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

Chapter 4

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.