Zala called her father’s name, but could hardly make herself heard over the cries of the others around her. “Kaeph the scrivener! Where is Kaeph the scrivener?” she shouted.

“He may be dead already.”

The words had come from a woman prisoner sitting close to the bars a few paces further along. Zala walked quickly toward her. The woman was very tall, even sitting down. Her hair, cut to chin length like Zala’s own, was brown, and she wore the embroidered deerskins of a forest woman. Her accent was urbane, also like Zala’s.

“Why do you say that?” Zala demanded.

“Many have been beheaded-the latest batch was three days ago. Go to the citadel, you can see the heads.”

“Do you know Kaeph the scrivener?”

The woman shook her head. “I don’t know anyone but the Dom-shu I came with.”

Zala recognized that name. Lord Tolandruth’s constant companion, the female warrior who called him “Husband,” was a Dom-shu. Perhaps she could persuade this sullen giantess to help her if they proved to have a mutual acquaintance.

“I know a woman of your tribe,” she said. “Her name is Kiya. Very tall, like you, but with blonde hair.”

The Dom-shu’s weary gloom vanished instantly. “Father! Come here!” she shouted, bolting to her feet. Her head touched the bars roofing the cage.

A tribesman joined her. His yellow hair and beard were streaked with white, but he moved smoothly through the shuffling prisoners.

At the female prisoner’s request, Zala repeated what she’d said.

The elder’s face glowed with relief. “She lives! She is free! What of the Son of My Life?”

The Dom-shu woman leaned close to the bars and murmured, “Does Kiya travel with a man, brown hair, brown eyes, a short beard, and nearly as broad in the shoulders as he is tall?”

“Yes. Lord Tol-”

“Keep that name between your teeth,” the Dom-shu woman snapped, then grinned widely. “The gods still love him, and his friends, too, I pray! Girl, I am Miya, sister of Kiya, and wife of that man you know!”

Chapter 17

All that remained of the Isle of Elms was a few score tree trunks, upright but limbless and charred black. They stood, stark and lonely, across a great scar of burned land. Upwind from the smoldering remains, the Army of the East was arrayed on the plain in parade formation. The time had come to deal with the captive nomads.

As with the nomads captured after the battle of Juramona, infamous malefactors, those who had committed specific outrages against the people of Juramona and other towns, were identified and culled from the prisoners. These thirty or so nomads received summary justice. The rest of the defeated were stripped of horses, weapons, and armor and turned loose.

From horseback, Tol regarded the sullen crowd of captives before him. His expression was grim.

“I give you mercy this once,” he said. “If any of you enters the empire under arms again, you will receive no quarter. Now go home!”

Riding away at Tol’s side, Egrin asked, “How do you know they’ll leave?”

“The land for leagues around has been stripped bare. They must go home to hunt and fish, or starve.”

Egrin cast a glance back over his shoulder. As predicted, the mass of defeated plainsmen was moving off to the east, a gray-brown body hugging the scorched plain.

Zala returned to Tylocost in a fever of excitement. She had found her father, alive but ill, in the same cage that held the Dom-shu. Once she told them who he was, the Dom-shu prisoners agreed to look out for him, and she swore on her life to return with help. They told her to hurry. The governor was fond of staging random executions, to intimidate the restless refugees sheltering in his city. There was no telling how much time the Dom-shu or Zala’s father had.

There were eleven Dom-shu in the cage: Miya, her father, and the small retinue of warriors who had accompanied them. Miya introduced her father as Voyarunta, a name she seemed to find amusing. As Zala did not speak their language, she missed the joke. The Dom-shu had been captured by a company of imperial horsemen, riding south from a losing encounter with Tokasin’s nomads. To Ergothian eyes, a barbarian was a barbarian; they made no distinction between forest-dwelling Dom-shu and plains-dwelling Firepath. When Miya pointed out she was Lord Tolandruth’s wife and the Dom-shu were at peace with the empire, all she got for her temerity was a boot between her shoulders. She and her people had been languishing in Caergoth’s cages for eight days.

“This is what I get for chasing that fool husband of mine,” Miya grumbled to Zala.

“You insisted on going,” said her father. “All was calm in the village until you decided to leave the Great Green and search for your sister and husband.”

“You did not have to come along!”

The forester chief folded his brawny arms. “Am I to let my last daughter go wandering across the grassland without a strong blade at her side? What kind of father would do such a thing?”

“I didn’t need you following me! You only slowed me down!”

“You’d be in a nameless grave by now if I hadn’t come.”

Father and daughter were still arguing when Zala stole away. Despite the threat of random beheadings and the days they’d spent in the fetid, uncomfortable cage, the foresters were in good spirits. Their faith in Lord Tolandruth was unshakable.

Zala’s father, on the other hand, was in very poor health. A cough had settled in his chest, and he’d grown pale and haggard. He could not remain much longer in the open, at the mercy of the sun’s heat and the night’s damp, living in filthy conditions with meager food and water.

Tylocost received her fervent outpouring of news with his usual aplomb. He evinced more interest in the conditions inside Caergoth than the condition of the prisoners. Zala paced up and down before the Silvanesti and Queen Casberry as she described what she’d seen: the crush of refugees, the nearly impassable streets, the patrolling soldiers.

“How many soldiers?” he asked.

She shrugged, and he made an offhanded remark about ignorant girls who couldn’t count beyond their own fingers and toes.

Zala backhanded him. She lashed out so quickly Tylocost was caught completely by surprise. Her hand connected solidly with his cheek, rocking his head back and leaving a livid impression of her long, tapering fingers. Militiamen around them snickered and Casberry applauded.

“My father’s life is in peril, elf! Save your insults for later!” Zala spat.

Tylocost made no move, just stood, hands at his side, staring at the shaking huntress. His face was bright red. Finally, he cleared his throat.

“What would you have us do?” he said, his voice low. “We don’t have sufficient strength to attack the open gate, much less storm the city. And the treasure must be guarded. Lord Tolandruth will be here soon-”

“I’ll free them,” Casberry said matter-of-factly.

The kender queen stood up in her chair. She straightened her orange shirt and buckskin trousers, tugged at the bottom of her leather vest-this one dyed sky blue-and stepped out onto the ground.

“I’ll free the prisoners.”

Tylocost, his acid tongue temporarily muted, merely asked her how.

Her eyes vanished into pools of wrinkles as she smiled. He thought she looked very like a cheerful prune. “Not by storming gates and attacking cities,” she said sagely. “We’ll do it the kender way. All I need is the Royal Loyal Militia.”

“What Royal Loyal Militia?” Tylocost protested. “Most of your people deserted long ago.”

Casberry looked askance at him, saying to Zala, “Slap him again, honey.”