The carnage of the battlefield was still vivid in Tol’s mind. “But your army’s dead,” he blurted.
The Pakin soldier snapped a vulgar word at him. Grane merely shrugged. “Ah, you saw the battlefield,” he said. “A setback, I admit. My cavalry commander mistook Imperial troops for Odovar’s local lackeys. He paid for his blunder with his life.”
His escort sputtered, “My lord! Many a loyal follower of the true emperor died in that fight!”
“ ‘Life to the strong,’ ” was Grane’s ironic reply. He didn’t even glance at his man.
“Are these your strongest, then?” Tol muttered, glancing around.
The soldier advanced, blade bared. “Shut up, whelp or I’ll feed you to your own pigs!”
“Sit down, Yarakin,” Grane snapped. “The stableboy is baiting you, and you’re swallowing it like a starving dog. Sit.” Reluctantly, the anxious soldier complied.
Grane produced a short dagger with a sharply pointed, triangular blade. Tol’s mother grasped his wrist in alarm, but the Pakin lord merely dug the tip into the chair arm, idly whittling.
“By daybreak we’ll be gone, boy, so let us spend a quiet night, eh? Sleep, all of you. That is my order.”
Tol’s eyelids fluttered, and he yawned. The rest of his family followed suit.
“Sleep. Rest. Speak no more till sunrise…”
Grane’s voice had taken on a gently insistent tone. Although his mind was racing, Tol felt himself growing more and more tired. His mother’s grip on his arm slackened, and her head rested on his shoulder. Zalay and Nira sighed in unison, their heads drooping. His father yawned so widely his jaw cracked. The soldier Yarakin was already snoring, standing up, leaning on his spear.
“Sleep, all. Sleep. Close your eyes and visit the vale of dreams.”
Grane was working magic, putting everyone to sleep! Tol tried to fight the spell. He was certain Egrin would come to their rescue, and he needed to be awake to help the warden.
But his efforts came to naught. He felt as though soft weights were collecting on his limbs and his eyelids. His head grew so heavy he couldn’t hold it up.
“Sleep, stableboy. Sleep.”
The last thing Tol saw was Grane dragging the chair away from the hearth, into the deep shadows behind the door. The Pakin lord sat down again and drew one of Ita’s rag quilts close around his shoulders. The shadows swallowed him completely; only his greaves were visible, and light from the guttering lamp glinted on their rivets.
As sleep claimed him, Tol heard-or thought he heard-the deep voice of Grane, chuckling.
Light roused Tol. He cracked one eyelid. Slim bands of sunlight came through cracks in the shutters. In the beams, silent cascades of dust danced. Tol opened his other eye. Recognition returned as he looked around. His family, the Pakin soldier Yarakin, and Lord Grane slumbered on.
Tol shifted slightly, easing his mother’s head from his arm. With his family at their mercy, the Pakins apparently didn’t consider Tol a threat, and he had not been tied. If he could snatch Yarakin’s spear before the warrior woke, he could perhaps hold him at bay until his father got free.
He listened hard, but heard no sounds from outside. Why hadn’t Egrin come to save them? He was certain the warden wouldn’t simply have ridden away, but he couldn’t risk wasting this opportunity. Yarakin was slumped by the hearth, snoring gratingly. Tol crept toward him. When his hand closed over the spear, he tugged…
The movement unbalanced Yarakin. The soldier slumped forward, and sunlight fell on his face. His eyes opened.
“Ha!” he shouted, taking firm hold of the shaft. He dealt Tol a sharp blow on the thigh, then another in the ribs. Tol went down, dazed with pain.
“My lord, awake!” Yarakin cried.
Deep in the shadowed chair, Lord Grane did not move. Tol’s family did. His father thrust away from wall and, despite his hobbles, butted the Pakin soldier in the stomach. Yarakin reeled back, stumbling over Tol, who was curled up on the floor in agony.
Tol’s mother wept with terror, but his father and two sisters lost no time in falling upon the soldier as soon as he went down.
Tol could hardly believe his sisters would attack so fearlessly. Zalay, the eldest, butted Yarakin’s face repeatedly with her head, and sturdy Nira sat on the hapless fellow’s stomach, lifting herself a short distance and dropping her whole weight on him over and over.
Tol heard noises outside, men’s voices, the ring of metal on metal. Swordplay! Still Lord Grane did not rise from his chair, speak, or assist in any way.
Seeing his father and sisters could handle Yarakin, Tol crept on hands and knees around the hearth, toward the motionless Grane. He took up a length of firewood. It was seasoned oak, and made a good club.
Tol abandoned stealth. He got up, let out a yell, and charged, firewood held high.
He brought it down hard, smashing into Grane’s left knee. The articulated armor plates took the blow, and Grane’s right boot fell to the floor. The quilt covering him fell away and, in a motion that scared Tol half to death, his armored sleeve fell from the chair arm, clanging against the floor. A dark powder streamed from the boot and Grane’s sleeve.
Tol cupped his hand under the stream, filling his palm with cold grit. Black sand. The armor slowly collapsed as the sand poured out. Tol flung back the visor in time to see the empty coif sinking into the suit’s neck. There was no one inside the richly gilded metal. Stunned, Tol stood there staring at the rapidly deflating suit of armor.
Yarakin broke free of his tormentors and made for the door, howling for help at the top of his lungs. He flung the door open and dashed outside. Immediately he gave an inarticulate yell and snatched the saber from his belt. Tol heard the clash of blades, backed by a chorus of neighing horses.
With Grane’s helmet in hand, Tol ran to the door. The second Pakin soldier, the filthy one who’d caught him last night, lay facedown in the yard. Blood was pooling beneath him. Yarakin was trading frenzied cuts with a man in red-trimmed scale-mail. Egrin!
Yarakin jabbed at Egrin desperately. With power born of desperation, he managed to rake the tip of his sword down Egrin’s left cheek. Blood flowed, and the warden of Juramona gave ground, backing toward Old Acorn, who stood by the pigpen fence.
Tol thought of lobbing the gilded helm at the Pakin, but he wasn’t sure of his aim. The last thing he wanted was to hit Egrin.
Clutching the helm and yelling encouragement, Tol was startled to see his father come charging out of the house with Yarakin’s spear in his hands. He caught the Pakin soldier from behind and drove the spear’s bronze head in. Yarakin whirled, slashing at Bakal. The farmer leaped back, tripped on his unwound leggings, and fell against the cistern.
Blood streaming from his lips, Yarakin brought his saber up, but he’d reached the end of his strength. The sword fell from his hands, and his knees buckled. He was dead by the time he hit the ground.
Freed of their bonds, Tol’s mother and sisters spilled out of the hut, all talking at once. They converged on Bakal. Fortunately, Yarakin’s saber had barely nicked the farmer, making a shallow cut across his windpipe. A hair deeper, and he would have been dead beside his attacker. Ita bound the cut with a strip torn from her skirt, clucking worriedly yet proudly all the while.
Egrin shoved his weapon back in its scabbard and caught Old Acorn’s reins. While the warden tied his horse to the sty, Tol held up Grane’s helmet and cried, “Come inside, sir! Lord Grane!”
Egrin’s hand went to his sword hilt. “Is he here?”
“Yes! No! Well, some of him is!”
Puzzled, the warden followed him into the hut. They examined the empty suit of armor from coif to boots. Every lacing was tied, every buckle fastened. Even the frog at the neck of Grane’s cloak was still hooked. All that remained of the man inside was two hundredweight of fine ebon sand, drifted now around his sabatons. It looked for all the world like Grane had wafted away, leaving behind his fine armor filled with dust.