“Helbin, you say?” she murmured. “He disappeared, yes?”
“Yes, Majesty. Before the bakali reached Caergoth, he stole out of the city and fled. The Red Robes searched for a time, but Helbin is clever. If he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.”
Winath stopped abruptly. “By all the gods! Helbin! Majesty, do you think he-?”
“Why not? You said he was skilled at warding.”
“But why would Helbin aid the bakali?”
The empress did not reply. They had reached the top of the spiraling stair, a turret on the roof of the palace. Still linked arm in arm with the White Robe, Valaran said, “Come, let me show you something.”
They went out onto the narrow balcony that encircled the turret. The balcony was protected by a low parapet. From here, the vast panorama of the imperial capital spread out beneath them. Four distinct columns of smoke rose from the sprawling collection of buildings, and the wind brought the sound of harsh voices, the clatter of arms, and the screams of the angry and anguished.
“The city is reeling,” Valaran said sadly, “like the empire. What has taken two centuries to create could be lost in our lifetime, Winath, unless we are prepared to fight for it.”
“Of course, Majesty.” Winath gripped the empress’s arm with both hands.
Valaran’s voice hardened. “The emperor is more than a cruel tyrant. He is mad. Not like my late husband, the unfortunate Ackal IV. He lost his wits completely. No, Ackal V knows exactly what he is doing, and he chooses the path that most gratifies his lusts. Do you understand?”
“No, I’m sorry. Majesty, let’s go back inside, please.”
“I have suffered many outrages, to my person and my lineage. When the bakali appeared on our border, I took them for a sign from the gods. They would be my instrument for removing Ackal V from the throne of Ergoth.”
The wizard’s face was ashen, and not from fear of the height.
Valaran added, “It was I who sent Helbin out of Daltigoth. And Helbin, not Lord Tolandruth, raised the veil over the bakali.”
Her eyes were distant, clouded by emotions Winath couldn’t read. “To save a dying man, it is often necessary to administer very strong medicine, unpleasant though the remedy may be. When the Great Horde is defeated, and the emperor’s authority exhausted, he will be overthrown.”
“That’s treason!”
The strange distance vanished, and Valaran looked down into Winath’s shocked face.
“No,” the empress said firmly. “Patriotic necessity.”
Valaran caught the wizard’s wrists in her hands and pushed her backward to the low parapet. Disbelief showed on Winath’s face for only a heartbeat, then horror suffused her expression. She fought the younger woman, hut was borne inexorably to the edge. They struggled briefly, Winath’s eyes tearing from wind and terror, Valaran grimly determined. All the hate for Ackal V that she’d stored over the years seemed to flow outward through her hands. A final shove, and Winath toppled. White robe fluttering like a moth’s wing, the wizard vanished into the canyon of lower rooftops. Her thin scream was barely audible above the wind.
Valaran was trembling so violently, she had to clutch the parapet to keep herself from falling. She’d had no choice. It had to be done. Winath knew too much. A guileless old woman, she would never have kept Valaran’s secrets, not with the emperor’s spies swarming about.
Shouts echoed from the open stairwell. Valaran turned away from the drop as servants and guards burst out onto the balcony. Seeing the empress, they halted, astonished.
“Your Majesty!” sputtered a guard, lowering his gaze quickly from her unveiled face. “What happened?”
“Winath of the White Robes has killed herself.” She had no need to counterfeit the tremor in her voice. “Unable to find the bakali army, she confessed her fear of the emperor’s punishment and leaped. I could not stop her.”
Still exclaiming in shock, the male guards and servants departed immediately, leaving the women with the empress. A plump, motherly washerwoman looked over the edge, then regarded Valaran with pity.
“How terrible, Majesty! What does this mean?”
Valaran let out a pent-up breath. She lowered the white veil over her face. A part of her mind noted with pride that her hand did not shake. She was Empress of Ergoth. She was equal to the task she had set herself.
“It means,” she said calmly, “the White Robes must choose a new chief.”
Chapter 13
With a blast of horns, a wall of armed horsemen emerged from the screen of trees. They raised sabers, shouted a war cry, and attacked the slow-moving column.
This time, it was not buckskin-clad nomads sweeping down upon hapless farmers and traders, but Ergothians falling like a thunderbolt upon an assemblage of ox-drawn carts and nomad riders dozing in their saddles. This time, it was the nomads who were caught completely by surprise.
Nomad women and children dropped their scanty baggage and scattered. What few warriors there were turned to face the Ergothians, lashing their ponies forward.
The fight was over in moments. The plainsmen were overwhelmed, and their terrified families were rounded up. Horses and weapons were stripped away. Children cried and babies howled. Ringed by stern-faced riders, the nomads huddled together, expecting no mercy.
In the days following the relief of Juramona, the fortunes of the nomads had taken a severe reverse. With the rapidly growing camp at Juramona as their base, the Firebrand Horde, arriving just behind Lord Pagas’s Panthers, set out to strike the nomads wherever they could be found. Faced with such relentless pursuit, the tribes dispersed like drops of water on a hot griddle.
Pagas, Egrin, and Tol rode forward, watching as the latest crowd of frightened survivors was searched. Traditionally, prisoners taken by the Great Horde were sold as slaves in the nearest city, after the most infamous among them faced summary execution. By Tol’s order, notorious killers were arrested, stolen booty reclaimed, and the chastised nomads were then driven out of the empire. Not only did he consider slavery evil, but if word got out they were enslaving captives, Tol knew the remaining raiders would fight all the harder. He wanted the nomads to flee, not fight.
Tol spied a familiar face in the clumps of women and old people. He ordered the man brought forward. Riders wove through the crowd, converging on the man, and driving him out to face Lord Tolandruth.
“Chief Mattohoc?”
The dark-skinned chief of the Sand Treader tribe glared up at his captor. Shame and fury stiffened his hulking frame as he acknowledged his name. He had obviously fought hard: shoulders and arms were striped by sword cuts, a deep gash laid open his forehead, and his left thigh was tightly wrapped with bloodstained bandages.
Tol asked him where the rest of his tribe was. Mattohoc’s reply was an impossibly obscene suggestion. An irate Ergothian kicked him between the shoulders, and the chief fell forward to his hands and knees.
“Enough!” Tol barked. “We do not abuse prisoners!”
Tol had a waterskin brought to the badly wounded chief. As Mattohoc drank noisily, Tol called for a healer to tend him.
“Heal him?” Pagas was so astonished, he broke his usual reticence. “By rights we should separate him from his head!”
“That may happen. But for now, Mattohoc is a captured chief, and he will be treated with respect.” Mattohoc’s expression showed no gratitude, only impotent fury.
Later, as the Ergothian commanders dined under a canvas fly pitched on the summit of a nearby knoll, Mattohoc was brought before Tol.
Landed hordes, eager to take back their country from the invaders and to serve the famous Lord Tolandruth, were still arriving from the south and east. From their vantage point, the commanders could see a seemingly endless stream of newcomers riding to their camp. As Mattohoc approached, limping, Tol waved him to a stool. The chief’s wounds had been dressed, but his face was gray and he grunted as he sat. Cider, bread, and a joint of meat were placed before him. He regarded the repast with disdain.