A Hero's justice d-3

by Paul B. Thompson

  The boats, freed of their moorings, slowly spun away, heading downstream. Empty boats collided with those carrying terrified camp followers, most of which were barely half full.

  Breyhard turned his bloody, mud-stained face back to the battle.

  “Let’s kill some lizards,” he said to his lieutenants, managing a savage grin. “I never could stand the smell of them!”

  He urged his wounded war-horse into the fray. Shoulder to shoulder, his retinue followed their commander.

  Valaran closed the mirror-box. The battle was over. The leather case beside her yielded a sheet of foolscap, which she lay on the reading table before her. She dipped a stylus in ink, then, choosing her words with great care, put pen to paper:

  Your Majesty, she wrote. Lord Breyhard is lost, with half his army. Many bakali have likewise been slain. The Dalti crossings are unguarded.

  She stopped there, offering only the bare facts, not advice.

  After sanding the short note, she folded it and sealed the edges with wax. One strike on a small gong summoned a waiting servant. She was an elderly woman, whose crimson livery hung loosely on her gaunt frame.

  Valaran commanded her to take the note to the emperor, warning her to pass it to one of his minions and not to give it to him herself.

  “Do you understand?” Valaran asked.

  Blue eyes, yellowing with age, regarded the empress without any change of expression. The old woman nodded. She had served in the palace for decades and did indeed understand. Whoever gave this note to the emperor risked a beating-if not death.

  Alone again, Valaran unrolled a map of central Ergoth. Eagle’s Ford was slightly less than twenty leagues from the capital. If General Crumont extricated himself quickly, his fifty-eight hordes would suffice to defend the city, but he would not have enough men to attack the bakali. The initiative would pass to the invaders.

  Grim but satisfied, she allowed the map to curl shut.

  “Grasp every circumstance, make use of friend and foe alike,” she whispered. The little-known saying of her ancestor Pakin Zan had become the maxim by which she lived her life.

  Valaran’s desire to be rid of her cruel husband had increased tenfold with the birth of her son. Dalar had arrived a full year after Tol was exiled, but Ackal V had made the first few months of her pregnancy hellish, until he was absolutely convinced the child she carried was his own.

  Valaran loved her son, though she’d never craved children as some women did, but Dalar also provided her with the means to attain the end she wanted. As a woman, she could never gain the support of the warlords for herself, but they would support her son, the rightful heir to the throne.

  The arrival of the bakali had been a gift from the gods. She had resolved to use lizard-men, nomad barbarians, and any other opportunity that presented itself to discredit her husband and display his utter unfitness to rule. By grasping every circumstance, making use of friend and foe alike, she would be rid of Ackal V. Dalar would become emperor, and Valaran empress-regent.

  Egrin and Kiya departed on their missions. The Dom-shu woman was not happy leaving Tol with “one and half elves,” as she put it. Tol did not share her fears. Zala lived by her word, the same as Tol. She would stand by the pact they had made. As for Tylocost, Tol’s command over him was based in part on his old victory, and in part on the Silvanesti’s own notion of honor.

  “Trust their honor?” Kiya had said sarcastically, when he explained. “Not too much to ask!”

  She rode off north, and Egrin headed east. Tol asked Corij to watch over both of his friends.

  The makeshift camp outside the still-smoking rubble of Juramona grew and grew. Five days after Tol’s arrival, it held a thousand people, mostly former residents of the town. By the time the sun set on his eighth day there, almost four thousand had gathered. Fully half of this total were able-bodied men-farmers, craftsmen, shopkeepers, and the like.

  One night, standing by a leaping bonfire, Tol addressed them. “Men of Ergoth! I stand here as one of you-landless, destitute, an exile in my own country. I have come back to fight the enemies who burned your homes and laid waste to your lands. If you will have me, I shall lead you.”

  A few shouts of support rose from the crowd, but the response was hardly enthusiastic. One fellow cried, “We’re not warriors!”

  “Anyone who takes up a sword or spear can fight! I was not born to arms, but I learned the art, and I can instruct you. Will you not fight to expel the invaders? Will you not take back your own country?”

  This time the answering cries were more definite. Tol asked if anyone had fighting experience. Ten-score out of two thousand came forward. Most were former foot guards in the service of Marshal Baroth, Egrin’s replacement as Marshal of the Eastern Hundred. Baroth, a young crony of the emperor’s, had left Juramona to ride with Relfas’s army and had never been seen again. When the nomads attacked, the foot guards had defended the High House, but couldn’t hold out against the spreading flames from the burning city. The men had drifted back to the shattered town when they heard an imperial banner was raised. Tol was deeply glad to have them. His new army would require captains.

  One man stepped forward. Completely bald, between thirty and forty years of age, he had the carriage of one who’d once borne arms. He said his name was Wilfik, and he’d been a foot soldier of the Juramona garrison.

  “How can we fight the nomads?” he asked loudly. “We’ve no horses, and even if we did, we’re not Riders.”

  “Soldiers on foot can stand up to horsemen,” Tol said. “I’ll show you how.”

  A rag-clad townsman with burns on his hands and face said, “What if we don’t want to fight?”

  “No one will abuse you for choosing not to fight. But mark this: any man who takes up arms for his country will never be anyone’s servant again. If we take back this land-” He grinned. “When we take back this land, it will be ours, and no one will be able to wrest it from us again!”

  His meaning was clear. Since the warlords had failed to protect the Eastern Hundred, they would have no claim over it once the nomads were expelled. It was a revolutionary notion, and sent a thrill through the assembly. No more raiding nomads-and no haughty imperial overlords either!

  “Juramona for all!” someone shouted, and “Free land! Free men!” cried another. More of the group joined in, and soon these shouts echoed through the makeshift camp.

  After the assembly broke up, Tol talked with the men who’d claimed to have soldiering experience. He named each man a captain in the new corps, and chose Wilfik to command them. The bald former foot soldier seemed steady and sturdy, his no-nonsense manner just right for leading others.

  Everyone knew Kiya and Egrin had ridden off to find help. Wilfik asked what support they might expect. Tol’s reply was blunt.

  “I expect none. So should you.”

  Dismay colored every face. Tol planted fists on hips and said, “Have no illusions, men! The imperial hordes have always fought to win battles, not to survive them. We won’t make that mistake. In a fight for our lives, we will outlast our foes. Nomads fight for glory and plunder; if they don’t get it fairly quick, I doubt they’ll stay around for a long war. It’s whose men are left standing that matters!” He clapped the nearest man on the shoulder. “If help arrives, we’ll rejoice! But don’t count on it.”

  The men dispersed, leaving Tol with only one companion. Tylocost squatted nearby, in the shadows beyond the fading bonfire, idly toying with a stout stick. It was a most undignified posture for a former Silvanesti general. In the uncertain light, with his ungainly features, the elf resembled an enormous insect.

  “So, General, what did you think of my address?” Tol asked him.

  “I think we shall all end in nameless graves soon.”

  Tol’s lips twitched with amusement. The Silvanesti’s pessimism was curiously refreshing. “I’ve faced worse odds, you know.”

  Tylocost rose to his feet in one smooth motion. Such graceful movements
reminded Tol his charge was no ordinary fellow. Whatever his looks and high-handed manner suggested, Tylocost was a mature Silvanesti elf, with all the intelligence and subtlety that implied.

  “It’s not the nomads I fear, nor even the bakali,” Tylocost said. “You just declared war on the empire, and that, my fortunate foe, is a losing proposition.”

  Tol grinned widely. “Perhaps. Can I count on your support?”

  “To the death.”

  “Good. I intend to give you a command of your own.”

  For once the elf had no quick comeback. He stared at his conqueror, then recovered his accustomed poise.

  Inclining his head graciously, he said, “Thank you, my lord. I will do my best.”

  And someone will suffer for it, Tol thought. He hoped it would be the enemy, and not himself.

  As Tol retired to his lean-to, Tylocost went for a walk along the fringes of the camp. Hands clasped behind his back, eyes on the trampled grass in front of him, his thoughts were far away.

  He’d circumnavigated a quarter of the sprawling camp when he suddenly stopped and pointed the stick he still carried toward the outer darkness.

  “Half-breed, why do you shadow me?”

  Zala emerged from the night. “You heard me?” she said, impressed.

  “You’re only half-stealthy.”

  She grimaced. “You never speak to me without flinging mud on my ancestry!”

  “The mud is already there. Answer my question.”

  Biting back the retort that sprang to her lips, Zala settled on simple truth: “You’re a goodly distance from your bedroll. You might be thinking of running away, to betray us to the nomads.”

  His eyes widened. “Twenty years I’ve lived as Lord Tolandruth’s paroled prisoner. I could have escaped any time I wanted, but I pledged to honor my surrender until he released me, and I shall.”

  “Silvanesti have no allegiance but to their own kind!” she snapped.

  The silence held for a moment, then Tylocost shrugged and tucked the stick under his arm like a cane, turning away and resuming his walk. She fell in step beside him, and they proceeded in silence for a while, circling the sleeping camp from south to north. Cookfires dying to dull embers dotted the scene. Dark mounds of sleeping humans, covered in salvaged blankets, lay in irregular ranks on the dewy ground. Everywhere was the smell of smoke, sweat, and desperation. Zala’s pity for the survivors was obvious. If Tylocost felt anything, he did not show it.

  “What do you know of my homeland?” he asked, his low voice just audible over the sound of their footsteps.

  “Very little,” she admitted. “My mother was Silvanesti, but she never returned home after she married my father.”

  “Foreigners cannot imagine the glory of the Speaker’s realm. Silvanesti worship, above all things, beauty. They have, by art and artifice, made Silvanost the single most beautiful place in all the world.” Zala had heard the same from those few fortunate enough to have seen the capital of the elves. “Imagine how I was regarded in such a place.”

  Her footsteps faltered only slightly before she recovered. Zala could indeed imagine. The unsightly gardener must have stood out like a boil on the face of a beautiful girl.

  “My paternal ancestors were noble in the extreme. They stood at the right hand of Silvanos himself. My grandfather slew a dragon-the black dragon Tasak’labak’kanak, in the First Dragon War. He rode his war griffin Skyraker up to the monster’s very jaws and drove a silver spear through its eye and into its brain. My father, if he still lives, is high counsel to the Speaker of the Stars.”

  “You don’t know whether your father lives?” she asked, and he shook his head. She thought of her own father, the frail, kindly scholar whose life depended on her success. When he died, wherever she was, she would know it.

  Tylocost continued. “One day, as the great Silvanos held court in the Tower of the Stars, a comely lady caught my father’s eye. Her name was Iyajaida, an exotic word meaning ‘moth-wing.’ No one knew her. It was said she’d come from the northland. In spite of her unknown lineage, my father pursued and won her, besting several other rivals. Not long after, I was born.”

  Tylocost abruptly stopped walking. For an instant Zala thought he’d seen a danger, nomads lurking in the night perhaps, but he only stared straight ahead and said, “The day I was born my mother vanished, never to be seen in Silvanost again. People said she took one look at me and fled in shame.”

  In spite of his even tone, Zala knew he was baring soul-deep wounds to her. As diplomatically as she could, she asked him why he was telling her these things.

  “Because you will understand,” he replied. “Comely though you are, you’re a half-breed, and despised by elves and most humans, too. I am a full-blood Silvanesti from a fine and noble line, yet all my life I’ve been persecuted for my ugliness. The first time I ever felt wanted was when the Tarsans hired me to lead their army. But the first person who ever showed me true respect was that damned peasant, Tolandruth.”

  Males were very strange, Zala decided. Tolandruth, so imposing with his muscles, piercing eyes, and great victories, seemed an overgrown boy, burning with notions of justice and honor. This elf, more arrogant than a cartload of emperors but one of the shrewdest people Zala had ever met, was consumed with loneliness and shame. She began to understand the empress’s devotion to Tol, and Tol’s trust in his former foe.

  When Zala returned to the here and now, Tylocost had slipped away. The stick he’d carried stood where he’d been, its end thrust into the sod.

  Chapter 8

  Rolling the Bones

  Dust rose in choking clouds around the Juramona camp, churned up by the feet of hundreds of men. The dust of the Eastern Hundred was infamous, a fine, floury, yellow soil that coated everything once the anchoring grass was stripped away.

  The members of Tol’s new army bore weapons salvaged from the town-spears, halberds, or in many cases, merely sharpened wooden stakes-as they practiced moving in unison and deploying to attack or defend. He organized them into squads of ten, with five squads making up a company. Ten per company would have been better, but he didn’t have the manpower. Twenty days after his arrival at Juramona, his effective force comprised a scant thousand men under arms, a single horde of raw infantry. At least that many more had slipped away or begged off joining Tol’s tiny army. He let them go. A man unwilling to fight was no asset anyway.

  At Tol’s side stood Wilfik, the former High House guard he’d appointed as chief of his company captains. Less than a handspan taller than Tol himself, Wilfik had proven a capable drillmaster. Perhaps to counter his bald pate, he sported the thickest, blackest beard and brows Tol had ever seen. The eyes beneath those redoubtable brows were an unusual color-pale gray. The combination of light gray eyes and beetling brows gave him an especially fearsome aspect when he was angry. He was angry now. Shouting curses, Wilfik stormed over to a company that had maneuvered clumsily. He grabbed the captain of the wayward group and spun him around.

  “Left!” Wilfik roared directly into the fellow’s face. “You purblind donkey! I said ‘counter-march left’!”

  After shoving the fellow back into line, Wilfik rejoined Tol.

  Spitting a mouthful of dust, the bald soldier said, “Lambs to the slaughter! Dull-witted, thick-headed lambs to the slaughter, that’s what this lot will be when we meet the nomads again!”

  “They’re willing enough,” Tol responded mildly. “What they need is confidence.”

  The troops, dubbed the Juramona Militia since they were volunteers instead of levies, were drilling on the plain south of the camp. Further west, Tylocost and a work gang were preparing surprises for any nomad attackers.

  Tol had offered the Silvanesti command of half the militia, but Tylocost declined. Although a warrior from birth, he knew the training of raw troops was not his strong suit. A better use of his time, he tactfully suggested, would be building field fortifications. For three days now those not fit to fight had labored
for the elf, hauling timbers, brick, and other debris from the ruined town to the open plain. Mounds of masonry rose, interlinked by fences of heavy timber.

  Tol bent to uncover the water bucket at his feet, but the wooden lid was whisked off by another hand. Zala’s.

  The huntress rarely left his side, having appointed herself his personal guard in order to fulfill the pledge she’d made: to bring Tol to the empress and thereby collect her payment. The half-elf was a capable tracker, and certainly knew the sharp end of a blade from the dull, but Tol wondered how she would stand up to open battle. She’d never tasted the terror and mayhem of war.

  He sipped from the gourd dipper, then offered it to Wilfik. Wilfik poured the contents over his sweating head. As Tol refilled the dipper, Wilfik drew his attention to the southeast, where dust was rising from the plain. They had no men training or working in that direction.

  Tol dropped the gourd into the bucket. “Have the men fall in.”

  Once the companies had assembled, their marching feet stilled, the hot breeze soon cleared away the dust they’d churned up. All eyes watched the rising cloud; it was moving from southeast to east, toward the morning sun.

  “A scouting party?” Zala asked hopefully.

  “I make it five hundred horse, at least.”

  Tol’s comment erased the hopeful expression from Zala’s face and she grimaced. Not a scouting party-more likely, an entire nomad tribe on the move.

  A runner was dispatched to warn Tylocost. The militia and its leaders headed back to camp at a quick march.

  The dust column was moving fast, circling wide to the east at a distance of two leagues or less. There was a dry stream bed along that line, Wilfik remarked. The horsemen were probably using it for concealment. The rising dust had given them away.