Tarthan, the eldest of Tol’s retainers, saluted with his dagger. “My lord,” he said. “I present the demi-horde of Daltigoth and Juramona, one hundred forty-eight blades fit for duty.”
Before Tol could reply, Kiya walked past the gathering Ergothians and threw an arm around his shoulders.
“You are well?” he asked, smiling up at her.
“Sore.” She eyed him up and down. “And you haven’t got the slightest scratch, have you?”
“No holes. No missing parts.”
With a rumble of hoofbeats, the imperial hordes arrived. Tol was surprised but pleased to see Egrin leading the riders.
“Greetings, my lord,” the elder warrior said. “The day is yours!”
“Well, we won, at any rate. Where is Lord Urakan?”
Egrin shook his head once, and Tol understood. “Are you in command of the army then?” he asked.
A smile ghosted through Egrin’s gray-flecked beard. “No.” In answer to Tol’s puzzlement he added, “You are the victor, my lord. The army is yours.”
Tol was about to protest when Kiya raised a cheer: “Tolan-druth! Tolandruth! Tolandruth!”
Tol’s retainers added their hoarse voices, then the multitude of Ergothians took up the cry. Tol felt his face burn.
Turning away, he found himself face to face with the homely but clever General Tylocost.
“To the victor goes all praise,” the elf said calmly. “Savor it-for now. Soon enough it will be only a memory, given the fortunes of war.” When Tol grimaced and kept his flushed face averted, Tylocost frowned and asked, “Forgive me asking, but just how old are you, my lord?”
“Twenty and one years.”
The elf looked pained. “Merciful Astarin! I’ve been beaten by a child. What will they say in Silvanost?”
Tylocost’s chagrin cheered Tol considerably. He raised his head, and his grin incited fresh cheers. Tol stared in bemusement at the sea of dirty, bloodstained men, all happily bellowing his name.
“Don’t just stand there grinning like a lout,” Tylocost said.
Nettled, yet unsure, Tol said, “What should I do?”
The elf sighed. “A child, a veritable babe! Raise your sword or spear, my lord. Such devotion should be graciously acknowledged.”
Tol took out his nicked and battered saber one more time. When he lifted it high above his head, the chant of his name became a great single roar. It was heard as far away as Old Port.
It would soon be felt in both Tarsis and Daltigoth.
Epilogue:
The days that followed the battle were frantic and noisy. Imperial soldiers, elated by their hard-won victory, celebrated long and heartily.
Tol retired to the tent that had been Lord Urakan’s. Amid the carpets and tapestries, gilded braziers and leather camp chairs, he felt very out of place and very much alone. His first night there, for reasons he did not understand, he was seized by violent fits of trembling. He downed a cup of Lord Urakan’s best vintage, and the shivering faded.
Scattered across the dead general’s trestle table were sheets of the finest foolscap. Tol sat down, took up an ink-stained pen and wrote a lengthy missive to Valaran.
The battle is won, he wrote in a neat but slow hand. But I would give up all the cheers I hear now and the honors I will receive, if I could be with you tonight…
He was still at the table when Egrin found him, slumped forward, sleeping with his head resting on his folded arms. The conqueror of XimXim, liberator of Hylo, and victor over Tylocost had ink on his fingers and a black smudge on his nose, the result of a careless scratch while he was writing his long missive.
Egrin did not try to wake him. Tenderly, the elder warrior draped one of Urakan’s heavy capes around Tol’s shoulders, then went out to begin the reorganization of the scattered imperial army.
Within ten days of Tylocost’s defeat, all opposition to Ergoth was overcome. Tol marched through eastern Hylo, driving out the Tarsan garrisons posted in Free Point and other towns. Tarsan mercenaries not captured at Three Rose Creek fled the country, taking ship or escaping over the mountains. Although they expected vengeful Ergothian hordes to pursue them, the imperial army had little strength left to chase anyone.
Tol halted his tired hordes at Old Port and requisitioned all available ships. Then he turned all the captured Tarsan soldiers loose. Stripped of arms and armor, with only enough food to get them home by the most direct sailing route, nine and a half thousand men were sent on their way. They were all that was left of the force of fifty thousand who’d come to Hylo to wrest the kender kingdom from the empire’s sway.
Veteran warlords under Tol’s command, including Egrin, argued against such clemency, saying the freed men would only take up arms against Ergoth in the future.
“They’re defeated,” Tol said. “Let them go back and show their masters in Tarsis their humiliation. Let the wealthy syndics of the city feed and house them, not us.”
Tol defied accepted custom in another way: He did not send Tylocost’s head to the emperor. The elf remained his prisoner. To disguise him from vengeance-minded Ergothians, Tylocost’s hair was cut to chin length, and he was dressed in nondescript yeoman’s clothes. He was hidden in plain sight among the enlarged retinue of warriors and servants now attached to Lord Tolandruth. Tylocost took captivity in good stead, but proved to have a melancholy nature to match his eccentric looks. His life depended on Tol’s good will, so he readily played the biddable captive.
One evening, during supper in the vast tent Tol had inherited from Lord Urakan, Miya blurted, “I thought all Silvanesti were finely made. What happened to you?”
Tol nearly choked on his roast, but Tylocost took the rude query calmly.
“It’s said my mother, while burdened with child, beheld a human woman in the forest, and the image of the wretched creature was impressed on my features before birth.” After a brief pause, he added, “It was a Dom-shu woman she saw.”
Miya flushed, and Tol smothered a laugh.
“No Dom-shu is as ugly as you!” Miya said hotly.
And so the evening’s wrangles would begin. It seemed more than passing strange to Tol to have the former terror of the empire at his side, shabbily dressed, matching jibes with his boisterous wives. Even so, Tol held no illusions about Tylocost. The acute mind that had defeated Lord Urakan and three other Ergothian generals in the past twenty years had not been thrown out with his gaudy helmet. Tylocost was biding his time.
Knowing he needed a sharp pair of eyes on the elf, Tol designated Kiya to act as the elf s guardian. He had no specific suspicions but realized Tylocost might try to escape or foment a plot from within Tol’s camp.
Hylo was firmly in imperial hands, but the war continued. Tarsan fleets raided the west coast of Ergoth. Far to the south, Tarsan gold raised the pirate fleets of Kharland into open war against the empire. Elaborate and flattering treaties were proposed to convince the Silvanesti to enter the war as Tarsis’s ally. Thus far, the elves had resisted Tarsan blandishments, but the pirates quickly choked off all trade in the Gulf of Ergoth. Something would have to be done about them.
Victory had not ended the war, only changed its venue.
Before the winds of autumn set in, Tol organized the return of the sick and wounded to their homes. More than one thousand Ergothians were seriously injured, and another two thousand were needed on their farms to finish the harvest. Tol gave Egrin the task of leading the sizable column south, calling first at Caergoth, then Daltigoth. He prepared lengthy documents describing the death of XimXim and his subsequent victory over Tylocost. With Egrin busy rounding up wagons and carts to transport the sick, Tol decided to entrust his dispatches to another-Mandes the wizard.