistered marks on his body.

Had he not seen it himself, the King in Iron would have denied the possibility. The man had been struck by lightning and thrown across the field of battle. His skin was blistered in a hundred places and a blackened handprint adorned his chest where the sorcerer had touched him and cast electricity through his body.

Tarag had watched, had seen the lightning arc through him. He had seen the boy fall and expected him to be dead. And then Andover Iron Hands had worked his way to his feet.

Burnt, bleeding, injured inside and out, the champion of the Daxar Taalor had managed the impossible and taken down the Fellein’s sorcerer.

He watched as metal was used to heal a dozen life-threatening wounds.

He watched and felt the gods reach down and touch Andover Iron Hands, healing his vast injuries.

Then Truska-Pren spoke into him. The god said, IT IS TIME. I WOULD BE REBORN.

Tarag Paedori nodded and looked toward the city of Goltha.

The city would burn. The world would understand the power of the Sa’ba Taalor.

He felt the power roaring up inside him as he stared at the ground just above the city.

Truska-Pren would rise. The great towers and walls of Prydiria, the Iron Fortress, would be his once more.

“So let it be done.”

Tarag Paedori looked across the lake.

Drask Silver Hand looked at Tarag Paedori.

Not far away, lost in the crowd of the Fellein, Cullen let out a whimper and fell to her knees on the stones of the courtyard.

Desh Krohan did not miss much. He did not miss the fist that moved under his cowl and broke his nose, his jaw, his left cheekbone and eye socket and seven teeth. Iron Hands. Iron fist, more like. He may as well have been struck in the face with a mace. A few seconds after that he missed completely, as he was knocked into a stupor by Andover Iron Hands.

He should have still been in that state. His face had been shattered, his fingers cut off and he was suffering from massive blood loss. He’d also just used lightning on another person and that was draining beyond most people’s comprehension.

His head rested in Tega’s lap. He felt the power she was using to mend him even as she cried over him and half-shielded him from Andover’s view.

Andover, the poor bastard, looked as bad as he felt.

And then he was healed and Nachia was conceding her Empire to spare him his life.

Then the power in the area shifted. When Tarag Paedori had made his move before and driven his sword into the ground there had been no perception of power. That was because, as Desh had recently learned, the power had not come from the King in Iron but from Tuskandru.

This time the sensation was entirely different. Every one of the Sisters, Tega and likely every sorcerer in the city felt the power that moved through the King in Iron.

The Sooth had power. No two ways about that. Even contacting the Sooth took a great deal of power and preparation. Dealing with the Sooth was like trying to stand in a fastmoving river while juggling a dozen rocks and singing drunken songs at the loudest tavern ever built. It was noisy, draining, and required incredible self-control. The smallest mishap could cause injuries and true mistakes sometimes led to death.

The force that moved past all of them made the power of the Sooth seem like a candle next to the sun.

All of them were moved by it. The Sa’ba Taalor looked to their King in Iron and roared Truska-Pren’s name. The Fellein stood their ground but blinked and paused as if a great wind had cut across their path unexpectedly. The Sisters and Desh shuddered as the power moved past.

Tega did not shudder. She looked toward Drask Silver Hand.

Drask looked to Cullen and nodded. Desh was aware of all of that simply because he had trained himself to be aware.

He heard Drask Silver Hand’s words. “Now. It is now or not at all.”

Tega closed her eyes and something vast jumped like a bolt of lightning from her to Cullen.

Cullen jerked and seized and fell jittering to the ground. Desh sat up immediately and felt the world tilt madly as he looked at the young guardian of the Mother-Vine.

Drask Silver Hand stepped past him and reached for the cloaked shape of Nolan March. He did not ask. He took.

Desh could feel the power rise from the boy and get drawn into Drask Silver Hand.

He dared look at the man and wished that he had not. Most of the people around him were looking to the east, where the ground shook and started to break above the city of Goltha.

Desh did not. He looked to the man with the silver arm who wrested a power greater than any Desh had ever seen from a simpleton who fell screaming to his knees.

Whatever that power was, it seethed and whipped around that metallic arm. And then Drask Silver Hand released it. The energies he had stolen bullwhipped around him and then ripped across the air toward where the last wave of energy had left Tarag Paedori.

The King in Iron roared and charged for Drask.

The ground settled and stilled near the city of Goltha.

Cullen screamed again and fell motionless.

Desh fell back, his senses nearly blinded by everything happening around him.

There was nothing to see. Callan was sure of that, but still he looked. His senses were drawn to the far side of the lake and to Goltha. He could not have said why in a thousand years, but he was compelled to look.

There was nothing else to do, really. He had stopped trying to fight the Sa’ba Taalor when they stabbed him in his side.

He’d patched himself fairly well and then settled back against the Mid Wall to either live or die as the gods might decide. He was never a soldier, not like the Fellein or the gray-skins. He was a captain who liked to make money by moving people and things from one place to another. He was a man who liked an occasional woman. What he was not was a fighter. He would rather couple than kill and that was all there was to it.

Se he decided to sit this one out and he was staring at Goltha when the first Thing happened.

Never much of a man for words, that was his phrase when the disasters hit. They were Things.

The storm that sank his father’s fishing boat? It was a Thing. The Sa’ba Taalor taking Tyrne? Another Thing.

He felt the power tear across the lake. He even saw it. The waters slashed apart from each other in a vast wave, as if a ship of truly impossible size were cutting the lake in half to reach a new destination. There was no impact when that trail hit the land, but only seconds later the land above Goltha began to bulge and become a Thing. He did not know what would occur next but he could guess. There would be fire soon and it would burn the lungs right out of him even from across the lake.

Then it happened again. The lake shivered and whatever it was that moved across the water skittered and danced like a snake just under the surface. The waters ripped and rippled, danced and twisted, and any poor fool who was out on a boat would surely have been sunk as easily as the black ships of the Sa’ba Taalor. The water and the Thing hit them at the same time and they shattered. That was the only word to describe it. Wood bulged and popped and flew apart.

That one actually moved his hair and Callan winced at the feeling that ran through his body. It wasn’t uncomfortable so much as it was damned BIG.

A moment later the ground beyond Goltha stopped bulging.

And then the air above Goltha screamed.

The city itself did not escape. Whatever was up there, whatever it might be that fought, it shattered several of the taller buildings as easily as the ships. The stone blew outward and some of it even melted. He was looking right at the stuff and though it was very far away he saw light flaring on stone and then stone spilling out in a cascade that looked like burning water.

Callan stayed exactly where he was and wished he had a bottle of wine.

Whatever it was that moved over the city, he could see it if he squinted. There were two Things and they warred and he suspected they planned for death.

Cullen wept.

The pain was gone. Whatever had been inside her was gone and the lack of pain alone was enough to make her feel empty and cored out.

There was nothing left of her. Her muscles felt as if they’d been flattened in her body and she could barely breathe.

Deltrea squatted next to her.

“Come on, Cullen! It’s time!”

“Time for what?”

“For whatever is going to happen. You aren’t supposed to stay here. You’re supposed to join with that thing.”

“How the hell would you know that?” She sounded petulant even to herself. She was not speaking out loud this time. She couldn’t. Her jaw refused to work. There were people around her now, looking down and stepping back, horrified by whatever they saw.

Deltrea reached out for her and hauled on her arm. Cullen moaned as she was lifted into a sitting position.

“Come on, Cullen!”

“How are you holding me?” Even through her pain she knew that should have been impossible.

“Shut up, and come with me you fool or it’s all for nothing!” Deltrea was smiling, which made as little sense as everything else.

Cullen looked to the east and heard the sounds of battle. Something roared and something else screamed and when she looked there were shapes up there, vast as the heavens, and fighting. Most of the fools around her were looking at her and ignoring the spectacle across the skies and over the lake and moving north at a frightening pace and–

“MOVE!”

Deltrea pulled at her and something tore and the next thing Cullen knew the world was spinning.

“The Mother-Vine needs you. You’re a part of her now. She’s got to win this and she can’t do it without you.”

The pain was gone and Deltrea’s words sank into her. As she moved, she recognized the shape of the Mother-Vine for what it was: an endless expanse of tendrils offering life and protection. It was not real. There was no mass, but that was the shape just the same as it writhed across the skies and slashed at the hard lines and angles of the nightmare trying to crush the Mother-Vine once and for all.

Madness, of course, except that there was another presence with her, distant and dying, an ember that had once been the mate of the First Advisor.

That ember glowed brightly one last time and urged Cullen on without words.

The Mother-Vine was not dead, not even dying, but she would be soon without Cullen. There was no question of this in her mind, no doubt about the validity of the notion, and no time to consider in any event.

“Now, Cullen! Now!” Deltrea’s voice rang in her mind and she nodded, annoyed and grateful to her friend at the same time.

Cullen reached out and touched the Mother-Vine, uncertain how she could move so far, so fast, or how she’d learned to fly.

Far below, the crowd looked on as a few people tried to revive the body of a girl who’d fled Trecharch when the dead walked and the Sa’ba Taalor killed all on their path.

Their efforts were wasted. There was nothing left but flesh and meat.

“Do they honor the pact?”

Jost stood next to Swech and looked on as the Fellein stood around.

“I cannot say.”

Swech tried to speak to Paedle. The instructions were simple. If the Empress did not yield, the Empress died.

Jost looked on, trying to comprehend what was happening. Andover Iron Hands had won, they knew that.

He had taken down the sorcerer and let him live. Then he had fallen, and then Truska-Pren moved through Tarag Paedori.

All made perfect sense until that moment.

It was easy to discern what was supposed to happen. The great mountain would rise and the glory of the Seven Forges would be seen by everyone.

And then the King in Iron charged at Drask Silver Hand.

Drask turned toward the King in Iron and defended himself, stepping past the boy on the ground before him. Tarag grabbed and Drask moved and Swech could have easily predicted what happened next.

Tarag Paedori smashed into the ground and came to a rolling stop. He was not injured but his pride likely hurt.

“You betray us!” Tarag stormed toward Drask again.

Drask shook his head. “Your god would see us all burned for winning the day, Tarag Paedori. I merely defended myself and everyone here.”

Swech shook her head. She could understand nothing that Drask had done.

“You betray the gods, Drask Silver Hand! Face me!”

“I have not moved, Tarag.” The man’s voice was filled with regret. “You have won your victory today. The Empire is yours and belongs to your gods. Let this be enough.”

The larger man shook his head and moved closer again and the gathering of Fellein around them wisely moved out of the way.

Swech called to Paedle, seeking guidance. But there was no sound, no voice to guide her and she felt afraid for the first time in her life.

She reached further, called to the other gods and once again received only silence as an answer.

“Where are they?” Swech was unaware that she was even speaking aloud.

“Where are who?” Jost frowned and looked her way.

“Where are the gods? Why don’t they answer?”

The look on Jost’s face a second later told her all she needed to know. Her young friend was hearing nothing but silence as well.

The battle ended.

The raging energies of Truska-Pren and the Mother-Vine crashed to the earth, and the ground where they struck shattered.

The burned ruins of Trecharch bulged, and seconds later Truska-Pren rose from the ground, the vast black mountain reborn in only seconds. The explosion blew down the ruined trees and shook the air for a hundred miles. The heat blasting down from the mountain would have burned away anything in its path, and the cloud of smoke that rose into the skies was as black as the space between the stars.

Where normally the Sa’ba Taalor would have been howling their approval to the gods, instead they stared around, stunned by a silence they had never heard in their lives before.

The Daxar Taalor were silent.

Beyond the reach of Truska-Pren the Blasted Lands grew quiet as the storms there faded again. From the depths of the mounds the ground shook and split, and what remained of the vast stone monoliths collapsed.

Tarag Paedori stood facing Drask Silver Hand and shook his head. “What madness is this?”

Drask’s eyes narrowed. “I do not know what you mean?”

“Where are the Daxar Taalor? Where are the gods?” Tarag Paedori’s voice shook with suppressed rage and he took a long, menacing step toward Drask.

“Where they have always been. I hear them calling for you. Why do you not answer?”

“Liar!” Tarag came toward him another step and Drask stood his ground, rolling his shoulders and preparing for the fight he knew would happen.

“I have never lied to you, Tarag. You know this. You have only to open your mind to the gods and you will hear them as I do.”

“It is not just me!” Tarag’s voice was filled with grief like a blade that cut his soul in half. “Who among you can hear the gods?” He looked to his own people and heard no one say anything positive. Most were only just now trying to find the gods and failing to hear a response.

Drask shook his head. “Truska-Pren wants to speak with you. He calls your name, King in Iron.”

Tarag looked around with desperation in his gaze. This was an impossibility.

Andover Iron Hands, only recently healed, nodded his head. “I can hear him, Tarag Paedori. I hear his call. He wants you to come to him.”

“I’ll kill you for this!” The challenge was offered to Drask.

It was not merely a threat. His honor was on the line, his faith in the gods was on the line. He heard the gods, heard them calling and refused to accept the madness of a foolish man who had suddenly gone deaf. “You have challenged me, Tarag Paedori and I accept your challenge! Face me!”

Drask moved, sliding effortlessly to the wall of the courtyard and entering it.

The King in Iron came his way, hurdling the wall with ease. He grabbed a sword as he moved.

Drask chose instead to use the bullwhip he carried coiled around his waist. The king charged and Drask moved aside, backing away hastily. He could have killed Tarag with a glance. The power he’d absorbed was still there. That was why he took the well of energies from Nolan.

A second charge and Drask ducked under the swing, stepping in fast and driving his elbow into the King in Iron’s ribs. He felt bones snap. The king paid them no heed and drove himself against Drask before he could catch his balance. The sword came down again and Drask caught it with his silver hand, gripping the blade tight and pushing.

The blade shattered in his grip.

Tarag drove his forehead into Drask’s face and knocked him sprawling.

A moment later the broken sword was coming for him and Drask rolled, hissing as the jagged metal cut a line of blood across his side and back.

“What have you done to me?” Tarag’s voice broke with raw emotion and Drask, on the ground below him, swept the king’s leg and knocked him down. The fingers of his silver hand caught in the king’s hair and he yanked the man closer, even as he wrapped his legs into the king’s own legs and bent his body and crushed.

The sound of Tarag Paedori’s thigh breaking was a sound he would never forget. It hurt him deeply to cause a man he considered a friend pain, and yet as always he did what he felt he had to do.

“Yield, King in Iron. Accept defeat and go home to your god.” He leaned in closer and pressed his elbow against the king’s neck and jaw. They both knew that he could shatter the man’s skull if he applied enough pressure. They also both knew he was capable of it.

“There is no dishonor here. The gods cannot reach you and I have not been fighting for endless hours. Go home. Go to Truska-Pren and find out why he has been silenced. Let him heal you, Tarag Paedori. I will make certain no one brings you harm.”

The king trembled. It could have been rage, or fear or simple exhaustion. “I yield. This day, I yield. The battle is over, if not the war.”

“No. This war is finished. You have yielded to me.”

Drask rolled off the other man and made himself stand. “The King in Iron yields! Go home to your gods and find your way back into their graces!”

There was anger on the faces of the Sa’ba Taalor. There was also fear. An army that had true faith in their gods might be unstoppable, but that faith had been ruined, at least for the moment.

It took hours, but the Sa’ba Taalor left. Most of them at any rate. There were several of the children of the Daxar Taalor who were still hidden in the flesh of the Fellein. None of them left. Through one means or another the rest made their way across Gerhaim heading in several different directions.

They abandoned Canhoon, heading for the homes of the Daxar Taalor.

Drask and the Silent Army watched them leave.

Sixteen

In the far distant remains of the Blasted Lands the ground shivered in a thousand places. At the heart of the place once called the Mounds the great vine pushed itself from the ground and began spreading far and wide. It rose into the air and spread itself like a dozen arms reaching for the horizon. As it spread, the ground beneath it offered up trees and shrubs and deep, green grasses.

Deep within the center of that great vine, Cullen moved and sighed and stretched herself.

The Mother-Vine was renewed. That was all she could hope for.

Deltrea’s voice spoke to her softly. “That wasn’t so horrid, was it?”

“By all the gods, Deltrea? Why are you still here?” She spoke with no mouth and was not the least concerned by that fact.

“I have no idea. But here I am and here I’m staying.”

The notion of eternity was not particularly pleasant at that moment.

Nachia Krous stared out from her window and shook her head. “What exactly happened?”

Desh Krohan rubbed at his jaw and mirrored her headshake. “No bloody idea.” He raised his hands in mock surrender when she looked his way. “I could not hope to be more serious.”

Drask Silver Hand moved into the room. He did not knock.

Nachia frowned. “I’m not sure how this works. Their champion rose and beat my champion. I accepted defeat and offered up my Empire and then you came along and defeated them.”

“If I had any desire to rule an empire, I would have the right to yours.”

Desh looked his way. “Would you?”

“Nachia’s Empire was technically in the hands of Tarag Paedori as the head of the Daxar Taalor’s armies. When she conceded, the Empire was his to claim in the name of the gods. I defeated him in honorable combat. I could claim your Empire as my reward.”

“Why not claim his kingdom?” Nachia looked at the gray-skinned man dubiously.

“The gods choose who is king. I am not currently in their favor.”

“So what would you do with this Empire if you had it?”

Drask shook his head. “Leave you as my regent and leave. I have many things to consider.” He looked them both over. “You are either the Empress or the regent to the Emperor. Either way, you will likely see me again.”

Drask left the room that easily and the two of them looked after him.

“I don’t suppose you could just turn him into ashes.”

“No, Nachia. Don’t even jest.” He worked his jaw and heard several light crackles.

“How do you feel?”

“Humiliated. I was punished by a boy.”

“And you were cheating.”

“I was not!”

“He dropped you without benefit of sorcery.”

“He has iron hands!”

“You wear robes that can stop a dozen arrows. You were beaten by a boy who was smart enough to figure out your weaknesses.”

“What happens now?” Desh liked a good jest but there wasn’t time. There was never time. After centuries he was beginning to understand that notion.

The war was over. Nachia was Empress. They had to do better when the next challenge came around.

“We need to rebuild our armies. We need to find a way to speak properly with the Silent Army. They have not yet gone to rest and they might know something we do not.”

“They were ruined. You understand that don’t you? They were broken and defeated and I still don’t understand how.”

“The Daxar Taalor and their chosen.” Nachia shook her head. “I have never seen more brutal soldiers. They are relentless. You saw Andover! You ruined his leg with your sorcery. You burned him alive, and he kept coming.”

“I truly hope he doesn’t hold a grudge.” Desh was looking down at the courtyard where the fight had taken place. Andover Lashk was down there. He knew it. He didn’t have to guess. Merros Dulver had told him as much.

Nachia nodded her head and moved closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder for a moment. “I have never been this tired, Desh.”

“So sleep for a while. I will be here waiting.”

The Empress of Fellein, or regent, depending, nodded her head and moved to the antechamber where she had a small bed concealed. Now and then rest was a beautiful thing.

Merros Dulver looked at Andover Lashk and headed his way, carrying two Pabba fruit and a knife.

The young man looked him over, read his posture and assessed the contents of his hand with a glance.

One quick stroke of the knife opened the hard rind of the fruit. A second slice and the other was opened. Merros offered both to Andover and let the lad pick. As soon as he had made his choice Merros peeled the rind back and took a bite of his prize. The best way to make the lad comfortable was to show that he meant no harm.

“I’m surprised you don’t have me in leg irons.”

“Personally, I don’t feel like losing that many soldiers today. We’ve had enough injuries of late.”

Andover meticulously pulled away the rind and then tore segments from the sweet Pabba. Watching him eat was unsettling and fascinating at once.

“You are staring.”

“I’m sure you did the same when you got those… things on your jaw.”

“They are marks from the gods.”

“Do you still hear them? Your gods?”

“Yes,” Andover nodded. “They still speak to me.”

“What do they say?”

“I can come home to them or stay here as their… ambassador.”

“Do they wish to sue for peace?”

Andover shook his head. “No. They are gods of war. They will never sue for peace. They will simply bide their time.”

“And do you think we should accept you as their ambassador?”

“Honestly? I still don’t really know what an ambassador does.”

Merros chuckled. “From what I’ve seen they mostly sit on well-padded seats, eat food and flirt with the Empress.”

“That is hardly the life I was planning to live.”

“You could work a forge. I’ve seen your work.”

Andover shook his head.

“Then how about this? How about you work with me to train the Fellein Army?”

“How’s that?”

“By all the gods, lad, you took down Desh Krohan. You knocked the greatest wizard of the lands down a few pegs.”

“He did not want to kill me any more than I wanted to kill him.” That said, more of the fruit went into his mouths and Merros forced himself not to stare.

“Maybe. But he would have.”

“He very nearly did.”

“Help me train the troops. They will follow your commands.”

Andover nodded. “Until one tries to kill me.”

Merros grinned and pulled a slice of his own fruit free. “Then you get to keep your senses sharp. Stay more alert than I did when I went into the Blasted Lands.”

Andover closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. “For now I will stay. It is what the gods want and what you want.”

“Excellent. I expect honesty from you, Andover. A vow not to kill anyone here without a fair and proper warning, regardless of what the gods will say.”

Andover looked at him for a long moment and sighed. “You have been talking to Drask Silver Hand.”

“Drask and I respect each other. I would have the same sort of respect with you, Andover.”

“Done.” He shrugged. “I will not betray the kings or the Daxar Taalor. But I will offer you this. If I am ever told to kill anyone, I will leave the city for two days first.”

“What good will that do?”

“Do not insult me, General Dulver. You have had people watching me since the Sa’ba Taalor left.”

True enough and he couldn’t argue the point.

Merros nodded. “We will work out the details soon. In the meantime you may stay in my chambers until we work out the final details.”

“Where will you be?”

Merros tried to smile and looked away. “I lost someone to the war. I will go to her home and find a way to say goodbye to her.”

Andover looked at him and nodded. “I have lost someone as well. I wish you the best at finding peace.”

Merros moved away and left his last thoughts unuttered. There is no time for peace, even after war. There is only time to prepare again. His people had forgotten that for a very long time and it had cost them almost everything.

It wasn’t a lesson he intended to forget a second time.

Tataya was the one who found Captain Callan’s body. First she called the Sisters to her and then she called on Darsken Murdro.

“How do you suppose he died, Darsken?”

The Inquisitor looked at the dead man and shook his head. “He died at sea, fighting the Sa’ba Taalor. He died as he was meant to die, as a hero.”

“How do you know these things, Inquisitor?” Pella’s voice was soft and low and lovely. Her eyes looked into his and he smiled, content to know that he could drown in her eyes as easily as any of the Sisters. They could enchant a soul with ease and chose to leave his alone.

“When he died he drove his ship to Louron.” He shrugged. “Sometimes the spirits find their way to us and we do what we can.”

“Did he know he was dead?”

“He did not. He had a small seed of talent. His anger was so great that he dragged the spirits of the dead with him. So, of course, we did what we had to, to help him. In another life he might have been a sorcerer. Instead he took to the seas and had his fun and games dodging the military and the City Guard.”

Callan’s skin was cold, but surprisingly well preserved all things considered.

Tataya almost asked, but before she could Darsken answered her. “It’s the waters. They are very cold and hold off decay. Now that he is here, on the land, the rotting begins.” He looked down at the man and shook his head. “A pity. I liked him.”

“I remember you yelling at him very clearly.”

“I had hoped to convince him to try a different career.”

“Apparently soldier was not the right choice, either.” Tataya’s voice was touched by sorrow and she touched the captain’s face.

Goriah’s voice was soft and cold, “Was it you, Darsken?”

“Was what me?”

“Did you silence the gods?”

“Who am I to silence gods?”

“There are many tales of what the Louron can do.”

“Do any of those tales speak of silencing gods?”

“Well, no, but it was not us.”

“Had I that ability I would have used it long ago. The Louron do not believe in gods, after all, and having them silenced would work to our benefit.” Darsken rolled his shoulders. “We can call this one a war hero and give him a proper ceremony. He and his crew killed several of the enemy and foundered their ships. Besides which, he was a good man. I will send the City Guard to claim him before the birds can feast.”

The Sisters nodded as one and moved with him. Darsken did not mind the company.

Not far away a member of the Silent Army looked out at the waters, guarding against whatever might come.

They were all disheartened. They were all, to the last, broken. They could not speak to their gods and that was as great a sin as if they’d had their ears ruined and their eyes cut out.

Still, the Sa’ba Taalor were fighters. They moved across Fellein using whatever methods were available to them. Many walked, others ran. Some cut down trees and took to the waters, building small vessels to let them find their way to Wheklam. There were a lot of small boats and more stolen along the way.

Tuskandru found his way home easily enough. He killed any of the Fellein who crossed his path on the trip and he took the time, now that the war was at least halted, to get to know Stastha better. They lost themselves in their lust and it eased the pain of their broken contact with the gods. At least for a while they could connect with each other. Also, his second seemed determined to break some kind of personal record. Who was he to argue?

Every king made it back home. The first of them was Swech, who rode Saa’thaa to the mountain where Morwhen no longer stood as if her very life depended on her being first. In some ways it did.

She followed the rules, of course, and made her way to the heart of the mountain, crawling and climbing as was needed.

Through the Thousand Veils of Paedle she worked her way until, finally, she stood at the heart of the mountain, naked and afraid.

“Where are you, Paedle? Why can I not hear you any longer?” The stone beneath her bare feet surged with warmth and she heard the voice of her god.

I AM HERE SWECH, I HAVE NEVER LEFT YOU.

She wept and dropped to the ground, pressing her face to the warmth of the volcanic heat below her. “I have been so alone, so very alone.” She wept. They were tears of joy at finding her world was not destroyed irreparably.

THE DAXAR TAALOR LOVE YOU AS THEY HAVE SELDOM LOVED ANY OF THEIR CHILDREN. THAT IS WHY WE HAVE GIFTED YOU SO MANY TIMES.

She nodded, feeling the love of the gods and returning it.

“I thought you would make me kill him. I would do it, you know. If you asked, but I am grateful that you did not.”

HE IS AS SPECIAL TO US AS HE IS TO YOU. MERROS DULVER HAS NOT YET COMPLETED HIS TASKS FOR THE DAXAR TAALOR. Swech felt the warmth move over her and concentrate on her belly, where the life within her continued to grow, a sign that she and Merros were meant for different things.

IT IS NOT MERROS DULVER’S TIME AND IT IS NOT YOUR TIME. YOU HAVE MANY THINGS TO ACCOMPLISH IN OUR NAMES.

Swech rolled over and looked up at the stone ceiling above her. At a distance she could see the opening to the heavens and the Great Star above her. For the moment she was content in the love of her gods and in the knowledge that they loved her still, despite her flaws.

Her hand rested where the baby stirred inside her, growing slowly.

It was enough. For now, it was enough.

The Pilgrim listened to the words of Empress Nachia Krous and ignored them. Rebuilding themselves from the ground was easy enough. The giggling man, Nolan March, had found him and asked a simple question of him. He had asked if the Pilgrim could make the Sa’ba Taalor suffer.

After consulting with the gods, he had said yes.

The idiot godling fed power into the Pilgrim and the Pilgrim shared that power, bringing back the defeated Silent Army and then striking in a way the Sa’ba Taalor could never have expected.

The Silent Army could not silence gods, but they came close. They deafened the followers of the gods. In time the effect would wear off. Eventually the Sa’ba Taalor would reach their gods and the connections would be reestablished. Until then the enemy fled, uncertain how to react when they could no longer hear their gods.

It was a simple trick, really, but one with heart-wrenching implications. The Pilgrim and his faithful devotees would have been just as lost if their gods stopped speaking to them.

Drask took little with him. He had little to take. His weapons stayed with Brackka and so they came along. Just to his side Tega rode in comfortable silence and Nolan March held onto her as he always did.

He did not know how Nolan had silenced the gods. He did not care. The lad had ended the war and that was enough.

“Why do you suppose he silenced the gods?” Tega was looking at Nolan as she asked.

“Perhaps they offended him when they killed his mother.”

“Did they kill her, truly?”

“Swech did as she was told. She is no more responsible than a sword blade.”

“Are you a sword in the hands of your gods?”

“I am not Swech. Her faith has always been greater than mine.” He paused a moment. “Are you certain you want to come along?”

“I cannot stay here, Drask. Desh will ask too many questions and I must have my time away from him before he learns what I did.”

Drask nodded. Tega climbed atop the saddle and looked around as her mount purred.

“Where are we going, Drask?”

“Wherever you would like.”

“You have no destinations in mind?”

“I have not read a thousand books telling me of the past. I have only lived in the now. The past is as good a place to look as any, but you are the one who knows where wonders might be hidden.”

“Perhaps across the sea.”

Drask nodded. “Wherever you like. For now we can see the world and later we can consider what the world is trying to tell us.”

“Can you still hear your gods?”

Drask nodded. “They are angry with me.” He tilted his head a bit. “They are also weak at the moment. Now is a good time to leave, before they grow strong again.”

Nolan chuckled to himself as they started off. Sometimes Drask suspected that the boy knew more than he showed. On other occasions, he was certain of it.

The World of Seven Forges Continues in

The Tides of War Book I

The Last Sacrifice

One

Four Coins

Home.

Was there ever a finer word?

Brogan McTyre and his cohorts had spent the last eight weeks riding along the Hollum trails and the plains of Arthorne, serving as guards and guides alike to the merchant trains. It was hard work, and it was unfulfilling, but it put enough coin in their purses to keep them through the worst of the winters.

Now, after two months’ travel, they were heading back to where they all wanted to be – except for Harper, who was seemed perfectly content wherever he settled. Back to their homes.

The leaves had started their slow burn, and to counteract the oranges and yellows that imitated a hearth’s fire, the air had grown cold, and frost covered the ground every morning.

That meant the air was chilled enough that every breath offered a gust of steam into the air and every intake sapped just a touch of the internal heat.

Still, they were heading home.

The Broken Swords were behind them. According the legends Brogan’s father had told him when he was a lad, the collection of mountains hid the remains of old giants, and the gigantic spears of crystal that thrust from the earth and stone of the area were supposed to be fragments of the giants’ swords.

He didn’t believe the tales, but he remembered them fondly and had shared them with his own children more than once.

A smile crept across his face as Brogan thought of his little ones. Braghe was his pride, of course, a hearty lad who at only five years was already an adventurer and constantly getting into battles with whatever monsters his imagination could summon. His daughters, the twins, were as lovely as their mother and happily too young for him to worry yet about the sort of lads who thought as he had before he married. Leidhe and Sherla were eight, and their hair was spun from the same fire as his. They had his locks and their mother’s looks. A combination that would doubtless cause him plenty of grief, as they became young women. Also like their mother, they were fighters. When they weren’t trying to be prim and proper they were out fighting imaginary beasties with Braghe.

Much to their mother’s chagrin, they were seldom prim and proper.

His smile grew broader as he thought of their mother. Nora was reason enough to come home and the thought of being with her again took a great deal of chill from the morning.

“You’re thinking of your woman again, aren’t you?” Harper’s voice cut through his thoughts and he looked toward his lifelong friend. Harper was the only man he knew who looked as comfortable on a saddle as he did on the ground. There was something of a cat about the man. He seemed perfectly relaxed all the time, until you looked at his eyes. They were always moving, roaming even when his body seemed incapable of doing more than stretching lazily.

“Why do you say that?” The thing with having Harper as a friend was you never knew when he was going to tease ruthlessly or try to provoke a fight. He looked calm but that meant nothing.

“Because you’ve got that dreamy smile on your face again. You only ever get that smile when you’ve just been laid or when you’re thinking about Nora.”

“How would you know how I look when I’ve just had sex?”

“Because I’ve seen you after you get home to Nora as well as when you’re thinking about getting home to her.”

Brogan shook his head and smiled. If nothing else he could always trust Harper to observe the world around him very well.

“What are your plans for the winter, Harper?”

“I’ll be finding a place to stay and a woman to keep me warm, I suppose.”

That was always Harper’s plan for the future. It was as reliable an answer as could be found in the Five Kingdoms.

Up ahead of them Mosely was rounding the final curve in the road leading to Kinnett. Not far from him stood Volkner, who owned the homestead nearest Brogan’s.

The look on Volkner’s face when he saw Brogan was enough to cause the first panic to set in.

Brogan urged his horse forward and kept his eyes locked on his neighbor, a dread sinking into his stomach that was deep and abiding.

Mosely looked back over his shoulder as Brogan rode forward.

Volkner’s dark eyes were wide and filled with sorrow. “Brogan, lad, I’m so very sorry. We’ve been trying to reach you. I sent Tamra to find which path you were on. He must have chosen badly.”

“What is it, Volkner?” His voice shook.

There are rules all people follow. Most of those rules are made by kings.

Volkner’s hands were empty.

“There are coins, Brogan. At your door. Four of them.”

“Coins?” Brogan frowned and shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

Volkner spoke again, carefully, with great emphasis, his eyes blinking wetly as he made sure Brogan was listening. “Coins, Brogan. There are coins at your doorstep. Four of them.”

“No.” Brogan could barely speak.

Harper came up from behind, his voice calm and cold. “Are you sure, Volkner?”

The older man looked to Harper and a faint contempt painted his broad features. “Oh, I’ve seen them before, Harper. Not as many as you, perhaps, but I’ve seen them.”

Brogan’s ears rang with a high, sweet note that tried to seal all other sounds away. “Have you looked in the house?”

“It’s forbidden, Brogan. You know that.” There was regret in the words.

“How long ago?” Harper again, asking the questions that Brogan would have asked if his heart wasn't trying to break.

Volkner shook his head and spread his arms in a gesture of his sadness and frustration. “Five days since that I know of. I visited two days before that and all was well.”

“Five days?” The winter grew in his chest.

Without another word Brogan drove his horse forward, brushing past all of them on his way home. The gelding charged hard and the familiar landscape nearly blurred but it was not fast enough.

His dismount was more of a leap than a proper climb from the saddle. Brogan only took five strides toward the door before he saw them.

He had heard of the coins before. Had seen one as a child, but only the one and he had never touched the thing.

That they were valuable was impossible to deny. Brogan could see the weight of them where they lay on the ground in front of his home. They were large and heavy and worth far more than he’d made in the last few weeks of travel. He stepped over them and opened the door, calling out to Nora and each of his children as he entered.

It was a good place. He’d built it himself with the help of Harper and others. The people around him had helped as he had aided them when the time came. The town was good that way. He left Kinnett and knew that all was well with his wife and children, and that people as good and solid as Volkner were always there.

But the coins were different, weren’t they?

No one answered his calls.

No one was home. He’d known they wouldn’t be. There were four coins, one for each of his children and one for his wife.

When they came, when they took from a family, they always left one coin behind for each person they stole away.

One coin for each and every sacrifice.

“No.”

He backed away from the door and shook his head, that feeling of dread growing more profound.

“No. No. No. Nonononononononono….”

The coins.

He looked to the ground and saw them. Four coins. Just as Volkner had said.

Without thinking about the possibilities, he reached out and touched them. They were weighty, to be sure. The largest gold coins he had ever seen or touched. The metal was as cold as the air, colder, perhaps, as he held them in his hands. They were marked with unfamiliar images and symbols.

As he held them, Harper dismounted and came toward him.

“Brogan….” Had he ever heard so much sorrow in his friend’s voice before? No, surely not. Harper was not a man who held onto his grief. He was gifted that way. When his mother died as a child he’d cried for fifteen minutes and never again that Brogan knew of. When his father grew ill and withered five years later there were no tears at all.

“Harper.” He could barely recognize his own voice. “You know the Grakhul. You’ve dealt with them.”

“Aye.” Harper did not turn away from him, did not flinch, but held his gaze. “What you would do, it’s forbidden. You know this.”

“Four of them, Harper? My entire family?”

“Brogan, it’s the law in all Five Kingdoms. ‘When the Grakhul offer coin it must be taken.’”

“My entire family, Harper.” Brogan’s voice was stronger now. Louder.

“Brogan.”

“My entire family! How many do they take at a time?”

“Four. You know this, too.”

The world did not grow gray, as he feared it might. It grew red.

“How long do they take to offer up their sacrifices?”

“How would I know that, Brogan?”

Part of Brogan knew Harper was trying to make him see reason. But where it mattered, Brogan did not care.

“Is there a chance that my Nora is still alive?”

Harper licked his lips. He looked as nervous as he ever had.

“There is a chance, yes, but it is slim.” Harper held up his hand as Brogan started for his horse. “You don’t know where they are, Brogan.”

“No. I do not.” He looked away from the gelding and toward his friend. “But you do.”

“I cannot. You know this too.”

“My entire family. All of them. Has that ever happened before?”

“No one knows how they make their choices.” Harper shook his head as Brogan started walking again.

“Take me to them. Maybe I can make them change their minds.”

He could see Harper wanting to argue again. He knew his friend well. They had fought side by side on a score of occasions and traveled together long enough that even if they had not grown together in the same town they’d have claimed fellowship.

“I have to try, Harper.” His hands clenched into fists around the four cold, metal coins. They were of a size that his fists could not completely close. “I have to.”

Harper stood completely still for one more moment and then he sighed. “So let’s go see if we can get your family back.”

“I owe you.”

“I’ve owed you for a lifetime.” Harper shook his head and spat. He was not happy. There was nothing to be happy about.

Volkner was coming his way, his ambling stride leaving him swaying one way and then the other. Brogan knew exactly how much the man ached inside for failing to stop Nora and the children from being taken.

“I am so sorry, Brogan.”

“You could not have stopped them.” It was all he could manage as a defense for his friend. It was the truth. No one could stop the Grakhul. They were called by many names, not the least of which was the Undying. Every story of anyone trying to prevent a family member from being taken ended poorly for the would-be saviors.

Brogan climbed back into the saddle and turned toward the Broken Swords. The sun gleamed off the distant shards in a display of colors that was the envy of rainbows, and Brogan did not care in the least.

Somewhere beyond those mountains his family was being dragged to their deaths.

He would save them or he would die trying.

Niall Leraby walked through the woods and let himself commune with the world around him. Not far away he could hear the Weeping River living up to its name, the waters sighing and crying as they pattered over the crystalline rocks and worried their way past the thick roots from the garrah trees that leaned over the river as if to protect their young.

A dozen paces away a doe looked at him and froze, waiting to see what he would do. He nodded in her direction and ignored her otherwise. He loved a good cut of venison, but he wasn't here to hunt for meat. He was looking for the proper herbs to satisfy Mosara’s needs. The master gardener was not a hard man to work for, but he expected nothing less than perfection in what was brought to him. Less than that, he often said, would lead to a person dying.

There were some gardeners who tended to the trees on an estate or two and then there were gardeners like Mosara, who handled the landscape at the palace. Some day, if he were bright enough and learned his lessons well, Niall would take his place there. For now he learned and in the process he wandered the woods outside of the city and plucked this root or that leaf or even an occasional berry, because Mosara told him he had to.

“All and well,” he said to himself. “There are worse ways to spend an afternoon.” That was the truth of it, too. He was happy with his lot in life. There were few who could say that in his estimation.

The deer was almost behind him now, and he had let her drift from his attention when she suddenly bolted, charging past him and leaping a distance that was startling to witness. She did not wait around, but continued her rapid escape from the area.

He turned to see what might have startled her, and saw the cloaked figure a dozen feet away.

Niall was not a fool. Upon occasion he was accused of being too trusting, but he seldom let himself get caught unawares.

His fingers tightened on the walking staff in his right hand and he made himself appear calm.

“Well met.”

The cowl was filled only with darkness and whomever it was that looked back from under it made no response.

“Was there something you needed help with? Are you lost?” It happened from time to time, even away from the city. People could get lost. In the woods if they ate the wrong things they could easily get addled and forget where they were going.

Instead of speaking the figure tossed a glittering trinket into the air and Niall watched as the shining metal arced toward him. No. Not a trinket.

A coin.

The metal hit the ground in front of Niall and landed on its edge. The loam under his feet was soft, and the heavy coin cut the surface of the stuff and stood at a nearly impossible angle, like a dagger driven into flesh.

“What are you doing?” Niall asked, but he already knew the answer.

He took a step back and shifted his balance. The staff rose up from the ground and he held it in a two-handed grip.

“I do not follow your gods,” he did his best to sound stern. “Find another.”

The cloaked figure shuddered and came toward him, moving quickly. “No.” The word was not spoken, it was hissed.

Niall brought his staff around in a brutal arc and aimed the thicker end of the hard wood at the blackness of the cowl’s depths. Somehow he missed. His aim was good, but the stranger moved too quickly and dodged his attack.

Niall shook his head. He wanted this done and sooner rather than later.

While he was contemplating what he wanted something hit him hard in the back of his head. The wooden staff fell from his hands and he grunted and then fell forward.

When he hit the ground the cold coin of the Grakhul scraped along his jaw and narrowly avoided drawing blood.

There were more of them. Not one shape, but half a dozen or more, and they moved around him, cutting off any chance of escape.

He would have risen if he could have. The cloaked figure leaned over him and spoke again. “The gods do not need your faith. They need your life.”

They fell on him then, their hands feverishly hot, their breath rancid and diseased. He did not know how many of them attacked; he could not tell for certain, but he saw their faces and knew a fear deeper than he ever had before.

After that the darkness swallowed Niall whole.

They rode hard, and as they went they gathered more riders to join them.

They did not manage an army, but there were enough folk who either owed Brogan for past deeds, had suffered from the same loss in the past, or would work for coin, that they gathered twenty in all. More would been too cumbersome.

Harper led the way.

Harper, who could be so secretive and who had spent time among the Grakhul, protecting deliveries to their nameless keep in the forsaken northeast. The laws of the Five Kingdoms forbade travel to the area. It was the land reserved for the Grakhul, and unless those very people offered safe passage, the foolish that trespassed did not live long to speak of their journeys.

“We have to follow the proper passages across the land. Stray too far and death will follow.”

Harper’s words dragged Brogan from his thoughts.

“How do you know these paths?”

The man’s smile was thin and unreadable. “I was trained to be here. I’m betraying a trust.”

“Do you think I don’t know what I’ve asked of you?” Brogan’s voice was soft as the finest leather. “Do you think I ask it lightly?”

“If I doubted you, I would not be here.” Harper did not flinch from his gaze. “She is your wife, and they are your children, but I’ve loved them too. They’re as much my family as you are, Brogan.”

“Why do they take them, Harper?”

“Why does the wind blow? The gods make demands and those who follow them obey those demands.”

Really there was no more to say and so they rode on as quickly as they safely could.

The land they finally reached was bleak, a dismal collection of black rock and broken shale that fell toward a dim, gray shoreline of more shale and dark sands. The ocean beyond it was equally uninviting and violent besides. The waves at low tide slammed themselves furiously against the shoreline and dashed into the blades of rock with murderous force. The vibrations from the impacts could be felt through the leather of his boot heels.

According to Harper more than one fool had attempted to attack by that route but none had succeeded. Few had ever approached the nameless keep of the Grakhul and come back. Those that did were never the same. Strong men were broken by what they saw and their flesh sometimes withered where they had strayed too far from the proper path.

Harper pointed out the Gateway to them. The place that the Grakhul claimed led to the home of the gods.

At a distance the monolithic Gateway rose from the night time waters, a massive bridge of dark stone that sometimes was merely an arch and other times revealed the land beneath it. They had heard of the Gateway before, but only one of them had ever seen it. Few saw the Gateway and fewer still saw the keep. These were forbidden things, as ordered by the royal families of the Five Kingdoms. Those rare few given permission to visit were allowed only because the Grakhul deemed them worthy. Harper was one of the fortunate souls trained to find his way through what seemed like an unremarkable terrain.

None of them looked at the Gateway for long. There was something about that odd stone bridge over the waters that hurt the eyes and made the mind ache.

After a scan of the area Brogan McTyre pushed aside the idea of attacking from the shore below. There were other ways that might prove slightly less dangerous.

“Well, now we know why no one ever attacks this place.” Laram scowled as he spoke.

The keep was built into the side of the dark stone cliff. Somewhere in the distant past madmen had decided to risk life and limb and carve the damnable place into existence. The very structure gave off a feeling of extreme age, even if one didn’t take the time to notice where the winds had smoothed a few of the edges.

Brogan looked toward Laram and nodded. He felt exactly the same way. The difference was that he was the one leading the assault and couldn’t actually voice that opinion.

He shook his head and spit into the cold sea air. If he thought too much about the dangerous air of the place, if he let himself worry, he’d lose his anger. He needed that right now to keep him warm and to keep him brave.

Unconsciously he let his fingers roam into the pouch secured on the inside of his broad leather belt, where the four coins rested. He did not need to see them. He’d memorized every detail of their surfaces. They’d been pressed between his belt and the fabric of his kilt for days, but when his fingers touched the heavy, gold coins they still felt cold. He understood cold as he never had before.

“Enough. The sun’s up in a few hours.” He squinted into the wind and looked toward the east. “Though around here it might be hard to tell. Let’s find a way in. We’ve bloody work to do.”

A few voices muttered agreement but most were silent. They were here because they owed Brogan a debt or because they had experienced similar pains. None of them were there for money alone. Brogan couldn’t hope to offer enough to offend the gods. Where others had allowed the old ways to continue, Brogan intended to get his family back or make sure it never happened again.

Harper spoke up, dark hair flipping lazily around his lean face, dark eyes staring intently at Brogan. “You are sure you want to do this? It breaks all of the laws.”

Brogan knew the man was trying to be the voice of reason, but anger and reason have never been close associates. “I did not ask you here to stop me, Harper, and you know that.”

That thin mouth broke into a crooked grin, that made the man look younger by years. “I never said I would stop you, Brogan. Only that I would aid you in any way I can. Sometimes that means saying the things you do not want to hear.”

Brogan put a heavy hand on his friend’s shoulder and nodded. “I thank you for that, but I mean to have my family today. Will you join me?”

Harper licked his lips. “I have never been one to turn away from blood. No reason to start now.” The leaner man looked toward the shore and the odd, rough stone that marked the top of the Grakhul keep. “There is a pathway. It’s right at the edge and it is steep. If you are afraid of heights, you might wish to turn back.” Almost as an afterthought he added, “The horses will have to stay behind. They’d never manage to keep their footing.”

“How do the Grakhul manage it?”

Harper looked at him for a long moment and barely even seemed to breathe. The man was seldom bothered by much. “They aren’t human, Brogan. Make no mistake of it. They are not like us, no matter how much they might look the part.”

Brogan spat again. “No turning back. Let’s go.”

Harper, the only one of them who knew the ways to enter the keep without dying for the effort, led the way with that same half smile on his face.

Harper sighed. “No turning back, indeed, Brogan. No turning back now. Not ever again.”

Brogan had heard the warnings before. They had all been raised on admonitions about what it meant to defy the Grakhul. Those had always been enough in the past.

Everything changed when it happened to your loved ones. He understood that now. There would be no forgiveness for whatever happened. For that reason alone he owed a debt of blood to each of the men with him.

They were mostly mercenaries. They’d fought at one time or another for each of the kingdoms. The thing about being sought for crimes was first people had to know you had committed them. None of them were foolish enough to admit to the crimes. Well, except possibly Harper, but he could only hope the man kept his tongue.

“Harper?”

“Yes?”

Brogan looked to his friend and took a deep breath. “I don’t know what I’ll do if we’re too late.”

“I’d say we should pray, but that might not go the right way. I mean who would we pray to?”

He could always trust Harper to find the most challenging part of a quandary. Who indeed?

The others would not talk. Like him they were here for personal reasons. Blood sometimes calls for blood.

Harper was right. Madmen had surely designed the slope down into the keep. The stone was slicked with algae and nearly too smooth to allow a man to walk. Instead they clutched at the wall of the winding, twisting path, and half walked half slid toward the plateau below.

Brogan, a man bent on either salvation or revenge, could feel his heart hammering in his chest. After ten minutes of doing their best to keep their footing Harper and the men he was leading made it to the flat land of the keep itself.

The ground here was just as damp, and the green slime that had been under their feet coated the walls of the ancient structure as well, lending it an unsettling level of camouflage.

The winds along the cliff face were rough and those men who had long hair and had not already tied it back began the task almost immediately. The sole exception was Harper, who remained as calm as ever.

For one moment Brogan pondered whether the man would betray him and then crushed the thought. They had grown up in the same town and been friends as long as he could recall.

Harper looked his way and drew his chosen weapons. In his right hand he carried a long blade with a hook at the end. In his other hand he gripped a thin sword that was perfectly designed for a man of his leaner stature.

Harper broke the silence. He spoke softly, but did not whisper. The wind would have stolen his words away too easily. The men moved closer to hear him. “We move around the first wall here, and we’ll see their sacrificial pits. There are four of them. They are large, but they have no decorations to let you know they are there. Be very careful. You have already felt the surface of the ground here. Those pits, they are where the bodies go.” He didn’t have to say which bodies. They all knew.

The Grakhul had always come and they demanded their sacrifices.

The Grakhul did not ask. They took. The only sign they left of who had come and taken were the large gold coins they dropped, one for each person stolen away. The weight of them pulled at Brogan’s belt.

Harper looked his way and Brogan realized the man was still speaking. “Beyond the pits is the great hall. It’s where the prisoners are kept and where all of the Grakhul feast.” He looked at the ground ahead. Dark and green and damp against a gray sky that showed no sign of a sun. There were clouds out there, a gathering black bank that rose up the gods alone knew how far. The waves raged and threw themselves at the land.

Brogan knew how they felt.

“Lead the way, Harper. Let this be finished.” His words were low, but heard by all.

Harper nodded, and that smirk marred his features as he turned and moved forward, sliding across the ground with a grace that Brogan envied.

Brogan strode across the level deck, with stone on three sides and a severe drop to the sea below on his left, and pushed his boots into the thick slime, balancing himself with each step he took. After only a few paces the slippery surface lost its coating of green and became a surer, safer footing.

Harper moved around the last corner and he followed. Five steps and Brogan saw the first of the pits. They were vast, indeed, and dark: cavernous holes large enough to easily swallow a fully loaded wagon and as perfectly round as anything he had ever seen. The walls were completely smooth and as far as he could tell no lichen or moss touched the stone. He had no idea how far they went down, but the cliffs ran for a few hundred feet before they met the ocean and he could feel a breeze rising from the pit. The breeze smelled of the sea and darker things.

Some moments take forever. There was so much to see, so much to absorb, and Brogan’s mind was a sponge at that moment, thirsty for information.

No more than three heartbeats to take it all in, but only one was needed before Brogan was screaming.

There were four pits. The edges of three of them were coated in a residual wash of crimson that painted the dark stone.

At the pit closest to them a single man dropped a small, bloodied body into the well and looked up at the sound that came from Brogan’s mouth. The shape that fell into the pit was tiny, no larger than a young boy. Brogan recognized Braghe’s face before the figure dropped.

The second pit had already been abandoned, and the man who’d been standing there was walking toward the farthest of the four deep holes.

At the third a man was looking down into the depths of the well and turned toward the group as Brogan screamed.

At the fourth of the sacrificial pits six men still stood. They held a woman by her wrists, by her ankles, to stop her from escaping. She tried, too. She thrashed and struggled and wailed at them.

Tears stained Nora’s face. Through the markings they had painted on her flesh, he could see the tears as they cut at the colors that tried to hide her beauty from him. A hundred strides and more away and he knew Nora’s face, her shape, as well as he knew his own hands. She was his world, his breath, his light.

“No!”

Brogan charged forward, barely looking at anything beyond Nora.

She looked his way, her mouth an open wound showing her pain. There were four pits. Only one was still untouched. The calculation was painfully simple. His children were dead. But there was still a chance, wasn't there? There was the possibility that he could reach Nora in time.

He ran for Nora, and Harper ran beside him and raised his chosen weapons. As a unit the rest charged forward, spreading out in an effort to block any attempts their enemies might make at escape.

The single man standing at the first pit looked their way. He was dressed in a dark tunic and boots. His head was shaved clean and his skin was pale. He stared without any comprehension, an expression so completely shocked by the appearance of strangers that it bordered on comical. His eyes flew wide, his mouth dropped open and his hands raised up to clutch at his chest. And while he goggled in their direction, Harper ran a blade from his clavicle up to his nose, splitting everything between in one stroke.

The dead man fell as Harper pulled the sword free, never missing a step in his stride.

Brogan ran past the corpse and continued on. There would be time to look at bodies when the living had been sorted.

The wind roared and threatened to push him aside. The wind did not matter. There was Nora and nothing else.

As he went, Brogan pulled his axe from its sheath.

Four of the men around Nora came their way, most of them dressed much like the corpse left behind by Harper.

Not a one of them was armed and as a whole they looked confused by the idea of anyone bothering them at home.

Brogan sneered and raced toward them, his axe hefted up in his thick arms, his eyes locked on the closest of the pale bastards that had taken his family from him. He charged, a roar building in his chest. Four men stood between him and Nora. They would not stand for long.

The axe cut deeply into pale flesh and brought forth a river of crimson. He did not stop as the first of the bodies fell. The second man died where he stood. The next in line flinched back, tried to escape, but never had a chance. The blade cleaved through his chest and only stopped when it reached his backbone. A hard kick wrenched the body away from his weapon and Brogan roared again, the fury consuming him.

And up ahead Nora let out the smallest of sounds as the blade of her killer pierced her heart.

There was no thought left in him, Brogan smashed into the next fool between him and his wife and threw him into the pit. Two more came too close and suffered the same fate as he reached for Nora.

The man who’d killed her – for even then, much as he wanted to believe otherwise, Brogan knew the truth of the matter – looked his way and tried to speak out a warning. His words were in a language Brogan did not know, but whatever he’d been saying in any tongue would have been wasted breath.

Brogan brought the axe up above his head and cut the man in two.

Whatever the plans, whatever possible ideas the Grakhul had in mind, they were forgotten when Brogan came forward. They fled from him, backing away and chattering in their foolish tongue as he dropped the axe from his grip and barely felt the sway of it on his wrist. Brogan moved to take Nora in his arms.

His wife looked at him. Her dark eyes rolled in their sockets and she looked his way, and whatever she might have wanted to say, whatever she might have been feeling, it faded from her, unuttered, as her ruined heart stopped beating.

There were only a dozen men. They never stood a chance against his gathering. If he had been alone Brogan would have died and never even noticed, he was lost staring at the remains of his beloved for a time. Who could say how long? Surely not Brogan himself.

He rose slowly, Nora in his arms, his axe swaying against his wrist, held in place by the heavy leather strap. It tapped against him several times but if it cut he did not notice.

Harper looked his way with haunted eyes and shook his head in sorrow.

“I am so very sorry, Brogan.”

Brogan had no words.

Around him his men stood guard and looked on. Not far away the ocean roared and the wind howled and Brogan understood all too well their fury.

For a moment he considered the possibility of taking Nora’s body home with him and giving her a proper burial.

Instead he kissed her face one last time and then let her fall into the deep pit. A mother, he knew, would want to be with her children. “Let this be your last sacrifice.”

Harper put a hand on his shoulder with great care. “Brogan there are more of them. There is a city worth of people here.”

As he spoke their enemies made themselves known. They came running from the great hall Harper had spoken of, most of them dressed much like the corpses around them.

None were armed. None had even contemplated being bothered at home.

The axe found its way back to his hands. It felt weightless as Brogan contemplated his enemies.

The closest of them bellowed in his gibberish language and Harper held out a hand, stopping Brogan for a moment.

He called to the strangers and they quickly exchanged words. Harper turned to his friend. “Truly I am sorry, Brogan. All of your family….”

“I know this.” Four pits and now all four were painted with blood.

“They say the gods demand fresh sacrifices or they’ll tear the world apart.”

Brogan’s voice was hoarse with tension. “Let them.”

The time for considerations and discussions was done. Brogan charged toward the speaker and cut into his stomach with one hard swing. Before him, the gathered men of the Grakhul stared, horrified, and did little or nothing to defend themselves.

Around him, behind him, he heard more battle cries. They owed him debts and so they came. They had lost to the Grakhul and so they shared their rage. They all had their reasons for breaking the laws and not a one of them felt any regret.

The battle was brutal and fast; a reaping of bloodied wheat that fell to the stone floors without much protest and few attempts at defense.

When it was done all of them were winded – murder is exhausting work – and Brogan looked at the corpses and frowned. It made no sense. These were not, could not be, the Grakhul he had heard so much about.

Laram said it for him. “These are the brutes who demand sacrifices?”

Harper shook his head. “No. They must be out and seeking their next sacrifices.” He frowned. “The women, the children, they are hiding somewhere below. What do you want to do about that, Brogan?”

Brogan looked at the corpses. For as long as anyone knew, the Grakhul had come and taken and left their coins. For as long as he could remember it had not mattered. Now, however, his family, his entire family….

“We gather the children and the women. They come with us.”

Harper looked at him with one raised eyebrow and that damnable smirk. “What will you do with them?”

“Give them to those who lost their families.” He shrugged, not completely certain what he planned. “They can decide for themselves what should happen to scum who took their loved ones.”

“And the bodies? What if the families see the bodies?”

His face in that moment, he knew, was not the face of a loving man. “Let them know my loss. Our loss. Let them grieve for their loved ones before they are given to the people who will judge them.”

Laram spoke again. Laram, who was always a more decent man than Brogan. “We could push them into the pits.”

Brogan shook his head. “No. There will be no more bodies in those damned pits. They’ve had their blood.”

That was all there was to say about the matter.

The women and the children of the Grakhul did not go gently. They were not the least bit intimidated by the gathering of men and if they grieved for their loved ones they showed it by taking up weapons and fighting against the invaders.

The first attack came from a boy of perhaps ten who charged out of a darkened doorway with a knife in his hand and came at Brogan. One step out of the way took care of the knife. One fist to the side of the boy’s head left him reeling on the ground.

The second attack came from the boy’s mother, who charged at Brogan, swinging a small axe. Laram tripped the woman in midstride and sent her sprawling. She let out a cry and dropped her weapon. Rather than stopping, she came back up a second time with a dagger drawn from her belt.

Harper stopped her with a word. She froze and looked at the men around her, her eyes wide. By the time she was done assessing the situation Harper had placed the blade of his weapon to her throat.

Harper’s words were a mystery but his tone clearly offered a warning. There were several exchanges between the woman and the soldier and when it was done he put away his sword.

“They’ll come with us.”

“What did you say to her?”

“They could come with us or they could die.” Harper eyed the woman for a moment. “I also told her we’d make sure the children suffered before they died.” The woman sighed, put her hand around her mouth to amplify her words and then bellowed out in the gibberish language of her people. Within minutes a very large group was forming.

Twenty men all told. If the families got serious, Brogan’s group would never have a chance, despite the fact that half the women had little ones gathering around their knees. There were twenty able bodied and well-armed men. There were hundreds of women and children.

Brogan shook his head and spat. “If we’re taking them, we need to be able to control them.”

Harper shook his head. “No reason. They’ll follow us.”

“Why would they?”

The very woman who’d tried to attack him answered. Her voice was thick with the strange accent of her usual tongue, but he understood her well enough. “Because you have damned this place and the people here. Our only hope, no matter how small, is to be away from here.”

She would say no more. Instead she soothed her child, the boy he’d punched in the head, and then she and the rest of her people followed after Brogan and Laram and the rest.

Harper and four others did not immediately leave. They caught up instead. Brogan noticed but said nothing.

Another exchange with one of the women and he and the others left again, coming back with a few wagons that had seen better days and horses to draw them.

One of the women led the horses and found a different route that led to the top of the plateau. The exit point was nearly impossible to see and Brogan wasn't surprised that Harper had not known of it.

Within an hour they were on their way from the keep and moving in a very large serpentine across the nearly barren land. A few of the women had gathered possessions, but most did not bother.

As they left the sky roared with a hundred strokes of thunder and fingers of light ripped through the darkening clouds, cutting their way across the skies and bullwhipping strokes across the horizon. Brogan turned to look at the great Gateway. He watched as tongue after tongue of lightning stroked the thing but did it no harm.

“How often does that happen?” Laram was making conversation, nothing more. The woman with her son was walking nearby and looked at them but did not answer. Her smile was not pleasant.

The sea behind them raged on, hammering at the shoreline. The winds blew harder, as if inviting them to leave the area even faster than planned.

Brogan should have felt victorious. He had avenged his family and stopped the bastard Grakhul from ever doing to another what they had done to him. Instead he felt hollowed out and left to wither and die.

About the Author

James A Moore is the award-winning, bestselling author of over forty novels, thrillers, dark fantasy and horror alike, including the critically acclaimed Fireworks, Under the Overtree, Blood Red, the Serenity Falls trilogy (featuring his recurring antihero, Jonathan Crowley) and his popular Seven Forges series. In addition to writing multiple short stories, he has also edited, with Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, The British Invasion anthology. His first short story collection, Slices, sold out before ever seeing print. He is currently at work on several new projects, including book three in the Tides of War series. Along with Jonathan Maberry and Christopher Golden, he hosts the popular Three Guys With Beards podcast. He lives in Massachusetts, USA.

genrefied.blogspot.com • twitter.com/jamesamoore

ANGRY ROBOT

An imprint of Watkins Media Ltd

20 Fletcher Gate,

Nottingham,

NG1 2FZ

UK

angryrobotbooks.com
twitter.com/angryrobotbooks

To the dead

This collected edition first published 2017

Seven Forges copyright © James A Moore 2013

The Blasted Lands copyright © James A Moore 2014

City of Wonders copyright © James A Moore 2015

The Silent Army copyright © James A Moore 2016

The Last Sacrifice copyright © James A Moore 2017

James A Moore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

EBook ISBN 978 0 85766 766 3

Set by ARGH! Nottingham.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Angry Robot and the Angry Robot icon are registered trademarks of Watkins Media Ltd.

ISBN: 978-0-85766-766-3

Table of Contents

- Seven Forges Title Page

- Seven Forges

- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen

- The Blasted Lands

- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen

- City of Wonders

- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen

- The Silent Army

- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen

- The Last Sacrifice

- One

- About the Author

- Legal