A dusty rider was galloping toward them. He held aloft a leather cylinder. A message. Tol reined up, and the order to halt was passed down the line. The kender dropped where they were and broke out their skins. Cider and homebrew flowed freely.
Kiya rode over to see what had prompted the stop, and Zala arrived from the trailing ranks. She, too, was mounted on a nomad pony, as was Helbin, trotting close on her heels. Tol had set Zala the task of minding the wizard.
Helbin’s standing was still somewhat murky. Tol had demanded the wizard remove the shield that hid the bakali from the scrutiny of the Daltigoth wizards. Helbin objected, citing the empress’s orders. Tol had then refused to unchain his wrists and placed the Red Robe under Zala’s care. A few days scourged by fetters ought to convince the soft, city-bred Helbin to do as Tol required.
The messenger saluted and handed over the leather cylinder. “Compliments of Lord Egrin,” he said.
Inside the cylinder was a spool of parchment. The message was brief. Tol passed it to Tylocost, then summarized its contents for the others.
“The hordes with Egrin and Pagas have been skirmishing with a large formation of nomads, riding east. Egrin asks if I will move up and join the attack.”
“The nomads are fleeing; let them go,” said Zala.
Tylocost handed the scroll to Kiya. “Hammer them, my lord,” he said. “The harder the better, for the sake of future peace.”
Kiya agreed. “I know plainsmen, Husband. If you let them ride out unmolested, they’ll convince themselves they were never defeated. Eventually, they’ll be raiding the empire’s borders again.”
“My lord, I’d be happy to safeguard the treasure,” Queen Casberry piped.
“The fox guarding the henhouse,” cracked Tylocost.
They began to trade insults, but Tol didn’t hear them. He’d taken the dispatch back from Kiya. Its last line bothered him.
According to prisoners from the Firepath tribe, Egrin had written, it is likely their chief, Tokasin, rides with the host ahead of us. So Tokasin, the red-haired nomad who’d led the attack on Juramona, was still alive.
“Tyiocost,” Tol said, interrupting the bickering. “See the caravan safely to Caergoth. I will ride ahead to the rendezvous point at the confluence, gather the hordes there, and go after the nomads.”
Casberry’s kender were all on foot and couldn’t keep up with Riders anyway, so Tol agreed she should remain behind and “guard the treasure” as well. There was no question Kiya would accompany Tol, but when Zala offered to do likewise, he demurred, telling her to stay with Tylocost, the kinder, and the wizard.
“Besides, you have business in Caergoth, don’t you?”
He had written a pardon for Zala’s human father, held captive in the city. It held no legal standing, but should be sufficient to get the old man released if used in conjunction with the empress’s ring and seal, which Zala still carried.
The huntress was plainly torn. Although eager to free her father, she didn’t like letting Tol out of her sight. If he got himself killed, she would lose the huge bounty owed her by Empress Valaran, and she and her father would likely be targets of the empress’s wrath. However, her father was aged and alone. Lord Tolandruth was neither. She agreed to continue south with Helbin and the elf to Caergoth.
“Don’t worry, girl,” Kiya said. “I’ll watch out for Husband.”
The Dom-shu woman understood the half-elf’s quandary. She disliked being parted from Tol, too. Miya had never felt the same way about him, and teased the tough, stoical Kiya for her “motherly concern.” Kiya thumped her sister soundly, but couldn’t explain her feelings. Perhaps they sprang from Tol’s lack of concern about his own safety. Although he’d lived four decades, he still seemed like a younger brother, one a bit too naive for the dangerous company he kept.
Knowing it was risky, Tol left only a demi-horde of Riders to protect Tylocost’s foot soldiers and the treasure caravan. Of greater concern to Tol than brigands was imperial intervention. Caergoth housed a large garrison, reinforced by remnants of the armies defeated by the nomads. If Governor Wornoth took it on himself to seize the treasure on behalf of the emperor, there would be little Tylocost could do. The war chest of Tol’s burgeoning campaign would be lost.
Still, Tokasin’s band had committed many outrages in the eastern provinces, of which the burning of Juramona was only one. Tylocost was right. To preserve future peace, the tribesmen must be punished as severely as possible.
With just over two hordes, Tol and Kiya rode away from the slow-moving caravan. They arrived at the rendezvous point before midday and found eight landed hordes mustered near the confluence of the east and west branches of the Caer River. Tol proclaimed this the new Army of the East. He and ten thousand Riders headed off to join Egrin’s pursuit of the fleeing nomads.
Ten hordes take up a great deal of territory. The landed hordes, former imperial warriors, knew how to sort themselves into formation. From wing to wing, Tol’s force covered almost three leagues.
By noon the next day, the Ergothians began to see signs of what lay ahead. Dust rose over rolling hills and woodlands, marking the movements of large bodies of horsemen ahead of them. Scouts were sent out to locate friends and foes. Word came back from the southern wing of Tol’s army: armed men, several hundred strong, were riding toward them.
“Nomads?” asked Tol. The sun was high, the air humid; a breeze stirring through the pines around them offered little relief.
“No, my lord. They’re in armor,” said the scout. “They wear yellow capes and golden breastplates, and bear white plumes on their helmets.”
Tol frowned. Why did that sound familiar?
“Probably pirates,” Kiya said absently.
Tol pivoted his horse in a tight circle. “What?” •
“Is your hearing failing, Husband? Men your age often start to lose their prowess in one way or another-”
He shouted for his horde commanders. Yellow capes were the mark of Tarsan soldiers. Tarsan marines, not pirates, wore brass breastplates and plumed helmets.
The news caused the warlords to swear roundly. If Tarsis had broken the peace treaty so hard won by Tolandruth and Lord Regobart, the empire was in worse danger than ever.
Tol halted his army and swung it south, to face the unknown band of Tarsans. Scouts estimated their strength at a few hundred, but they could be the advance guard of a much larger force.
All ten hordes formed the famous scythe formation long favored by Ergothian commanders. The warriors sorted themselves into a great crescent, with the horns of the scythe facing the enemy. If their foes rode straight in, they faced encirclement. If they tried to attack either end, the rest of the hordes could strike them. The silent mass of horsemen rode forward at a fast walk. No sense tiring their animals on so hot a day before a possible battle.
Scouts ranged wider and deeper, to get behind the unknown cavalry. They sent back confirmation. No larger force was in sight. The Tarsans, if Tarsans they were, had only this small band.
When the oncoming force was reported to be only half a league distant, Tol brought his army to a halt. The dust they’d churned up rolled forward over their sweating bodies. They faced an open field. On its far side rose a low hill, its base sprinkled by tall poplars.
They were on familiar ground: the Eastern Hundred. Tol had been born not ten leagues from this spot. The civil war between the Ackals and Pakins had raged back and forth through this province for six years. Later flare-ups, like the raids that had first brought Tol into contact with Marshal Odovar, had not died out completely until Tol was in his teens. Thinly populated and devoid of large cities, the Eastern Hundred was a crossroads for armies moving east and west, traveling to and from the heartland of the empire.