Banewreaker(68)

"Not bad, horse-thief." Tanaros found himself smiling. "Not bad at all!"

"I do better…" Speros essayed a thrust and stumbled, wincing, forced to make a desperate parry. "I do better," he gasped, "when I've not been clamped in chains and had hot pokers held to my feet, Lord General."

"You do well enough." Putting an end to it, Tanaros stepped inside the young man's guard, catching his ill-timed swing on the edge of his shield. The point of his sword came to rest in the hollow of the lad's throat. "I am not displeased."

Speros, with commendable poise, held himself still, although his brown eyes nearly crossed in an effort to look down at Tanaros' sword. "I concede, my lord. You have the better of me."

"Well, then." Tanaros put up his sword. "We have each other's measure."

Deep, booming laughter ensued; Hyrgolf, who stepped forward to clap a massive hand on Speros' shoulder. It rested there, heavy as a stone, talons dangling. "Give the lad a dram of svartblod," he rumbled, beckoning to one of his soldiers with his free hand. "He's earned it."

To his credit, Speros grinned with gap-toothed fearlessness at the Fjel, sheathing his sword and hoisting the skin one of the Tungskulder proffered. It was a foul liquor, black as pitch, fermented from the blood of sheep that drank the tainted waters of the Gorgantus River, and Speros sputtered as he drank, dark liquid running in rivulets from the corners of his mouth. He shook himself like a wet dog, spattering droplets of svartblod.

The Fjel, who adored the foul stuff, laughed uproariously.

Tanaros touched the carved rhios that hung from his belt. "Take him in hand, Hyrgolf," he said to his field marshal. "Show him what there is to be seen in Darkhaven, and let him have a look at the forges. He may be worth keeping, this one."

"General." Hyrgolf inclined his head. There was a shrewdness in his small boar's eyes. Fjeltroll he might be, Tungskulder Fjel, broadest and strongest of his mighty race, but he was a father, too, and there were things he knew that Tanaros did not. "Aye, General."

"Good." It was a relief, after all, to strip the practice helmet from his head, to raise two fingers to his lips and give the shrill whistle of command that summoned the black horse. Tanaros mounted, gazing down at Hyrgolf. "The Dreamspinner has requested my counsel. We'll resume drills in two days' time. See that the Midlander's taught the rudiments of battle formations and the proper commands. I could use a subordinate on the field."

"Aye, General." The tips of Hyrgolf's eyetusks showed as he smiled.

Under his thighs, the black's hide rippled. Tanaros raised his hand.

"Speros of Haimhault!" he called. "I'm leaving you to the untender mercies of Field Marshal Hyrgolf, who will teach you to be a soldier of Darkhaven. Can you handle it, lad?"

"Aye, Lord General!" Surrounded by Fjel, the former prisoner gave his gap-toothed grin and a cheerful salute. Clearly, Speros found himself at home here, unabashed by the rough camaraderie of the Fjel. "Can I have one of those horses to ride if I do?"

Tanaros rode toward the rookery, a lingering smile on his lips. How long had it been, since one of his countrymen had served Dark-haven? Too long. Loathe though he was to admit it, he'd missed it.

At the outskirts of the beech wood, he turned his mount loose and proceeded on foot, boots sinking deep into the soft mast, his shield slung over his back. Truly, he thought, the lad had fought well. It was no easy chore, to spar when one's every step was a waking agony. It must be so, with the searing wounds Speros had endured. A good thing Vorax's own physician had attended him. Though it had done no permanent harm, it had been an ungentle questioning.

Tanaros' own arrival had differed. He was one of the Three, and Lord Satoris himself had sensed his broken heart and his wounded pride, had used the Helm of Shadows to summon him. And in all the wildness of his despair, Tanaros had answered the summons, had out-faced and out-shouted the Thunder Voice Fjel, and made his way through the Defile unaided and undeterred.

And presented himself to the Sunderer, who had asked his aid.

Even now, after so long, he shuddered in remembered ecstasy. The knot of scarred flesh that circumscribed his heart constricted at the memory of his branding, of how the hilt of Godslayer, laid against his skin, had stretched the chains of his mortality. Even now, when his aching joints remembered their endless sojourn, it moved him.

He had spoken the truth to Speros. In the beginning, there had been only rage. It had driven him to Darkhaven in fury and despair, and he had laid it at the feet of Lord Satoris, willing to serve evil itself if it would purge his furious heart. Since then he had come to understand that the world was not as he had believed it in his youth. He had come to love Lord Satoris, who clung to his defiance in the face of the overwhelming tyranny of Haomane's will, wounded and bereft though he was. Haomane's Wrath had scorched the very earth in pursuit of Satoris. Were it not for Arahila's merciful intervention, the Lord-of-Thought might have destroyed Urulat itself.