Chapter 17

The Ruins of Malton, the Imperial League

The smell was the hardest part.

On the third day, the fires were still burning. It wasn't happening everywhere. On the hilltop and by the wharf the worst of the blazes had come and gone, leaving ashes and charred stones and bodies. Many bodies. Some were blackened and others lay in pools of congealing blood, covered with flies and picked over by rats, crows, and small scavenging lizards. These were harsh sights, but none were new to anyone in the horde. They had seen similar sights, though in lesser numbers, all through the Kazar lands, as they wrought vengeance for Krogan. There was one moment that burned in Hull's mind, however, one sight that would stay with him forever—a mangy dog, its fur matted with filth and soot, limping down the street with a severed hand in its mouth. It had shied away, then dropped the hand when he approached it. That grisly trophy—the gods alone knew what had become of the rest of the body—had belonged to a wealthy man, from the looks of the gold and emerald rings upon its fingers. Hult had kicked it into the gutter and left it.

No matter how gruesome the sights, the smells were worse, and would haunt Hult's sleep until he died. He knew the stink of death, just as he knew how it looked. He recognized the various scents that wafted through the air after the sacking of a village: the thickness of smoke, the cooking-fire smell of burnt buildings, the tang of blood, and the sickly sweet stench of scorched flesh. Here there was no wind, and there had been no rain since the storm that destroyed Malton's wall. The smells stayed, accumulated, and worsened with the odor of rot under the blazing sun. Thousands of people had lived in Malton, and most had died beneath the hooves and blades of Chovuk Boyla's horde. That much death put a reek in the air that was horrible.

Three days, and the Fires still burned. Especially the eastern quarter, where the homes had been packed together so closely that the Uigan wondered how the townsfolk had lived there without going mad. The rubble still smoldered and ropes of black smoke writhed up into the sky. There were clouds above, gray and unhappy, and the sun burned sickly yellow behind them. A pall of brownish haze hung over the town, probably visible from many miles away. To those with eyes, it would be clear that something awful had happened to Malton. Soon word would spread that the Tiger's blades had started taking their ancestral lands back from the bull-men.

It was like spending three days in the Abyss, Hult thought as he walked through the wreckage, his shuk in hand. He was searching for the wounded and the dying. If he found them, he was to give them a quick, clean ending—orders of the Boyla. Other warriors were doing the same, all through the town. Tormenting the enemy would earn Chovuk's wrath. Anyone well enough to walk was not to be mistreated, but was to be brought before him—unless they tried to flee. "If they do," the lord of the Uigan had said, "feather their backs and move on."

Hardly any survivors had been brought, and none since the previous morning. The horde was almost finished with Malton. Hult squinted through the smoke at the westering sun. It would be night soon. In the morning, they would move on. There were more places to loot farther along the coast, and the hunger was in the Uigan and the Wretched Ones alike, a yearning for glory, blood, and riches. It would take more than this one town to sate that hunger.

He stopped for a moment, listening. There was something going on farther along; there were sounds coming down the street. He peered through the haze and saw the shards of a fountain. It had been smashed with hammers, like all the stone art in Malton, and the water had drained away. The centerpiece, a rendition of some bare-chested minotaur wielding a trident, was broken into more than a dozen pieces. The face had been pulverized and the rest had been smeared with filth. That last touch got his skin prickling. The goblins had been there and had claimed that part of the town for themselves.

The Wretched Ones had been hard to control, once the sacking began. Savage creatures, cruel and brutal, they had done things to the people of Malton that Hult didn't care to think about. They liked to play vicious games with their captives and enjoyed killing them in painful ways involving hooks and ropes and large cleaving knives. They were the reason Chovuk had forbidden torture in the aftermath.

But just because the Boyla had banned torture, that didn't mean they had stopped altogether. And sometimes, if they caught a lone Uigan among the ruins, they played their games with him. Hult held his breath, his saber rising as he heard nasty, taunting laughter amid the debris. I should turn back now, he thought. This place is only trouble. I could end my life here.

Then he heard another sound, and all thoughts of leaving left him. Amid the goblins' jeering, almost inaudible, someone was crying. A child's terrified voice. Hult's lips skinned back from his teeth. He couldn't bring himself to abandon a youngling to the Wretched Ones. Shuk at the ready, he stole forward, past the despoiled fountain.

There were seven of them, foul little creatures with spears, in a small plaza off a narrow laneway, where the charred buildings loomed overhead like the cave walls beneath Mount Xagal. The goblins stood in a tight circle around a small, ash-caked boy, goading him with the points of their weapons, laughing as they jabbed at him, making him yelp. Even from twenty paces away, Hult could tell much about the child. He looked about nine or ten summers old, stronger than most city lads—they were near what looked like the remains of a forge, so maybe he'd been a smith's son or apprentice—and he was hurt. His left arm was bent at an awkward angle and he held it gingerly. Blood was caked on his side. The soot on his face had been nearly washed away by tears.

The goblins cackled at the boy, thrusting their spears at his feet to make him dance and swinging their weapons' butts to strike him hard across the rump. They mocked his weeping, moaning at him and rubbing their eyes with their free hands. Their leader, a taller, snaggle-toothed beast with skin the color of red clay, had a grisly necklace around his neck: hanging on it were human fingers, freshly severed.

It was then Hult noticed the boy's hand was bleeding.

After, he found he couldn't remember the next few moments. A red mist settled before his eyes, and the next thing he knew, he was standing by the boy's side, black blood dripping from his blade and two of the goblins sprawling where he'd cut his way into the circle. Neither would be getting up again, he was sure. He swung his shuk in broad, snapping arcs, forcing the other Wretched Ones back, lopping die heads off their spears when they got too close. They dropped the useless weapons, drawing hooked swords and baring their fangs.

Five were left. That made a hard fight. Better if he got it down to four before they regained their courage. He feinted left, knowing it would make the goblin to his right come forward, and quickly reversed his saber to stab behind him. He felt it slide in, a precise thrust that caught the creature under its left eye. The creature went limp and dropped to the ground.

Four.

The boy was staring at him, half-afraid, half-hopeful. A quick glance told Hult the lad still had all his fingers, but one was badly cut. He saw that the goblins had thought him dead and had tried to take their grisly trophy, and been surprised when he leaped away. They had been playing with him, just then, but they would have killed him shortly, if Hult hadn't come along. The same scene was surely playing out all over Malton.

It wasn't right. It had to stop. He must tell the Boyla.

"Stay with me," he said, though he was sure the boy spoke no Uigan. "Don't run, or they'll chase you down."

There was no chance to see if the boy understood. At a shout from their leader, the other three Wretched Ones charged at him, from three different directions. He caught the boy's arm, swung him out of the way, then lashed out with his shuk, opening a gash in one goblin's gut. It fell to its knees with a groan, then onto its side, not dead yet… but certainly soon to be, the way guts were spilling out of it. Hult kicked in the opposite direction and felt a satisfying crunch as his boot slammed a second goblin in the mouth. It stumbled back, howling in pain, half its teeth broken. Out of the fight; he would finish it later.

He whipped around, ducked a swinging sword from the third creature, parried a second blow, missed a third and took a nick to the shoulder, then went low and split the creature's knee. It stumbled and dropped its weapon, and he brought his shuk up, then down, hard. A head rolled in the dirt.

"One," he grunted, turning to face the goblins' leader.

The horrid creature stared at him, brow beetled above bloodshot eyes and fear written plain on its face. Then, with a snarl, it turned to flee into the rubble. Hult had a knife at his belt. He drew it, threw it, and caught the coward between the shoulders. It went down without another sound.

Battle-rage burned in Hult's blood. He stood seething for a moment, then went to the two goblins who still lived, the ones he'd gutted and kicked. Two swift stabs ended them. As he was pulling his knife out of the last goblin, a hand caught the leg of his trousers, tugging. He whirled, shuk rising—and stopped when he saw the boy through the red mist.

The child stared at him, afraid. He held out his hands, his eyes large and beseeching. He spoke a frightened word in the tongue of the League. Hult didn't understand, but he could guess the meaning.

Help.

Where is your father, child? he thought. Your mother? All you once loved? We have burned it all, and pillaged the ashes.

Strange, how even a tenach could feel shame. It was a new sensation for him, and confusing. Not just doubt—he'd had that before, starting with Krogan's death—but shame.

He stood staring at the boy, who repeated his single, plaintive word. Then, striding forward, he caught the child up with his wounded arm and carried him away through the smoke.

The Boyla's throne sat atop the high hill in Malton's western quarter, in a wide square where cherry trees had once bloomed. The trees were gone now, cut down by horsemen with hatchets. In their place, a new forest had arisen composed of stakes driven into the ground between the cobblestones, each mounted with a severed head. These heads were all that remained of the town's wealthy, the fools who hadn't fled aboard ships when the wall came down: merchants, nobles, and a few high clerics. Men and minotaurs alike. Crows perched on some, fighting over the best bits; others were already stripped. The buzzing of insects filled the air.

There was more than just slaughter there, though: there were pearls and silver and fine-woven rugs, spices and ivory and silk. It stood in heaps among the carnage, plundered from the mansions on the hilltop. Even Chovuk's seat, a fine chair of mahogany and gold inlay, lined with red satin, had been pulled from a noble's manor. He sat on that chair now, surrounded by the Tegins. Sugai perched at his right hand on a plain stool also dragged from the wreckage.

Hult looked up at his master, still clutching the boy, who had long since passed out from the pain of his broken arm. Chovuk stared back, his face a mask of fury and his shuk across his knees.

"Goblins, you say?" he rumbled.

"Yes, master," Hult replied, bowing his head. "They were making sport of this child. They would have killed him, had I not intervened."

Chovuk's lip curled. He made an ominous sound, then turned to bark at a nearby cluster of warriors. "Find Gharmu! Tell him to bring ten of his best warriors at once!"

The Boyla was breathing hard, nostrils flared wide with rage. The warriors scrambled to obey. No one said anything until they returned with the goblin shaman and ten strong clan-chiefs. All the leaders of the Wretched Ones were draped in gold and jewels, proud of the loot they had taken. Hult thought they looked ludicrous, like ugly harlots.

"You call, great king," said Gharmu, kneeling. "We come. Why you want?"

Chovuk glared at him. Then he looked up at his men. "Shoot them " he said, and pointed at Gharmu. "All but that one."

The goblins yelped, startled. Some reached for weapons. Then bowstrings thrummed and they sprawled on the ground, arrows quivering in their corpses. Gharmu gaped, leaning on his staff. They had died all around him, but he remained untouched. He looked up at Chovuk, fear in his eyes.

"What you do?" he cried. "We friends… why you kill?"

"I gave orders, slime," Chovuk replied, his voice low and steady. "All kills were to be clean. Yet Hult caught your people torturing this boy."

Gharmu turned to stare at Hult. Hult knew the furious look on the shaman's face: it was the look of one caught doing wrong, feigning anger at his accuser. "He lies!" Gharmu wailed, waving his withered arm. "He evil man, king. You not listen to him."

"He is my tenach," the Boyla said. "He will always be true. No more of this, Gharmu. Tell your people—the next time I hear of the Wretched Ones doing such things, I will shoot one hundred of them. The third time, a thousand. Now go."

Hateful and terrified, the goblin scurried out of the plaza, leaving his dead fellows behind. The Uigan warriors gathered the bodies and dragged them away. Chovuk looked back at Hult with a slight twist to his lips.

"And what of the child?" he asked. "You saved his life. So he is yours, if you want him."

Hult gazed at the lad, a strange feeling coming over him. As tenach, he was forbidden by custom from marrying and bearing sons of his own. The thought of having a boy he could raise, teach to ride, and show how to use a bow and a blade roused emotions he'd never experienced before. But they were at war, and far from home. None of the tribes in the horde had brought boys younger than fourteen summers. The child would be a burden. He would only get in the way.

"Master, I cannot," he said, bowing his head. "Not in this time of blood and swords. I ask that he be sent back with the crippled, to our grazing lands in the north. When we return victorious … then I will claim him."

Chovuk regarded him, his eyes gleaming with pride. Beside him, Sugai nodded, his old face crinkling as he smiled. "You are wise, tenach," the Boyla said. "We will do as you ask."

At his gesture, several women came forward and pulled the boy from Hult. The child tried to hold on and began to cry. Hult listened to his wails, sick at heart, as the women carried him away. They would splint his arm, wash him, feed him… then put him on a horse and send him north with the warriors who were too badly wounded to raid any further.

In time, the boy's cries faded away.

"This was an ill day," Chovuk said. "It shall be our last in this forsaken place. Let the word go out… tomorrow morning, we leave it to the crows and ghosts."

Hult didn't see the child again. By the time Chovuk dismissed him, the boy had already gone, along with the wounded and the larger pieces of plunder. The horde spent the rest of the day, and into the evening, preparing to leave. They would sleep beneath the stars that night, and be in the saddle before the morning broke.

He wondered, as the night passed, how the boy would fare among the Uigan. He was not one of them and never would be. Pale skinned and blue-eyed, he would always be an outsider on the Tamire. But he might yet have a good life—horses and cattle, wives, even children of his own one day. Perhaps he could become a tenach, serving a lord. He might even protect a Boyla, years from now. The riders would accept him and give him a home on the plains. Hult doubted the minotaurs would do the same for a Uigan child, were the sword in the other hand.

The silver moon was waning and sinking in the west. A good omen. If they rode swiftly, the horde could be at Rudil when Solis was new, and attack in darkness. When that was done, they would need only to sweep along the coast, burning whatever villages remained, and the League would be purged from Northern Hosk, for the first time since even old Sugai Tegin could remember.

Chovuk's yurt was not taken down, alone among the riders. The Boyla slept within and there was darkness behind the flap. It was the sleep of victory Already, his great deeds had won him a place in tales told around campfires. The elders sang of Chovuk Boyla, the Tiger, Storm-caller, who could make cities fall with a word.

Maybe there will be a verse for me as well one day, Hult thought, staring out across the dark ruins of Malton. Here and there, dull orange glimmers showed where fires still burned among the toppled stones. Beyond, the ruddy light of Lunis danced on the waters of the Tiderun. On the far shore, more lights gleamed. The cities of the League lay there, jewels waiting to be plucked. The riches of Malton were nothing beside fabled Kristophan, and Thera, and Vinlans. All that lay between the horde and those targets, all that thwarted their path, were a few miles of water.

"It will go away," said Chovuk.

Hult started, glancing over his shoulder. He hadn't heard movement within the yurt and hadn't sensed the flap spreading open. He struggled to push himself up, and knelt before the Boyla, bowing his head.

"Master," he murmured. "Forgive me. I have been inattentive."

Chovuk shrugged, gesturing with an open hand. "Sit, tenach. You do not need my pardon. You have had a long day, and you wonder what the boy's fate will be."

"Yes," Hult said.

"Jijin will provide for him," Chovuk declared. "The god must watch over him, since his ancestors do not. You did a brave thing, rescuing him from the Wretched Ones."

"Yes," Hult repeated, then licked his lips. "What harm did I do to the horde, though? I have driven a wedge between us and the goblins."

The Boyla smiled. "No mind. The Wretched Ones will not speak against me again and will follow my commands. Of course, they may still cause trouble, even then. Gharmu knows his skull will decorate my yurt if he crosses me again—but the other chiefs will be harder to control, if he fails. We may need to be rid of them in that case, for they will be of no further use."

Hult looked out across the water again, at the lights so invitingly close, yet far away. "You said it will go away," he said at length. "I do not understand."

"That is because you know nothing about tides," Chovuk replied. "They vary with the moons. When the moons are high in the sky, so is the sea; when they are not, the tides are low. And when all three moons are together… then the waters of the Tiderun disappear completely."

"Disappear?" Hult echoed, wondering: how can that be? But he knew about the moons and the magic of them. Men went mad when they were full, it was said. Why not the seas as well? "If such a thing happened… could we then cross to the far side?"

"We could. And such a thing will happen, tenach. Very soon. On that day, the bright cities of the south will be ours to raid. Let the bull-men and their thralls tremble in their houses of stone. The Uigan will indeed come, with fire and sword."

Hult trembled, thinking about it: the hordes of Chovuk Boyla, riding across the sea to destroy their foes. The elders would sing of that until the world's ending. He felt a surge of joy at being there, alive, to see the events happen. The joy must have shown on his face, for Chovuk laughed, throwing back his head to shout his mirth at the stars.

"Ah, tenach! You look like a boy who has just been given his first bow," the Boyla said. "I am glad to see you so eager. The rest of the horde will feel the same, I am sure, when they ride out tomorrow."

"They?" Hult asked. "You mean we."

Chovuk shook his head. "Do not tell me what I mean, tenach. The horde leaves without us tomorrow. Sugai and Hoch will take them to Rudil, to attack it as well. That place's walls are weaker than Malton's—even without my power, they will crumble. You and I, though… we must ride north again. North, to seek a new ally for the coming fight."

Hult thought about that a moment, puzzling out the meaning of the Boyla's words. The north belonged to the Uigan. But all the horse-clans were accounted for. It must be something else the Boyla meant, something in the valleys beyond the plains. Something like…

"Jijin's horse," he breathed. "You would go there? You would seek their help?"

"We will." Chovuk's eyes gleamed as he stared out into the night. "We must, as fell as it may sound to your ears. On the morrow, we two ride out to ask the Elf Clans for aid."