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

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.

Reaction to the ominous portent was quick back at the camp. The returning militia found no one except those too old or sick to work for Tylocost. The rest had abandoned their tents and lean-tos, seeking the imagined protection of the Juramona ruins.

Tol deployed his raw troops in company blocks of one hundred men. He spread sixty hand picked men, all young, in a skirmish line a hundred paces in front of his foot soldiers.

Although he had a horse, Tol chose to lead on foot. Zala, white-faced with worry, stuck to him like dew on a leaf.

The dust column died away. The horsemen had stopped.

Tylocost appeared, striding through the trampled grass. His floppy gardener’s hat shaded his face, and he gripped not a sword or spear but his long walking stick.

“Poor sports, these nomads, coming up on our undefended side,” he said. “Still, what else can you expect from barbarian-”

“Shut up,” Tol said. To Zala’s amusement, the elf obeyed.

A covey of partridges flew up from the tall grass a long bowshot away. Tol drew Number Six.

“Skirmish line, kneel.” He didn’t shout. A calm, even voice was needed to steady his men. All went down on one knee, including Tylocost and Zala.

“Present arms.”

His skirmishers, armed with salvaged pikes, extended their weapons, sweaty hands gripping the fire-blackened poles too tightly. Tol suddenly wished Kiya was at his side. Her unfailingly accurate bow and unflappable calm would have been a welcome addition to this pitiful force.

A distorted wail rose from the plain. It began as a single voice, then others joined in.