Chapter 4

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How long they’d been crossing the Gur al Krin Rome could no longer say. All he knew for sure was that he was close to dying. The dune he and Quyloc were climbing seemed to have no end, and he wasn’t even trying to stand anymore. Crawling was good enough. It was all he had left. Momentum and sheer stubbornness had kept him going this far, but even that was fading. His tongue had swollen to fill his mouth completely. He thought he could feel the tip of it protruding from between his blistered lips. The world tilted and blackness crowded the edges of his vision hungrily. Quyloc was a vague form somewhere ahead of him.

When he finally made it to the top of the dune it took a moment for the fact to register. He raised his head, expecting only to see more sand dunes ahead. Instead, he saw something unbelievable. Quyloc croaked something. Rome closed his eyes, rubbed them, then opened them, afraid to believe what his eyes told him. They’d shown him many things in the last few hours, all of them lies.

Far below, at the foot of the dune, the sand trickled away to nothing. A narrow canyon ran off at an angle, crowded with rock spires and jagged boulders. A few stunted trees sprouted from the bottom of the canyon amid tufts of iron-gray grass. And right there, in the canyon, behind a crude earthen dam, was a muddy pool of water hardly big enough for a dozen men to crowd around. Paradise. The water swelled and exploded in his vision and Rome knew, at last, that this was no lie. Eager noises came from him as he started crawling head first down the dune.

Quyloc grabbed his arm and croaked again. Rome tried to push him off, but Quyloc was insistent. “Crodin,” it sounded like he said. He held out a shaking finger.

Rome followed the finger with his eyes and nearly wept at what he saw. Huddled in the shade of a cliff wall were a handful of hide tents, painted with garish symbols in orange and red and yellow. A dog padded listlessly through the camp and flopped down in a patch of shade. No Crodin were visible, but that did not mean they were not there. It was midafternoon, the height of the daily furnace. Only idiots and dying men moved at this time.

“I’ll kill them,” Rome said, or tried to. The sounds coming from him didn’t sound much like words. He felt for his battle axe but the only weapon that met his fingers was the strange black axe he’d found…somewhere. Every other weapon was gone. He didn’t have so much as a dagger. The black axe couldn’t be very useful. It felt like it was made of glass. Likely it would shatter if he so much as dropped it. He wished he hadn’t lost his other axe.

“Nightfall,” Quyloc croaked.

Quyloc was insane. The sun wouldn’t go down for hours. He’d never live that long. He didn’t care what the Crodin did to him. He was going down there now. But when he tried to crawl forward once again he couldn’t move his legs. He turned his head, saw Quyloc lying across his legs.

“Circle around. Find shade.”

Rome fought him anyway. He didn’t want shade; he wanted water. But he couldn’t seem to reach back to where he could get a hold of Quyloc and after a moment he had to stop. The sun made all movement so difficult. He sagged down onto the hot sand. “Okay.”

Quyloc rolled off him and then helped him pull himself back up to the crest of the dune and down the other side, out of sight, where they began the laborious process of circling around, finding a place where they could hide from the sun without being seen. A process made so much worse by the knowledge that water, life, salvation, lay so close at hand.

          

Sunset found them southeast of the Crodin camp, huddled under the overhang of a chipped boulder. Rome had his eyes squeezed tightly shut, trying not to look, not to think. He wasn’t having much luck. He was sure he could smell the water. The Crodin were up and moving about their camp now, talking sometimes. They were camped too close to the water. If he was to start for it, just stand up for two good steps, one of them would see him. They were always vigilant, these people. He could see the way their eyes always moved, scanning the rocks and canyons that were their home. They lived among too many enemies, including their own people, to ever be fully secure. Two seconds after they spotted him he’d be sporting a coat of arrows.

How long since he had last had water? How many years had he spent in this blasted desert? Was there no end to the heat, the thirst? The days were a blur of sun and sand and boiling heat, broken only by the nights, blessedly cool at first, biting cold before morning so that at first the sun was a welcome sight, but not for long. If ever he was lucky enough to come upon water again, like a river or a lake, he would never leave it. He shook his head, trying to stop his thoughts from wandering. The sand blew through his mind, clouding and obscuring everything.

He shifted and felt the black axe under his hand. It was cool. Even after a long day in the sun it was cool. His fingertips were sore. The first day, when they stopped for a rest, he tested the edge on the weapon, and it bit deep. He yelled and dropped it, and when he looked up he did not expect the look he saw in Quyloc’s eyes. Sudden, pure hatred. But when he blinked the look was gone and he thought he might have imagined it. What sense would that make? What reason could Quyloc have to hate him? It was just the sun, up to more tricks.

At last night fell and they began to creep forward, one agonizing foot at a time. Lucky that the wind was blowing towards them. All it had to do was shift, and the Crodin dogs—mangy, yellow-eyed beasts with slat ribs—would be on them in a heartbeat. If that happened, Rome wasn’t sure if he would fight or run—straight towards the water. One way or another he’d drink first, before he died.

The pond was close now. The dirt was damp under his fingers. The air felt different. Firelight flickered on the rocks around them, blotched now and then by huge, twisted shadows as men and women passed close to the fire. Their voices were gnats buzzing around his head. He cared for nothing but the water.

Then his hands sank into the thick, slick mud and Rome thought he would cry out. It was all he could do to put only his face into the precious liquid, to sip and not gulp. Slowly. Slowly. Too much and he would be sick, worse off than before. The water smelled of decay and the thing floating by his hand looked like a dead bird, the feathers coming loose as it rotted, but it was better than the finest wine he’d ever drunk.

They had filled their water skins and were starting to back away when Quyloc stopped and turned his head to the side.

“Do you hear what they’re saying?” he whispered.

“Who cares? Let’s get out of here.” Rome understood a little Crodin, acquired over the years by necessity.

“They’re upset about something. Wait a minute. Let me listen.”

Rome stifled a groan. That was Quyloc. Probably he wanted to write this down in one of his unending journals. “This isn’t the time,” he growled. The water was flowing through his veins now, like a flood over parched terrain. He could feel his strength, his very life, returning. He took another drink.

“They’re afraid of something. Something’s happening.”

Then Rome did listen. It took a bit. His Crodin wasn’t as good as Quyloc’s. But they definitely did sound afraid. Something about their god, Gomen nai, walking the sands again, stepping forth from his dark fortress at Har Adrim to devour their souls. At least that’s what it sounded like. “I hope he kills all of them. Now let’s get out of here.”

          

It was hours later when they crested a long ridge that led generally northwards. The Crodin camp was a lost flicker in the darkness behind them. The pale moon frosted the bare rocks jutting up around them. Quyloc started to follow along the top of the ridge when Rome stopped him.

“Not that way.”

“What are you talking about? We have to get out of Crodin territory as fast as we can. In the morning they’ll find our tracks and they will follow us.”

“Thrikyl is this way.”

Quyloc just stared at him. The moonlight left his face in shadow. A breeze flapped his torn clothes on his lean frame. He might have been a scarecrow.

“I owe Rix a debt.”

“Rix isn’t in Thrikyl.”

“No, he isn’t. But his army is.”

“They’ll arrest us.”

“They’ll try.” Rome pulled the black axe from his belt. The moonlight winked off its surface. “But I have a feeling there’s other things might happen.”

“You don’t know what that thing is.” It was the first time Quyloc had referred to the axe since Rome found it. He hadn’t looked at it, hadn’t asked to see it. Nothing. As if it wasn’t there. Which was really strange, for Quyloc, who was curious about everything.

“You’re right. I don’t.” Something was starting to come to life inside Rome, a whisper of a future that might be. “But I will find out.”

Quyloc’s face twisted suddenly and his hands came up clenched. “It’s not yours,” he snarled.

“It is now.”

Quyloc stood there for a moment longer, his mouth opening with words he would not let out, then he whirled and stalked away, down the ridge, down the way Rome wanted to go.

Rome stared after him, wondering what Quyloc was angry about. He looked down at the axe. Why couldn’t he remember finding it? He remembered the pillars of fire and taking shelter in the rocks with his men, but nothing after that. Did he find the axe in there? And what happened to the rest of his men?

          

The sentry rubbed his eyes twice before challenging them. He was dozing at his post when two apparitions appeared out of the late afternoon haze. The picket line was loose out here; the Qarathian army had no reason to expect any trouble from the west and the sentries were mostly a formality. The sentry started to draw his sword, paused, put it back and said, “General Rome? Is that you?”

“More or less,” Rome said, returning the man’s salute. He figured he probably looked pretty bad. Dirty, bedraggled, footsore. Without money they’d had no way to buy horses at the one small town they passed. Besides, when a person is starving, food was a lot more important. They’d traded Quyloc’s dagger for enough food and water to get here. “We could use some water if you have it.”

The sentry handed over a water skin. While Rome drank, the soldier looked over his shoulder at Quyloc, then back to Rome. “I thought you were posted to the Crodin border. What are you doing here?” Though there was no one nearby, he kept his voice low. Word travels fast in an army and every Qarathian soldier knew that King Rix had sent Wulf Rome to the border as punishment.

“I came to fix some things,” Rome said grimly.

Just then the sentry noticed the black axe hanging at his belt and his eyes widened. “What’s that?”

“Believe me, if I knew, I’d tell you. But I don’t.”

They gave the sentry back his water skin and continued on. The land was hillier here than it was around Qarath. Sharp, steep hills, some of them big enough to be small mountains, all with tufts of pine trees clustered on the tops. Like Qarath, the city of Thrikyl sat with its back against the ocean, completely enclosed by high walls. Those walls had never fallen to a siege.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Quyloc said, when they had left the sentry behind.

“Not really,” Rome replied. “I’m hoping it will come to me.” Over the past days he’d wondered many times what he would do when he reached this point, and he still didn’t have any real idea. All he knew for sure was that he couldn’t go back to Qarath. Rix would have him executed for failing to follow his orders. The thought of fleeing to one of the other kingdoms never occurred to him. He was Qarathian. He could be nothing else. And besides, Rix had to answer for the men who’d died because of his orders.

Near the center of the camp were the bright tents and pavilions of the nobles, flags fluttering from their peaks, but out here there were no tents, just dead cook fires, piles of bedding, broken weapons, refuse. It looked as though yet another desultory attempt on the walls had been repulsed. A few men were still retreating beyond bowshot range, dragging wounded with them. There was an air of sullen resentment that changed to surprise as the men looked up and saw the Black Wolf among them. A number called out to him, and he nodded back but did not speak.

They made their way to the command tent. The guards posted outside crossed their halberds at the two men’s approach, but when they saw the look on Rome’s face they settled them back to the ground, though one turned to announce his presence to those inside.

Tairus was the first man Rome saw when he stepped into the tent, his stumpy form bent over the map table, his mail covered in dust, a battered helm on the ground beside him. Tairus turned, his eyes taking in their tattered appearance. “You look like you should be dead.”

“Almost,” Rome said, glancing at the other two men in the tent. Fortunately, neither was one of those fool nobles, with an ornamental sword and feather-brained notions of winning glory through the shedding of other men’s blood. Both wore mail like Tairus, with short swords and dirks strapped to their sides. He didn’t know either of them well.

Tairus followed his look. “Tarn, get these men some food and wine. Pol, roust up some new clothes. Hurry.” The two men left and he turned back to Rome. “Tell me what happened.”

“Rix sent us on a suicide mission,” Rome said flatly. “The Crodin ambushed us and we had to go into the Krin.”

Tairus gave a low whistle. “You went into the Gur al Krin? No wonder you don’t look so good.” His eyes fell on the black axe. “Is that where you got that?”

Rome nodded.

Tairus scratched at the stubble on his cheek and looked toward the front of the tent. They wouldn’t be undisturbed much longer. Word of Rome’s return must be spreading like wildfire. “Why’d you come here?”

“I’m going to make Rix pay. For that I need an army.”

Tairus shook his head. He’d known Rome long enough to know that Rome didn’t say what he didn’t believe. “I can see where an army would help,” he conceded. “But if you’re thinking of getting the men to rebel and follow you…well, they’re none too happy, but I don’t see them turning against their king.”

“What are you doing here?” a new voice demanded.

In the entrance stood a man wearing a satin tunic striped with black and gold. A sword hung at his side, the hilt and scabbard crusted with gems. His mustache and hair were long and neatly oiled. He stepped the rest of the way into the tent. “So, it is true,” he said, curling his lip. “The great Black Wolf himself is here. Pray, have you come to deliver us? Maybe you have heard how poorly the siege goes and have come to take Thrikyl by yourself?”

Something struck home when he said that. It was as if Rome found the thing he had been looking for all along. He smiled broadly. “Truth is, Lord Field Commander Ilus,” he said, “that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

Rome started to leave the tent, but Ilus scowled and stepped in front of him, drawing his sword as he did so. “I didn’t give you permission to leave.” Ilus was half a head taller than Rome and just as broad, but his girth was fat, not muscle.

Rome looked at him steadily, ignoring the blade in his face. “If you get out of my way now, I won’t kill you.” The words were said simply, without threat or swagger. It was a statement of fact. Ilus’ eyes bulged and his face began to turn red.

“What did you say?”

“He said if you get out of his way he won’t kill you,” Quyloc said.

Ilus’ face went purple and he drew back his sword to strike.

Rome stepped in and punched him in the stomach. Ilus folded in half and went down without a sound.

“You’ll pay for this,” he moaned from where he lay on the ground. “I’ll see you dragged back to Qarath in chains.”

Rome walked past the fallen man without giving him another look, but when he heard the gasp of pain he knew that Quyloc hadn’t been so kind. A sharp kick, probably. Ilus had once dressed down Quyloc in front of all the men and then had him lashed, all because Quyloc did not stand when he went by. Quyloc didn’t easily forget a slight.

Rome held the axe loosely in one hand as he made his way through the camp. The men were gathering as news of his presence spread. They crowded around his path, many fresh off the battle field, armored and carrying weapons. Some were wounded, with bloodstained bandages wrapped around heads and limbs, hobbling out of the medical tents to see what the noise was about. There were scattered cheers as he made his way through them, Quyloc and Tairus close behind, and a number fell in behind him.

When it became clear that he was headed for the walls of Thrikyl the cheers began to die off and bewilderment and concern began to show. Did he mean them to mount a new attack on the impregnable city? Especially now, when they were already bloodied from the day and the sun was slipping close to the horizon? Many of them drew back, whispering among themselves. The Black Wolf wore no armor, his clothes were rags and he carried a strange-looking axe. Had he gone mad?

At the edge of bowshot Rome turned to Quyloc. “Wait here.”

“What are you doing?” Quyloc hissed, trying to keep his voice low enough that the soldiers couldn’t hear. “Are you crazy?”

“Probably,” Rome admitted. “If I am, there’s no sense in you or anyone else getting killed too.”

“I have to agree with Quyloc,” Tairus put in. “I don’t see how getting yourself killed is going to do anyone any good.” He looked back at the massed soldiers, every eye watching intently. “They respect you. Hell, they love you. Talk to them. Maybe they will follow you.”

“And if they do, what then?” Rome asked. “We march on Qarath and besiege it, kill our own people in a bloody civil war?” He shook his head. “No. I have to do this. If it doesn’t work, Rix will get what he wants and no one else dies. If it does…” What made him think this would work? What did the days in the Gur al Krin do to his brain? he wondered.

Except that the axe seemed to be humming slightly in his hands, and he had an inexplicable feeling he knew what it was capable of.

Alone he started across the empty battlefield, looking at the high stone walls before him. They were massive, a good hundred feet tall. It was said that the walls of Thrikyl had been built by the gods and while that might not have been true, what was true was there were no visible seams in the stone. It might have been raised whole from the very bedrock. Those walls had never fallen.

Rome thought he heard a voice urging him on, perhaps one of the men waiting behind him. Perhaps only his own imagination. He shifted the axe to hold it in both hands. Too light for a proper weapon, but beautifully balanced.

He was halfway to the walls when he heard the hurrying footsteps behind him and knew it was Quyloc. Always Quyloc backed him up, ever since they were boys. Now Rome felt his smile break out. This was the way it should be. With Quyloc behind him there was nothing he couldn’t do. His brawn and Quyloc’s brains. “Just like when we took down Dirty Henry,” he said, but didn’t think Quyloc heard. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that all this ended right here. Now.

          

Two armies held their breath as the two figures made their way across the battlefield. Later, men from both sides would wonder aloud why the defenders never fired on them. They could have killed Rome, stopped everything that came after right there. But others swore it wouldn’t have mattered even if they had.

“Rome had the hands of the gods shielding him that day,” they said. “They would have turned aside any arrow, any ballista bolt.”

Whatever might have happened, the fact is that none raised a hand against Wulf Rome and Quyloc as they marched on that wall. It was as if a glamour held them all spellbound, made them all mute witnesses to a drama far larger than mere mortals. The fact is that something was in the air that afternoon.

          

Rome stopped at the foot of the wall and raised his eyes to look at the men on the top, thinking to warn them, give them a chance to get out of the way. Fighting was his business, but he never killed if he didn’t have to. But as he opened his mouth, Quyloc hissed, “Now! Strike now!”

Rome swung.

The axe whistled through the air and bit deep into the wall. The wall groaned. A crack as wide as Rome’s fist appeared, arcing upwards jaggedly. Men yelled from on top of the wall, and arrows flew but they went wide because the wall was shuddering like a wounded beast.

Rome struck again and again. The crack became a rent. A hollow boom came from inside the stone as fissures spiderwebbed all across the face of the wall. The axe was wild and alive in his hands. He was swinging wildly when Quyloc grabbed him and pulled him backwards.

“We have to get back! It’s coming down!”

A whole section of the wall collapsed with a groan. Stones crashed to the ground, throwing clouds of dust into the air.

Then a roar went up from behind them and thousands of Qarathian soldiers surged forward.

          

Rome left half the army in charge of the captured city and marched back to Qarath. The gates were wide open, the populace turned out en masse and universally jubilant. The hated Thrikylians had been defeated, the Black Wolf had returned triumphant and change was in the air. Things were about to get better.

King Rix’s royal guard manned the defensive wall around the palace and their captain was defiant, if more than a little pale. Those soldiers whose job it had been to hold the walls of Qarath against Rome “to the last man” were all with Rome. Not a single one had so much as drawn his sword, except to wave it jubilantly during the victory march through the city.

“Turn back!” the captain yelled from on top of the wall. “We will resist.” Rome hesitated, not wanting a fight. But a moment later there was a strangled cry and the body of the captain flopped lifelessly to the ground at Rome’s feet. Rome looked down on him somewhat sadly. The man had, at least, been loyal—as he himself had once been—if to someone who did not deserve it. Others of the guard opened the gates and Rome entered the castle. Only Quyloc came with him. He knew he didn’t need more.

Rix himself met them at the top of the steps leading to the main doors of the palace. Rome stopped and looked up at him. The old man had gone downhill badly since he’d seen him last. His skin was an unhealthy gray pallor, his eyes sunken, his hair nearly gone. He stood as tall as he could for a moment, then removed the crown from his head and threw it to bounce on the stone between them.

“There it is,” he said as fiercely as he could. “What you’ve wanted all along. May it weigh as heavy on your head as it did mine. It’s a miserable, ugly place at the top.” Rumor said he’d poisoned his father and had his two brothers strangled in their sleep to gain the crown. He tried to glare and then broke down abruptly.

He flung himself at Rome’s feet, gabbling with tears and piteous cries for his life. He swore to run away into exile, become a slave, anything to keep his life. And, despite himself, Rome was moved. This thing before him had been a man once. He was pitiful and disgusting, something to scorn, but as he looked down on him he found he could not hate the man. He started to turn away, to call for someone to take Rix away until he could decide what to do with him, when Quyloc acted.

In one smooth step he was beside Rix. With his left hand he took a handful of thin hair and yanked his head up and back. A knife appeared in his right and he slit the fat throat ear to ear, so deep the head nearly came loose in his hand.

“He would have been a rallying point for the nobility,” was all he said, before ordering the body hauled away and thrown on the city trash heap.

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