Kneeling, Valaran unrolled a detailed map of the Dalti bend. She noted the positions of Breyhard’s hordes and the locations presumably now occupied by the bakali. The general had a small hook in the enemy’s flesh, but the question was, could he exploit it?
She pushed the scroll open further, revealing Caergoth and the Eastern Hundred. Valaran touched a fingertip to the town of Juramona. It seemed a ridiculous gamble now, sending a lone tracker to find a single man somewhere in the hinterlands beyond the empire. She had tossed a pebble in the ocean, hoping to hit a whale. Still, the gamble had to be taken.
The current celebrations notwithstanding, Daltigoth was awash in fear and doubt. There were daily executions of food hoarders, street thieves, and those who made treasonous utterings against the emperor. Ordinary folk were hanged. Well-born victims of the emperor’s justice lost their heads. The spikes atop the Inner City wall were never empty. Courtiers, warlords, and mages rose to prominence by the sudden death of their predecessors, only to fall themselves when they failed to give satisfaction. Valaran wondered who would ruin Daltigoth first, the emperor or the invaders.
One of her attendants-she never bothered to learn their names-appeared at the cupola door and called for her. The woman’s expression showed her dismay at finding the Empress of Ergoth sitting on a dirty stone bench, her wine-colored silk gown creased and soiled.
Valaran knew the woman would bleat on and on until she acknowledged her, so she let the large map spool shut and asked the woman what she wanted.
“Gracious Majesty, the emperor has sent for you!”
Valaran rose and tucked the scroll under her arm. “Where is he?”
“His private quarters, Majesty.”
Gods, give me strength. The emperor in his private rooms might want anything, from her opinion on a banquet menu to his conjugal rights. Ackal V wasn’t especially fond of her company. As a husband he was little more demanding than his brother, her first husband, Ackal IV. Ackal IV had been of a scholarly bent, and frequently preoccupied with various projects. This emperor’s pleasure sprang more from terrorizing his people than making love to his wives.
Three more attendants were waiting below. They curtsied, their bowing heads topped by fashionable starched headdresses. Rising, they swept away in a crackle of heavy cloth, clearing the hall ahead of her. By law, no male could come within ten steps of the empress unless the emperor was present. Male servants and courtiers were expected to disappear when her attendants materialized, as they heralded her approach. As a result, Valaran’s excursions through the heart of the palace were attended by crashing crockery and slamming doors as various males rushed out of her path.
Ackal V’s private quarters were in the palace’s lower floors. The suite formerly had been occupied by Emperor Ergothas II, whose interest in architecture had led him to design an airy living space devoid of interior walls. A double line of columns bisected the room. In Ergothas II’s day, hanging tapestries divided the vast chamber into smaller private spaces. Ackal V had ordered the tapestries removed and the large windows bricked up. He slept in a great bed in the very center of the suite and, save for a few pieces of furniture, the rest of the hall was empty. The emperor’s favorite hounds ran free in the space, and his Wolves often staged rowdy revels in the side passages.
The Wolf standing guard at the suite’s door was a favorite of Ackal V, who had dubbed him “my Argon,” after the god of vengeance. The fellow was a giant, well over two paces tall. He bore a tattoo of a horned deer on his cheek skull and wore an especially large and smelly wolf pelt that was silvery gray in color. Like all the Wolves, he was unwashed, unkempt, and willing to do anything his patron requested without hesitation. Wolves were the only males not required to retreat at the empress’s approach.
As Argon opened the doors, she glided past without acknowledging his existence in the slightest.
The chamber reeked of smoke and spilled wine and dogs. It was also stiflingly hot. The emperor’s peculiar susceptibility to cold seemed to increase every month. Any room he occupied for more than a few moments had to have a roaring fire, even in summer.
The twin rows of columns stretched ahead of her. Each was decorated with a gilded sconce holding a flaming torch. The floor between the columns was covered by a golden carpet. Valaran’s slippered feet made no sound on the woven pile. In the shadows on each side of the lighted path shapes stirred. Some were hounds. Others were not. She did not look at any of them.
As Valaran drew near the heart of the chamber, the warmth increased. A fire blazed in an open hearth and a bell-shaped copper flue drew in the smoke and sparks, carrying them off to the roof. Straight-backed chairs were arrayed before the fire, but Ackal V was sitting on his high bed, scrolls lying on his lap and piled around him.
“Your Majesty sent for me?” Valaran halted at the foot of the bed, hands folded at her waist.
“Yes, some time past,” he said, not looking up from the scroll he was perusing. After allowing some moments of silence to pass, he lowered the document and asked, “Where were you?”
“On the roof, sire. Listening to victory bells.”
His lip curled at her sarcasm. Although a captive wife, Valaran used her considerable wit to annoy her husband. It was a delicate dance, their marriage. The emperor left much of the mundane, day-to-day work of running the household to his wife, freeing his own time for personal amusements. In return, he tolerated a certain small amount of insolence from her. Not a week went by that he didn’t remind her he could kill her-or worse-any time he chose.
“The only victory Breyhard gained was not getting his men slaughtered crossing the river,” Ackal said. “He has elements of twelve hordes on the east bank, with more crossing all the time.”
Valaran said nothing. The last time she had remarked on military matters in the emperor’s presence, he’d slapped her hard enough to bruise her jaw.
“You’ve read many books,” he went on. “What do you know of the bakali? What are their weaknesses? What moves them? Why are they here?”
“Those are complex questions, sire-”
“Use small words.”
His tone told her she was treading on thin ice. She drew a deep breath, choosing her words with care. “No one knows their motives, sire. In ancient times, they marched and fought at the command of the Dragonqueen herself.”
“Do you think she commands them now?”
“I doubt it, Majesty. No mortal can know the will of a god, of course, but the bakali invaders don’t seem bent on taking over the empire. They fight in a very unusual way. They annihilate all in their path, but don’t spread their attack in any organized fashion. They destroy what they choose to destroy, but a league or so beyond their marching column, no harm has been done.”
He thumped a thickly coiled scroll with one hand. “This fellow claims the bakali were the first thinking creatures in the world.”
“That would be Rathmore, the dwarf historian. His reasoning is suspect-”
Ackal V swept aside half a dozen scrolls, sending them cascading to the floor. Valaran winced at his abuse of priceless manuscripts.
He held up a newer tome. “In your History of the Silvanesti, you say the bakali were exterminated at the end of the Second Dragon War.” A heartbeat’s pause, then he shouted, “So why are we troubled with them now?”
Valaran frowned in thought, pressing her fingertips together at her lips. “All the lizard-folk were slain at the Battle of Time, sire, when the four Mages opened the earth to swallow the dragons and their army. Evidently, some bakali-not part of the force thus destroyed-survived. It is reported our foes arrived on the north coast by ship, like the ones slain in Hylo twenty years ago by Lord T-” Valaran bit off her words, just as Ackal threw her a sharp look. “The earlier expedition may have been a reconnaissance. That it was destroyed may have spared us a direct invasion.” Without speaking his name, she gave Tol credit for saving the empire, for a time.