A warrior's joyrney d-1

by Paul B. Thompson

  “You’ll have no such thing,” Prince Amaltar said, sounding bored. He gestured for the burly general to stand aside. “Warden, bring the prisoners to me, and I will judge for myself.”

  “They await Your Highness’s pleasure,” Egrin said, bowing. He snapped his fingers, and the two captives were hustled in.

  Makaralonga hobbled forward, weighted down with heavy chains on his wrists and ankles. Despite his disheveled appearance-his garments muddy and bloody-his expressive face and noble bearing were still impressive.

  Slightly behind the forester chief was a second prisoner, likewise shackled, but with his head and shoulders covered by a canvas hood. Two guards guided the hooded captive, while a second pair kept an eye on Makaralonga.

  The chief stopped beside Egrin. He openly gawked at the elaborate tent and richly dressed folk around him. When he spied Tol in the crowd, he bowed his head gravely to the young man. He did not bow to Prince Amaltar, much to Lord Urakan’s anger.

  “Are you the chief of the grasslanders?” Makaralonga. asked.

  Amaltar smiled thinly. “I am his first-born son.”

  “Ah! As the chief of the Dom-shu, I will treat only with the chief of your people.”

  “Impertinence!” Urakan fumed. “By the gods, your head will decorate a pole above this tent before nightfall!”

  Prince Amaltar, accustomed to the quick temper of his general, ignored him, and said to Makaralonga, “I regret my father, the emperor, cannot be here to deal with you, Chief. In his place he has sent me.”

  Makaralonga acknowledged this with a shrug. Tired of standing in his heavy chains, he gathered the links in his hands and sat down on the thick carpet.

  Chamberlain Valdid gasped at the forester’s liberty. Before he or Lord Urakan could object, Amaltar gestured to the second prisoner.

  “You said this man’s capture had dynastic importance, Warden. Let’s see his face.”

  “As you wish, Highness. But he is not a man.”

  The hood was whisked off, revealing the Silvanesti warrior captured in the glade sacred to Reorx. Dazzled by sudden daylight, the elf blinked and squinted. His blond hair was lank and unwashed, his face smudged with dirt, yet his bearing was one of haughty disdain.

  A loud murmur rose from the crowd behind Tol. Lord Urakan was stricken speechless by the sight of the Silvanesti.

  “What does this mean, Warden?” demanded Amaltar, shaken at last out of his habitual calm.

  “This elf, Kirstalothan by name, was taken in arms at a place called the Isaren Glade, near where Lord Odovar and I were ambushed. He was found in company with Grane, who evaded capture. In the glade was a shrine dedicated to Reorx, and these ‘offerings.’ ”

  At Egrin’s signal, Tol and Narren approached, carrying two sacks. These they dumped on the carpet at the prince’s feet. Bronze arrowheads, spear points, and blades clattered out.

  Amaltar asked to see one of the objects more closely. Valdid picked up a spearhead and handed it to the prince. Amaltar examined it closely.

  “Chamberlain,” he said, “we had reports of foresters using metal, didn’t we?”

  Valdid bowed to his lord. “Yes, Highness. Bronze arrowheads and the like were sent to us by several commanders, from all parts of the forest.”

  The prince lifted a hand. “Send for Harpathanas Ambrodel, envoy of the Speaker of the Stars,” he commanded.

  Valdid dispatched two heralds to the task. Prince Amaltar descended from the dais, tapping the spearpoint against his palm. He stood nose to nose with the elf warrior.

  “You’ve been trading weapons to the forest tribes, yes?” he said, dark eyes narrowed. When the elf did not answer, the prince shouted, “Haven’t you?”

  Kirstalothan averted his face and said nothing.

  “What part did Morthur Dermount, alias Spannuth Grane, have in this plot?” Still the stubborn elf would not reply.

  Amaltar stepped back. “Take him away and make him talk. I must know all about this!”

  Hood replaced, the hapless Silvanesti was dragged out. No sooner had he departed than Valdid’s heralds returned. They held a hasty whispered conference with the chamberlain. Valdid’s face reddened.

  “Let me guess,” Prince Amaltar said, anger in every syllable. “Harpathanas is no longer in camp?”

  Valdid sputtered, “His tent is still pitched alongside yours, Highness, but no one is within! My heralds report that none of the Silvanesti has been seen since yester eve.”

  Amaltar hurled the spear tip to the floor. “Is there no end to the treachery of elves?” he cried. “I see now why the Speaker’s envoy made so many perilous trips through the Great Green to visit us-he was distributing arms each time!”

  “So it would seem, Highness,” said Egrin. “I’ll wager they hired Morthur Dermount to obscure their deeds with his magic.”

  Amaltar went to the warden and took him by the shoulders. “You’ve done well, Egrin. By your service, you’ve opened our eyes to a deep and dangerous plot.”

  “I thank you, Your Highness, but the honor of this service is not mine.”

  Egrin held out his hand to Tol, kneeling with Narren by the piles of bronze weaponry.

  “This lad, my shield-bearer, led the men who captured Kirstalothan and brought back the evidence of Silvanesti perfidy,” the warden said. “He also defeated the chief of the Dom-shu in single combat and made him Your Highness’s prisoner.”

  Amaltar regarded Tol with unconcealed surprise, ordering him to stand. Although the shilder was little more than half the prince’s age, the two were of a height. Amaltar studied him for a moment, then said, “You shall be rewarded.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness,” Tol said nervously. “But I was just one of a larger band of willing warriors. My deeds were no greater than theirs.”

  Egrin described Tol’s rescue of the two beleaguered hordes with a hundred footmen.

  Amaltar openly stared. “Who are you, boy? From which line do you descend?”

  “No line, Your Highness. My father is a farmer, as was his father, and all the fathers before him.”

  The crowd of nobles, courtiers, and foreigners whispered amongst themselves, making much of Tol’s humble origin. As their titters and ugly comments came to his ears-”peasant upstart” being the kindest of the lot-his embarrassment vanished. He straightened his back and glared at the gaudily dressed idlers around him.

  Prince Amaltar returned to his throne. He held up a hand for silence.

  “You have served the empire well, Master Tol, and the empire does not forget. Three days hence, I shall confer on you the rank of Rider of the Horde, with an award of five hundred gold crowns.”

  Turning to Valdid, the prince said, “Let it be written in the chronicle that Tol of Juramona was raised this day to the rank of warrior, with all mention due that honorable position. Draw five hundred crowns from my personal cache to give to him.”

  “Yes, Highness,” said Valdid as the scribes busily took down the prince’s edict.

  The audience was over. Tol stood dazed. The bronze weapons were cleared away for shipment to Daltigoth, where Prince Amaltar would place them and the story of their origin before the emperor. It could mean war with Silvanost. At the very least, it meant a temporary halt to the campaign in the forest. Faced with such a well-armed force, a radically different strategy was required.

  Guards lifted Makaralonga to his feet. Hearing the chiefs chains clank, Tol’s attention snapped back to the here and now.

  “Your Highness!” he said with newfound boldness. “What will become of the chief?”

  Lord Urakan frowned at the shilder’s presumption and said, “He will lose his head! That’s the fate of all those who lead wars against the empire!”

  “Must it be so, my lord? Chief Makaralonga is an honorable foe. He surrendered to me because I promised to spare his life.”

  “His life belongs to the empire,” Urakan snapped.

  Prince Amaltar sighed deeply. A liveried lackey placed
a golden goblet of wine at his side.

  “I’m afraid my imperial father will insist on his death,” he said, sipping wine. “It is the law of the realm.”

  “Then, Highness’-Tol stepped up to the foot of the dais-“as part of my reward, may I be his executioner?”

  The tumult around Tol died. Everyone from Egrin to Valdid betrayed open surprise.

  The prince’s black brows rose. “Strange request,” he said. “Why do you want to do it?”

  “I captured him, Highness. If he must die, let it be by my hand, with the same sword I used to defeat him.”

  Silence reigned in the assembly. At last, the prince smiled and waved a hand at Chamberlain Valdid.

  “Put that in the scrolls too,” Amaltar said. “I give the task of executing the captured Dom-shu chief to Master Tol, in token of his service to the empire.”

  And so it was that six days later Tol found himself standing alone before the fighting men of Juramona, dressed in new leather armor and a brilliant white mantle. The three hordes-Firebrands, Panthers, and Eagles-and the shilder company, the Rooks, were drawn up on a hillside outside the imperial camp at Caergoth. They were awaiting the arrival of Crown Prince Amaltar. A south wind blew, piling clouds into gray pinnacles, promising much rain. Tol wore his empty saber scabbard, and an equally empty sheath for his war dagger. Even here, in the open air, the crown prince would allow no weapons near his person.

  An honor guard two hundred strong thundered out of the camp. All rode white horses with bright crimson trappings. In their wake came more than a hundred mounted courtiers in their finery of velvet and silk, polished leather and thick brocade. Behind the courtiers were eight richly bedecked young women, each in her own chariot drawn by a pair of horses. The open, two-wheeled carts, the preferred mode of travel in the capital, were ill-suited to rough ground, and the women clung to their drivers as they bounced along. The eight women were Amaltar’s wives-polygamy was another custom reserved to persons of the highest rank.

  The honor guard split into two sections, drawing up on each side of Tol. Courtiers formed a living avenue for the imperial party, and the chariots bearing Amaltar’s wives rattled down the line. They drove past Tol, pivoted, and stopped on the slope between him and his comrades.

  At last, with the stately deliberation acquired by long practice, Prince Amaltar cantered up on his black horse. He rode well, and looked at ease in the saddle. That, like the crown of Ergoth, was his birthright. His ancestors, back to the great and terrible Ackal Ergot, had lived and died on horseback. In the words of the poet, the first conquest an Ergothian warrior had to make was “the kingdom of the saddle.”

  Amaltar reined up. His personal entourage, including Lord Urakan and Chamberlain Valdid, fell into place behind him. All looked solemn and serious, save for Urakan. His beetling black brows met over his nose in a deep scowl aimed directly at Tol. The youth realized that although he might have won the gratitude of the prince, his deeds had annoyed the noble general in some unfathomable way.

  “Tol of Juramona!” Valdid’s voice rang out over the whipping wind. “Advance to your sovereign lord, His Royal Highness Amaltar Ackal of Ergoth!”

  Tol stepped forward smartly, striking his heels together as Egrin had taught him.

  “Kneel,” Valdid told him. Tol did so, and the chamberlain intoned the ritual questions: “Are you a free-born man, bound to no other lord or state? Do you swear allegiance to the House of Ackal in the person of His Imperial Majesty Pakin III and his son, Prince Amaltar?”

  Tol recited the answers he’d learned from Egrin. “I am a free-born man. I renounce all loyalties to any lord but His Majesty Pakin III, and his duly anointed heir, Prince Amaltar.”

  “Arise, Tol of Juramona!”

  Tol stood. The prince held out an empty brass scabbard, chased with the red ribbons signifying the House of Ackal. “My eye is on you, Master Tol,” Amaltar said, placing the scabbard across Tol’s upraised palms.

  “I shall strive to prove worthy, Your Highness.” Tol hung the new scabbard from his baldric.

  That should have concluded the ceremony, but Amaltar broke tradition. He drew his own dagger and presented it hilt-first to Tol.

  “A personal token of my gratitude,” he said in a low, friendly tone.

  Breathless with surprise, Tol took the weapon. It was magnificent-a chilled iron blade filigreed with gold, set in a cross-shaped hilt of burnished brass with a ruby adorning each tip. The handle was wrapped in silver wire. The pommel was a golden dragon’s claw grasping another ruby the size of a hen’s egg.

  Courtiers and imperial wives strained to see what had passed from the prince’s hand to Tol. More disciplined, the honor guard and the Juramona hordes kept their faces front, but their eyes were full of curiosity.

  Prince Amaltar turned his horse and trotted away, his entourage trailing behind him in strict order of precedence. The last man in the party was Amaltar’s valet, who gave Tol two heavy suede bags. Tol grunted under the weight of five hundred crowns.

  The imposing array of chariots, horsemen, and soldiers departed in a swirl of hooves and flashing jewels. Once they were gone, a roar rose behind Tol. Grinning, he turned to see Narren leading the footmen in a hearty cheer of approval. They broke ranks and engulfed him, shouting, shaking him, and pummeling his back with painfully vigorous enthusiasm.

  Tol pressed the bags of gold on Narren. “A crown to every footman in the guard,” he shouted in his friend’s ear. “And don’t forget Crake and Felryn!”

  Word of this generosity spread through the crowd like oil on a fire. The cheers became louder, and two stout soldiers hoisted Tol on their shoulders. They paraded him around in a circle until Egrin and the mounted commanders broke up the celebration.

  “Well done, lad,” said Wanthred. “A coup worthy of my own youth!”

  Pagas, laconic as always, contented himself with clasping Tol’s arm and nodding his approval.

  “We owe our lives to you twice over, Tol,” Egrin said. His remark plainly puzzled the youth, and he added, “If you hadn’t come to rescue us, we might all have been slaughtered. And if you hadn’t captured the elf and the forester chief, we would have been disgraced before the whole of the empire.”

  Egrin added, “And now we’ve been ordered home.”

  Pagas and Wanthred were surprised, so much so that Pagas broke his silence and piped, “By whose command?”

  “The new marshal of the Eastern Hundred. By Prince Amaltar’s order, subject to the emperor’s approval, our new marshal is Enkian Tumult, lord of the house of Mordirin.”

  The name meant nothing to Tol, but Pagas’s and Wanthred’s faces hardened with concern. Wanthred fell to stroking his silver beard, which he did only when deeply troubled.

  There was much celebrating in the Juramona camp that night. Tol’s elevation and his sharing of the crown prince’s bounty did much to lift the spirits of the men demoralized by their losses in the forest.

  The only group not happy were Tol’s own comrades, the shilder. Because they had elected to obey orders and stay behind at Zivilyn’s Carpet, they had done no fighting and so shared none of the glory. The success of the lowly foot soldiers who had accompanied Tol added further gall to their cup. Tol’s rival Relfas was bitterest of all.

  Tol did not revel late into the night with the rest. He slipped away from the bonfire where the footmen were drinking and singing. His mind was not on the celebration but on the unpleasant task he faced at sunrise-the execution of Chief Makaralonga.

  He walked slowly through the darkened periphery of the camp, deep in thought. Whatever happened, he was determined to spare Makaralonga’s life. Since the brutal death of Vakka Zan years ago, he’d had a horror of executions. Moreover, he’d given his word to Makaralonga that the chief would be spared if he surrendered. Imperial law or not, Tol intended to keep his word, but he couldn’t simply let the tribesman go. Lord Urakan was expecting Makaralonga’s head, and if it wasn’t forthcoming, Tol’s own head
could easily take its place on the roof of the Imperial Palace.

  “Your thoughts are loud.”

  Tol flinched. Deep in the shadows stood Felryn, leaning against a wagon. The healer added, “You’re pondering how to spare the life of the forester.”

  “So you divine thoughts, too?”

  Felryn shook his head. “No. It has been plain on your face since supper.”

  They walked together outside the ring of wagons. Tol poured his feelings into the healer’s sympathetic ear, finishing with a plea for help in saving the chief.

  “Why ask me? Egrin is your mentor, is he not?”

  Tol drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “Egrin is a good man,” he said carefully, “but he will not go against the law. I saw Lord Odovar use Egrin’s sense of duty against him when he forced him to execute Vakka Zan. He can’t help me. But perhaps you can.”

  Felryn smiled, acknowledging the wisdom of Tol’s reasoning and thinking to himself how much the callow farm boy had matured. He extended a hand. He did not clasp forearms, warrior-fashion, but took Tol’s hand in his own large one and shook it, as one priest to another.

  “I will help you,” he agreed.

  The morning brought a sky leaden with thick coils of black, rain-heavy clouds. A warm wind rushed through the camp, upsetting carefully stacked spears, rattling the tents, and awakening every man. Close on the heels of the wind came the first drops of rain. In moments the sprinkle was a deluge. The lashing torrent soaked through the oiled canvas panels of the tents, droplets falling in a steady indoor shower. In these miserable conditions, the Juramona hordes struck camp.

  Tol and Felryn rode to meet the warden. Between their horses Makaralonga trudged, his hands tied. A thick halter wound around his neck, the end of the rope held in Tol’s hand.

  Tol saluted with Prince Amaltar’s dagger. “I am prepared to carry out the imperial order,” he said, having to spit water and blink rapidly against the pouring rain.