Chapter 15

The Malton Frontier, the Imperial Colonies

Bounds-duty was not a favorite thing among the Malton Guard. There were certainly better jobs. Keeping watch over the booming trade-town's marketplaces was far more comfortable. Escorting merchants' caravans as they rumbled along the coast was more lucrative. By comparison, riding along the edge of the colony—built north of the Tiderun two hundred years ago as the first step of a larger imperial expansion that had never happened—was tedious, unrewarding, and unpleasant. Most guardsmen considered it a punishment.

The storm made it worse. It was the most violent summer tempest anyone on that side of the Run could remember, lashing Malton and the surrounding countryside with raindrops the size of acorns. The winds had long since torn away every banner and awning in town—not to mention anything not battened down in the harbor—and the thunder was ceaseless. The din robbed the townsfolk of sleep and was beginning to strip away their sanity. The accompanying lightning had blown apart two watchtowers, set fire to the masts of four great ships at the wharf, and turned the town's central monument—an eighty-foot-high granite statue of the minotaur hero Orrek the Stout—into smoldering shards, scattered across the courtyard where it had stood.

The strangest thing, though, was how long the storm was lasting. Malton was accustomed to hard weather in the warm months, and had suffered through some terrible storms since the Godless Night ended, but their power was always tempered by brevity. One would rise, batter the land for half a day, then move on or dwindle. This one was different. This one had gone on for three days. Long enough that the merchant lords who ruled the town grew worried it might destroy the season's trade. Both the clerics and the wizards who dwelt in Malton were busy seeking answers and blaming each other for the weather. It was a curse from the gods; it was a spell gone awry. Whatever the answer, half the city was flooded and the sewers were overflowing, making noisome rivers in the streets. Folk moved to higher ground, or higher floors. Smaller ships, broken free of their moorings, drifted down inundated streets and smashed up against houses as much as half a mile inland. The storm was proving a disaster with no end in sight.

Lorreth Accal, riding patrol alone along the storm's edge, was caked in mud, head to toe, as was his horse. The rain had long since soaked through his oilcloth cloak, and every other piece of clothing he wore, and he shivered constantly, unable to light even the smallest fire for warmth. And he wasn't doing a damn bit of good out there, anyway. With the storm-dark and the lashing rain, he couldn't see anything beyond about ten paces away: just mud, puddles, and grasses beaten flat.

He swore vigorously. A week ago, Lorreth had been comfortable in the town barracks, drinking beer and playing at dice. That had been the start of his problem. He'd actually won the last throw, and a tidy sum of gold, but another guardsman—gods, he'd been too drunk to remember who—had accused him of cheating. That led to shouting, which led to fighting, which led to a broken arm—one that wouldn't swing a sword for a month, even with Mislaxan healing. Lorreth's commander had offered him a choice: being locked in the pillory as a target for the folk of Malton's rotten vegetables, or a shift on the frontier. He'd seriously considered the pillory, and now was coming to regret his choice.

It had been six days since he'd seen another soul. Summer had come with a vengeance, sweltering and making him sweat beneath his helm and mail. Then the storm came, which would probably give him an ague that would last till winter. He'd finished the last of his beer the day before, and now had to make do with rainwater, collected in his upturned helm. The only thing that could make matters worse was a case of the trots. He signed the horns of Jolith at the thought.

"This is foolish," he said. He'd taken to talking to his horse, which he knew was not a good sign. "We patrol the frontier, day after week after month, and for what? It's been years since there's been more than a cattle-raid along the bounds. The barbarians don't bother with us any more. They know it's easier to kill each other."

The horse offered no reply. Lorreth snorted and went on.

"Waste of time, is what it is. I could ride back and forth to no good end for a fortnight! I've half a mind to ride to Estagon to spend the rest of the time at their brothels. They'd never know the difference, back home. At least I'd be dry."

He slogged on at a pace little more than a crawl. Ahead, through the mess, he could see the next Horn-tower atop a low hill: a spire of stone, a winding stair running round it, and a huge horn, longer than a man's height—and once belonging to a red dragon—set into it, pointing south. It was one of many built along the frontier. If he sighted trouble, his duty was to ride to the nearest tower and wind its horn. The sound would carry back to patrols nearer to Malton, who would alert the town. That was the plan, anyway. In his twenty-three years, Lorreth had not once heard the tower-call.

"Not that they'll be able to hear the blasted thing anyway," he muttered, glowering at the tower. "Not in this muck."

Lightning flared, sun-bright, and struck a copse of bentwoods maybe a furlong away. One of the trees blew apart, splinters flying, and left a jagged finger of a blackened stump behind. Lorreth saw fire for a moment, but the rain promptly doused the flames. Then the thunder crashed, loud enough that it felt like someone had struck him, leaving him momentarily deaf and blind. His horse reared, whinnying in panic, and he clung to the animal, hauling on the reins to keep it from bolting. He shouted blasphemies at the sky, cursing every god he could name—Jolith and Mislaxa, Sargas and Hith, and a half-dozen more.

Then, in the space of a breath, the storm abated. One instant there was nothing in the world but gale-whipped rain and the bellow of thunder; the next, all that was gone, leaving only the terrible black clouds roiling overhead. Lorreth blinked and cast about in terror. Then he saw something that made his heart feel like a shard of ice, lodged in his breast. There was a rise to the north, not far from where his horse stood—just a swell of the land, with a few exposed rocks along its crown. He'd been following its length as he rode his patrol, for it marked the edge of the colony, the end of League lands and the beginning of the Tamire proper, where the Uigan barbarians ruled.

Now it was covered with those same barbarians—hundreds of them, maybe thousands, mounted on horses and arrayed in a long row for as far as the eye could see. He couldn't make out much about them, particularly with the green ghost of lightning hovering before his eyes, but he could tell they were arrayed for battle. He saw the horsetail helmets, the thickets of raised spears, and the banners and standards and staked heads.

Warmth spread at Lorreth's crotch as he wet himself. He neither noticed, nor cared. He stared at the Uigan—gods, it had to be every tribe on the damned Tamire! The Horn-tower is close, said some dim part of his mind. You might be able to get to it before they kill you. You can warn the town. They might not hear you, with the storm, but you can try. It's your duty.

But he did not move. Couldn't even reach for his sword. He could only stare, drenched in rain and his own piss, with his mouth so wide open a sparrow could have built a nest there.

The arrow seemed to dive out of nowhere, punching through the armor below his collarbone and going in deep. Pain exploded in his chest. Lorreth stared at the shaft, blinking stupidly. He opened his mouth to shout, but coughed instead. Blood misted the air. With a groan, he slumped sideways and fell from the saddle.

"Well shot, tenach," said Chovuk. He peered at the sentry's body, lying motionless in the grass, then turned to the rider on his right. "Go take his head, Nabal. Bring the horse back with you."

Nabal, the youngest son of Sugai Tegin, grinned and clucked his tongue. His mount sprang forward and galloped down toward the dead soldier, leaving the ranks of the horde. He raised his spear as he went, and the assembled Uigan responded with a lusty roar.

Hult lowered his bow and shook his head. "This was too easy. One arrow, and their defenses have a hole large enough for all of us to ride through?"

"These are soft folk, tenach," Chovuk replied, and spat. "They think they are safe behind their walls of stone. We have not troubled them since the time before Krogan was Boyla." He nodded at the dragon-horn on its spire, not far from where the dead man lay. "Yon tower will stay silent—their war-horns will not sound until we are close to the city. Too close for them to stop us."

A victorious shout from Nabal drew their attention away. The youth was holding something high: the soldier's head, gripped by the short-cropped hair, his shuk bloody in his other hand. The riders cheered again, clashing their weapons against their shields. Hult glanced at the tower. The dragon-horn at its top gleamed in the storm-light. It would remain silent, as Chovuk had said. The bull-men would think themselves safe until the Boyla's horde was at their doorstep.

It had been a long ride, south from the feet of the Ring Mountains. Chovuk had sent messengers wide across the Tamire, gathering the last clans of his people, sending the heads of Kazar lords as trophies to prove his might. The lands of their enemies lay burnt and blighted behind them, swarming with crows and jackals who fought for the bodies that lay among the ashes. Between them, the Uigan and the Wretched Ones had crushed the Kazar, destroyed every town, slaughtered those who fought, and hunted down those who tried to flee. Some had doubtless escaped, or hidden, but not many. It would be generations before the Kazar recovered—if they ever did.

Krogan Boyla had been avenged. Now it was the minotaurs' turn.

The earth had shaken beneath the men on horseback and goblins riding wolves as they streamed across the plains crying for blood and gold. For three weeks, they had poured ever southward, the mountains a blue line on their left and the plains rising and falling in grassy waves as they made their way toward the Tiderun. Toward Malton, the first and largest of the League's colonies.

Chovuk had a map, taken from a trade caravan they'd killed along the way. He and the Tegins—and Gharmu of the Wretched Ones—had discussed their plans around it long into the night, drinking kumiss and boasting of who would take the most heads, or the most gold, when they came to their goal. Malton was a trade-town, and rich. Its fall would be a great blow to the bull-men, and would leave their other major town, Rudil, exposed. There were other villages along the coast, but Rudil and Malton were the poles that held up the yurt. If they took both—when they took both—the colonies would collapse. The Tamire would belong to the tribes once more.

Hult should have been reveling in the bloodlust that had swept over the men. Part of him was. Certainly he'd felt a stirring when Nabal spitted the soldier's head on the end of his spear and held it aloft. But he was also troubled. He had seen the green light in Chovuk's tent. He had heard the strange voices, late at night. He had felt the presence, however briefly, of the other who had been in the yurt, unseen, with the Boyla. And he could see changes in Chovuk, too. The man was leaner, his face drawn, and there was white in his braid and beard. He seemed to have aged ten summers since the start of the season. Understandable, perhaps, since he had worked so tirelessly to bring the horde together, but the changes ran deeper than just what had happened to his body. Hult knew his master. He could tell. The Boyla's spirit had aged as well.

The Tegins had proclaimed the wild storm over Malton good fortune, a sign Jijin smiled upon them, softening up the target before the killing stroke. Hult, however, knew there was something at work besides divine providence, and the way the storm broke before them… how it had lifted enough so that he could shoot this tone outrider… no, that was magic. Magic from the same source that gave Chovuk the power to shift his skin and become a steppe-tiger in the heat of battle.

If he had been a free rider, he might have spoken of this magic, might have wondered aloud about the Boyla's new powers. But he was tenach, so he said nothing. Only followed, and protected his master. It was his place.

Nabal shouted with glee as he rode back, leading the dead soldier's horse. He left the man's body for the crows. "He was still breathing when I found him!" the young rider cried. A boy's glee, trying to please his father. "It was my sword that killed him!"

Chovuk laughed—not warmly, as he had before, but with cruel humor. "Too bad, tenach. The head is his to claim."

"No matter," Hult said, not much wanting the head anyway. The man hadn't seen his death coming. It was not a noble kill. "Let it fall to him."

Nabal whooped with joy. Nearby, Sugai Tegin smiled.

"Aye, no matter," the Boyla said. "There will be enough heads for everyone tonight." He turned to the Tegins, who gathered near. "This is only the first blood to be spilled today. Sound the horns. We ride to Malton, and glory!"

The riders' cheers were louder than the thunder.

When Sammek Thale first heard the shouting, he thought nothing of it. It was an hour before midday and he was already drunk and working on his fifth flagon of wine—cheap, sour stuff, rather than the southern vintages he was accustomed to—in the Broken Keel. The Keel was a dingy waterfront tavern, one of the few that weren't flooded out, though the roof leaked constantly beneath the storm. He couldn't afford to drink in the parlors of the rich Hilltop Ward anymore. When he had returned from his last journey with an empty hold, his partners had thrown him out and seized his ship. They had ruined him. He'd spent the past week drinking away the last of his gold and thinking about Harlad the Gray. He hoped the pirate was enjoying his booty.

He wasn't the only one in the Keel that day. The storm had driven many captains to their cups. They certainly wouldn't venture out on the Run during the storm. Most of the sailors paid little mind to the yelling that drifted in from the streets: maybe it was a brawl, or maybe the imperial guard had caught someone looting abandoned warehouses in the storm. Things happened at the wharf. You didn't look up from your mug at every cry of alarm. You drank more, and waited for the din to die down.

But, the din grew louder and more insistent. It sounded like half the town was in the streets, running this way and that, bellowing and screaming. That was odd, with the rains as bad as they were. The Keel's patrons began to take notice and moved to the windows and doors. Then they started to leave and join the panic outside.

Sammek raised an eyebrow and got to his feet. The room swayed like he was back on the deck of the White Worm, plying the high seas. He weaved toward the crowd at the entrance.

"What is it?" he asked, catching the arm of a barechested minotaur, a stevedore he'd employed in the past to load his ship. "Lightning strike somewhere? Is there afire?"

"Lightning?" the stevedore repeated, then laughed. "Haven't you been listening? The storm's let up, Thale."

Sammek scowled, cocking an ear. He could have sworn he still heard thunder, though it sounded far off. And the noise had a strange rhythm to it, now that he thought of it. A constant low rumbling. "What's that?" he cried.

"Barbarians!" the minotaur snapped. "Uigan riders. They're attacking the city. Goblins too!"

Nonsense, Sammek thought as the stevedore shoved out the door and bolted for the waterlogged docks. There were sails unfurling all along the waterfront—people fleeing despite the rough winds and lashing rain. The sky was like slate, seeming to hang so low the Hilltop spires might scratch it. The storm hadn't departed. It had simply paused, as if it had more to say but was waiting for the right moment. People streamed south under the rain, packing the streets, while armored guards tried to force their way north toward the walls.

Barbarians and goblins, together? An army at Malton's gates? No, the minotaur had to be mistaken. Sammek knew the signals. The Horn-towers would have sounded. But then, with the storm, who would have heard them?

He began to fight through the frightened mobs, ignoring the shouts that he was going the wrong way and the hands that caught at his sleeves and tried to turn him around. He ducked down an alley, found another lane that was less crowded, and climbed slopes and steps to the higher ground, up the shoulder of the hill around which the city's black-roofed buildings clustered. Here people gathered on balconies and rooftops, pointing and staring north. Women wept, men cursed and went to find swords or knives, and servants ran for their lives.

There was a house with a high turret belonging to one of Sammek's former wives, bought with his gold, years ago. She wasn't there, gods be praised. He had glimpsed her in the throng moving toward the docks. The door was slightly ajar, so he slipped in and quickly climbed the circular steps to the roof. Out of breath, he shoved open the door, walked out onto the widow's walk, and felt his blood go cold.

The sound, the rumble he'd taken for thunder, had been the pounding of thousands of hooves across the plains to the north. The fields beyond Malton looked like a kicked-over anthill, swarming with tiny figures of horses and men… and goblins and wolves, their shapes unmistakable even from a mile away. It was a horde like the ones that had once fought the League, decades ago. Nothing its size had been seen since the days when Malton was a little trading outpost—well before Sammek's grandfather was born.

"Gods' grief," he murmured, panic burning in his breast. "Where in the Abyss did they come from?"

Run. The thought flashed through his brain like an arrow, put new energy into his tired limbs, and cleared his wine-muddled mind. Run and run and don't stop until you can't see Malton any more.

Malton's walls were high and its gates were strong. The guardsmen on the battlements had bows and many arrows. There were supplies to last out months of siege—surely more than a rabble of barbarians would have the discipline to mount. The town could send for help by sea, if necessary. There looked to be ten thousand blades out there, all yearning for League blood, but it would take more than numbers to overwhelm Malton. Unless they were betrayed, they were safe—and no one in Malton was fool enough to sell themselves to the Uigan.

Still, that voice. Run.

"Something terrible is going to happen," Sammek whispered, not knowing where that sudden thought came from. The gods, perhaps, or intuition, or just luck. Later, he would spend long nights remembering those words, glad that—whatever their source—he had listened.

He turned and ran back down the stairs, to the street, and on toward the docks.

Arrows thudded to the ground, barely ten yards in front of the horde. The Uigan laughed, brandishing their sabers at the distant archers, whose helms appeared now and then among the merlons atop the wall. Bodies littered the ground before them—men and goblins who had gotten too close, and had been felled by lucky shots. They could smell the minotaurs within the walls, and their fury was unspeakable.

But they did not charge, as much as the bloodlust urged them on. Even the Wretched Ones held back, though the twisted creatures were half-mad with the call of battle, their riding-wolves snapping and snarling, tense as bowstrings and ready to leap forward the moment Gharmu gave the word.

Still they didn't charge. There was a problem.

"That wall is strong," said Hoch Tegin, waving his arm toward Malton. He glowered at the town, disgusted. "We cannot knock it down. How do we get in, Tiger?"

Chovuk Boyla didn't answer. He stood apart from his chiefs, Hult at his side. Unlike the Tegins, who were either anxious or angry—even Sugai looked concerned at what they faced—Chovuk was calm, and his brow was smooth. He held his fingers steepled before his mouth, and his eyes might have been shards of iron, so fierce was their gaze. They seemed to gleam with their own inner light, like the storm clouds had, moments before. The rain and the lightning over Malton had stopped, leaving only the pall of black, hovering like dragon-wings above the city.

"Boyla," Sugai pressed. "We have not the craft to topple those battlements. We cannot even get close, with so many archers waiting. This place was not so fortified in the old days. If we attack, we will surely be defeated."

Chovuk only smiled. "You are wise, Sugai Tegin," he said. "But you do not know everything."

"What does that mean?" blustered Hoch. "You have led us all this way on promises of glory, and now it lies beyond our grasp. And all you do is mock our worries?"

Hult glared at the young lord, though inside he had to admit the words had the ring of truth. Getting into Malton would be like beating down a mountainside. Nothing short of a dragon's breath could do such a thing—and there hadn't been any dragons in that part of the world since the ancient days. He looked at Chovuk, unable to keep the fear from his eyes.

"And even you doubt," said the Boyla. He sighed. "I had hoped for more faith from my own tenach. Very well… let it begin."

He raised his hands, shut his eyes, and spoke words that made Hult's skin feel like razor-beetles were crawling all over him. The Tegins shied back, glancing at one another in alarm and biting their hands to ward off evil spirits. Hult fought the urge to do the same. He must remain at his master's side, watching for danger. He had to, no matter how unsettling the Boyla's behavior. There was no doubt what he was doing now—it was sorcery, not the will of Jijin. He was calling down the moons' power, as no Uigan had done in nearly half a century.

Above, the storm started to shift. It was barely perceptible at first, the dark clouds beginning to spin slowly above the citadel. But the Uigan noticed, pointing and shouting to one another as Chovuk's hands danced through the air. Hult held his breath, only realizing what he was doing when his lungs began to burn. He forced himself to draw in air. Was there a green light around Chovuk now? A flicker the same color as the glow he had seen in the Boyla's yurt?

Yes, there was. In spite of himself, Hult shivered. "Master… ." he began, reaching out.

Chovuk's voice rose from a murmur to a shout. The spell was cast; it was done. He pointed at the sky, at the place where the clouds were revolving, and they started moving faster and faster… reshaping themselves and becoming a maelstrom above Malton. A hole opened in their midst, a wide, staring eye that was improbably blue. There was movement within the clouds, too—sinuous shapes of pearl and charcoal that slid through the wisps, one moment out of sight, visible the next, just long enough for a glimpse. Hult couldn't say what they were, but the quicksilver shapes had faces, and they were cruel, sharp-featured and long-fanged. Something dwelt in the storm and was shaping it at the Boyla's command, spinning it faster and faster… .

The finger grew in an instant, starting as a ragged stub extending down from the storm's eye, then extending, reaching down, down… .

The Uigan fell silent, their shouts and whoops giving way to speechless awe. The goblins screeched in panic, for they had never seen a storm-finger before. This was kin to the great columns of murderous wind that ripped across the Tamire in the summertime, but it was also something more: larger, darker… hungrier, if that could be said of clouds. The shapes Hult had glimpsed around the eye ran up and down its length… dragons, but of no kind ever seen before. They were dragons made of storm, there but not there, creatures born of air and wind. They fell upon Malton with a roar a hundred times louder than any thunderclap.

And they swallowed the wall.

There was a bright flash, like an exploding star. The explosion blinded Hult and left him wincing and gritting his teeth in pain. For a breath, there was silence. Then a sound like nothing Hult had ever heard before, like the earth's bones breaking: a boom that made his ears ring for days after. The ground shook, and his horse reared, nearly throwing him. He heard voices around him, yelling in the Uigan tongue, riders trying to keep their own mounts under control. Some failed and fell. A few were trampled. The goblins milled about in utter terror, their wolves howling as the vast storm-finger ripped through the town. And there was something else, too. A patter, like rain falling, but… solid.

An avalanche. Stones.

The wall.

Men were cheering now, thousands of ululating voices. Hult still couldn't see. He rubbed his eyes, willing them to work. Slowly, the world returned, and it was in ruins.

Later, men would speak around the fires of the great storm-finger, called from the heavens by the Boyla's voice. It had struck Malton's wall in the very center, where the mighty gates stood. The moment it had touched the battlements, lightning had coursed through it, dozens of forked bolts, and they ripped the mighty edifice apart. An instant later, the storm-finger broke apart into shreds of sparking cloud, leaving behind a hole wide enough for the Boyla's hordes. Corpses of the town's defenders lay in mangled pieces among chunks of wall the size of houses, and the stone rained down as far as a mile away. On the wall's broken top, nothing stirred.

Hult stared in awe at the ruins, then looked at Chovuk. His master was laughing, his eyes wild. The green light blazed in them, terrible to behold. The Boyla raised his shuk, and in that moment the rain came pouring down again.

"Blood!" he raged.

His men answered, sabers and lances thrust up at the sky. With Chovuk laughing in the lead, they charged toward the shattered wall.

Sammek Thale wept as he looked back from the stern of the White Worm, his tears mingling with the rain. Despite the storm, fires were raging all across Malton. The wharf was ablaze, the markets boiled with smoke, and the wealthy manors of Hilltop were pillars of flame. His home and all he had known would be ashes by morning. His instincts had been right: the town was not safe. The horde had breached the wall somehow, and was putting those foolish enough to stay behind to the sword… or worse. The barbarians had their cruel, bloody games. He realized his former partners were either dead or soon to be and felt an unexpected twinge of regret.

The waves beyond the breakwater were thick with ships, though only half had made it out of the harbor before the riders reached it. Sammek had been one of the last. There had been wolf-riders on the pier when he cast off and made for open water. One goblin had actually leaped for the Worm, and would have crawled aboard had he and his men not beaten it into the sea with belaying pins. He thanked the gods he'd escaped, and swore he would be a better man from then on—or at least try.

He would make a start, anyway. He had to tell someone what had happened to Malton. Someone who could warn the League and tell them of the nightmare that had destroyed his home.

Wiping his eyes, he turned away from the rail and shouted for his men to make for the far side of the Tiderun, and Coldhope Keep.