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"Look, there, on the horizon," Windreaver pointed to the southwest, toward distant Nibenay, exporter and abandoner of poorly stained agafari staves. "What do you see?"
"What did you see?" Hamanu retorted. "A bundle of sticks laid beside an old well?"
Windreaver served Hamanu. The troll had had no choice in that, either. The King of Urik could abide guilt and hate, but never useless things, be they living, dead, or in between. Windreaver was Hamanu's most trusted spy; the spy he sent to shadow his peers, his fellow champions.
"Do I need a fire to comfort me in my old age?" the troll retorted.
"Not when you can bring me bad news."
The troll chuckled, showing blunt teeth in a jaw that could crush stone. "The worst, O Mighty Master. There's an army forming on the plains beyond Nibenay. Old Gallard does not lead it—not yet. But I've skirled through the commanders' tents, and I've seen the maps drawn in blood on the tanned hides of Urikite templars. Nibenay's coming, Manu; mark me well, I know what I have seen. What Gallard sends to Giustenal doesn't matter. Gallard, Bane of Gnomes, means to become Gallard, Bane of Urik."
Hamanu bared his dripping fangs in contempt and disbelief.
Gallard migh
t be marching—toward Tyr perhaps, or more distant Draj. Draj had been Lord Ursos's home until two years ago, and amid the lord's debauched memories were images of its bloody anarchy. Gallard wouldn't waste his army against Urik's walls, not while Draj's throne sat empty. It was impolite to march across another champion's purview, but not unprecedented.
"You're wrong this time, Windreaver. You've overreached yourself."
Disappointed, Windreaver sucked air and tried again. "He brings his children, his thousand times a thousand children. He will set them in your place, and you will do his bidding, and I will hover about you, a swarm of stinging gnats to blind your eyes as you weep. Where are your children, Lion-King of Urik?"
A thousand years had sharpened the troll's tongue to an acid edge. His final question lanced an old, old wound. Hamanu hissed again, and the dust that was Windreaver swirled apart. "Urik is my child, with fifty thousand hearts, each braver than yours. Go back to Nibenay. Sting Gallard's eyes, if you dare. Listen to his words when there's no one else about to hear them, then tell me of his plans."
Dust rose on its own wind and was gone. Hamanu inspected the armor and garments the slaves had laid out for him. His taloned hand trembled as it made another misty gray slit in the afternoon's torrid air. Anger, he told himself as he shoved armor and garments together into the trackless netherworld. Rage at Windreaver, because the troll had done what he always did, and at himself, because this time the barbs had struck home.
Urik was his child, his only child. He'd face them all— Gallard, Dregoth, anyone who dared threaten Urik. He'd risk the fate Rajaat laid before him, but for Urik's sake, he'd win. The Lion-King had never lost a battle, except for the very first.
There was a way, if they all came at him, all at once and in all their strength and he had to choose between himself and his city.... At least, Hamanu thought there was a way to preserve Urik. But the risks were incalculable, and he'd require the cooperation of a man who was, in his simple way, as extraordinary as any champion, a man who kept his own conscience and who served a primal force that couldn't be coerced.
The time, perhaps, had come to secure that man's sympathy. Without it, there could be a dragon more terrible than Borys roaming the heartland.
"I'll tell the whole story, in writing," Hamanu said to the rampant lions lining his balustrade. "When he has read it through, then he can judge for himself, and if he judges favorably, the Urik guardian will respect his plea when he calls."
Chapter Three
Long after nightfall, when the slaves were locked in their quarters and the nightwatch templars drowsed in the corridors, Hamanu of Urik retreated from the rooftops and public chambers of his palace to its deepest heart, far from mortal eyes. Hamanu's midnight sanctum was a hidden cloister that resembled a peasant village; including a well and mud-walled cottages. Mountain vistas from a greener time were painted on the walls. A variety of common tools were available for working the vegetable plots, but the vines had turned to sticks and straw. The fruit trees bore neither fruit nor leaves.
The cloister's solitary door was always bolted, from the inside. When Hamanu visited his sanctum, he entered magically, stepping out of the same Unseen netherworld where he hid his clothes. Once inside, he sometimes opened the door, admitting Enver or another trusted person for a meal or conversation. But most times, when Hamanu came to his sanctum, he came to sit alone on a crude stone bench, bathed in starlight and memory.
This night, ten nights after Hamanu had heard Eden's and Windreaver's messages, ten nights, too, after he'd sent Enver kank-back across the northeast salt flats, the Lion of Urik shifted his bulk on his familiar stone bench. He'd brought a battered table to the cloister. It stood before him, crowned with a sheaf of pearly, luminous—virgin—vellum, upon which no marks had been made. An ink stone, oil, and a curved brass stylus lay beside the vellum, waiting for the king to complete the task he'd set for himself.
Or rather, to begin.
Hamanu had thought it would be easy—telling his story in script, letting silent letters do the work of mind-bending or sorcery. He'd thought he'd have it written by the time Enver returned with Pavek, his self-exiled high templar, the earnest, novice druid upon whom Hamanu pinned such hope. He'd been wrong, as he hadn't been wrong in a king's age or more. The words were there in his mind, more numerous than the stars above him, but they writhed like snakes in a pit. He'd reach for one and find another, a different word that roused a dusty memory that he couldn't release until he'd examined it thoroughly.
He'd thought these chance recollections were amusing at first. Then, he deceived himself into believing such wayward thoughts would help him weave his story together. Those optimistic moments were over. He'd shed his delusions several nights ago: Writing was more difficult than sorcery. Hamanu had conquered every sorcery beneath the blood-red sun; the vellum remained blank. He was well along the path to desperation.
Six days ago, Enver had used his medallion to recount his safe arrival in the—from Enver's urban perspective— depressingly primitive druid village of Quraite. A few hours ago, at sundown, the dwarf had used his medallion again to recount—very wearily—that he and Pavek and half of Enver's original war-bureau escort were nearing Urik's gates.
Left behind, Omniscience: This Pavek is a loon, Omniscience. "Come home," I said to him, Omniscience, as you told me to, and the next thing I knew, he was mounted and giving orders like a commandant. He does not stop to eat or rest, Omniscience; he doesn't sleep. Four of your prize kanks are dead, Omniscience; ridden to exhaustion. If the ones we're riding now don't collapse beneath us, we'll be at Khelo by dawn. Whim of the Lion, we'll be in Urik by midday, Omniscience, else this Pavek will have killed us all.
I'll alert your sons, dear Enver, Hamanu had promised, looking east toward Khelo and the reflection of the setting sun. Your weariness will be rewarded.
Well rewarded. Since there was no excuse for vengeance, Hamanu had spent the early evening arranging proper welcomes for both the dwarf and the druid. Enver's sons had been warned of their father's impending return. A feast with cool wine and the sweet fruit the old templar loved was already in the throes of preparation. House Pavek, formerly House Escrissar, the residence that Hamanu had assigned for Pavek's city use, had been unlocked for the first time in two years. Freemen and women had been hired; Pavek would not be served by slaves. Larders had been restocked, windows had been unboarded, and the rooms were airing out by the time the moons had risen.
Everything would be ready—except Hamanu's history.
There were no distractions in the cloister, no excuses left unused. There was nothing but this last night before Pavek's arrival and the sheaf of virgin vellum. With an unappreciated sigh, Hamanu smeared oil on the ink stone and swirled the stylus in a black pool.
