A Hero's justice d-3 Read online

  A single male voice was laughing at the carnage. As surely as Tol knew his own name, he recognized that laugh. It was Nazramin, who now ruled Ergoth as Emperor Ackal V.

  The laughter swelled in power and volume until it beat at his ears, pounding in his head like a relentless sea. Eyes squinting against the agony, Tol fell to his knees.

  Was this the same kind of strange, waking dream that had tormented him on his journey to slay Mandes? If so, then Tol could make it stop. He could wake himself from it.

  Lifting a hand high, he slammed his palm down on a sharp stone.

  The burning town and killing laughter vanished. Tol was lying on his back, staring up at the stars through gently waving tree branches. Over the ringing in his ears, normal night sounds-tree frogs, crickets, birds-made themselves heard once more.

  Tol sat up. Blood stained his right hand, and his bow lay in the leaves a short distance away. The bowstring had burnt in two. As he moved, the leaves around him disintegrated into ashes.

  The vision was gone. The ravine was populated by nothing more than the closely growing trees, their spring foliage dark in the filtered moonlight. The taste of the experience lingered strongly: Valaran’s piteous call, the wails of the dying in Juramona, and the emperor’s malevolent laughter.

  He wrapped his torn hand with a strip of leather, and started hack to the village. On the way he thought about what he’d seen. Valaran must be searching for him, which meant something had changed in Daltigoth. Why now, after six years, would she reach out to Tol? Were the twin invasions by bakali and nomads reason enough for her to risk the emperor’s wrath, should she be discovered?

  The second vision was equally troubling. How could a town as large and as well-defended as Juramona fall to nomad tribesmen? Had Val sent him the second vision as well? It made no sense that he would be shown something that had already happened, something he could do nothing about. He must have been given a glimpse of the future-a future he might yet be able to change.

  In spite of his rapid pace, midnight had come before Tol reached home. With a shout, he roused the inhabitants of the sod hut. Kiya and Egrin sprang awake with bare blades in their hands. Eli sat up, blinking in confusion, black hair wildly awry. Miya, sleeping next to him, only shifted slightly.

  Tol briefly described his second vision in the forest. The first, of Valaran calling to him, he kept to himself.

  Kiya was disposed to think it was a trick, but Egrin wasn’t so sure. The changes in the town’s defenses that Tol had described had been added only after Tol’s exile, by Egrin himself. Although not compelling proof, Egrin felt this was significant evidence the vision was a true one.

  Whether trickery or truth, Tol had made up his mind already. If there was a chance he could prevent the town’s destruction, he had to try.

  “I leave for Juramona. Tomorrow,” he announced.

  Kiya felt he was acting hastily, but knew there was no point trying to dissuade him. Eli jabbered excitedly about horses and swords, journeys and battles. Egrin, still trying to absorb the news, asked Tol what he planned to do when he got to Juramona.

  “What I can.”

  From anyone else, this would have sounded pathetic. From Tol of Juramona, it amounted to a sacred vow.

  Chapter 4

  Footsteps of Fire

  The great plaza before the imperial palace in Daltigoth was ablaze, lit not by looters’ fires but by massed torches. Six hundred imperial guards, standing shoulder to shoulder, ringed the plaza. The light of their blazing torches cast a brilliant, wavering glow on the high stone walls surrounding the Inner City, and gave their polished armor a coppery sheen.

  Within the perimeter of straight-backed guardsmen a smaller contingent of armed men stood more casually. Lean and unkempt, with gimlet eyes and hard, scarred faces, each man wore a wolf pelt on his back, the beast’s head perched atop the crown of his brass helmet. These were the Emperor’s Wolves, Ackal V’s private guard.

  The emperor was seated in an ornately carved and gilded chair. Various officials were arranged behind him-Lord Breyhard, general in command of the Riders of the Great Horde; court functionaries; and important city leaders, such as guildmasters, merchants, and priests. To the emperor’s right stood the empress, holding the hand of a small, black-haired boy. A misty green veil covered her face. Custom had long decreed that no man could be alone with the empress. Ackal V had added to the stricture: in male company, the empress must be veiled.

  All eyes were on the figure who occupied the space between emperor and the Wolves. Out of the entire multitude, only the emperor was smiling at the sight.

  Oropash, chief of the White Robe wizards in Daltigoth, lay flat on his back, wrists and ankles chained to heavy stone halls. A thick wooden platform, about the size and shape of a common door, rested on the wizard’s chest. The platform was covered with lead ingots, and the Wolves stood ready to add more. Oropash’s face and bald pate were flushed deep red, his breathing dreadfully labored. The platform and ingots formed a terrible weight.

  “Tell me, White Robe, what traffic had you with the lizards?” Ackal V asked loudly.

  “None, sire! None!” Oropash wheezed.

  “Then, how do you account for their success?”

  The wizard made several abortive attempts to reply, finally gasping, “I am not a military man!”

  “No. You’re not.” Ackal V gestured to the Wolves. “Another half hundredweight.”

  Five more ingots were placed on the platform. The additional burden wrung a high-pitched groan from the wizard. Valaran looked away, and her son buried his face in her robe.

  “I require you to see this,” Ackal V said sternly. Valaran’s shrouded head turned back. The boy didn’t move.

  “Prince Dalar, too.” When she did nothing, he added, “Turn him, or I shall.”

  Valaran knelt and spoke softly to the boy. Only five years old, the Crown Prince of Ergoth was obviously his father’s son. He had the high forehead and rather sharp features of the Ackal line, but his mother’s influence could be seen in the green of his eyes and the dimple that appeared at the corner of his mouth when he grinned.

  Dalar whimpered, and shook his head at his mother. She placed a gentle finger under his chin, whispering, “Do as you’re told. Your father commands it.”

  This close, Dalar could see through her veil, could see the loving expression only he was privileged to know. For everyone else-especially for the emperor, his father-her face was always set in a cold, hard mask, her green eyes as unyielding as the peridot ring Dalar wore on his little finger.

  Taking a deep breath, the boy turned his head. The old wizard no longer struggled for air. His eyes were open, unblinking, and his tongue protruded from between his teeth. Now Dalar found he could not look away.

  Ackal V stood abruptly. Many in the crowd behind him drew back quickly, but his glare was directed at the crown prince.

  “I arranged this lesson for your benefit,” the emperor said, as though the old wizard’s death was a lecture on history or swordsmanship. “Do you think I question high mages every day? He died too quickly, and the lesson was wasted.”

  Without turning, Ackal V pointed to a scribe seated on the ground by his chair and intoned, “Crown Prince Dalar will have nothing but bread and water for the next three days.”

  Valaran drew breath to speak. Still not moving his eyes from the shivering boy, the emperor added, “If the empress protests, she’ll have the same for a fortnight!”

  She had borne worse, but Valaran would not give him the satisfaction of punishing her in public. Taking Prince Dalar by the hand, she left.

  “Tathman!”

  “Yes, Majesty!” The captain of the Wolves stepped forward. Tathman, son of Tashken, was a tall, rawboned hulk. Lank brown hair was gathered in a single braid reaching well past his shoulders. Narrow brows cut a straight slash over dark eyes. The eye sockets of the wolf pelt Tathman wore held polished garnets, a sign of his patron’s favor that only added to the
captain’s frightening appearance.

  “Have the traitor’s carcass removed. Hang it from the outer wall, head down.”

  “The whole body, sire? Not just the head?”

  “That is your order, Captain.”

  The Wolves began clearing away the weights. A delegation of White and Red Robe wizards approached the emperor cautiously. They had chosen a middle-aged White Robe named Winath to speak for them.

  “Gracious Majesty,” Winath said. “Permit us to honor our late chief with a proper burial.”

  “Oropash was a traitor,” was the cold reply. “Like his colleague, Helbin.”

  Winath bowed. “It is true Helbin has disappeared from the city, Mighty Emperor, but poor Oropash had nothing to do with that. Oropash was no traitor.”

  The Wolves ceased their labors, their eyes fixing on the wizard. Behind Winath, her colleagues froze. They too stared at Winath’s slight figure, but for a different reason. A glance at the Wolves would be taken as a challenge.

  Ackal V replied with deliberate emphasis. “Under Oropash’s leadership, you failed, not once or twice, but three times to keep the bakali host from entering the heartland of the empire. Is that not so?”

  The female White Robe inclined her iron-gray head. “It is, Great One.”

  “Oropash was a weakling, a fool, and incompetent. That makes him a traitor, too.”

  Silence descended in the plaza as Winath considered Ackal V’s words carefully.

  “If Your Majesty judges so, it is so,” she finally replied, and it seemed that all present, save the Wolves and their liege, breathed a collective sigh of relief.

  The emperor delayed dismissing the wizards until they had witnessed one final humiliation. A rope was tied around one of Oropash’s ankles, and two Wolves dragged him away. The knot of mages tried to show no reaction. Many failed.

  Ackal turned his attention back to Winath. “You’re the traitor’s successor, are you not?” he said.

  She nodded. She had been Oropash’s second, and until the White Robes convened and elected a new leader, she had command of the order.

  “I want new and different spells,” said the emperor. “The bakali have reached the bend of the Dalti River, barely twenty leagues from here. They are not to cross it. Do whatever is needed to stop them.”

  “Is that not a task for the Great Horde, Majesty?”

  Winath’s boldness earned her one of Ackal V’s unnerving smiles.

  “The army is being re-formed. You keep those lizards east of the river, or I’ll begin to question your loyalty, too.”

  From the palace emerged a group of Wolves, manhandling some prisoners. The captives, eleven in all, had cloth sacks over their heads. Unable to see, their hands hound behind their backs, the prisoners stumbled awkwardly down the palace steps. The Wolves yanked them roughly to a halt at the bottom.

  “Wait a moment longer,” Ackal said to Winath, his tone almost pleasant. “I have another lesson to give.”

  Drawing his saber, he swept away from the closely clustered wizards. The emperor’s weapon was no flimsy ceremonial blade, but a standard cavalry saber, deeply curved and well oiled. Only the ornate golden hilt and egg-sized ruby in the pommel distinguished it from an ordinary sword.

  “Down, you worthless dogs!” Ackal bellowed, and the Wolves kicked the prisoners’ legs out from under them. The hooded men fell hard to the ancient mosaic pavement. At the emperor’s command, the hoods were removed.

  Shocked exclamations, hastily muffled, rippled across the imperial plaza. The men kneeling before the emperor were well-known warlords. Their long hair and beards had been crudely shorn.

  “By the law of my illustrious predecessor, Ackal Dermount, I sentence you all to death,” the emperor said. “You abandoned your men and your honor on the field of battle. For that, your heads will dry on the city wall!”

  In the center of the line of captives was Lord Relfas, face bruised, beardless jaw looking naked and pale in the torchlight. He tried to straighten his back, struggling against the harsh grips of the Wolves who held his shoulders.

  “Majesty!” he cried. “The fault is mine! I commanded the army. Kill me, but spare the others! They fought well! They did not dishonor the empire!”

  Ackal V sneered. “You lost. That’s dishonor enough.” Smiling, he added, “Still, since you accept the fault of failure, I shall give you this dispensation: you will be the one who dies last.”

  The Wolves guffawed at their master’s clever joke. What he called a favor was of course the worst of punishments. Lord Relfas must watch his subordinates executed, one by one, before the mercy of death blotted out his horror for good.

  Relfas’s face went ashen. Two Wolves yanked him to his feet and dragged him to one side.

  No specially trained executioner was called. No broad headsman’s blade was used to cleanly behead the captives. The Wolves simply drew their swords and slashed the ten warlords to pieces. When they were done, Ackal V turned and beheaded Relfas with a single sidelong blow. The Wolves raised a cheer for his keen eye and steady hand.

  Ackal V returned to the group of wizards. “Remember what I said. Impede the bakali-now.”

  He wiped his blade with a hood that had once covered a captive’s head. Relfas’s blood ran down the back of the emperor’s hand.

  Dismissed at last, Winath led her colleagues across the great plaza and through the line of torch-bearing guardsmen. As they entered the grove that surrounded the Tower of High Sorcery, one of the Red Robes would have spoken, but Winath’s upraised hand silenced her.

  With the setting of the white moon, the great tower’s usual brilliant halo had dimmed and the lofty structure glowed only softly, like foxfire in the forest. Alabaster walls appeared seamless and translucent by starlight. Small minarets sprouted from its sides at regular intervals all along its height. Their crystal peaks gave off a faintly pinkish light.

  Winath always allowed herself at least a brief moment to drink in the sight of the tower. It never failed to steady her. For her predecessor, the unfortunate Oropash, the tower had been a hiding place. He hated every moment he was outside its enclosing safety. Winath did not share that feeling. There was too much she wanted to accomplish, goals that could be attained only through the concerted efforts of herself and her colleagues. For her, then, the Tower of High Sorcery was the rational center of her being, an unchanging certainty amidst the maelstrom of the uncertain world.

  Enclosing the tower on three sides was the wizards’ college. Each of its four floors was faced by a colonnade. Although the columned walkways were deserted just now, lights burned in several of the building’s many windows. Few were the nights that found no lights burning in the wizards’ college, and sleep had become even more rare since the invading bakali had pushed closer to the capital.

  The wizards quickly traversed the white marble courtyard surrounding the tower. The instant they crossed the threshold of the tower’s only entrance, silence could be maintained no longer.

  “Beast!” exclaimed a Red Robe. “He murdered Oropash!”

  The deaths of the dishonored warlords meant little to her, but Oropash had been one of their own. Other Red Robes echoed her sentiments.

  “Remember where you are!” Winath snapped. All knew she referred not to the sanctity of their surroundings, but to the prevalence of imperial spies. The emperor could have eyes and ears even in their ranks, and any number of spies might be hiding behind the alabaster columns of the two levels of galleries overhead.

  “We should all have left with Helbin,” another Red Robe despaired.

  “No!”

  Winath stamped her sandaled foot. The movement made little noise in the vast, circular chamber, yet the tower quivered from foundation to pinnacle. Already the power that had been Oropash’s was beginning to flow within her.

  “Helbin betrayed us all!” she said, her voice ringing off the chamber’s domed ceiling. “For three hundred years we slaved to establish this sanctuary in the heart of t
he empire. In my lifetime I have seen a living tower rise where nothing but a dream once stood. I will not endanger the gains we have made by running afoul of the emperor!”

  “He’s a madman!”

  This came from one of her own order, but Winath folded her arms and directed her words to the entire assembly. “Read your chronicles. Many cruel tyrants have worn the crown of Ackal Ergot. We have survived them, and we will survive this one-if we keep our heads!”

  Her unfortunate phrasing reminded them of poor Oropash, being hung in disgrace from the Inner City wall. On that somber note they dispersed to their private chambers.

  Winath climbed the stairs to her former master’s rooms, which opened onto the second level of galleries overlooking the main chamber. His quarters still smelled of berry jam, for which Oropash had had a well-known weakness. She uttered an illumination spell. Every lamp ignited at once.

  On the table in his study were several manuscripts, a brass censer, and a shard of pottery covered with figures scrawled in Oropash’s distinctive hand. Winath studied the scrolls. They were notes on tele-clairvoyance-it appeared this had been Oropash’s last conjuration. He had summoned an image of the future, but not for himself. Winath frowned. To whom had he sent it? And why?

  She took the pottery shard back to her own room, on the opposite side of the tower. The writing was a cipher of Oropash’s own devising. Knowing him well, it took her only one mark to discern who he had gifted with a glimpse of the future. The name surprised her.

  Winath rubbed away the letters with a piece of cloth. If anyone in the emperor’s pay saw that name, the life of every White Robe in Daltigoth would be forfeit.

  “Down! Down!”

  Zala grabbed Tylocost by the hem of his tunic and dragged him to the ground. A band of mounted nomads galloped past, brandishing firebrands and screaming. Although the stars and moons were shrouded by clouds, Zala feared discovery. The blazing town cast a great deal of illumination.

  Juramona was in flames. Mounted nomads filled the streets, battling the few townspeople still trying to fight. Zala and Tylocost lay next to a gutted tavern, in the cover provided by a jumble of broken wheelbarrows and crockery.