“And the messenger knew nothing more?” Maddek asked hoarsely.
“Only rumor that your queen and king were killed in Syssia. But I know not if it was bandits or beasts or illness, whether in the city or the outlands.” Voice deep with apology, Dagoneh spread his hands. “I am only to assume command here and send you north to Ephorn.”
To stand before the alliance council and learn what had killed his parents.
What had killed his queen and king.
In his heart yawned a great and painful emptiness, yet unreal it all seemed. Maddek knew the dangers that might befall a warrior . . . but could not imagine what had befallen them. His queen and king had been so strong, and such clever warriors. Unbelievable that they might survive Anumith the Destroyer, only to be killed by bandits.
So he would demand answers of the council. And if it had been bandits, Maddek would hunt down every single one of them.
Answers . . . and vengeance. It seemed that purpose was all that moved his feet. Each breath was a hot, shuddering agony. Maddek emerged from the commander’s tent and a blurred sea of Parsathean faces was all he saw—warriors drawn by the sound of Enox’s wail and Kelir’s howl.
Three times he tried to say the words that needed to be said. Each time they broke on his mother’s name. Yet it was enough. Understanding and grief slid like a blade through the warriors standing before him, shearing hearts open as Maddek’s had been. On a deep breath, he gathered that purpose again.
Answers. Vengeance.
If they were to be had, then Maddek would have both.
In stronger voice, he called out, “Riders of the Burning Plains, make ready to fly north!”
* * *
• • •
The Parsathean army started out silently on their journey, grim-faced and grieving. Riding hard, never did they pause to hunt for meat or furs; their saddles were their dining halls, the cold ground their beds. Even battle-hardened muscles ached, yet no complaints had issued from the warriors’ lips.
As the days passed, grief softened and song returned to the Parsatheans’ tongues, ballads that spoke of lusty warriors and legendary rulers—and of the goddess Temra, who had broken through the vault of the sky and reshaped the world with the pounding of her fist, forcing life to sprout from the earth’s barren face. Temra, whose loving arms welcomed the souls of the dead back into her eternal embrace.
But silver-fingered Rani had carried Maddek’s parents into Temra’s arms too early.
Though sorrow lay like stone upon Maddek’s features, even his granite mouth smiled again when the warriors told their ribald jokes. Though his deep voice did not lift in song, he felt the rhythm through his blood like the beat of war drums. But his grief did not soften; instead the burning need for answers and vengeance hardened around his bereaved heart like steel.
A full turn of the moon passed before the white stone wall surrounding Ephorn’s great city became visible in the distance. Maddek often heard Ephorn’s soldiers claim that glimpsing the walled city from across the plain was akin to gazing upon a shining mountain.
Maddek agreed that Ephorn could be mistaken for a mountain—a pale squatting one, built upon a hill of its own dung.
Walls should not swell any soldier’s breast with pride. Those walls symbolized fear, not strength. Ephorn and the cities of nearby realms had built their walls because they feared each other and feared their common enemies: the Parsathean riders to the north and the Farian savages to the south. Yet the walls had not stopped generations of rulers from conspiring and warring among themselves, had not prevented the Parsatheans from invading and raiding their cities, and had not saved them from the Farians who raped and slaughtered their citizens.
And a generation past, those walls had not stopped Anumith the Destroyer, who’d crushed the cities’ stone defenses as easily as he’d torn the hide tents in the Parsathean hunting camps.
Walls were not strength. The alliance that had formed between the riders of Parsathe and the five southern realms in the wake of the Destroyer—that was strength.
That alliance was also why Ephorn’s gates opened for Maddek upon his approach. The city that would have barred a Parsathean’s entrance a generation ago now invited him in. The citizens would not as warmly welcome the Parsathean army that rode behind Maddek, however, so only three warriors accompanied him.
Beneath the shadow cast by the white wall, sallow-cheeked children played between mudbrick houses that only saw the sun at midday. No breeze stirred the stale air but for the wind created by the swift passing of Maddek and his warriors, their mounts’ hooves clattering on the cobblestone road.
Visible beyond the clay-tiled roofs rose the shining blue spires of the citadel—and it was at the citadel where the splendor of Ephorn was put on display. In the great courtyard beyond the fortress’s outer gates, lush gardens breathed their perfume into the air. Fountains splashed into gleaming marble basins. Market stalls boasted pots full of colorful spices and hung a dazzling array of silks. At the open tables, mead flowed like rivers to wash down mountains of roasted meats.
It was the city that never hungered or thirsted. Some said Muda herself favored Ephorn, so its fields always yielded a bounty and its wells never ran dry.
Maddek could not claim to know whether the goddess of law cared for crops and water, but he thought her favor had been helped along by Ephorn’s location. Centered among the four other southern realms that made up the Great Alliance, Ephorn had not been raided or attacked as often as the cities on the borders. And most roads—along with the trade they brought—took a central route through the region instead of crossing Parsathean or Farian territory, so the merchants of Ephorn bought from foreign traders on the cheap and sold their wares to the other realms at a profit.
But perhaps they called that the goddess’s favor, too.
Maddek passed through the citadel’s inner gates and dismounted at the base of the Tower of the Moon—the tallest of the four great towers within the fortress. With sheer walls of seamless white marble topped by a sapphire spire that pierced the sky, the tower had served as the royal keep until the Destroyer had slaughtered the royal family. Afterward, though many nobles still lived, no one had taken the king’s place on the throne. Instead the city had come under the protection of the Court of Muda and the fortress became the seat of the Great Alliance.
Here Maddek would find the answers he sought.
He glanced over at Kelir, who still sat on his horse. The big warrior’s head was tilted far back as he took in the height of the tower.
A doleful expression settled over Kelir’s scarred features when he noted Maddek’s gaze upon him. “I have held the tales of Ran Bantik close to my heart since I was a boy. One day, I would have told them to my own children. But now I know them all to be false.”