Seven Princes

28

The legions of Mumbaza moved across the plains of northern Yaskatha, a sea of white silk, bronze blades, and ebony faces. In their fists gleamed ten thousand spears, and tall plumes waved atop their masked helms. The vanguard was three legions of horsemen, their stallions caparisoned with silver and gold. At their center rode a blended cohort of warriors from Uurz, Shar Dni, and Udurum, northern banners flapping beside the flag of the Feathered Serpent. D’zan, Tyro, and Lyrilan rode in the front ranks, alongside a coal-black charger that carried the High General Tsoti. A blade of Udurum steel hung at the general’s side, a golden spear in his hand.

Behind the cavalry came five thousand spearmen on foot, wrapped in ivory cloaks and corselets of boiled leather. Each man bore a curved bronze blade and dagger, but they were devotees of the spear. Their shields were pointed vertical ovals made from wood, hide, and bone reinforced with ribs of bronze. In lieu of metal helms the footmen wore headdresses of war, towering displays of plumage on frameworks of bone and wire. From afar they seemed a vast flock of predatory birds.

Two thousand archers marched behind the spearmen, their great bows of horn and cedar hung with the pale feathers of seabirds. Quivers stuffed with barbed arrows hung on their backs and bronze blades at their belts. They were Fangs of the Sky God, elite bowmen whose skills were legend across the continent.

A train of wagons bearing servants, supplies, fletchers, armorers, and weaponsmiths rolled after the archers, pulled by two hundred oxen and three hundred dromedaries. The rearguard was another legion of mounted cavalry to protect the precious caravan.

Priests of Sky, Sun, Earth, and Sea walked among the ranks, blessing warriors and speaking ancient parables. The six Adjutant Generals rode at strategic points among the legions, each reporting twice a day to Lord Tsoti. Since passing through the remains of Zaashari, the Mumbazans had craved priestly comfort more than ever.

In three days this massive force had been assembled under Lord Tsoti’s supervision. The Boy-King must remain in the city, so Tsoti was his eyes, ears, and hands in the field. D’zan learned quickly that the man was a hero to his people, a figure of nearly divine esteem. Tsoti stood taller than any man D’zan had seen, excepting the Giants of the northlands. His muscles seemed hewn from onyx, and the gray at his temples was the only sign of his age. Although Mumbaza had avoided war for a century, Tsoti had earned fame as a mercenary fighting in Trimesqua’s armies during the Island Wars. They said e="e=izehe slew a flesh-eating monster on some deserted island where his ship had been wrecked, saving hundreds of lives. D’zan met him in the Boy-King’s throne room, where he reported the readiness of his legions. He looked upon D’zan, the son of his old comrade, with fatherly eyes.

“Prince.” He greeted D’zan with a bow and a voice smooth as molten iron. “I knew you only as a babe in your mother’s arms. Now you are a man… and soon you will be a King.” He embraced D’zan, and the Prince could only smile and thank him. Tsoti asked for word of Olthacus the Stone. His wide grin turned to a frown when D’zan gave him the news. That day had begun the trek southward, and D’zan was proud to ride in his company.

Four days later the vanguard discovered the mass of debris and wasted ground where proud Zaashari had recently thrived. There was nothing left of it but piles of crumbled stones. Tsoti pointed to where the hill-fortress had stood. The ground there now was flat and littered with black dust.

As the sun fell low beyond the sea, rotted corpses rose dumbly from the rubble and dirt. They stumbled toward the Mumbazans with gleaming dead eyes, and their grave-stench poisoned the air. Some were Zaashari folk, and some were the remains of Yaskathan soldiers. They grasped at the necks and limbs of living men, jaws snapping like vicious turtles. Tsoti sent warriors among them with spear and sword, but the dead men refused to die again.

“Flame,” D’zan told the High General. “We must burn them. Only flame will set them free.”

Tsoti drew his forces back and called for a cohort of archers, their arrows dipped in pitch and set alight. The Fangs of the Sky God never missed their shambling targets. In less than an hour every walking corpse was pinned and flaming. The reek of corrupt flesh was smothered by that of burning flesh. The dead things fell into heaps of ash and bone.

“This place must have been the center of the earthquakes we felt,” said Lyrilan from his saddle. He never strayed far from D’zan, and his presence was a steady comfort. “There is nothing left here.”

“Nothing but the dead,” said Tyro, “who now have truly died.”

“What forces must have been unleashed on this place…” Lyrilan mused.

D’zan shook his head. “The same forces that stole my father’s kingdom. This place has the stink of Elhathym. They must have faced him here. There was a great battle, and these cursed dead were the result.”

“Then where are Khama, Sharadza, and Iardu?” asked Lyrilan. “If they were triumphant, we should find them here. If not, where is Elhathym?”

“He’s gone back to Yaskatha,” said D’zan. “I saw him in a dream last night, as I often do, sitting on father’s-on my throne. If he were dead, I would know it. He was weakened here, not defeated.”

“He will march north again,” said Tyro. He pulled his horse aside as a flaming revenant stumbled past and fell to the earth.

“We will not give him the chance,” said General Tsoti, riding back from his parley w his parith the archer captain. “This usurper has wiped Zaashari from the map. There were five thousand citizens of Mumbaza living here, and three thousand soldiers garrisoned in the citadel. It is all gone… This is a war not of defense… but vengeance .”

“He has killed even more Yaskathans,” said D’zan. “Death is the wine he drinks, the wind he breathes across the world. We fight him not only for Yaskatha’s liberation and Mumbaza’s sovereignty, but for all of civilization.”

General Tsoti blinked his eyes beneath the brow of his golden helm. “You are your father’s son, D’zan,” he said.

The Mumbazan host made camp in the ruined valley. D’zan spoke with the High Sun-Priest about the ward on his greatsword. “This is an ancient symbol,” said the ecclesiastic. “It is indeed a symbol of the Bright God, and we can mark it upon the shields and spears of our warriors. But the secret of its magic has been lost to us for centuries. I cannot say if it will have much power over these shadow demons.”

“Perhaps if the men believe in its power,” said General Tsoti, “that power will manifest. I have found that, in battle, what a man believes gives him the power of life or death.”

So the Sun Priests worked their antique sigils on the shields and blades of the army. D’zan saw wisdom in Tsoti’s words. He prayed to the Bright God to invest these marks of ink and ash with all the power of the one he carried on his own blade. Either way the Mumbazans would face whatever evils Elhathym cast at them. He made sure that Tyro and Lyrilan were also marked with the sun symbol. Lyrilan wore his gilded mail; now he carried spear and longblade instead of quill and parchment.

D’zan remarked on this when morning broke over dead Zaashari. The Mumbazans pavilioned in round tents assembled from hide and wooden hoops. He entered Lyrilan’s tent as the Prince was pulling on his mail shirt.

“You no longer carry a manuscript,” said D’zan. “Have you given up on writing my life’s story?” He smiled to show his good humor.

Lyrilan strapped the longblade to his belt and tied his long curls behind his head. “Not at all,” he said. “I simply realized I was going about it all wrong. The story has grown, D’zan. As much as I tried to stand outside its pages to chronicle its characters and events, I could not do it. I am a part of the story now, whether I like it or not. My mistake was in trying to write the thing down as it was happening. I need to live the story first, as you do. When it has finally ended, only then can I go back and write it. The Sea Beast taught me that. I will not ignore its lesson.”

D’zan clapped him on the shoulder. “You are a good friend, Lyrilan. You could have walked away from this at any time. Yet here you stand. I will never forget what you and Tyro have done for me.”

Lyrilan splashed cold water on his face from a bowl. “How could I walk away from such a compelling tale?” he said. “As for Tyro… well, he loves a good fight.”

Four more days along the coast and the brown hills became the green plains of northern Yaskatha. Groves of cypress grew infrequently about the rolling landscape. Directlyape. Dir south, another two days’ travel, lay the seacoast city where Elhathym sat on Trimesqua’s throne. The tyrant would not allow a siege; instead he sent the Yaskathan legions northward to secure the border plains. From the crest of a high ridge, D’zan, Tyro, Lyrilan, and General Tsoti observed the massive host sent to thwart their advance.

Twelve legions of Yaskathans were assembled in vast four-sided formations spread across the green tableland. Their colors were silver and crimson. At their head flew the tree-and-sword banner, which Elhathym in his cunning had not sought to change. These men would fight for the flag of their nation no matter who sat upon the throne. If he had replaced that national emblem with one of his own creation, it would only dampen the morale of his troops. Their cavalry were as mighty as the Mumbazans’, and more numerous: three-thousand mailed lancers mounted on chargers bred for battle. Thousands of footmen with pike, sword, and shield comprised the bulk of their forces, and a great cohort of archers was stationed as expected – in the rear of the host, where they could send volleys arcing over the heads of the forward ranks.

Advance scouts had reported these formations, so seeing them arrayed across the field was no surprise. Here would be the killing ground, the blood-soaked theatre of war. D’zan looked across glittering legions of his own countrymen and felt a pain in his heart, a sickening in his stomach. These were his people, and he rode against them today. If only they would break and rally under their true monarch, none would need to die. If he could win them over, with word or deed, thousands of Mumbazans and Yaskathans might live to see another sunrise.

The two great hosts lined up along the northern and southern ends of the plain, and D’zan looked down upon them both. Generals and Princes would observe the fight from the ridge-top, sending commands to their captains with horn, drum, and signal flags. He watched the plumed Mumbazans flow around him to fill the plain below, a flood of bronze and flesh.

The commanders were quiet. Tyro had determined to lead the northern cohort of three hundred men, but Tsoti bade him wait until the greater mass of the host was in position. Tyro sat patiently on his warhorse, eyeing the orderly rows of military splendor that would soon become a pit of seething, bleeding chaos. Lyrilan sat in silence near D’zan, his disciplined steed gnawing at the scrub-grass. D’zan spurred his own mount and it trotted toward the High General where he consulted with the six Adjutants. A flock of ravens from some distant grove scattered into the sky.

“General!” called D’zan. “Let me ride forth between the hosts before the battle. Let me fly the standard of my father before Yaskathan eyes. When they see me alive, some of them may join us.”

“Too risky,” said the general. “Stay on this high ground, Prince, where arrow and spear cannot reach you. It would not do to win back your throne and have you killed in the process. You must fight this war like a King, D’zan… not a foot soldier.”

D’zan watched Yaskathan banners flapping in the breeze; they rose at regular intervals from the massed ranks of silver and crimson. Tsoti spoke with wisdom, yet his heart could not bear doing nothing while others fought for him. What kind of King would he be if he did such a thing? He sat brooding in his saddle when Tyro and the six Adjutants rode down the slope and took their places among the legions. Tyro’s ns. Tyrocohort guarded the southern flank.

Now there stood only Tsoti, D’zan, and Lyrilan upon the ridge, and a few mail-shirted servants bearing horn, flag, and flask. Well behind the ridge two legions of spearmen and a legion of cavalry lay in reserve. “Let them think we are weaker in forces,” Tsoti had explained. “Never show your enemy everything.” Although perhaps enemy scouts had already counted their exact numbers.

D’zan shifted in his saddle.

It was true that he must live through this to claim his throne. Yet he must do something now, or he would never be worthy of it.

He spurred his horse, galloping down into the corridor between the central formations. He ignored the shouting of the High General behind him, and the desperate voice of Lyrilan calling after him. If he would be a King, he must act like a King.

Riding at full speed he broke past the front cavalry lines and entered the no-man’s-land between the two hosts. Grass and sod flew from his stallion’s hooves as he pulled forth the Stone’s great blade. He hoisted it toward the sky with his right arm. Alone, he rode toward the gleaming wall of Yaskathan soldiery, the emblem on their round shields also blazing on his chest.

In the heavy calm he reined his horse a short distance from the silver-crimson front line. In the shadows of symmetrical helms, ten thousand eyes blinked at his approach. A High General in armor of burnished plate sat upon a black charger at the line’s center. D’zan could not recognize the man through the closed visor of his silver helm. A black cloak billowed from the commander’s metal shoulders, and the legions sat restless and attentive at his back.

D’zan stood high in his stirrups, the greatsword’s blade casting sunlight across their eyes, and he shouted: “I am D’zan, Son of Trimesqua, returned to claim what is mine by right of blood! You need not serve the tyrant usurper! Come across and join your King! I am D’zan! Rightful King of Yaskatha!”

He galloped north along the line and doubled back, riding south now and shouting his message twice more. A nervous mumbling grew among the Yaskathan ranks. Like a soft wind it began, gathering strength and volume, spreading from the vanguard toward the heart of the host.

The Yaskathan High General raised his right hand, sheathed in a bright gauntlet. In an instant an unnatural and pervasive silence fell across his legions. His black steed walked forward as if to treat with D’zan, and diamonds glittered along its mailed caparison. D’zan reined again to face him, and the general pulled up his visor.

D’zan nearly fell from his horse. The gaunt face of Elhathym stared at him from within the silver helm. The eyes were black without luster, as if they devoured the sunlight. He smiled and revealed white teeth, and D’zan thought of a lizard’s smile before it devours its prey.

“Prince D’zan, the long-lost heir,” Elhathym greeted him. “Welcome back. Many times I have tried to bring you hence, yet you resisted every one of my invitations. It pleases me that you have come now of your own will instead. Now you may accept your inheritance… by joining your ancestors in death.” A metallic note rang loudly as hg loudlye drew from his side a greatsword of black iron with a hilt of blazing silver. The sound of it wavered in the air above the hosts, so that every man on the plain heard it like the peal of some mystic gong.

It was like a clarion of thunder that begins a dreadful storm. War-horns sounded from both hosts. Legions of archers let their volleys fly. As the sky turned black beneath a rain of criss-crossing bolts, Elhathym’s blade crashed against D’zan’s sword. The shock of the blow traveled through D’zan’s body, rattling his bones. He gritted his teeth against the pain. There was far more than human strength in Elhathym’s arms; it was the strength of sorcery that drove his iron. D’zan turned his two-handed parry into a clever thrust, but Elhathym’s silver breastplate turned away his blade. The sorcerer laughed and hacked at him. D’zan ducked beneath the killing arc.

Their horses spun in a circle as the blades clanged between them. D’zan breathed through gritted teeth while Elhathym laughed, his mouth a feral grin. The sound of arrows raining down upon upturned shields hung over their battle. Then both sides launched a second volley, and metal rang like a million drums.

Now the great cavalries charged. The Yaskathans galloped past D’zan and Elhathym, speeding to engage the Mumbazans in the center of the plain. The thunder of hooves rocked the earth and the odor of torn grass filled D’zan’s nostrils. A fresh shock along his blade knocked him from the saddle. He landed on his back in the mud and pulped grass. His horse squealed as Elhathym hewed it down with a single stroke. It nearly fell on top of him, but he rolled away. The rushing hooves of a Yaskathan cavalryman almost brained him, but instinct jerked him backward. When D’zan regained his feet, Elhathym had dismounted as well. The clanging of bronze on bronze and the cries of men killing and dying joined the thunder-song of the horses’ hooves. The field was a swirling chaos of spear, shield, and sword.

D’zan faced Elhathym in the eye of this mad hurricane.

He raised the Stone’s blade high and brought it down on Elhathym’s head. The sorcerer’s blade was there to catch it, fast as lightning, and suddenly D’zan knew he could not win this duel. He had trained hard, but not for long enough. He had grown strong, but was not mighty. He had defied the wisdom of General Tsoti and now was beyond hope. He parried another strike from Elhathym’s blade and screamed his guttural fury. Words were long gone; there was only the sound of his anger, tempered by despair.

Elhathym laughed and drove the point of his blade through D’zan’s mail, a bolt of lightning through his heart. D’zan stood motionless for a single moment that seemed an eternity, impaled on the cold metal. It burned through his breast and burst from his back. The cold spread throughout his body, and his arms fell limp. They were useless things, hanging at his side like pieces of meat, but his right hand refused to let go of the sword hilt he had clutched so tightly for so many nights. The point of the greatsword lodged in the mire at his feet.

Elhathym drew back his elbow, and his black blade exited D’zan’s body. The sorcerer’s eyes blazed, twin stars of triumph swimming in dark lakes of malice.

D’zan’s chin fell upon his breast, and he watched the crimson flow of his lifeblood spilling to the earth, staining his black-and-silver mail to gleaming red. leaming Then he fell, face down in the muck at Elhathym’s feet. His eyes somehow still functioned, and he saw clearly the silvered iron of the sorcerer’s boots as one of them rose to his shoulder, flipping him onto his back. The cacophony of battle, the shrieks of wounded men and horses, the ringing of bloodied metal… all these things faded from his ears.

“Now, Prince of Yaskatha,” said Elhathym, staring down at him. The world faded to eternal night and silence, but his words echoed with clarity. “Time for you to embrace your destiny, as you always wished. Rise now, D’zan, Son of Trimesqua, and lead your armies to victory over the Mumbazans. Your living soul I cast off like a heavy chain, Your bones and flesh now belong to me. Rise up and serve your King…”

In the mute darkness, D’zan rose away from blood and dirt and pain. He was no longer even cold. Elhathym’s words faded. Something called him onward through the dark, toward a constellation of lights… a glimmering fog into which he fell with a great sense of contentment.

Why had his futile struggle been so important? Flesh and bone were such unimportant things… transitive… dancing dusts in a wind that blew forever. Now he rode that wind, and the memory of who he was and all he cherished began to fade, as the light and noise of the world had faded already.

Yet inside his tight pale fist, back on the blood-splattered plain, lay the hilt of the sword that bore the Sun God’s sigil. And that same sigil was marked on his pallid forehead in black ash by the hand of that God’s High Priest. D’zan had prayed over that sigil when he lived, asked the Bright God for his blessing and the protection of the ward that had come to him across the ages.

Something dark and ethereal tugged at his lifeless bones, seeking entry into that house of drained flesh. At the words of Elhathym, this dark spirit struggled to invade the young corpse… but could not enter it. D’zan felt this as a living man might feel a mosquito crawling across his forehead. It nagged at him, it sliced him with memories, stabbed him with anger that refused to subside. He turned away from the celestial lights and swam back toward the cold flesh that belonged to him and him alone. He had lost a kingdom, lost a father, lost a throne, lost his very life… but he would not lose his own bones to some foul thing that obeyed the whims of Elhathym. His rage blossomed, and the blackness of eternity became a universe of blood and flame. He would have cried out, but he was a disembodied soul and had no throat with which to scream. So he merely claimed what was his… the last vestige of his existence.

D’zan’s corpse rose to stand before the outstretched hand of Elhathym, whose mouth was a hideous smile. D’zan glared at him with glazed eyes swiveling inside their sockets.

I am dead.

Yet here I stand with my enemy before me.

“Go now!” said Elhathym. “Take this steed and ride among your living troops! Lead them to victory in my name.”

I exist under the power of his will, thought D’zan. He wants me to conquer in his name, the last threat to his rule now turned into an asset. His final stroke of victory.

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Dead, I must serve him.

The Stone’s blade was still in his hand. He lifted it, and it seemed light as a reed.

“Yes!” said Elhathym. “Take up your ancestral weapon and fight!”

I must serve him.

D’zan, dead and yet beyond death, raised the greatsword high. The sun-sigil on his forehead, like the one on his sword, gleamed bright as a torch.

Elhathym laughed at the greatness of his new slave.

No.

He brought the sword down upon Elhathym’s helm with all the terrible might of a dead man.

The helm cracked and the skull beneath it split wide. Elhathym’s face slackened, and a black fluid that was more shadow than blood gushed from between his lips. He no longer laughed. His eyes bulged on either side of the iron blade. Astonishment gleamed in those bloodshot orbs.

D’zan pulled the blade free of Elhathym’s skull and swept it with uncanny grace in a sideways arc, cleaving the sorcerer’s body at the waist. His two halves fell into the muck where D’zan had lain. Neither half twitched, and there was no blood. Galloping horses trampled them to dusty fragments.

D’zan raised his free hand to his chest. He felt the jagged hole, the wound that had killed him. There was no heartbeat. He stared in awe at his milk-white hand. He stood in a pool of blood that was mostly his own. There was no more of the stuff in his body, or very little.

I am dead, yes.

But I serve myself.

I serve Yaskatha.

He climbed upon Elhathym’s warhorse and raised his blade toward the sky. From his dry throat came a battle cry that froze mens’ hearts even in the midst of killing and savagery. He saw their faces turn upon him with fear, wonder, and terror. Then he laid about him with the sword, slicing a path through the Yaskathans. The battle was in full swing, and there was no stopping it now. He must fight for Mumbaza and hope that his own people would surrender once they realized their Tyrant-King was dead.

Someone shoved a spear through his belly. He killed the man with a swipe of his blade, then pulled the spear free and tossed it aside. He felt no pain. His strength seemed limitless, and his blood was already spilled. Swords bit at him, and he brushed them aside. Arrows peppered him through the mail shirt, and he plucked them out like thorns.

Everywhere he rode, slashing and stabbing his foes (his countrymen) to death, and he sent up the cry in his hoarse, rasping voice: “Elhathym is dead! Long live the true King of Yaskatha! The tyrant is dead! King D’zan has come! Elhathym is dead!”

The news spread, and some Yaskathans began to surrender. When the Mumbazans called in their reserves, ar reserv general retreat was sounded. Tyro cut down a Yaskathan Adjutant who refused to let his troop surrender. D’zan laughed, but it sounded like coughing. The battle became a rout. Yaskathans either gave themselves to the mercy of the Mumbazans or fled across the plain toward their city. Most of those fleeing were cavalrymen. The foot soldiers were faced with the options of accepting quarter or trying to outrun Mumbazan arrows and horses.

D’zan took a fallen Yaskathan flag and raised it high. He ordered a prisoner to sound the horn of Yaskathan assembly. He galloped about the field, trampling or leaping over dead bodies, weaving through forests of spears planted in flesh and earth. His banner waved high as the assembly horn sounded. Many of the cavalry had ridden too far south to see or hear him, but the captured men and those who ceased retreating took up a cheer now.

“King D’zan!” shouted the captives. Tyro and his cohort joined them. The Mumbazans added their voices, and three retreating divisions rode back to the middle of the plain, where D’zan flew their flag from the back of his leaping stallion. It bucked beneath him and snorted like a bull, stamping the earth. Its eyes were flames, and it howled like a wolf as the cheering men gathered closer.

Now D’zan realized that the horse of Elhathym was not a horse at all, but some demon given a horse’s shape. Still it served him, and he accepted its fealty without question. As he accepted his own dead existence.

The Yaskathans rallied about their rightful King and shouted his name. They were mostly glad to be alive, but also that the tyrant’s rule was done.

“Long live D’zan!” they shouted, and a sadness fell upon him.

Tyro rode near to congratulate him. His green-and-gold mail was showered in the purple of drying blood. He carried a deep gash on one arm, and his face was blackened by dirt and sweat. Yet he smiled and hoisted the flag of Uurz next to that of Yaskatha.

Tsoti and Lyrilan rode down from the ridge to join the triumph. The banners of Shar Dni and Udurum rose alongside those of Uurz and Yaskatha. Soon D’zan would ride into the city and reclaim it in the name of peace.

He calmed his demon-steed and looked into the face of Lyrilan. The scholar’s face fell from joy into deep worry.

“He is wounded!” Lyrilan shouted. He turned to the battle-maddened Tyro. “Can you not see D’zan is wounded? He has lost too much blood! We must get him to the tents!”

General Tsoti looked at him with a grave face and ordered men to bring a litter.

“No, I will ride,” said D’zan. “I am… fine.”

Lyrilan looked at him in horror. “You are delirious. You are white as death. You must rest! You have won, but you must rest!”

“I have won,” said D’zan. He looked about him at the elated faces of the Yaskathans in their smeared silver mail and torn cloaks, some wounded and barely standing.

“I have won,” he said again, bringing his horse close to that of Lyrilan. He reachlan. He ed out a hand and pulled his friend close to him. Close enough to whisper in his ear. “I have won, Lyrilan. But he has killed me.”

Lyrilan looked into his eyes and understanding dawned on his lean face. The Scholar-Prince pulled his horse away, his eyes still staring at D’zan, speechless.

Now Tyro saw the mortal wound in D’zan’s chest and turned to Tsoti, who also saw it. His friends stared at him with a strange aspect now. Their joy had turned to sympathy and worry. And now to something else entirely.

It was fear.

“Assemble a vanguard to take the city,” said D’zan in his croaking voice. “I will not rest until I sit the throne again. Let the wounded stay and be tended. All who can ride, come with me. My own legions will aid us.”

He swirled away from them on his demon mount and guided it into the midst of the Yaskathans, who knew nothing of his terrible wound and hailed him with a banging of shields, and prayers lifted to the Four Gods.

“D’zan!” they cried. “King D’zan! Long live King D’zan!”

The Yaskathans followed him, seven thousand strong, as he rode toward the city of his birth, and they chanted long life to a King who was already dead.

Living… dead… What does it matter?

They ride alongside their rightful king.

Thousands of Mumbazans followed with General Tsoti at their head, and the men of the other nations rode behind Tyro and Lyrilan.

After a league or so, the sweet smells of orchards and salty sea air replaced the battlefield stench of blood and death. D’zan marveled that he could still smell such things with his decaying nostrils. His hand wandered again to the gaping fissure in his chest. A numb red crevice.

Four Yaskathan Generals rode at his side. He pulled his torn cloak close to hide his death-wound. They congratulated and praised him. They told him of assassins and rebels who had tried several times to slay the usurper, all meeting with horrible deaths. They told him the people had never given up hope that he would return and set the kingdom to rights. Only one who was blessed by the Gods, the ordained ruler of the realm, they said, could slay the demon tyrant.

D’zan nodded and smiled, and said nothing.

Elhathym was not dead. By the sorcery they shared, the same sorcery he had turned against Elhathym, D’zan knew the tyrant lurked still in the House of Trimesqua. He had won back his people, but not yet his throne.

As the sun-gold spires of the city grew near, D’zan felt the sorcerer’s presence seething inside the Palace of Trimesqua, where he must go to face it one more time.

There was no trace of fear left in D’zan’s cloven heart.

He has already killed me.

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In death, I will defeat him.

Now let him fear me.