He turned in time to catch her in his arms. Her heart was beating wildly, and ribbons of chestnut hair fell wildly about her face. She radiated fear and fury in equal measure. What he did not sense in her was love.
For more than six years he had survived for one purpose-to be reunited with Valaran. That dream had taken on a poignant reality as he witnessed the suffering Ackal V had inflicted on his people. Now, at the very moment of his triumph, Tol realized his dream was nothing more than that, without substance, without reality.
He was so very weary, in body and in spirit. “Kill him yourself then,” he said.
Fury blazed from Valaran’s eyes. “Do you think I can’t? I’ve killed, Tol, for us! Winath-” She bit off the name, choking back a sob, then insisted, “But the gods would curse me for killing my son’s father!”
He let her go and walked away, out of the palace and out of the Inner City. In the square beyond, the Riders, whispering among themselves, watched him depart, alone and unhurried. Kiya still waited for him. She’d secured two saddle horses and was mounted on one of them. Without a word, he took the reins of the other and swung into the saddle.
Ignoring the questioning hails of Lord Gonzakan, Tol and Kiya cantered away.
Outside the Dragon Gate, Tol paused. Directly ahead, the eastern sky was brightening. Sunrise was not far off. Tol dismounted beneath the imposing reliefs of Volmunaard and Vilesoot and drew Number Six. He jammed the steel blade into a chink between two massive stones, putting all his weight and strength behind it. The saber bored into the mortar to half its length. With both hands Tol pushed down on the hilt. Number Six bent and bent, farther than any iron blade ever could. Just as he began to think the dwarf-forged metal would never yield, it snapped off a span above the hilt.
He returned the stump of the famed saber to his scabbard and swung up into the saddle again.
“Are we done?” asked Kiya.
“We’re done.”
They rode out into the new day.
Monuments
They laid Egrin to rest in Zivilyn’s Carpet. It was Tol’s idea to bury him in a peaceful place, amidst a monument of flowers for a man whose life was war. Tol and the Dom-shu sisters made the journey alone. Tol dug the grave, while Miya sewed a deerskin shroud for her friend and Kiya stood watch with her bow.
No one followed them.
By the time preparations were complete, sunset had come.
Whippoorwills made their mournful calls from the forest.
The meadow itself was quiet, and above it, the clouds crimson
and gold.
As a last gesture, Tol tucked the Irda nullstone into Egrin’s hands, crossed on his chest. “His valiant spirit will guard it now,” he said quietly.
With the grave closed and the earth replaced, night was upon them. The sky had cleared. Red Luin and white Solin sailed the starry sky, casting their light upon the scene. The time had come for the sisters and Tol to part company. Tol had made a difficult choice: solitude.
Miya’s eyes kept turning to the Great Green, the dark forest beckoning her home. Eli awaited her in her father’s village.
“Where will you go?” she asked Tol. Coloring, she added, “I’d like to know, in case I ever need to find you. Is it to be Tarsis?” Despite their recent troubles, she knew Hanira would always find a place for Tol.
He shook his head emphatically. His presence in Tarsis would be a provocation. If Ackal V’s successor didn’t demand his head, Hanira would certainly try to involve him in one of her complicated plots. He’d had enough of war and politics for the time being.
“Some place quiet,” he said.
Miya embraced him with fervor, and whispered, “There’s always a place for you by my fire.”
He smiled. “I am grateful for that,” he said, and held her tightly for moment.
Kiya, her stoicism firmly in place during Egrin’s burial, began to cry. She asked Tol no questions about his future plans. After kissing him on both cheeks, and cuffing the back of his neck, she headed for the forest.
The Dom-shu had no need for horses, so Tol and Miya unsaddled the sisters’ animals and set them free. Tol had not ridden the gray war-horse here. Like the sisters’ horses, his mount this day was a plains pony. After a moment’s reflection, he set his animal free as well. He would seek peace as an ordinary peasant. That’s where he had come from, and that’s where he belonged. No one would search for the vaunted Lord Tolandruth among the humble folk.
A last word to Miya and he set out, striding through the waist-high summer growth.
Miya remained by Egrin’s grave. She watched Tol diminish with distance, until he was lost among the wind-tossed flowers.
The empire endured. The tumultuous events set in motion by the twin invasions of Ergoth did not end when Tol left the capital, but plunged inexorably onward, like a growing avalanche.
In the confusion following Tol’s departure, Ackal V perished. The exact cause of his death was never established. Common rumor had it he killed himself rather than face Lord Tolandruth’s vengeance. His son, Prince Dalar, was proclaimed emperor, and a council of four warlords declared themselves the boy’s regents. Two of them hailed from the Army of the East, Mittigorn and Quevalen. The others were Daltigoth lords, Vanz Hellman and Rykard Gonzakan, the warlord with the blond mustache who had met Tol in the plaza before the Inner City.
The regency of the four warlords ended in less than a year, however, when a new threat arose in the east. A fiery young claimant to the throne of Ackal Ergot, Pakin princess Mellamy Zan, raised her standard on the open plain. Taking advantage of the same discontent that had led so many warlords to rally around Tol, Mellamy raised a sizable army and marched on Daltigoth. Her advance broke apart the alliance of the four regents.
Mittigorn, who was from the east, was accused of secretly sympathizing with the Pretender and executed. Youngest of the regents, Lord Quevalen was maneuvered out of power, leaving two strong generals to vie for sole control. Vanz Hellman, popularly called the Hammer of the Bakali, held his own until fortune forced him to take the field against Mellamy Zan’s army. The Pakin Pretender had a supremely talented general at her side, a mysterious figure who never appeared in public without a mask. A few folk thought her brilliant commander was Lord Tolandruth himself, but no one who actually saw the masked general believed that. The Pretender’s commander was slender and elegant, with a polished voice and elaborate manners. Tol of Juramona was none of those things.
Mellamy Zan’s army crushed Hellman’s hordes at the Battle of the Caer Crossing. Hellman was slain, and Rykard Gonzakan became sole protector of the underage emperor. However, soon after Gonzakan’s ascension to power, Emperor Dalar, who had never been crowned, vanished from history. His fate is unknown, and in time he disappeared even from the roll of Ergothian rulers. He was no more than ten years old.
Mellamy Zan reached the gates of Daltigoth. In a masterful bit of negotiation, a peace parley was proposed by the Red Robe Helbin, who had emerged from hiding after the death of Ackal V. The wizard was a profoundly changed man.
Known before for his fastidious style and calculating brain, now Helbin was colder and coarser, with shaved head and a strange taste for raw meat.
Helbin’s plan called for Mellamy Zan to marry the Ackal heir, a nephew of Ackal V, thus uniting the warring Pakin and Ackal clans. However, unbeknownst to her supporters, Mellamy Zan had formulated her own plan. Realizing the nobles of Ergoth would never accept a woman as their ruler, she secretly applied to certain illegal sorcerers for a rite of transformation. Only days before her scheduled marriage to the Ackal heir, Mellamy Zan became Mellamax Zan, Pakin prince.