Times had changed. Everything had changed—except Hamanu, the Lion of Urik. As Hamanu thought of dragons and champions, the last of the Gulg templars heaved a shuddering sigh and passed from life into eternal sleep.
The Lion-King strode toward the Urik infirmary tended by his surgeon-sergeants. He granted unlimited spells to the war-bureau healers in the aftermath of battle, for all the good it did the injured. Working with second-hand magic, the surgeon-sergeants were barely competent in their craft. Templars moaned and wailed when their wounds were tended. They healed with troublesome scars such as Pavek bore across his otherwise handsome face.
Hamanu used the endless potential of the Unseen world when he chose to heal. As a restorer of life and health, he was more than competent, but not even his flexible consciousness could attend the needs of so many. He chose not to choose a lucky few among them. He chose, in truth, to keep his compassion well-hidden from the templars who served him, and he defended his choice with the thought that it was better that mortals not rely on his mercy.
Pale and streaked with clammy sweat, Kalfaen waited precisely where Hamanu had left him.
"Recount," the Lion commanded, tugging the Unseen strings laced through the elven youth's mind.
Hamanu's sorcery kept Kalfaen upright. His own will shaped the words and thoughts that the king skimmed off the surface of his mind.
"There were children with them," Kalfaen explained.
Despite their strong tribal attachments to kith and kin, elves weren't sentimental about their offspring. They'd abandon anything, anyone if the need arose. On the other side of the coin, a tribe with children in tow appeared both prosperous and fearless. Kalfaen's thoughts were tinged with shame. He'd succumbed to metal-coin bribes, women's charm, and the prejudices of his own race.
Hamanu returned that shame as a thousand sharp needles lancing Kalfaen's inmost self. The youth gasped involuntarily.
"I die," he whispered.
Trust and prejudice together were just another two-sided coin. When the Lion of Urik trusted his mortal templars, he got their prejudices in the bargain. Kalfaen wasn't the only Urikite who'd bought the Gulgan deception. Hamanu's spell kept the youth alive as surely as it kept him standing.
"Recount," he demanded. "What next? What of the others? Recount!"
The rest was as simple as it was predictable: something had been slipped into the wine. Immune to their own poisons, the false refugees had slipped away during the night, leaving the templars to death at dawn. But the militant had drunk less than Kalfaen and the rest. He saw telltale dust on the eastern horizon and sounded an alarm, then kicked each of them soundly in the flanks until they roused. By the time Kalfaen was on his feet, the sound of hobnail sandals slapping the barren soil was all around them.
There was nothing more to say or learn. Hamanu released Kalfaen. The elf collapsed in stages—to his knees, his elbows, his face. Belatedly, he clapped his long-fingered hands over his ears and scalp, as if scraps of mortal flesh could have protected him from Hamanu's inquiry. He reeked of vomit and worse, but he'd live. He'd been tempered in the Lion's fire and, having failed to die, was doomed to survive.
Hamanu's thoughts were already moving away from the elf. Scanning the remains of the camp, he looked for the missing pieces in the puzzle Inenek had left for him. Her plans had gone awry: he'd arrived early, trying to save his templars, triggering her traps out of sequence. But she had meant for him to come—why else tamper with the mind of his militant or set a whirlwind to wait for him in the Gray?
The militant, then, was the key. Inenek had meant for the templar to use his medallion to summon him to this barren place, though not during the fighting. The poisoned wine and the netherworld disruption were both designed to keep him away while his templars were slain.... While all save one of his templars were slain....
Did the Oba think Urik's templars were fools? No war-bureau templar would admit to being the sole survivor of monumental stupidity. He certainly wouldn't summon his immortal king to witness the debacle. A militant would have needed a better reason.
"Stand down!" Hamanu's voice roared beyond the battlefield.
The surgeon-sergeants continued their work, but the templars who'd been gleaning armor, weapons, and other valuables from the corpses of friend and foe alike stood at attention with their arms at their sides. Hamanu's head throbbed—had been throbbing since he stepped from the netherworld. It was a minor ache compared to the agonies he customarily ignored, and no surprise, considering the unnatural power that had been expended in this unlikely place.
Massaging an illusory forehead with a human-seeming hand, Hamanu dissected his aches. Sorcery and mind-bending, his and Inenek's, had caused much of the harm, and beneath that, the War-Bringer's spoor. The smell of Rajaat was not just in the netherworld, where Hamanu had glimpsed the Black as he battled Inenek's whirlwind, but here, amid the battle refuse.
Hamanu bestrode his lifeless militant, who'd fallen exactly where he'd stood when he raised his medallion. The man's mind was cold; when a champion subsumed a mortal spirit, there was nothing left behind for necromantic interrogation.
With a roar, the Lion of Urik cursed himself, Inenek, Rajaat, and the useless militant. He kicked the corpse aside and knew before it struck ground again that he'd found his missing piece.
Impatiently, Hamanu cast a net into the netherworld.
Windreaver!
Nearly a quinth had passed since Hamanu had sent the troll to Ur Draxa—not a lot of time, considering how treacherous the citadel might have become if Rajaat were working sorcery from his prison.
Windreaver!
Hamanu hadn't been concerned by the troll's absence. In the past, Windreaver had been gone a year, even a decade, ferreting out secrets. Disembodied, neither dead nor alive, the wayfaring troll had little effect on the world around him and was equally immune to any manner of assault. And if Windreaver had been destroyed—Hamanu rubbed his forearm; beneath the leonine illusion he felt a stony lump—the troll's passing would have been noticed.
Windreaver!
A third call echoed throughout the Gray and died unanswered. Hamanu pondered the imponderable: Windreaver falling into a trap. Windreaver imprisoned. Windreaver seizing an opportunity for vengeance. Hamanu would have staked his immortal life that Windreaver wouldn't betray him to Rajaat or another champion, but he'd been wrong more often than not lately.
To me, Windreaver—now!
Nothing. Not a whisper or a promise anywhere in the netherworld. By sundown, the surgeon-sergeants had finished their work among the wounded. Hamanu picked up the wrapped shard and broke it over his thigh. He inhaled the malignant vapors, and then seared Rajaat's spells with his own. With nothing left to hinder him, Hamanu shouted Windreaver's name to the beginning of time, the end of space. He harvested countless interrupted thoughts, none of which emanated from a troll.
After thirteen ages, an enemy was as good as a friend. As the two moons rose together, Hamanu returned to Urik not merely alone but lonely. He called Enver, Javed, and Pavek away from their separate suppers. They sat, stiff and still, on the palace roof while he paced beside the balustrade, disguised as a man and fooling no one. He could perceive their thoughts, their conviction that something must be terribly wrong, but he couldn't make them speak, not to each other, not to him, not the way Windreaver would have spoken.
"Such a doleful gathering, O Mighty Master. Is someone you care about dead or dying?" Like a shadow sketched in darkness with silver ink, Windreaver spun himself out of the night. "I heard you, O Mighty Master, and thought it might be important."