Scouts ranged wider and deeper, to get behind the unknown cavalry. They sent back confirmation. No larger force was in sight. The Tarsans, if Tarsans they were, had only this small band.
When the oncoming force was reported to be only half a league distant, Tol brought his army to a halt. The dust they’d churned up rolled forward over their sweating bodies. They faced an open field. On its far side rose a low hill, its base sprinkled by tall poplars.
They were on familiar ground: the Eastern Hundred. Tol had been born not ten leagues from this spot. The civil war between the Ackals and Pakins had raged back and forth through this province for six years. Later flare-ups, like the raids that had first brought Tol into contact with Marshal Odovar, had not died out completely until Tol was in his teens. Thinly populated and devoid of large cities, the Eastern Hundred was a crossroads for armies moving east and west, traveling to and from the heartland of the empire.
Over their own enforced silence, the Ergothians heard the clatter of metal-clad men and horses on the move. The high, tinny notes of a fife lilted above the noise. Tol drew his sword. Ten thousand warriors followed suit.
“No one is to move until I say,” Tol commanded. “Not one blade!”
At the far side of the field, a wedge of horsemen, mounted on light-colored animals, emerged slowly from the poplar trees. Their brass cuirasses and plumed helmets threw off painfully bright reflections from the high sun; their yellow mantles were stained with grime. The lead riders bore standards of white and gold, but instead of leaping dolphins, symbol of the Tarsan marines, the banners were decorated with golden balance scales.
Tol inhaled sharply, hardly crediting his eyes. It had been many years since he’d seen that symbol on the livery worn by guards of the House of Lux-the guild of goldsmith and gem merchants in Tarsis.
“Everyone, stand fast,” he said, easing his horse forward out of line. Kiya followed him. He opened his mouth to tell her to remain, and she said flatly, “I’m not everyone. I’m your wife.”
The two of them advanced slowly. The Tarsans stopped, and the fifer ceased his tune. The foremost horseman held up a hand in greeting.
“Hail, Ergoth!”
Tol reined up, resting his hands across the pommel of his saddle. Empty hands were a gesture of peace, but Number Six’s grip was close, just in case.
“Hail to you, Tarsis,” he replied. “Who are you, and what brings you to imperial land?”
The rider removed the heavy polished helmet. She was a young woman, with yellow hair cut boyishly short. In each earlobe she wore several tiny gold rings. Her face was familiar; in memory, Tol heard a girl’s high voice saying, “Most call me Val.”
“Valderra.”
She smiled briefly. “My lord flatters me by remembering.”
Valderra was the personal herald of Hanira, Syndic of Tarsis. Years ago, she had led Tol to the Golden House for his meeting with Hanira after the fall of the city.
She added, “You see before you the Free Company of the Golden House. We are here at the bidding of my mistress.”
At Valderra’s nod, the fifer played a lively trill. In response, a trio of riders emerged from the poplar woods at the rear of the Tarsan troop. Although Tol could hardly believe it, Syndic Hanira was one of the three. Flanking her were two bodyguards. She headed directly to Tol and bestowed a radiant smile on her conqueror.
“My Lord Tolandruth,” she said. “It has been a long time.”
She was dressed in gray leather. Her night-black hair was pulled forward over one shoulder, in a single, loose braid. A gray leather hat with narrow brim shaded her face. Some seven years had passed since Tol had last seen her, but Hanira looked exactly as he remembered-elegant, sophisticated, and beautiful-even here in the sunbaked hills of the Eastern Hundred.
Kiya cleared her throat, and Tol straightened in the saddle, recollecting his somewhat scattered thoughts.
“Why are you here, Syndic?” he asked tersely. “And with armed troops? This violates the treaty between Tarsis and Ergoth.”
Hanira lost her pleasant smile, and her tone grew cool. “Syndic I am, but you could spare a kind word to greet a friend.”
“Are you a friend?” asked Kiya bluntly.
“I am. No treaty has been broken, my lord. This is not Tarsis before you now, only the House of Lux.”
Hanira’s guild had hired three hundred twenty veteran mercenaries and equipped them with surplus Tarsan arms. Hanira herself assumed command, although the day-to-day running of the Free Company was left to a professional warrior, Captain Tindyll Anovenax, son of Tol’s former foe Admiral Anovenax. Captain Anovenax rode one of the other horses, but stayed silent behind Hanira.
“We come to offer our help in your time of need,” the syndic said. “My men are at your disposal, my lord.”
Three hundred well-trained mercenaries were a modest but welcome addition to his army. Yet Tol was astonished that Hanira should have paid the cost herself, through the wealthy guild she controlled. Even more amazing, she had accompanied her troops into the field.
Kiya, ever distrustful, asked, “What’s it going to cost us?”
“Nothing. Everything. In politics, as in trade, personal relationships matter most. I am here-we are here-to preserve our longstanding friendship with Lord Tolandruth.”
The Free Company had left Tarsis before the fall of Juramona, sailing west to the Gulf of Ergoth and disembarking at the mouth of the Caer River. They had traveled east to avoid the imperial hordes and bakali hovering around Daltigoth. Hanira had intended to reach Juramona, Tol’s hometown, before the new phase of Solin, but captured nomads had told of the town’s destruction and the plainsmen’s subsequent defeat at the hands of a new Ergothian army.
“I knew it must be you,” she said simply. “We followed the trail of panicked tribesmen, and here you are.”
Tol maneuvered his horse closer to hers, and extended a hand. “Then accept my apology-and my welcome to Ergoth, Syndic.”
Bypassing the hand, she grasped his forearm warrior fashion. Clever Hanira had turned the simple gesture of friendship into a declaration of equality.
She called her captain forward. With his dark hair and olive skin, young Tindyll Anovenax seemed at first glance little like his choleric father, but his face, like the admiral’s, bore the lines carved by wind and sun. He also proved to have the voice of one accustomed to bellowing orders at sea.
Captain Anovenax agreed to follow Tol’s command-it was his syndic’s will, after all. He agreed, too, with Tol’s reasons for ordering him and his men to the rear of the Ergothian formation. More than a few warlords would attack on sight should they spot Tarsans leading a charge.
The Tarsan troopers and their small caravan of supply wagons took their place in the rearguard. Hanira, Valderra, and one of the syndic’s bodyguards remained with Tol. The guard’s high cheekbones, long jaw, and somber expression gave him the look of an ascetic priest. Hanira introduced him as Fenj, the finest swordsman in Tarsis. Fenj’s complete disinterest in conversation wasn’t mere stoicism. His tongue had been cut out when he was captured by pirates as a boy.
The Army of the East and their new allies continued the eastward journey to join up with Egrin’s hordes. Before nightfall, the dark edge of the Great Green was visible on the eastern horizon. Small groups of plains folk, mounted and on foot, could be seen hurrying northward, parallel to the forest edge.
Tol dispatched Lord Trudo to bring back prisoners for questioning. In the gathering dusk, three companies of Trudo’s horde galloped out to seize a band of nomads fleeing on foot. Mounted plainsmen turned back to defend their comrades, and a sharp conflict ensued. Numbers prevailed, however, and soon the Ergothians were herding a line of ragged, frightened captives back to Tol.