There weren’t many warlords left to answer Ackal V’s summons. Many of those who finally gathered before him were swaying on their feet from exhaustion or wounds. All were streaked with gore, grime, and sweat.
Vanz Hellman was in remarkably good condition. Although his armor bore the marks of many blades, his face and bare arms were unmarred. Ackal V ordered the towering warrior forward, and Hellman went down on one knee before him.
“What is your will, Majesty?”
Even restrained, his voice rolled out like thunder.
“My will is to have your head on a pike! Why didn’t you come immediately, when I ordered you into battle?” Ackal said.
“I did come, Your Majesty. My hordes broke the lizards’ resistance.”
“You delayed responding to my command!”
Dalar flinched at his father’s shout, but knew better than to retreat a single step from his prescribed place.
The kneeling warlord pressed a hand to his heart. His gesture of sincerity seemed somehow mocking.
“As commander of the reserve, sire, I had to judge the best time to strike. I waited until the lizards were deeply committed against Your Majesty’s position, then I attacked.”
“You hoped they’d kill me first!”
“No, sire!” Hellman said instantly. “I acted to insure victory. I am Your Majesty’s most loyal servant.”
Ackal V regarded Hellman through narrowed eyes for a long, heart-pounding moment. It was a ruthless warlord indeed who dared dispute with the Emperor of Ergoth, but Ackal V could not deny that Hellman’s final charge had been perfectly timed. The carnage around them was testimony to that.
Ackal V did the one thing that made even the bravest of his commanders tremble, Vanz Hellman included. He smiled.
“Very well. I am sure of your abiding love for the throne of Ergoth. As a loyal servant of the empire, you will gather what remains of the army and pursue the lizard-men.” The emperor’s tone was almost genial. “Harry them out of our realm. Drive them into the sea, and spare none, do you hear? I want to hear of nothing but mounds of bakali skulls from here to the Seascapes!”
Hellman stood. His demeanor remained calm, but sweat trickled down his smooth, dark face. He vowed he would carry out the emperor’s command.
“See that you do,” Ackal V said. “Your life is pledged against your success.”
Hellman and his retainers withdrew. Other warlords were called forward to give accounts of their losses. The death rate was unusually high-neither the Ergothians nor the bakali had shown mercy to those who fell. When a handful of survivors from the right wing of the army told of the discovery of eggs inside the mound, it became clear why the lizard-men had fought with such tireless abandon.
The emperor commanded the priests and clerics from his entourage to come forward. These learned folk were led by a priestess of Zivilyn named Talatha.
Although the eldest of the group, Talatha was not yet middle-aged. She wore her dark hair tightly confined in a long braid, and her moss-green robe was simple and shapeless.
Ackal V wanted to know why the bakali had fought their way to the heart of the empire to build their nest, when they could have done so anywhere.
Talatha cleared her throat and replied, keeping her eyes lowered, “Great Majesty, I believe they were compelled to do so by their own natures.” She held a hand out, and a lesser priest put a thin scroll in it. “This document is from the time of the Dragon Wars. It speaks of the life cycle of the bakali. After many generations, the lizard folk are driven by instinct to return to the breeding ground of their ancient ancestors.”
The emperor’s brows rose in surprise. “That’s a revelation. Why was I not told this before?”
His words, spoken gently, drained the color from Talatha’s face. Nervously, she fingered her gold medallion of faith.
“The, uh, document is a most obscure one, Your Majesty. No more than a gloss, pasted onto a larger scroll in the temple library, it was discovered only this day, during the battle, as we searched for the meaning of these events.”
Ackal V made no reply. Instead, he called for wine. He did not offer refreshment to anyone else. Talatha and her colleagues remained still, gazes deferentially on the ground. Only after he’d drained his golden goblet twice did Ackal dismiss Talatha. She led her people away in grateful haste.
The emperor addressed his warlords again. “We must make absolutely certain all the bakali eggs were destroyed. I don’t want to have to fight again when the creatures’ progeny hatch out among us!”
The bakali stronghold would be excavated, he decreed, and every egg found inside destroyed. Ackal did not specify who was to undertake this prodigious task, and the commanders began to shift uncomfortably and mutter among themselves. Would the emperor really set his noble warriors to digging, like so many slaves?
Ackal V laughed, a short, harsh sound. Cuffing his son, he said, “See, Dalar, how the mighty lords of Ergoth tremble at the thought of a little labor!” The boy managed a weak smile at his father’s wit.
The warlords were visibly relieved by the emperor’s next orders. All warriors not going with Vanz Hellman were to organize into bands and sweep the countryside. All peasants, farmers, or stray travelers they found would be drafted into work gangs; any who resisted would be put to death. These gangs would dig through the bakali mound.
“One thing more.”
Ackal V sat back, gripping the arms of his throne. “The tradition of my ancestors demands that I, as victor, raise a mountain of our defeated enemies’ heads here on the battlefield.”
He paused to send a cold glare across the assembly, then added slowly, “This task you will conduct yourselves. It is the duty of the Great Horde to offer up the enemy dead to their emperor.”
Not by word or look did the nervous warlords betray their distaste for the gruesome task he had set them.
By sundown, the emperor’s order had been obeyed. Two great pyramids of death rose beside the fallen mound. One was made of bakali heads, the other of decapitated corpses.
Valaran stood alone in the palace solarium, before a magnificent wall of firetongue orchids. Bright red in daylight, the stamens of the orchids glowed in the dark like hot coals. Filling a corner of the sunken garden with color, the rare flowers were a pet project of Ackal V’s youngest wife, Lady Halie. Only eighteen years old, Halie was an extraordinary beauty, with thick red-gold hair cascading well past her waist and eyes as violet as the twilight sky. She was the emperor’s current favorite. Valaran knew her husband. He could not be swayed by mere beauty. Halie’s loveliness was coupled with a quiet, obedient disposition-just the sort to find favor with Ackal V.
Valaran had come to the solarium to read. This morning that simple act, which had sustained her soul for as long as she could remember, brought her no peace. She couldn’t concentrate. As daylight brightened the isinglass panels above her, she abandoned the marble bench to walk the path that wound through the garden.
If only Dalar was here! Were she certain of the boy’s safety, she could revel in her daydreams of Ackal V hacked to pieces by lizard-men. Instead, all such thoughts ended the same way: Dalar shrieking in hopeless fear, Dalar set upon by bakali, Dalar lying dead on a distant battlefield…
She smote a clenched fist on the low wall beside the path. She would not give in to mindless fear. She was a woman of reason and intellect, a Pakin. Her husband might be evil, a brutal tyrant, but he wouldn’t allow harm to come to his son. Succession was intensely important to him.
If only her other nightmare could be rationalized away so easily.
White robes flapping in the wind. The old woman screaming, growing smaller and smaller with distance. A heart-stopping impact.