News came that Enkian had halted his force five leagues from the city at a place called Verdant Isle. This “island” was in actuality a large triangular tract bounded on two sides by canals and on the third by Salamander Creek. It was a strong defensive position, and Enkian’s occupation of it increased everyone’s uncertainty. The warden could not storm the capital with only five thousand Riders, but he could raid the surrounding countryside from this stronghold, disrupting trade, terrorizing the population, and imposing a kind of long-range siege. Still, with the city supplied by the great canal, there was no way to starve Daltigoth into submission. What was in the warden’s mind? Did he seek to force concessions from the new emperor-or more frightening, was he waiting for allies to gather to his standard?
Speculation reached such a fever pitch the emperor could no longer ignore it. Late one evening, nine days after the fall of Mandes, Ackal IV sent for Tol.
Egrin and Kiya accompanied him to the palace. Miya had not been much in evidence around the Rumbold villa lately. Her sister laid these absences squarely at the feet of “that engineer,” Elicarno.
Arrayed in full battle gear (though weaponless, of course), Tol and Egrin knelt before the emperor. Kiya bowed her head briefly.
Most of the court had retired; only Chamberlain Valdid and a few guards were present. Valdid clucked his tongue at Kiya’s impertinence, but the emperor ignored the breach of protocol.
“Arise, my friends,” he said.
Ackal’s pallor was notable even in the flattering golden glow of the many candles burning in the audience hall. Deep hollows surrounded his eyes, his breathing was labored and noisy. He spoke slowly, as though forming words took a great effort.
“I have a mission for you, Lord Tolandruth. Once more I must send you into the unknown on my behalf.”
Jubilation surged through Tol, but he kept his voice respectfully low. “I will bring Mandes to justice, Majesty.”
Ackal IV’s brow furrowed. “No, there is a more pressing matter. I want you to search out Enkian Tumult and learn his intentions. It’s said he built a fortified camp at Verdant Isle. Go there in my name and find out what he’s up to.”
Tol nodded, but his disappointment was obvious. Egrin said quickly, “We’ll go at once, Majesty.”
Valdid cleared his throat significantly, and Ackal said, “No, Marshal. You shall remain. I would not send every loyal commander I possess into the hands of a possible usurper.”
“How many hordes shall I take?” Tol asked.
“None,” was Valdid’s surprising reply.
“That’s crazy!” Kiya exclaimed.
The imperial bodyguards stirred, moving closer to the brawny forester woman. Tol signaled her to hold her tongue.
“You must go alone, my lord,” Valdid said. “Yours is a mission of diplomacy, not combat. Enkian knows you, knows your fame and abilities. He will not dare deny you audience.”
“And if he does?” Kiya blurted angrily.
The chamberlain rapped his gold-capped staff smartly on the floor and glared at her but directed his response to Tol. “Should there be any trouble, we will send Lord Egrin with ten hordes to crush the rebel!”
Kiya continued to grumble, but there was shrewdness in the plan. If Enkian intended violence against the throne or had some less overt scheme in mind, Tol’s great popularity with the ordinary warriors of Ergoth made him the ideal candidate to persuade (or intimidate) the warden into abandoning his plans. The only problem was that Tol had slain Pelladrom Tumult, Enkian’s son.
All eyes were on Tol. If he refused the mission, what could they do?
For a long while he didn’t reply. The tension in the silent chamber had built to such a level that when Tol snapped his heels together the chamberlain and guards visibly flinched.
“I shall go at once, Your Majesty!” he said, saluting.
Ackal smiled at his champion. “I know the hazards you face,” he said quietly. “In token of a great task, I will give you a great reward.” He did not say what that reward would be.
The emperor asked Egrin to make ready ten hordes of the city garrison. Valdid rehearsed with Tol the exact questions the emperor wanted him to ask Enkian. When the finicky chamberlain was finally satisfied, Ackal dismissed the group.
No one spoke until they were outside the palace. On the broad steps, with the torchlit imperial plaza before them and stars above, Kiya could contain herself no longer.
“I’m going with you,” she stated.
“A fine idea,” said Egrin immediately. “Someone should guard your back. I am forbidden to go, but Kiya is a foreigner. She may do as she likes.”
As he descended the steps a little ahead of the other two, Egrin added, “I shall rest easier knowing Tol doesn’t enter this deathtrap alone.”
Tough soldier that he was, Tol was pleased to know the marshal’s affection hadn’t dimmed with time and distance. Having Egrin standing by with ten thousand men ready to sweep into Verdant Isle was a great comfort-almost as much as the presence of Kiya at his side and the nullstone in his pocket.
Dawn was still far distant when Tol and Kiya mounted up outside Rumbold villa. The air was crisp with a presentiment of autumn. A tapestry of stars glittered overhead. The white moon, Solin, was just setting among the rooftops and towers of the New City.
Kiya was unhappy, not because of their potentially dangerous mission, but because Miya still had not returned home.
“She’s a grown woman,” Tol said gently. “She has the right to be happy with the man of her choice.”
Kiya shook her head stubbornly. “Our father would be angry if he knew. She dishonors you, Husband.” She lowered her chin to her chest and added, “I will not desert you.”
Tol blinked. After all this time, had he acquired a wife in Kiya without noticing it?
Now was not the time for such thoughts, so he set them aside. Egrin and a handful of men from the Eagle horde had come to see them off.
“Watch your back,” Egrin said.
“Ah, I have a pair of eyes back there,” Tol answered, smiling toward Kiya.
They mounted. When their farewells were said, Tol touched heels to his mount’s sides.
“What happens after?” Kiya asked suddenly.
He pulled back on the reins and regarded her in confusion. “After what?”
“After we come back. The emperor is crowned, the old emperor sleeps with his ancestors. What happens to us after that?”
It was a question none of them had considered yet. With the great coronation ceremony concluded, and Pakin III buried, the warlords gathered in Daltigoth would soon disperse. Tol had been on campaign for ten years. His home had been a tent, pitched in field or forest. If there was no war to fight, what would he do? What about Valaran? Could he bring himself to leave her again?
The more he thought about it, the more bereft he felt. Struggling for an answer, he said, “Maybe I’ll travel-visit Juramona or the Great Green. Would you like to see the forest again?”
Kiya only shrugged and looked away.
One of the Eagle horde men overheard them and said, “If I were you, my lord, I’d ask for a foreign posting. Tarsis, maybe. With you in command of the garrison there, I’m sure the syndics would behave themselves.”
“All but one,” Kiya replied dryly, still looking toward the horizon.
“Let’s go.” Tol spurred his horse forward before Kiya revealed anything more.
The two clattered through the sleeping city, leaving the Quarry district for the New City. Here they found the first stirrings for the new day-vendors rolled out pushcarts or opened stalls, servants and housewives scrubbed their stoops. Since the death of Pelladrom Tumult in the market square riot, there had been markedly fewer disturbances in the streets, and the coronation of Ackal IV had diminished tensions over the succession still further. Of course, the arrival of Enkian Tumult had created a new cause for worry.
They left the city by the north gate, called Kanira’s Door by most fol
k. The eccentric Empress Kanira had built an elaborate ceremonial gate as the starting point of the great paved road she envisioned reaching all the way to the empire’s northern territories. The gate and fifty leagues of road were completed, then a bankrupt treasury had halted the entire enterprise. Such wild extravagance had precipitated her fall at the hands of her stepson, Ergothas II, widely considered one of the empire’s greatest rulers.
Kanira’s Door comprised columns of red granite, alternating with lofty cylinders of pink marble. The columns were placed so close together a sword blade could not fit between them. The line of columns curved outward from the city wall in a great half-circle to the gate proper: a massive slab of sculpted granite that hung over a deep pit in the road. The slab pivoted vertically, and when open, it rested flat on the ground, making a bridge over the pit. In the closed position, the vertical slab left a gaping chasm before it. Although a formidable defensive position, such a gate was so complex and expensive to build it had never been duplicated.
An ingenious mechanism lowered the ponderous stone platform while Tol and Kiya waited. Two ogres, legs shackled and bodies joined at the waists by another weighty chain, cranked furiously at a monstrous stone flywheel. The motion of the wheel turned pulleys and gears, and the gate swung down and open without the slightest scrape. Both horses cantered across the granite bridge, iron-shod hooves clattering loudly.
The land beyond Kanira’s Door was more hilly than the southern or eastern approaches to the capital. In the final bloom of summer, the fields and orchards were heavy with fruit and sparkled with dew. The fecund smell of ripeness was strong in the still morning air.
Kiya remarked it was not the warrior hordes of Ergoth but its fields that had first impressed her with the empire’s power.
“How so?” asked Tol.
“To clear and cultivate such vast amounts of land requires planning. Anyone can assemble a big army. Warriors can always be found when needed, but the effort required to feed an empire is a far surer gauge of a nation’s strength.”
As he stared out across the great fields, seeing the first workers come to tend the crops, Tol had to admit there was much truth in what she said.
Once they left the farm country near the city, the land became more wooded. The sun rose as they crossed and recrossed many small, winding streams.
The morning was glorious, bright and balmy, and they passed numerous farm carts laden with laborers. Tol was recognized frequently and hailed by the farmers. He always returned their greetings. No matter how far or how high he went, he would always be a farmer’s son.
The carters he questioned said they’d seen no riders in the area, no strange warriors. Their very presence testified to the truth of that. Farmers did not linger where mounted soldiers rode.
When Tol and Kiya reached the banks of Salamander Creek at the edge of Verdant Isle, they had to ride along the bank looking for a fording place. Despite its name, the “creek” was twenty paces wide and as much as eight to ten feet deep in spots.
In the quiet rush of flowing water, Kiya spoke after a long silence.
“Do you ever think about death?”
Tol continued to scan the water for a likely crossing. “What warrior doesn’t? “
“I mean, do you wonder how you will die?”
“Not really, no. Why?”
Kiya’s buff-colored horse shifted slightly beneath her, and she slackened the reins so it could put its head down to drink. Water splashed over boulders half-submerged in the creek. In the silence, the sound of the water seemed very loud.
“I know how I’m going to die,” she finally said. “I asked a shaman of the Riverside Tribe to divine it for me many years ago.”
Again there was a pause, and again Tol said nothing, letting her tell it in her own time. She rode slightly ahead of him and he could see only her profile. “He said I would die at the hands of my best friend, and it would be a great blessing that I did.”
The words shook Tol, and he frowned. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Two events were foretold to precede my death. First, I would leave the forest to dwell in a land of stone and iron.” She had certainly done that. “Second, my sister would leave me for a man of smoke and fire.”
That description certainly suggested Elicarno. More often than not, his hands and clothes were stained with soot from his workshop forge.
“How much time is supposed to pass between these events and your death?”
“The wise one did not say.”
“They seldom do!” he declared, moving his mount up alongside hers. “Don’t dwell on it, Kiya. Prophesies are cheap entertainment. It will be years before the gods claim you.”
“Or it might be today” She turned to him and said with sudden intensity, “When the time comes, will you end my life?”
Tol recoiled. “The friend the shaman mentioned may be someone you haven’t even met yet!”
She didn’t reply but continued to stare at him intently. Gently, he said, “We can cross there. Come, Kiya. Neither of us is going to die today.”
Her sister would have had a sharp rejoinder to such a bold statement, but Kiya merely said, “How do you know, ‘my lord’?”
“Maybe I’m a shaman, too.”
When they were halfway across, four riders appeared on the other side of the creek. They were indeed part of Enkian Tumult’s army, for they were dressed as men of the northwest coast in stiff canvas brigandines covered with bronze scales. Their helmets were bronze also and resembled cloth caps with the peaks pushed back. On the wild shore of the Seascapes, the omnipresent winds drove salt spray inland for leagues. The salt air ate iron the way moths consumed old cloth, so warriors there still wore bronze.
The riders did not seem hostile. They waited patiently for Tol and Kiya to reach shore. This end of Verdant Isle was a sea of lush marsh grass brushing the horses’ bellies. Further from shore, the ground sloped up and was covered with vineyards and orchards. Verdant Isle apples were well known in Daltigoth.
As Tol and Kiya splashed ashore, the Seascapers surrounded them. The men were armed with long spears, but they kept these pointed in the air, not toward the newcomers.
A rider with a silver chevron welded to the brow of his helmet spoke. “Halt! Who are you and where are you bound?”
Tol was relieved not to be recognized. The northerners probably knew the name of Lord Tolandruth but not his face.
“We are couriers from Daltigoth,” he replied. “We come with a message for Lord Enkian.”
The corporal exchanged a significant look with his fellows then bade Tol to follow him.
The riders made no move to disarm Kiya or Tol but rode within spear reach on all four sides. Their manner was curious and cautious but not threatening.
The party crested the brow of the hill, and the greenish waters of the Hokun Canal on the north side of the isle came into view. More men appeared, some on foot, some mounted. Verdant Isle was not very large, and Enkian had quartered five thousand men here, plus an unknown number of camp followers and other noncombatants.
They zigzagged through a long line of sharpened stakes, set to impede a cavalry charge, and crossed a line of trenches being dug by impressed local farmers. It seemed Enkian was indeed preparing to resist a serious attack.
On the wider end of the isle was a small village. Here Enkian had made his camp, pitching tents between farmers’ huts. Many eyes watched Tol and Kiya as they rode slowly toward the largest tent, sited in the center of the tiny village square. Spindly platforms of lashed poles had been erected among the leafy apple trees, and archers perched atop them. Guards with bared blades stood at the entrance to Enkian’s tent. If trouble started, Tol and Kiya would not get away unscathed.
A boy came forward to hold their horses. They dismounted and followed the corporal into the tent.
The enclosure was modest. Enkian’s tent was divided by a canvas wall into two rooms. The larger front room was the warden’s command post; the sm
aller space, his private quarters.
The warden sat at a table in the middle of the front room. The tabletop was covered by a scattering of maps. The corporal saluted and called the warden by name, for which Tol was grateful. It was hard to recognize his lean, dark-haired former commander in the stooped, gray-bearded old man before him. Enkian, however, knew him at once.
“Tolandruth! They told me another courier had come!”
“I am here as the emperor’s personal emissary,” Tol replied. He indicated Kiya. “You remember Kiya of the Dom-shu?”
The revelation of Tol’s name brought the other warriors present to their feet. They were true frontier soldiers, baked by sun and burned by wind, lean and clear-eyed. The scene, though tense, did not feel dangerous-not yet at least.
Enkian dismissed the assembled officers, wanting to speak with Tol alone. When they were gone, he poured two brass cups of wine, handing one to Tol. He did not offer Kiya any.
Dropping into a chair he said wearily, “What news do you bring me?”
Puzzled, Tol said, “I am here at the command of His Majesty, Ackal IV, whom you once knew as Prince Amaltar. He wants to know your intentions, my lord.”
Now it was Enkian’s turn to look confused. “I have followed his instructions to the letter,” he said with a frown. “Have the rebels made their move yet?”
“Rebels?”
“The Pakins-the plotters inside the city who seek to overthrow the emperor!”
The two men stared at each other. When Tol proclaimed ignorance of any plot, Enkian leaped to his feet and struck a small gong hanging by his chair. Guards entered, swords drawn.
“Send for Jarabee,” Enkian snapped.
Jarabee proved to be a youngish man, with a mop of curly blond hair and downy cheeks. His homespun gray robe and silver medallion of faith proclaimed him a priest of Gilean.
“Test them,” Enkian commanded.
Kiya and Tol tensed, but the armed guards closed in a step, forestalling any action.
Jarabee carried a large chunk of white crystal. Two of its sides had been ground flat and polished. Holding this before his eyes, the priest regarded Enkian’s visitors through it. He chanted an incantation under his breath and surveyed Kiya from head to toe. Moving to Tol, he made two passes. After the second he flushed and muttered something distinctly un-magical under his breath.
The Wizard_s Fate e-2 Page 30
