“Why were you sneaking out in the middle of the night?” Egrin asked. Tol did not speak, so the warden added, “The Pakin’s death shocked you, didn’t it? Lord Odovar’s word is law. His judgment was harsh, Tol, but the law must be enforced, or there is no law. You must understand that.”

“Sir, my family will be worried,” Tol blurted. “They don’t know what happened to me. Lord Odovar has a lot of stable-boys, but my family’s got only me and my two sisters.”

Egrin and Felryn smiled at each other, the lines in the warden’s face easing. “I never intended you should remain in the stables,” Egrin said. “So, Felryn, how does he measure up?”

Felryn nodded gravely. “He is an excellent specimen, my lord. Fit for any duty suited to his age and size.”

“Fine! Tol, how would you like to be my shield-bearer, my shilder? I’ll train you in the way of the warrior. You’ll learn to ride, and fight with sword, spear, and bow. Six springs from now, if you desire to leave my service, you can do so. You’ll be free then to take any path you choose.”

It was an amazing offer, all the more so because of Tol’s humble origins. Most Riders of the Horde took on shilder from time to time, but they were always the sons of worthy retainers-not peasant boys.

“I can do anything I want six springs from now?” Tol asked.

“Aye, by then you’ll be old enough to choose your own calling.”

“Will I live in the hall with the stable hands?”

“No. Shilder have their own hall, within the walls of the High House.”

Tol nodded, then walked slowly away, head hung in thought. His injured cheek ached, reminding him of his earlier brush with the life of a soldier.

“I’m not sure I can be a warrior,” he said in a small voice, his hand coming up to touch his wound.

“Don’t judge the life by the blood you’ve seen shed,” Egrin said. “Anyone can be trained to kill. To be a warrior means much more than that. You’ll also learn when not to fight. That’s usually a far harder lesson to master.”

After another silent minute, Tol turned and faced Egrin. “I would like to be your shield-bearer,” he declared, “if my father agrees.”

The warden smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “Fair enough! Shall we go and ask him?”

The next morning, they left Juramona before the sun had risen. Tol’s farm lay four days’ ride south and west, in the hills beyond the plain he’d crossed with Lord Odovar. Egrin and Tol rode Old Acorn. Accompanying them, somewhat to Tol’s surprise, was Felryn, mounted on a sturdy brown horse.

The first three days passed uneventfully. Egrin explained the duties and responsibilities of a shilder, answering Tol’s many questions. For his part, Felryn regaled the boy with a colorful account of the assassination of the previous emperor, Pakin II, and the subsequent fight for the throne between his son, Pakin III, and the Pakin Successor. Tol still found himself confused by the fact that the Ackal emperor, enemy of Pakins, was himself named Pakin.

“He chose that name to honor his murdered brother,” Felryn said. “Pakin II had taken the name to reconcile the two factions.” He sighed. “He failed.”

Their third night out, they camped on the lee side of a hill, in the shade of a huge boulder. Tol, rolled up in a blanket provided by Egrin, fell asleep almost at once.

He dreamed, seeing himself and the others lying in a semicircle around their dead campfire. Something drew Tol’s gaze upward, toward the star-sprinkled sky. He sensed a presence. Although he couldn’t make out any shape, he felt that someone was staring down at them, an unfriendly someone. He sensed, too, that the formless, hostile watcher was coming closer, dropping directly down on his own sleeping body like a swooping bird-

Tol awoke, sitting up with a cry.

Egrin roused instantly, hand reaching for the sword lying next to him, and demanded to know what was wrong. Tol apologized and explained the dream he’d had.

“The evil was dropping down on me, like a hawk on a mouse.”

Felryn put his head up from the depths of his own bedroll, muttering, “I like it not. Someone else has his eye on you, Master Tol.”

“It was only a dream. Go back to sleep,” Egrin said, settling himself again on his blanket.

“There’s much stirring in the world, natural and unnatural, warden,” Felryn said sourly. “Everything is a portent these days.”

The healer’s words spoiled Tol’s rest for the remainder of the night.

The next day they found the battlefield.

After their disrupted night, Felryn had arisen in a somber mood. What disquieted him he would not say, but as the morning progressed, signs of trouble appeared that upset them all. Thin columns of smoke rose in the distance. Crows and vultures wheeled overhead. Past noon the wind changed, bringing with it the unmistakable stench of death.

Egrin reined up. Felryn halted close beside him, glancing around with uneasy eyes.

“Where?” the warden asked.

Felryn fingered a deeply engraved white metal disk hanging from a cord around his neck. His face a blank mask of concentration, he pointed straight ahead.

They crossed a shallow creek and rode up the facing draw. The hills parted, revealing a broad, flat vale. From hill to hill, the valley was littered with the bodies of men and horses.

Egrin said nothing, merely touched his heels to Old Acorn’s sides and rode slowly ahead. The war-horse was undisturbed by the sight and smell of corpses. Not so Tol. He clung tightly to Egrin. Although he turned his head from side to side to avoid the horrible spectacle, there was no escape. Death surrounded them.

Felryn’s horse would not follow Old Acorn’s lead through the battlefield. The healer had to climb down and hood the animal’s eyes before it would advance. Even so, the terrified horse trembled in every limb, saliva dripping from its flaring lips, as it placed each hoof with care.

“Look well, Tol, and remember,” said Egrin. “This is what victory looks like,”

“What victory?” The boy’s words were muffled against Egrin’s back.

“These are Pakin dead. See the armbands, the banners?” The battlefield was Uttered with scraps of green cloth. “Those who win battles take their dead away with them. The defeated flee, leaving their men where they fall.”

The carnage was many times worse than what Tol had seen following Lord Odovar’s ambush. Egrin counted more than four hundred Pakins slain. He identified them as local levies, not of the warrior class. They were crudely equipped with leather armor, bronze-tipped spears, and the thick felt caps favored by men of the southern territories. There was very little metal among them-not much armor, no helmets. Here and there were scattered a few men of higher rank. They had been stripped to the skin, their valuable arms and armor carried away by the victorious Ackal warriors. None of their faces was familiar to the warden. Felryn agreed the men had been dead at least two or three days.

At the far end of the vale, Egrin found a mossy bank churned up by the hooves of many horses. Broken sabers Uttered the ground. He dismounted, felt the torn earth with his fingers, and studied the pattern of prints.

“This was not an ambush, but a pitched battle,” he reported. “The numbers were even, but the Pakin levies were no match for warriors of a Great Horde.”

“Imperial soldiers, here?” said Felryn, incredulous.

“Yes, see this sword hilt?” Egrin held up the stump of a shattered weapon. “That’s the pattern used by the Daltigoth Silver Blades, one of four hordes quartered in the capital.”

A horde was a fighting company made up of a thousand warriors. Each horde bore a proud and fearsome name, like the Silver Blades, the Ackal Bloods, or the Red Thunders.