The Grave thief

'You have agents in place?' mused Emissary Jerrer, a look of dispassionate curiosity on his face. 'But how to deal with so many mages? And what about the defending soldiers? You surely cannot have an army of agents.'

'A handful, no more,' Lord Styrax replied, riever taking his eyes off the city. It was clear that there was fighting going on. In no more than a minute the main gate of Tor Salan was opening and more troops were flooding out.

'I confess you have me perplexed, my Lord,' the emissary said. Amber could hear a hint of admiration in Jerrer's voice.

'It's simple, Emissary, the defenders of Tor Salan quite rightly considered their newly recruited Chetse mercenaries to be ideal for the job of defending their most important weapons.'

'And they were wrong to do so?'

'Under normal circumstances, no. However, these are not normal circumstances, are they? The advance group I sent were not messengers, Emissary, but the tachrenn of the Ten Thousand, led by General Dev himself.'

'The Ten Thousand?' gasped Jerrer, suddenly realising what was going on. 'You allowed those Chetse soldiers to travel north to become mercenaries, ensuring enough of the Ten Thousand were among them to carry opinion? And once they see their generals under your banner, they will turn on the remaining troops, their erstwhile comrades, and slaughter the mages? But there are hundreds of mages out there! Lord Styrax, surely your losses will be vast?'

'Captain Hain?'

Hain flinched; he hadn't been expected to be called upon to explain the plan, but when all faces turned to him he rallied and took up the explanation.

'Lord Styrax suggested to me that such an expenditure of energy as would be required for the Giants' Hands would require many rituals, and a careful bonding of power. Investigations showed that the mages are linked to each other, and thus cannot break those links quickly or easily.' He cleared his throat noisily, his discomfort evident.

Amber felt a certain sympathy for the man: he'd been trained to combat; he'd not been taught how to lecture an audience of dignitaries in front of the tribe's heroes. No one was looking at him, so he gave his captain a thumb's-up sign.

Hain nodded very slightly, gave himself a metaphorical shake and continued, 'The magical energy is largely contained within the arm itself. It flows from the linked mages and is stored within the brass rods. With sufficient troops on the field the mages can be neutralised before they have started any significant defence.'

'Neutralised.' Jerrer looked startled by the word, as though 'slaughtered' would have sounded more acceptable.

'This is war,' said General Gaur in his deep, growling voice. 'Unless the Patriarch of the Mosaic Council is more of a fool than our intelligence suggests, he will surrender the city and it will cost only a few hundred lives.'

'But still, Tor Salan is a haven for mages — they are crucial to the city at all levels of society…' Jerrer's voice tailed off.

Mages were the backbone of many societies. The rest of the Land would take note of what happened in Tor Salan.

'This will serve as a lesson,' Gaur replied. 'To oppose Lord Styrax is folly; the extent of damage done to any city-state will be dependent on how long it takes them to accept that.'

The beast-man was impassive as always. Amber had shared more than a few skins of wine with the general, but he had never been able to guess Gaur's mood from his demeanour. You could tell when the half-human was thinking, because his jaw worked constantly, pushing his long lower canines through the tangled fur on his cheeks, but beyond that Gaur surpassed even the Dharai, the Menin warrior-monks, for impassiveness.

Looking back down to the action, Amber could see only a blurred mass of movement, presumably the Chetse mercenaries cutting down their former allies. Here and there flashes of light indicated at least a handful of mages had had the time to disengage and fight back, but the magical lights were only sporadic. One by one the Giants' Hands wavered, then crashed to the ground.

The Menin cavalry had split in two, leaving a channel down the centre of the flood plain. Once they'd crippled the city's principal defences, the Chetse would simply march away, with any pursuit held at bay by the Menin cavalry.

'Captain,' General Gaur called, 'have our lord's horse brought up.'

Hain saluted and signalled to someone, and in just a few moments horses for the whole group appeared, led by an enormous grey draped in Lord Styrax's colours. The horse was fully nineteen hands, and bore a steel head-covering that had long fangs hanging on each side to mimic Styrax's standard.

As they mounted up, Amber took the chance to whisper to Captain Hain, 'Are you now going to tell me how you're sure they'll surrender so quickly?'

All 'special duties' carried an obligation of secrecy that transcended rank; Hain had been delighted to be forced to keep the details of his full operation a surprise for his superior. He grinned. 'The Patriarch will give the order without consulting the entire council; he'll be with his most important advisors already. Once he sees his six thousand Chetse kneel to Lord Styrax he'll realise he has no choice.'

'It will still be no simple task to take the city, even with this shifting of the balance.'

'And so we don't want to give him time to think too hard.'

'Can we force it?'

'Once we're on the way, the message will be delivered. I hear the Raylin called Aracnan was in Scree, which is why we couldn't find him for this task, but Lord Larim will manage just as well.'

'Larim's already in the city?'

'The white-eye in him is looking forward to getting his hands dirty for a change!'

Amber pictured Lord Larim, the young Chosen of Larat, God of Magic, as they followed Lord Styrax out onto the plain. Larat's devotees tended to leave the killing to others; no doubt Larim would consider this mission high entertainment.

'What if the Patriarch doesn't do as he's told?'

Hain shrugged and Amber realised he'd asked a stupid question. 'Then Larim will kill him and signal the attack. Wherever Lord Styrax intends to go next — west to Narkang or north to Tirah — we must control both of the great trading city-states, and if Tor Salan doesn't surrender we'll inflict such destruction upon it that the Circle City will not contemplate opposing us for even a minute.'

'Sautin and Mustet won't cause trouble unless we march to their doorsteps,' said Amber, 'and that leaves Embere and Raland, both controlled by the Devoted — and both no doubt already preparing for us.'

'Exactly, sir,' Hain said cheerfully, 'so we'll get a fight this year after all!'

And we will build another monument to our lord with their skulls, Amber added privately.

CHAPTER l0

The sky was slate-grey, angry. A broken mountain burned in the distance, wreathed in black coils of smoke. The freezing wind pierced his ragged clothes as he struggled to find purchase in the churned mud underfoot. He staggered on over the ruined ground, exhausted, using his bloodstained sword for balance and fighting for every step, but it made no difference. The mountain came no closer, and the darkness behind advanced relentlessly.

Collapsing to his knees, he gasped for breath and looked around. The landscape was ruined; there were great furrows carved into the earth, and even the weeds were crushed and dead. Death was all around him, and despite an occasional discarded item — a helm here, a broken scabbard there — he saw no one else, neither alive, nor dead. The broken black tooth of the mountain seemed to loom over him, unreal and untouchable.

He dug his fingers into the mud and felt it suck them down. He wrenched his hand from the dead land's grasp and tried to stand, but his legs rebelled as the darkness closed in on him. He tried to scream, but he couldn't voice his terror. He tried to lift his sword with what feeble strength he had left, but to no avail. The darkness bent over him, as insubstantial as smoke, until cold fingers grabbed him by the throat. He fell back and the mud welcomed him, burning as it drew him in, the hand at his throat pushing him inexorably down and down into the cold of the grave.