“So you divine thoughts, too?”
Felryn shook his head. “No. It has been plain on your face since supper.”
They walked together outside the ring of wagons. Tol poured his feelings into the healer’s sympathetic ear, finishing with a plea for help in saving the chief.
“Why ask me? Egrin is your mentor, is he not?”
Tol drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “Egrin is a good man,” he said carefully, “but he will not go against the law. I saw Lord Odovar use Egrin’s sense of duty against him when he forced him to execute Vakka Zan. He can’t help me. But perhaps you can.”
Felryn smiled, acknowledging the wisdom of Tol’s reasoning and thinking to himself how much the callow farm boy had matured. He extended a hand. He did not clasp forearms, warrior-fashion, but took Tol’s hand in his own large one and shook it, as one priest to another.
“I will help you,” he agreed.
The morning brought a sky leaden with thick coils of black, rain-heavy clouds. A warm wind rushed through the camp, upsetting carefully stacked spears, rattling the tents, and awakening every man. Close on the heels of the wind came the first drops of rain. In moments the sprinkle was a deluge. The lashing torrent soaked through the oiled canvas panels of the tents, droplets falling in a steady indoor shower. In these miserable conditions, the Juramona hordes struck camp.
Tol and Felryn rode to meet the warden. Between their horses Makaralonga trudged, his hands tied. A thick halter wound around his neck, the end of the rope held in Tol’s hand.
Tol saluted with Prince Amaltar’s dagger. “I am prepared to carry out the imperial order,” he said, having to spit water and blink rapidly against the pouring rain.
“Why are you here, Felryn?” Egrin asked.
The healer indicated a large pot he had balanced on the pommel of his saddle. “Lord Urakan wants the chiefs head sent to Daltigoth,” he said. “This pot contains salt and medicinal oils. I’m to insure the head survives the trip to the capital.”
“We’ll do him in by the Wilder Green,” Tol said. In answer to Egrin’s inquiring look, he added, “The chief must die, but it doesn’t have to be here, a spectacle for all to see. The Green is a fitting place of execution for a forest chief.”
Egrin, his thoughts impossible to read, nodded. The Wilder was a small woodland several leagues east which bordered the river of the same name.
Tol and Felryn rode eastward, drenched all the way by rain. When the trees of the Wilder Green came into sight, Makaralonga broke his silence at last.
Lifting his bound hands toward the dark sky and continuing rain, the chief exclaimed, “Chislev herself weeps for your treachery! I knew a grasslander would never keep his word! So be it! When my blood flows, it will be a curse on you, Tol of Juramona. My curse on your faithless head!”
They ignored him, and he tried to plant his feet. However, Smoke continued to move ahead and Makaralonga was jerked forward. He had to content himself with raging at them as they rode stolidly onward through the rain. Once, he tripped, and Tol let go of the rope lest the chief be strangled. Immediately, Makaralonga jumped up, ready to run.
Tol drew the new saber Egrin had given him in a private ceremony. “Can you outrun a horse?”
Makaralonga’s broad chest heaved as he panted with the force of his anger. He abandoned his attempt to flee, but glared as Tol recovered the halter. Abruptly, his frustration and fury shifted to Felryn and the vessel he carried.
“My head will not fit in that cabbage pot!” he snapped.
“Probably not,” Felryn replied, “but after a few weeks in the salt, it’ll shrink down very nicely.”
A dozen paces from the edge of the forest, Tol stopped. He dismounted, never letting go of the rope around Makaralonga’s neck. Felryn likewise got down, clutching the clay pot close to his chest.
“Kneel,” Tol said to the chief.
“I won’t! I am a free man! Kill me on my feet!”
So saying, Makaralonga bolted. Tol put out a foot and tripped him. He sprawled in the dripping grass.
Tol put the sharp edge of his sword under the chiefs chin. “Stay still, or this will hurt!” he said severely.
Makaralonga closed his eyes. He felt a slight tug, then the blade came away from his throat. Stiffening, he awaited the return swing, the rending of his flesh, and the outpour of his life’s blood on the sodden ground.
“Get up,” said Tol. “You’re free.”
The chiefs eyes flew open. It was true. The halter had been cut from his neck, and Tol sliced through his bonds with a single stroke of the jeweled dagger.
“What trickery is this?” Makaralonga demanded.
“I never intended to kill you. I asked Prince Amaltar for the task so I might free you instead.”
Makaralonga looked from Tol to Felryn and back again, too astonished to take in what he was hearing.
Tol sheathed his dagger. Felryn put the clay pot down and removed its lid. The pungent smell of spices erupted, reaching their noses in spite of the continuing drizzle.
Felryn pulled on a leather gauntlet, then stuck his hand into the pot. He lifted the heavy object inside. Golden oil streamed down the face of a dead man.
“By the Blue Phoenix! It’s my head!” Makaralonga exclaimed, staggering back in shocked disbelief.
From braided locks to yellow beard to broad nose, the severed head looked exactly like the chief. Felryn returned it carefully to the pot and replaced the lid.
“How is it possible?” Makaralonga asked.
“Our masters in Daltigoth expect a trophy. We could not disappoint them,” Tol said. “Felryn used his magical skills to alter the appearance of another man-a victim of war.”
“His suffering was already over, and now, so is yours,” said Felryn.
He clapped the chief on the shoulder and hauled himself onto the broad back of his horse. Makaralonga threw his arms around Tol and hugged him fiercely.
“Forgive me, noble foe! I thought you would kill me to please your masters!”
Tol struggled to breathe in the ardent embrace, his face crushed against the larger man’s chest. “All right, all right! I always meant to keep my word!”
Zivilyn’s Carpet, and the edge of the Great Green, lay another six or seven leagues east. Makaralonga would have to tread carefully to evade capture and reach his forest kingdom safely. Capture would mean death not only for him but for Tol as well, if his failure to behead the chief became known.
Makaralonga looked down at Tol, the rain running down his face.
“Henceforth, you are my son!” he declared. “I will make peace with your people, for your sake!”
Tol hadn’t expected this. “Very well,” he said. “Send some of your people to Juramona, and we’ll make a pact of peace. Don’t come yourself! Remember, you’re supposed to be dead.”
Makaralonga’s face split wide in a grin. “I shall be the best of corpses, brave son Tol! You shall know me as Voyarunta-‘Uncle Corpse’!”
He sprinted to the trees. Before plunging in, he turned and waved at his deliverers. Tol raised a hand in farewell, and Makaralonga vanished into the woods.
“Do you think he’ll keep his promise?” asked Felryn as they rode away.
“A man like him lives by his word,” Tol said.
Chief Makaralonga was indeed as good as his word. Before summer was out, a party of eleven tribesmen made the long trek from the Great Green to Juramona. They evaded Ergothian patrols up to the very gates of the town, and there asked to see “the mighty lord Tol.”
Egrin and a guard of twenty horsemen, including Tol, came out to meet the delegation. The Dom-shu were impressive folk, each strongly built and at least a head taller than the “grasslanders” who greeted them. They wore close-fitting tunics of pale buckskin and boarskin trews, embellished with beads and shells. They carried knives and bows, but on drawing near to Juramona had unstrung their weapons to show their peaceful intent.