Valaran was trembling so violently, she had to clutch the parapet to keep herself from falling. She’d had no choice. It had to be done. Winath knew too much. A guileless old woman, she would never have kept Valaran’s secrets, not with the emperor’s spies swarming about.

Shouts echoed from the open stairwell. Valaran turned away from the drop as servants and guards burst out onto the balcony. Seeing the empress, they halted, astonished.

“Your Majesty!” sputtered a guard, lowering his gaze quickly from her unveiled face. “What happened?”

“Winath of the White Robes has killed herself.” She had no need to counterfeit the tremor in her voice. “Unable to find the bakali army, she confessed her fear of the emperor’s punishment and leaped. I could not stop her.”

Still exclaiming in shock, the male guards and servants departed immediately, leaving the women with the empress. A plump, motherly washerwoman looked over the edge, then regarded Valaran with pity.

“How terrible, Majesty! What does this mean?”

Valaran let out a pent-up breath. She lowered the white veil over her face. A part of her mind noted with pride that her hand did not shake. She was Empress of Ergoth. She was equal to the task she had set herself.

“It means,” she said calmly, “the White Robes must choose a new chief.”

Chapter 13

With a blast of horns, a wall of armed horsemen emerged from the screen of trees. They raised sabers, shouted a war cry, and attacked the slow-moving column.

This time, it was not buckskin-clad nomads sweeping down upon hapless farmers and traders, but Ergothians falling like a thunderbolt upon an assemblage of ox-drawn carts and nomad riders dozing in their saddles. This time, it was the nomads who were caught completely by surprise.

Nomad women and children dropped their scanty baggage and scattered. What few warriors there were turned to face the Ergothians, lashing their ponies forward.

The fight was over in moments. The plainsmen were overwhelmed, and their terrified families were rounded up. Horses and weapons were stripped away. Children cried and babies howled. Ringed by stern-faced riders, the nomads huddled together, expecting no mercy.

In the days following the relief of Juramona, the fortunes of the nomads had taken a severe reverse. With the rapidly growing camp at Juramona as their base, the Firebrand Horde, arriving just behind Lord Pagas’s Panthers, set out to strike the nomads wherever they could be found. Faced with such relentless pursuit, the tribes dispersed like drops of water on a hot griddle.

Pagas, Egrin, and Tol rode forward, watching as the latest crowd of frightened survivors was searched. Traditionally, prisoners taken by the Great Horde were sold as slaves in the nearest city, after the most infamous among them faced summary execution. By Tol’s order, notorious killers were arrested, stolen booty reclaimed, and the chastised nomads were then driven out of the empire. Not only did he consider slavery evil, but if word got out they were enslaving captives, Tol knew the remaining raiders would fight all the harder. He wanted the nomads to flee, not fight.

Tol spied a familiar face in the clumps of women and old people. He ordered the man brought forward. Riders wove through the crowd, converging on the man, and driving him out to face Lord Tolandruth.

“Chief Mattohoc?”

The dark-skinned chief of the Sand Treader tribe glared up at his captor. Shame and fury stiffened his hulking frame as he acknowledged his name. He had obviously fought hard: shoulders and arms were striped by sword cuts, a deep gash laid open his forehead, and his left thigh was tightly wrapped with bloodstained bandages.

Tol asked him where the rest of his tribe was. Mattohoc’s reply was an impossibly obscene suggestion. An irate Ergothian kicked him between the shoulders, and the chief fell forward to his hands and knees.

“Enough!” Tol barked. “We do not abuse prisoners!”

Tol had a waterskin brought to the badly wounded chief. As Mattohoc drank noisily, Tol called for a healer to tend him.

“Heal him?” Pagas was so astonished, he broke his usual reticence. “By rights we should separate him from his head!”

“That may happen. But for now, Mattohoc is a captured chief, and he will be treated with respect.” Mattohoc’s expression showed no gratitude, only impotent fury.

Later, as the Ergothian commanders dined under a canvas fly pitched on the summit of a nearby knoll, Mattohoc was brought before Tol.

Landed hordes, eager to take back their country from the invaders and to serve the famous Lord Tolandruth, were still arriving from the south and east. From their vantage point, the commanders could see a seemingly endless stream of newcomers riding to their camp. As Mattohoc approached, limping, Tol waved him to a stool. The chief’s wounds had been dressed, but his face was gray and he grunted as he sat. Cider, bread, and a joint of meat were placed before him. He regarded the repast with disdain.

“You won’t make me talk by showing me kindness,” he sneered.

“No one’s asked you to talk. Eat or not, as you please,” Tol replied, then bade Egrin continue his report.

The old warrior was marking tallies on a scrap of parchment. “With the arrival of the Silver Star Horde, our strength is now thirty thousand,” he said. “Plus two thousand, six hundred twelve foot soldiers.”

“We need more. I want fifty thousand men under arms by the time we reach Caergoth.” Tol poured himself another draught of cider and looked a question at Egrin. At his nod, Tol refilled his cup as well.

Across the folding table, Lord Argonnel said, “Why so many, my lord? Surely this campaign is winding down?”

A brown-bearded fellow of middle years, Argonnel commanded the Iron Scythe Horde, made up of gentry from the extreme northeast corner of the empire.

“This campaign has just started,” Tol replied. “Once the nomads are defeated, there will be other enemies to fight.”

The warlords made cheerfully belligerent noises. Lord Tolandruth planned to take on the lizard-men, too? So be it!

Lord Trudo, of the Oaken Shield Horde, raised another issue. “My lord, why did you leave command of the militia to that-to that elf?”

The question was not unexpected. After Tokasin’s defeat, Tol had gone with Egrin and Pagas in pursuit of the shattered nomads, leaving Tylocost in command of the Juramona Militia. The Juramonans, impressed by the Silvanesti’s skill and cool demeanor during the battle, accepted him without qualm. Veteran members of the landed hordes were not so open-minded. To lessen the conflict with the hordes (who regarded elves and infantry as equally suspicious), Tol had ordered Tylocost to bring the militia cross-country to a planned rendezvous. Tol’s hordes and Tylocost’s infantry would meet by the bluff where the eastern and western sources of the Caer came together to form the mighty river. It was at this spot, known as the Great Confluence, that Tol had found the Irda millstone decades earlier.

Tol plucked a grape from a bowl. “Tylocost is a great general,” he said. He popped the grape in his mouth. “I trust him.”

“But he’s Silvanesti!” Argonnel protested.

“So he is.” Tol turned to their captive. “Chief Mattohoc, would you let a former enemy ride in your warband?”

Mattohoc, eating awkwardly with his uninjured left hand, grunted an affirmative.

“Why?” Tol asked.

The chief swallowed and said, “Men fight for many reasons. Loot, glory, or a lust for battle. If I find an enemy who fights for other reasons, that man can stand beside me as easily as face me.”

“What other reasons?” asked Egrin.

“Honor, foremost.”

This drew a laugh from the warlords. All save Egrin and Tol scoffed at the notion of honor among such savages as the nomad tribes.