Her silence pleased him. Thinking her cowed, Ackal V drew back, his color returning to a more normal hue.

“It’s always a delight to see you, lady. You never fail to stir my blood.”

He turned and walked away, followed by Argon. Just as the tension binding Valaran’s shoulders began to ease, Ackal V reached the far end of the great table and turned back to her.

“You will come to my chambers later tonight. One of my men will come for you.”

She acknowledged his command, and Ackal V swept out. Argon slammed the banquet hall doors closed behind them.

Valaran sank into her chair, her knees suddenly weak, an icy chill gripping her heart. She hardly noticed when Dalar climbed onto her lap. His frightened trembling forced her to put aside her own fears and focus on her son. He was small for his age, too small, like a seedling struggling for sunlight at the base of an overgrown oak. She held him close, stroking his smooth black hair and murmuring words of comfort.

Her glance fell on the gleaming utensils beside her plate. The knife’s silver blade was delicately engraved, its edge keen enough to slice tough parchment.

Not yet, she told herself. Soon perhaps, but not yet. Endure, Valaran. Endure, for him.

Chapter 10

he dawn lit up a plain teeming with nomad horsemen-the very tribes that had destroyed Juramona, a walled town defended by a professional garrison.

Tol, keenly aware of his own tiny, amateur force, ordered his companies to form for a quick march back to camp. The kneeling men rose wearily to their feet. The nomads kept a wary eye on the Juramonans as they moved away.

Tol was watching the nomads just as carefully. “All companies will retire in line,” he said. “Keep your faces to the enemy!”

The Ergothians withdrew slowly. The nearest nomads followed, maintaining the distance between the two groups. When the rear of the militia reached the edge of their camp, the noncombatants gathered behind them. Civilians and soldiers alike backed through camp, trampling their own tents. Zala found herself next to Tylocost. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“Hylo Bay?” he suggested.

The rear ranks reached the ashes of Juramona. When the front ranks, those closest to the enemy, were treading on ashes, Tol called a halt. With the ruined town at their backs, they could not be outflanked; no riders would dare try to enter the tangle of broken walls and burned timbers.

To their credit, the Ergothians stood ready, pikes leveled. The noncombatants, clutching their pitiful belongings, huddled behind them, some sobbing, others tight-lipped. Fear, the morning’s heat, and the ash churned up by their passage had soldiers and survivors panting. Tol called for water. The bleating of a ram’s horn sent him up onto a pile of scorched masonry for a better view.

A small group of riders left the main body of nomads galloping forward. Some wore brightly burnished helmets, no doubt taken from slain imperial officers. One fellow rode ahead of the rest and blew again on a curved ram’s horn.

“Sounds like they want to parley,” Tol reported, coming down from his perch. “Tylocost, stay here. If there’s treachery, command falls to you.”

“How nice.” The Silvanesti continued to wipe the grime from his sweaty face.

Tol shouldered through his exhausted, doomed men, with Zala following.

“You should stay here,” he told her.

“I know,” she replied, not slackening her pace.

The small group of nomad riders had formed themselves into a semicircle. Three helmeted figures sat in the center-the three chiefs, Tol surmised: Tokasin, Mattohoc, and Ulur. Once Tol and Zala drew near, the two ends of the curved line swept forward, closing the circle.

The nomads were lean and sun-browned, dressed mostly in leather, with bits of captured armor here and there. Some had the fair hair and long jaws of high plainsmen, others the burnished bronze complexions and tightly curled hair of the northern seafarers. Unlike the forest tribes, who decorated themselves with feathers, bones, and seashells, the plains nomads favored metal adornments. They traded extensively with Hylo, Ergoth, and Silvanost, obtaining silver and golden trinkets from their settled neighbors. Tol observed quite a lot of jade. The only source of the mineral he knew was in dwarf territory; the plainsmen must be dealing with Thoradin, too. All the nomads in the group were male.

The youngest of the three chiefs was a rough but striking rogue with a shoulder-sweeping mane of red hair and a thick mustache. Despite the warmth of the morning, he wore a fine, heavy mantle of fox fur, whose color matched his hair perfectly. On his right was an older, thick-bodied man, with a bull neck, dark skin, and a lumpy, shaven head. The third chief was older still, but lean and tough as whipcord. His iron gray hair was twisted into numerous long braids, his beard divided into three plaits, held tight by jade beads woven into them.

Although he could hear Zala’s rapid breathing behind him, Tol felt surprisingly calm. This was his element, matching wits against dangerous foes. The despair that had gripped him on beholding the vast nomad host vanished. Time to show these barbarians who they were dealing with.

Zala noticed the change in his attitude. Tol’s back had straightened, his expression hardened, and a new spring was now his step. She couldn’t fathom it. In her head, a single word pounded over and over: run. Only by sheer force of will did she keep her eyes fixed on the waiting chiefs and fight the urge to bolt and not stop running till the walls of home surrounded her again.

Tol murmured, without looking at her, “Calm yourself. We’re not lost yet.”

He strode forward, halting only when they were within arm’s reach of the red-haired chief’s horse; its roan color matched its rider’s furs and hair. Raising a hand, he greeted the three chiefs Dom-shu fashion.

“You have come to speak. Speak.”

The red-haired chief leaned forward on his horse’s neck and grinned unpleasantly. He’d cut quite a dashing figure until then. The image was spoiled by a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth.

“I wanted to see who’d put spines in these dirt-foots,” he said. “Must be you, Ergoth.”

“I command here.”

“You’ve put up a good fight,” said the oldest of the three chiefs, tugging on one of the three plaits of his beard. “For this, we’re willing to let you and your people leave this place. It is ours now.”

Zala’s gasp was audible only to Tol. He said, “We are where we must be. It is you who must go.”

Red Hair laughed. “Who are you, Ergoth?”

Tol gave his name and the dark-skinned chief, heretofore silent, exclaimed, “I heard Tolandruth was dead, slain by the treacherous slavemaster he called emperor!”

The chiefs exchanged glances. Braided Beard said, “Since you have given us your name, I will speak ours. I am Ulur, chief of the Tall Grass Riders.” He indicated his burly colleague. “This is Mattohoc, chief of the Sand Treaders.”

The dark-skinned nomad grunted in acknowledgment. Red Hair spoke for himself, saying, “I am Tokasin, chosen chief of the Firepath people, and leader of this warband.”

Warband he called it. There must be ten thousand nomads at his back, a greater concentration of plainsmen than had ever been known.

“My itch has been scratched,” Tokasin announced to no one in particular. “Tolandruth or not, put down your arms and depart, or we’ll trample you into the ashes of your city!”

“It is you who must depart, Tokasin,” Tol said coolly. “I have come back from exile to drive every marauder from the empire. Return to your lands in the east and I will not punish you further.” He gestured with his chin at the ruined town behind him. “Many injustices have been inflicted on your people in the past by the empire. I will count the sack of Juramona against that tally, but here your cruelties must end. Go home!”