Riding close to Zanpolo toward the city gate, his men chanting his name, Tol was filled with emotion. His mind whirled, but not with battle plans. He couldn’t stop thinking of Valaran as he’d last seen her: her face white as the ermine robes she wore, green eyes spilling tears onto winter-pale cheeks.

Whatever happens, you must live-because I will return.

That was the promise he’d made her on the snowy field outside Daltigoth. With every warrior he gained, every battle he won, he was coming closer to fulfilling that oath. Yet no battle, no honor could make him complete until he held her in his arms again.

Chapter 21

Tol’s entry into Caergoth was more confusing than glorious. Zanpolo chose to return the same way he left, via the Centaur Gate. The gate opened readily enough, but the soldiers there were plainly puzzled to hear the returning warriors shouting the name of the man they’d been sent to destroy. Zanpolo quickly ordered his own men to displace the city troops at the gates. No blood was shed; after a brief scuffle, the surprised soldiers found themselves imprisoned in their own barbican. Their compatriots, looking down on these events from the battlements, abandoned their posts.

“Little birds are flying away,” Miya said, gesturing toward the fleeing men.

Tol nodded. The men would certainly carry word of his coming to Lord Wornoth. As there was no way to prevent it, there was no reason to worry about it.

The first city square beyond the Centaur Gate was known as the Starwalk. Its broad white pavement was marked with bronze stars, and black lines of basalt radiated from a common point not quite in the center of the square. The square was a public observatory. By standing on the lines or on the various bronze markers at appropriate times during the year, ordinary folk could mark the movements of the moons and stars.

This day, it was not being used for any lofty purpose. Like all Caergoth’s public squares, the Starwalk had become a squalid shanty town crowded with war refugees.

Tol reined up. His Juramonans halted behind him. Zanpolo stopped his own horsemen and doubled back to see what was wrong. He found Tol surveying the smoky, fetid scene in the Starwalk with a scowl on his face.

Zanpolo grimaced with understanding. “I know,” he said. “With a few hundred sabers I’d clear this trash out!”

Tol shook his head, but said nothing. He turned in the saddle to look back at the column winding behind him. There was Queen Casberry, once more in her beloved sedan chair, borne on the capable shoulders of Front and Back; Uncle Corpse and his Dom-shu, a bit worse for wear; and the half-elf huntress, Zala, who had refused all aid and still carried her frail father. Still further back, the ugliest Silvanesti in the world led a human militia comprising artisans, merchants, farmers, and herders. Somewhere in the city, thousands of men were wearing out horses to join Tol’s army. Retired warriors, they’d left home and hearth and taken up the weapons they’d hung up years ago. In their company was the oddest contingent of all-soldiers of an army Tol had defeated, now led by a wealthy, embittered woman who had lost her own daughter in a struggle not her own.

All these people-all these different people-had come so far and done so much because of him. Their loyalty, their faith in him, had brought them from every corner of the empire and lands beyond.

Dismounting, Tol handed the reins to Miya, who’d been walking alongside.

“Watch out,” she said, seeing the look in his eyes. “Husband’s up to something.”

“All of you stay here. No matter what happens, stay here till I call you,” Tol said.

He walked into the maze of temporary shelters covering the Starwalk. The refugees moved out of his way. They knew to make themselves scarce when a warrior came near. They came from half a hundred small towns, from isolated farms, and from semi-nomadic camps. Not all were Ergothian. This human avalanche had been set in motion a thousand leagues away, by the arrival of the bakali and by attacks from plainsmen also displaced by the lizard-men. Most refugees regarded Tol blankly as he moved among them. If they did react, it was with fear.

Anger swelled in Tol’s breast. This was not why he had become a warrior. Most Riders of the Great Horde, born into wealth if not outright nobility, considered this their due-daily tribute in the form of terror. But Tol had chosen the life of a soldier because it promised more than endless years grubbing in the dirt, herding recalcitrant pigs, and praying daily to the gods for sun and rain, but not too much of either. He’d led a full life, earned loyal friends, and loved an intelligent, beautiful woman. The time had come to pay for those past pleasures and glories.

Forty paces away from his waiting comrades he found a waist-high stone pedestal and climbed on it. An alabaster disk was inset in its top. From this spot, when the square was clear, one could mark the passage of Solin through the seasons.

Those immediately around him fell silent and regarded him uncertainly. The quiet spread through the square, with neighbor nudging neighbor and gesturing at the warrior standing atop the Solin pedestal. Tol waited until the silence was complete, then spoke.

“People, listen to me! I am-” An instant’s thought, then-“Tol of Juramona. I bring you good news. The tribes who ravaged your homes have been defeated!”

There was no response. A baby began to cry. Several people coughed.

“You can go home! The nomad invaders are gone!”

The baby continued to howl. There were more coughs. A woman called out, “We ain’t got no home! They burned it!”

“You can build another!” Tol replied. “But you must leave the city! It’s too crowded for you to remain!” He was amazed disease hadn’t broken out among the refugees already.

“You drivin’ us out, m’lord?” asked a man standing nearby.

Exasperation sharpened Tol’s voice. “No! I’m telling you, you can leave! The nomads are driven out.”

“So it’s safe?”

Tol’s impatience evaporated. He answered honestly. “No, it’s not.”

The crowd began to mutter, confused and unhappy. Tol raised his voice again, saying, “But when were you ever safe? Were you safe when cruel warlords ruled over you, and a ruthless, mad emperor ruled them? You’ve never been safe, but the nomads have been defeated, and you must leave Caergoth. Here, there is only poverty and illness!”

Unfortunately, the wider import of his words was lost.

“The emperor is mad?”

“We was never safe? I thought the city wall was supposed to keep us safe.”

“I told ya’ they’d come to drive us out, and here they are!”

“This emperor is mad, too?”

“Let’s get out ’fore they attack us!”

Some refugees grabbed their meager possessions and set out for the nearest gate. Others argued whether to stay or go. These grew so heated that Tol was jostled off the platform.

When he disappeared into the crowd, Zanpolo and his captains spurred their mounts forward. They separated Tol from the mob and ushered him back to his waiting people.

Zanpolo’s bearded face wore a smile. “Clever stratagem, my lord! You’ve sowed the seeds of a riot,” he said. “It will tie up Wornoth’s loyal troops!”

Tol didn’t bother answering. He hadn’t meant to start a riot. He’d hoped to make the people understand they should reclaim their lives and not blindly follow the whims of emperors, warlords, or any of their lackeys. But the hopeless, helpless squatters didn’t see him as “Tol of Juramona,” born one of them. To them, he was Lord Tolandruth, Rider of the Great Horde, oppressor and protector. That he could be interested in their well-being was as unfathomable to them as the workings of the celestial map on which they squatted.