To his astonishment the face of Pelladrom Tumult was revealed, the young noble Tol had seen standing at the new emperor’s side. Why was a high-born, well-positioned young warrior leading a gang of thugs smashing up pushcarts?
“Who is he?” Egrin asked. Tol told him, and the marshal said urgently, “Cover his face!”
Sellers were returning to the square, collecting around the famous Lord Tolandruth. Tol let the blue kerchief fall, hiding the dead man’s features. Egrin summoned two of his own men to remove the body.
“I offered him quarter, but he forced this conclusion,” Tol said, as the scarf was tied in place over Pelladrom’s face and his body thrown over a saddle.
Drawing near so only Tol could hear, Egrin whispered, “Lord Enkian is on his way to Daltigoth for Prince Amaltar’s ascension.”
Enkian was Warden of the Seascapes, the province farthest from Daltigoth. Summer rains had swollen the major streams between the northwest coast and the capital. It might be another three or four days before Enkian arrived.
Tol sighed. Enkian had never liked Tol and would be furious at the killing of his youngest son, but the fight had been a fair one. Tol said as much, but Egrin shook his head, insisting, “You don’t understand. Enkian does not come alone! He brings five hordes!”
“Five thousand men?” Tol said, voice rising.
Although out of favor with the prince for his criticism during the war, a noble like Lord Enkian, coming to pay his respects to Pakin III and swear loyalty to his successor, was allowed to bring an entourage to the capital. For a modest man like Egrin, that meant twenty riders. A rich, prominent lord like Tremond of Thorngoth might bring a hundred, all dressed in his personal matching livery. Five hordes was not an honor guard but a warband.
Egrin’s face and voice were grim. “We had word of this as we rode south. People thought the Tarsans were invading!”
“What does he think he can do with five hordes? Seize the city? The Daltigoth garrison numbers ten times that many.”
“I don’t know what he intends, but he will not take the death of his son kindly. If he has five thousand men at his back, you must be careful, Tol!”
“Let him seek me out,” Tol said. “I’ll not hide what I’ve done.”
Unhappy, the marshal agreed. He returned to his waiting retainers and ordered two off their horses. With canvas and planks from a shattered stall, the soldiers made a litter for Kiya. She didn’t like being carried but her knee was painful enough that she relented after only a few protests. Egrin had accepted Miya’s enthusiastic offer to lodge with them in their hired villa, so Tol and Miya mounted the empty horses and led the Eagles home.
Despite the dark turn the day had taken, the journey to the villa was a happy one. Like the Dom-shu sisters, Egrin was very dear to Tol. The elder warrior was his second father, a substitute for his real family, whom he had not seen in years.
Three years after leaving to live in Juramona, Tol had returned to visit his family. He’d intended to remain a week but had departed after only three days. Although pleased to see them again, and they to see him, it had been an awkward visit. They didn’t know how to act around him, and he no longer seemed to have anything in common with them. His life in Juramona was utterly foreign to them. Where his mother, Ita, had cried for the changes in her boy, Bakal was gruff, yet obviously proud of Tol’s position as shield bearer to Egrin, Warden of the Eastern Hundred. As his mother hugged him goodbye, Tol had surreptitiously pressed into her hand a little money he’d saved. After taking leave of his father, and enduring a quick, embarrassed kiss from middle sister Nira (eldest sister Zalay was preparing to deliver her second child), Tol had mounted his horse and ridden away.
That was the last time he’d seen them. Apart from everything else Egrin meant to him, he was the only one of Tol’s old comrades to have known his family.
Once the party reached the Rumbold villa, a healer was sent for to tend Kiya’s knee. Having been in the saddle since before dawn, Egrin and his men were famished. Tol took them down to the kitchen and they dined together at two big tables.
“You look very well, Egrin,” Tol said, and he truly meant it. “Hardly a day older than when I first rode into Juramona with you on Old Acorn.”
Egrin waved a dismissive hand. “You were a child then; all adults seem elderly to the young.”
He pressed Tol for an account of his recent adventures. Tol told of the final battles before the walls of Tarsis (discreetly leaving out all mention of Hanira and the golems), and his subsequent hazardous journey through the hill country. He made the magical attacks on his party sound like natural storms. Without hard proof Mandes was responsible, Tol would not accuse him publicly.
Egrin was saddened to hear of Felryn’s death.
“A good man, and a wise and gentle healer.” He raised his wooden cup, brimming with beer. “May he stand forever at the right hand of Mishas!”
Tol and the sisters echoed the marshal’s toast. When Tol related the tale of Xanka and the Blood Fleet, Egrin shook his head in disbelief.
“At the mercy of this bloody buccaneer and you bullied him into a duel? Then you slew him before his crew and fellow captains?”
Tol shrugged. “I could see Xanka was a coward at heart. If I challenged his courage in front of his men, I knew he’d fight me. To do anything else would have cost him too much prestige, maybe even command of the Fleet.”
Egrin asked to see the blade Tol had used to defeat the pirate chief. Number Six was duly handed over. Egrin fingered the blade, pressing his thumbnail against the flat. Despite the use Tol had put it to, the curved blade was as bright and smooth as the day Mundur Embermore had given it to him.
“I’ve heard rumors of this metal for years,” Egrin said, holding up the saber and running his gaze down the cutting edge. “Only a few in the dwarf clans know the secret of its making.”
“Is it magic?” asked Miya.
“Not at all. The dwarves use a special forging process to temper ordinary iron into something far stronger-‘steel’ as the pirate captain said.” He handed Number Six back, adding, “There’s no armor in the empire could turn aside that blade. I wish I had one for every man in the Eagle Horde.”
Tol had finished his recollections. Since he hadn’t mentioned it, Miya told how he had been summoned to a vigil over the late emperor’s remains. Egrin’s bushy brows rose in surprise.
“That is an honor indeed!”
Miya smirked. “Husband thought so. Especially since he didn’t keep watch alone.”
“Take care!” Tol interrupted, raising his voice. Though among friends, he would not see Valaran compromised. Hearing his concern, Miya subsided and Egrin let the matter drop.
The healer arrived, a garrulous old woman named Truda. She examined Kiya’s knee, gave the welcome pronouncement that it was bruised not broken, and wrapped it with linen bandages and a splint. Leaving the Dom-shu woman a bottle of medicine to ease the swelling and pain, Truda treated the rest of them to the latest street gossip.
“There was fighting in every square this morning,” she said. Her purse clinked heavily with the money she’d earned treating the injured. “Skylanders, Nazramin’s Wolves, the whole lot. They say you, my lord, quelled one of the riots all by yourself.”
Tol sighed. People told such lies about him, even if they were complimentary lies. Miya and Kiya set the old healer straight. Truda was disappointed, but her black eyes narrowed with unpleasant mirth.
“Your Lordship did slay the chief of the Skylanders, did you not?”
Tol was astonished word had spread so quickly. Egrin’s men had brought Pelladrom’s covered body directly to the villa. He was lying in the cellar until Tol and the marshal could arrange an audience with Amaltar to tell him what had happened.