“You have been found guilty of cowardice,” Ackal V declared. “By law and custom set down by my glorious ancestors, you should all be executed, and your property forfeited to the empire!” He paused for effect. “But I am disposed to be lenient. Only two of you shall die. I leave it to you to choose who shall lose their heads.”
The nine neither spoke nor moved. Their eyes remained fixed forward, staring beyond their angry liege.
Ackal V flushed. “Choose two, or all will die!” he shouted.
The warrior at the right end of the line, a cousin of the Tumult and Dermount clans, stepped forward. “I will die to spare my comrades, Majesty,” he announced.
Immediately, the man next to him stepped forward, saying, “So shall I!”
In turn, each of the others took the fatal step toward the emperor.
Ackal V leaned to the right, murmuring, “You see, Dalar, what I must work with? They fight poorly, disobey me, then offer their necks out of pride. What can I do?” He sighed loudly and sat back. “Very well. Your emperor grants your final wish. Kill them all.”
The warlords outside the ring of guards stirred, shouting, “No!” and “Spare them!”
Ackal V glared at the assembly. “The Inner City wall has room for many heads!” he said loudly.
Dalar flinched at his father’s injustice, but for once the warlords did not. New cries went up: “Shame!” and “Where is honor?” The plaza reverberated with the noise.
Nonetheless, the emperor jerked his head, and his executioner strode toward the waiting prisoners. The swordsman’s bare chest rippled with muscle as he lifted his weapon high.
Without hesitation, the Dermount cousin went down on his knees. The two-handed blade severed his neck in one stroke. In spite of the outraged shouts from the assembled warlords, the next prisoner knelt immediately, and was dispatched with equal swiftness. The executioner traveled efficiently down the line, until all nine men were dead. Their blood flowed together in a great spreading pool, staining the mosaic of the constellation of Corij that decorated the plaza’s center.
A prolonged groan went up from the warlords of Ergoth. They pressed forward, jostling the Household Guards holding them back.
“Justice is done,” Ackal V declared.
He rose and commanded Dalar to accompany him. Outwardly nonchalant, he crossed the square to the palace. A double line of guards formed a path for emperor and heir, and more soldiers jogged down from the palace to reinforce their comrades.
A loud metallic clang behind him made the emperor pause on the first of the palace steps. He looked back. A warlord’s personal dagger had landed on the pavement several paces away. Not a direct threat to Ackal V, the symbol of the warlord’s rank had been hurled over the heads of the massed guards in a show of contempt and defiance.
As though a dam had burst, the single blade was joined by others. They spun through the air, jeweled pommels glittering, a veritable deluge of flashing iron clattering and skidding over the ancient mosaic.
Ackal V’s studied nonchalance vanished. Face contorted with fury, he snatched Dalar’s hand and stamped up the stairs. All present knew that retribution would be swift. No one insulted Nazramin Bethen Ergothas Ackal V with impunity. No one.
The emperor was almost blind with rage. He shoved aside any servant unlucky enough to cross his path. In the antechamber of the throne room, his chamberlains huddled out of reach and uttered soothing phrases.
“Stop that chattering, you imbeciles, or I’ll have your tongues out!” Ackal V roared. The men instantly fell silent. He paced back and forth, unconsciously dragging the little prince along with him. “The arrogance! The conceit! I’ll have them exterminated! Every one of them!”
“Who then will fight for you?”
Valaran, dressed in a gown of imperial scarlet, stood in the open doorway to the throne room. Her chestnut hair, free for once of the tall headdress required by fashion, hung loose down her back. Surrounded by ladies dressed in muted hues, the empress seemed a great summer bloom fallen into a bed of pale spring blossoms.
Her appearance elicited squawks of dismay from the chamberlains. The men immediately cast down their eyes, looking away from the empress’s bare face.
“Why are you out of your quarters, lady?” her husband said icily. “And without a proper covering for your face?”
“Apologies, sire. I feared a riot and came with all haste to extricate Your Majesty from danger,” she replied.
His laughter was short and harsh. “With what troops, lady?”
Valaran gestured to the women around her. “Troops enough, Majesty. Few warlords-even arrogant, conceited ones-would raise a sword against unarmed women.”
This was certainly true, but when she held out her arms and Prince Dalar ran to her, Valaran’s true reason for defying law and custom became apparent. The empress had left her sacred enclave to save her son.
Ackal V’s attention returned to the original source of his fury. “This would not have happened if my Wolves had been here!”
Accompanied by a large entourage of priests, courtiers, and the emperor’s elderly cousin, Lord Gothalan, the Emperor’s Wolves had departed the night before. Their mission was known only to their patron.
Ackal V spoke to a nearby officer. “Tell the captain of the Householders to clear that insolent trash out of the Inner City.”
The soldier saluted and started to leave, but the emperor wasn’t finished.
“Have the daggers gathered up. And send the chamberlain of clans and heraldry to me. I want every blade identified.” A slow smile curved the emperor’s lips. “I intend to see to it each one finds its owner again.”
A small band of horsemen topped a rise in the Ackal Path, skidding to a halt. Before them, golden in the light of the midmorning summer sun, was the greatest vista in the empire: Daltigoth, capital of Ergoth.
On the left, the Dalti Canal ran parallel to the road, its waters jade green, its shimmering surface undisturbed by boats. Commerce, disrupted by the twin invasions, had not revived in the face of the Army of the East’s advance. Peasant farmers and the usual stream of travelers flowing to and from Daltigoth were conspicuously absent.
Between the canal and the road was a line of tall, weathered statues commemorating rulers of past ages. Tol, leading the group of horsemen, noted that the headless figures of Pakin Zan and Ergothas III still stood, just as they had many years ago, when he’d first come to Daltigoth. An image of Ackal IV had been raised since. It was half the size of the other colossi, an indifferent likeness carved in soft limestone. Given the winter storms common to the Great Horde Hundred, the statue’s features wouldn’t last ten years.
The small hill on which Tol and his companions had paused was called Emperor’s Knob. Legend had it that Ackal Ergot had stood here when he first surveyed the site of his future capital.
Tol drank from the waterskin Kiya handed him and reflected on the passage of time. When he’d last stood here, the land around Daltigoth had been gripped by winter, with deep snow blanketing the pasturelands to his left and the great orchards to his right, under a leaden sky. Now, the fruit trees were densely green and the pastures thronged with shaggy, red-coated cattle, the emperor’s own herd.
Although still more than two leagues away, Daltigoth filled the view from horizon to horizon, from the canal in the east to the peaks of the Harkmor range, to the south and west. The great city wall rose like an impenetrable cliff face. Beyond it, and taller still, the wall of the Inner City enclosed the imperial enclave of palace, Tower of High Sorcery, and Riders’ Hall.