The Tarsan stammered, “I’m following my mistress’s orders, my lord!”

Cursing the syndic, Tol ordered the man to smother his torch, then he and Kiya hurried through the smoldering grass, putting a stop to the efforts of the other Tarsans. Each told the same story: the fire had been ordered by Syndic Hanira.

Before long they came upon the woman herself. She stood in a patch of burned grass, a blazing torch in each hand. Her dark purple gown was black with ash. Her hair was unbound, and long black tendrils blew wildly around her face. She was singing a Tarsan lullaby at the top of her lungs.

He shouted her name and she turned to him. Her eyes, usually a warm honey color, were like dark holes in her ashen face. Tears had made tracks in the soot on her cheeks.

“Let them burn!” she screamed. “Murdering savages! Let them all burn!”

Tol feared she would get her wish. The fire, fanned by the night wind, had become unstoppable. It devoured the dry grass and caressed the dark trunks of the ancient elms. The nomads did not wait for the fire to engulf the wood. On horseback and afoot they fled the forest, racing for the faraway shelter of the Great Green.

Egrin, Trudo, and the other warlords ordered the Riders to horse. Argonnel’s men met the mounted enemy and drove them back. The nomads surged out again, striking Mittigorn’s Black Viper Horde.

Kiya rode up, bringing Tol’s horse. “Come, Husband. The battle is joined.”

As Tol mounted, Hanira dropped her spent torches and held out her hands toward the fire, as if warming herself. Kiya shuddered.

“She looks like Azalla herself!”

Azalla, the Fire Lady, was the Dom-shu goddess of revenge and evil, said to be the child of Argon and the Dragonqueen. Nomads had dared kill Hanira’s daughter, and the mistress of the Golden House would not be denied vengeance. Had it happened in Tarsis, she would’ve hired assassins to exact her revenge. Here, on the plains of Ergoth, she took matters into her own hands.

Kiya and Tol galloped off to join Pagas’s horde. So desperately did the nomads fight, they came within a heartbeat of breaking the Ergothian line before the Plains Panthers arrived to reinforce Mittigorn.

The fight was fierce, but brief. When the last nomad warrior was unhorsed, those remaining on foot finally ended their resistance. Tol halted the slaughter. He left Egrin to oversee the sorting of the prisoners, and to look for Tokasin among the captured, then he himself went to search for the chief among the fallen.

The Isle of Elms was fully ablaze now, lighting the scene with a garish orange glow. Kiya, riding with Tol through the battle site, watched as the roiling smoke rose skyward, obscuring the stars. The gray columns came together to form figures like those she’d seen before: giant human shapes standing shoulder to shoulder and looking down on her and everyone else. They resembled the stone statues she’d seen in Daltigoth, inert yet watchful. She wondered if the smoke-figures were gods.

“Eh? Gods?” asked Tol, his attention on the bodies sprawled on the ground.

“Nothing,” she said quickly, as she realized she’d spoken her thoughts aloud. “It’s nothing.”

They found Tokasin. He lay dead amidst a circle of warriors who had died trying to defend him. When Tol turned him over, they realized the chief had taken his own life at the end, by falling on his sword. Tokasin knew the fate of enemy commanders captured by Ergoth.

Day came, and the woods still burned. Elms, many hundreds of years old, flamed like giant candles, and eventually toppled over, sending up gouts of smoke and glowing embers. The heat from the hard, heavy wood was intense, keeping everyone well back. The animals in the grove had long since fled-birds, deer, rabbits, even a wild boar or two had dashed out while the Ergothians sorted out their victory.

Tol sat on the blackened turf back to back with Kiya. She was asleep. He drank from a wineskin while Lord Trudo reported.

“One thousand, twenty mounted enemy warriors dead,” recited the commander of the Oaken Shield Horde, consulting the strip of bark on which the computations had been scratched. “Of the nomads on foot, six hundred ninety-seven were killed. One thousand, two hundred sixteen are our prisoners.”

Altogether, not quite three thousand had been in the woods, fewer than Tol had estimated. He asked Trudo about their own losses.

“Four hundred nine killed and five hundred forty-one wounded to a greater or lesser degree.” Trudo stroked his white beard complacently. “Not so bad, my lord.”

Tol took the bark tally from him, moving with care so as not to disturb Kiya’s rest. He wished he could sleep, but knew his next task could not be put off any longer.

“Bring the syndic to me.”

Hanira and her bodyguard Fenj arrived. They were accompanied by Egrin.

“My lord,” the old marshal said, “I have come to speak on the syndic’s behalf.”

Hanira, red-eyed, soot-stained, and haggard, said coldly, “I don’t need your help.”

Undeterred, Egrin directed his words to Tol. “I know you’re angry, my lord, but Syndic Hanira’s actions, harsh though they were, resolved a pressing problem. We were debating how best to come to grips with the enemy, and she supplied the way.”

“She meant to kill them all.”

“Pity I didn’t succeed.” Hanira brushed lank tendrils of hair from her face.

Tol, mindful of her loss, kept his voice calm. “I did not ask you to come and fight,” he said. “You joined of your own accord. You agreed to accept my authority and obey my orders. Your actions last night were treacherous, vindictive, and insubordinate. The fact that you resolved the matter in our favor does not excuse you!”

From behind him, Kiya said sleepily, “Send her home.”

Since she was awake, Tol stood and handed Kiya the wineskin. “No. The syndic will stay.”

“You think to punish me like some errant servant?” Hanira sneered.

“I don’t intend to punish you.” Not in the way she was thinking, at any rate. Tol locked gazes with her. “You joined this campaign, Syndic, and I expect you to see it through. But if you ever disobey my orders, or take such a deed upon yourself again, I’ll clap you in irons!”

Silent Fenj tensed, ready to interpose himself between his mistress and Tol, but Hanira suddenly laughed.

“By Shinare, I believe you! There’s not a Tarsan general or admiral who’d dare, but you would!”

Their exchange seemed to restore a measure of Hanira’s poise. She straightened, and her manner underwent a subtle shift. Although still dirty and disheveled, she seemed more like the woman Tol remembered.

“I will send Tindyll to you for our orders,” she said briskly. “Are we bound next for Daltigoth?”

The abrupt change surprised Tol, but he answered her readily enough. “We have one stop to make first,” he said.

“We have business in Caergoth,” Kiya put in. “A treasure to reclaim.”

At that moment, Tylocost beheld the pale walls of Caergoth. The southward march of the treasure caravan had been without undue incident. The vigilance of the Juramona Militia and Tylocost’s active cavalry escort discouraged any from approaching too closely.

The ranks of the Royal Loyal Militia dwindled as the city drew near. No one ever actually saw a kender leave, but a handful vanished each day. The weird desertions were not confined to the kender; the Household Guard evaporated as well. Some days the only sign of Casberry’s personal guard was the dwarf doctor and centaur standard bearer, who could always be located by his uncommon stench. By the time the towers of Caergoth came into view, the kender queen led barely a hundred followers, most of whom were hired humans. She wasn’t distressed. In fact, she acted as if nothing untoward had happened. For his part, Tylocost was happy to have fewer kender to deal with.