The Fire Rose Read online

  “No one do I have who knows the vale itself,” Barech informed Golgren along the way. “But there are those of Ben-ihm who have heard tales. Vipers, f’hanos, winged shadows—”

  “Winged shadows?” Golgren interrupted, his eyes attentive.

  Barech shrugged. “Winged shadows, dragons, mastarks that eat flesh. Many tales, many fools.” Golgren said nothing.

  Night arrived before they could reach the edge of the mountain chain. Golgren considered continuing on for several hours, but he knew the folly of entering mountains in the dark. Whether or not there were dragons or flesh-devouring mastarks, there were certainly treacherous passes and likely meredrakes. Even the rare but deadly hageed-araki could lurk around. And they were not the mountains of the vale yet.

  The column halted enticingly close to the mountains, so much so that the Grand Khan did not retire immediately but stared at the peaks, contemplating their ancient might. Making certain he was not observed, he removed the signet from its macabre hiding place and touched the symbols on top.

  Nothing happened.

  Not certain what he had expected in the first place, Golgren put the signet back.

  From within the encampment there came several shouts. The Grand Khan whirled.

  Every campfire was blazing two, three times the height of an ogre and at least twice that in width. More than one warrior was rolling on the ground seeking to extinguish themselves. Some ran to aid them while others stood transfixed and confused.

  A tendril of flame whipped out of one fire. Writhing, it scorched the ground and withdrew. From another campfire, a second tendril burst forth. The rest of the campfires quickly did the same, and although no one was very endangered by the tendrils, they nonetheless pushed some superstitious ogres to the edge of panic. Their own fires appeared to be attacking them.

  Golgren felt a warmth on his chest. He pulled out the mummified hand and snatched the ring again. As he had expected, the symbols glowed a crimson-orange.

  Thrusting the severed appendage away, the Grand Khan put the signet on, holding it toward the closest of the campfires gone wild.

  The writhing tendrils shriveled to smoke. Suddenly from each fire stepped a figure of flame. They gathered together as they converged on the half-breed. Each stood as tall as a Titan, and each wore a crown of spiking tongues of fire.

  “No!” Unexpectedly, a delicate hand covered over the signet. Golgren felt the artifact instantly cool.

  The army of flame vanished in mid-step. The campfires shrank to normal.

  With a snarl, Golgren struck Idaria on the jaw with the bound end of his maimed arm. The elf went tumbling back. She dropped to the ground, stunned.

  Golgren found himself dropping down on one knee to seize Idaria. He looked to her injury. With a slight moan, the slave opened her eyes. She showed no fear of Golgren despite what he had done. It was the first time he had ever struck her.

  “The signet,” she breathed. “The signet was drawing … was drawing you and those flame creatures together … You would have been devoured.”

  “Devoured” was an odd choice of word, the half-breed thought, but he ignored it, more interested in something else. “And you know that how, my Idaria?”

  “Tyranos.”

  A sharp intake of breath escaped Golgren as he drew her to her feet. “Yes, Tyranos. He spoke of just that happening? He spoke to you, did he?”

  “No, he spoke of the signet bringing your death.” She glanced at the campfires, where hardened warriors were only just daring to step close again, curious about what the two were saying but edging back, keeping a respectful, wary distance. “When I saw them, I was certain that it was what he meant.”

  “But the wizard did not say exactly that.”

  “No.”

  At that moment, Barech rushed up. “My lord! You are safe!”

  “Yes, commander.”

  “Your guards will be whipped! The fires, they—”

  Golgren shook his head. “No whipping.”

  The officer grunted. “The Grand Khan commands. I obey.”

  Something near one of the campfires made Golgren forget Barech’s presence. Three warriors stood peering and pointing at one of the scorched areas. The trio seemed to be arguing among themselves about something they spotted in the burned patch.

  Striding past the hand’s commander, Golgren confronted the three. The warriors quickly struck their fists against their breastplates and retreated several steps so that the Grand Khan could have an unhindered view of what had so interested them.

  There was writing in the burnt area. To be precise, it was clear that the tendril had drawn a symbol in the ground. It was a curved line with two tiny dots on the right side of it.

  His brow furrowed, Golgren moved to one of the other campfires. As he came around to the scorched area there, he saw that, as with the first fire, there was a symbol carved in the earth.

  But not the same symbol. That one was either a triangle missing one side, or perhaps a symbol representing a mountain, such as those looming nearby. In the gap where the missing side of a triangle would have been, an arched pattern that reminded Golgren of a wing had been artfully sketched.

  “They are all different,” whispered Idaria, suddenly at his side again. “It is a message, I think.”

  He saw immediately what she meant.

  Golgren hurried over to the first campfire to have emitted a tendril. There, yet another drawn symbol awaited him. The Grand Khan went to the second campfire, where, from the angle of that drawing, he had a fair idea where to find the next symbol.

  In all, there were twelve of them, each distinct. They had been etched very clearly and in an obvious sequence, so there would be no mistaking their meaning. There was only one trouble.

  It was no language that Golgren could read.

  He looked to Idaria, who had followed in his steps. On her face there was a look as unreadable as the symbols.

  “What does it say?” he quietly asked. “Do you know?”

  The elf frowned. “I do not know what it says. It is an older language than mine.”

  “An older language?”

  “Yes.” Not at all to his surprise, she added, “I think … I think it is a variation of High Ogre.”

  A message. A message in High Ogre surely meant for him. But Golgren had no idea how to read it. He bared his teeth in a humorless grin and turned to one of the nearby warriors.

  “Bury it. Bury all of them.”

  The warrior grunted. He and several others began covering over the symbols.

  “My lord,” began Idaria. “Should you do that?”

  “I cannot read that message. I will not leave it for my enemies.” He did not mention those enemies by name, but she surely knew that chief among them were the Titans, who likely could read the symbols.

  Idaria said nothing. Golgren’s decision was always final. As Barech joined them, the Grand Khan hid the signet in his fist.

  “My lord, I—”

  A fierce, steaming wind rose up, tearing through the encampment near where the Grand Khan and his companions stood. There was no question in Golgren’s mind that the gale was as unnatural as what had happened with the flames.

  With that in mind, he suddenly glanced back at the campfires. There, where most of the symbols had been covered over with dirt and, in some cases, heavy stones, the wind struck hardest. The dirt was flung into the air, blinding several ogres.

  A moment later, the rocks went flying too. Two warriors were struck hard, one in the head. That ogre fell to his knees. The rest fled.

  Golgren stepped into the furious wind. His eyes slitted, his mane whipping back, he went to the nearest campfire.

  Swept perfectly clean, the symbol there pulsated like a red-hot coal. Golgren looked to the next one and saw that it was clear and burning bright too.

  Whoever or whatever had sent the message wanted it to be seen, regardless whether the one for whom it had been meant could even understand it. And regardless whe
ther leaving it visible might prove even more dangerous for him.

  The half-breed’s eyes narrowed again. Unless the last was exactly what the message intended.

  IX

  BETRAYAL

  As Golgren marched in one direction, Khleeg marched in another. Despite his trepidation at being far from the lord that he had sworn to protect, the ogre officer was also eager to reach the area where the Nerakans were said to have crossed the border. There would be much fighting, much bloodshed, but he was very confident in the combined might of the ogre hands that would stand against the humans. The Black Shells would be crushed, their females wailing their deaths for years.

  Behind him, the hand marched with all the precision of a Solamnic army. Khleeg beamed, for the Grand Khan had presented him with the finest warriors yet trained. He could only imagine that they were as fine, indeed, as the armies of the High Ogres.

  It was three days before he would reach his counterpart, Khemu. From there it would take another three, maybe four days to Angthuul. Fortunately, the Nerakans had chosen a place not all that far from Garantha, perhaps because they had the misguided notion they would be able to easily conquer the capital without the ogres rallying to prevent them.

  Already, Khleeg could see the crushed and bloody corpses of Skolax G’Ran littering the battlefield. It would be a glorious ogre victory, one that would, in many ways, bring honor to his master. Khleeg was aware of Golgren’s background, of the slaughter by the Nerakans of the village where the half-breed had been born. And the death of his mother. Each Nerakan the officer managed himself to slay he would dedicate to the Grand Khan.

  One of the subcommanders rode up beside him. The other ogre was not quite as adept with Common as Khleeg, but he spoke it well enough to exclaim, “Dust! Many riders approaching!”

  Straightening in the saddle, Khleeg looked around, but could not swear to what he saw. A heavy force was indeed moving at a rapid pace toward his. He frowned, wondering if somehow the Nerakans had managed to bypass Khemu and the others.

  A horn sounded from the oncoming dust cloud, and its notes were familiar ones. Some of Khleeg’s concern evaporated. As he squinted, the figures began to define themselves into exactly what he knew them to be: ogres.

  “Khemu’s hand,” he announced to the other officers. “Why here?”

  “Neraka?” suggested one unhelpfully.

  Grunting, Khleeg continued to eye the approaching force. He could clearly make out the banner of the Grand Khan, the severed hand clutching the blood dagger. However, of Khemu, there was no sight. Instead, as the riders approached, Khleeg noticed another ogre leading the hand, one he recognized.

  “Rauth.” A subcommander. Had something happened to Khemu?

  Something else worried Khleeg. There seemed fewer warriors than there should have been, and those that did approach appeared to have fought in some great battle only recently. Again, his fear rose that Neraka had intruded deeper into Golthuu than previously believed. Rauth would have the answer.

  Khleeg made an estimation and thought that about two-thirds of the original hand marched toward him. Such a heavy loss surprised him. The Black Shells must have had a large force.

  To his surprise, one warrior broke from the front ranks of the other hand. The ogre shouted at the top of his voice, and the only reason that Khleeg did not at first understand what he was saying was because the warrior was speaking Ogre, not the Common to which the officer had grown accustomed.

  “Drakuth bakiin!” the lone figure cried over and over as he suddenly brandished his axe. “Drakuth bakiin!”

  He was warning Khleeg’s force that the meeting was an ambush.

  From somewhere among Khemu’s warriors a pair of arrows streaked out. With terrible efficiency the unseen archers dealt two perfect strikes to the neck of the axe-brandishing warrior.

  The ogre stumbled a few steps and fell on his face, already dead.

  Rauth shouted back at whoever had fired. Khleeg, meanwhile, seized his own trumpeter by the arm. “Battle!”

  The trumpeter raised the curled goat horn—just as one of Khleeg’s other officers thrust a dagger in the trumpeter’s throat.

  At the same time, a second officer attempted to similarly attack Khleeg. The only thing that saved Golgren’s second in command was the sudden jerking of his horse. The assassin’s blade bounced off Golgren’s breastplate and left a long, wet scar across his forearm.

  Before the traitorous officer could try again, Khleeg used a heavy foot to shove his assailant off his mount. The Blödian drew his sword and ran the trumpeter’s killer through.

  As the other ogre died, Khleeg let go of the reins and snagged the horn from the slumping trumpeter. He himself blew the warning notes—

  But with mounting horror, he saw a warning was no longer needed. A goodly number of his soldiers had already turned on their own comrades. Still, many others were loyal and fought back.

  Khleeg tried to rally those who stood with him. He blew the horn again before tossing it aside to defend himself against a pair of warriors converging upon him on foot. One he knew well, and that fact alone made Khleeg furious. He maneuvered his massive steed in front of the pair, reached down, and cut a river across the familiar warrior’s throat. The other he dueled with for several minutes, and disarmed before doing the same as he had done to his comrade. The new warriors were well trained, but Khleeg was experienced and had learned personally under his Grand Khan, who knew not only Uruv Suurt tricks, but those of the Solamnians and the Nerakans too.

  The battle was fast becoming utter chaos. No one on his side knew whom to trust; more than once Khleeg saw a warrior he was certain was loyal cut down by a sudden turncoat.

  A warrior from his own hand slammed his axe into the neck of Khleeg’s horse. With a shriek, the animal toppled. Khleeg was unable to leap free before the dying horse hit the ground.

  The bulky corpse of the animal heavily pinned one leg. The attacker, his axe dripping, closed upon Golgren’s other.

  Khleeg fumbled for his dagger. As the other ogre loomed over him, the officer thrust up and under his enemy’s breastplate.

  His strike was perfect. The traitorous ogre stumbled back, unfortunately wrenching the dagger from Khleeg’s grip. The attacker dropped his axe as he sought to yank the blade free.

  The head of the weapon lay within Khleeg’s reach. With his adversary distracted by his terrible wound, the Blödian stretched and pulled the axe near, before grabbing its handle.

  The other ogre finally drew out Khleeg’s dagger. Blood gushed from the wound. A maddened expression filled his grotesque visage.

  Khleeg chopped at his foe’s nearest leg. The blade struck just above the ogre’s ankle and although it did not cut deep, it was enough to send the warrior stumbling to one knee.

  And that brought the enemy close enough to enable Khleeg to bury the axe in the back of his neck. The blow was not powerful enough to behead the other ogre, but it came close. The body slumped next to Khleeg, who was busy struggling to free himself.

  Just as he managed to drag his leg out from under the dead horse, a pair of warriors seized him by the arms. Khleeg started to fight back, until he realized the arms were coming to his aid.

  Golgren’s second in command saw proudly that several other loyal warriors had banded together around him and had begun to reestablish a cohesive fighting force. Such actions would have been impossible for ogres before the half-breed had instituted his methods and training. Instead, the individuals would have stood their ground as single fighters and died valiantly but foolishly.

  There were more of his warriors left than Khleeg could have hoped. One who had helped him rise thrust the axe back in his hand. With a confident growl, Khleeg waved the others into a more solid line. Those foes were about to discover that those truly loyal to the Grand Khan were more than a match for traitors—

  Suddenly Khleeg had a premonition that the worse was not over. He knew that his brave little band was doomed, yet not once
did he think of fleeing. They would have been slain with their backs to fate, a cowardly way for any ogre to perish.

  But there was one last service Khleeg could perform. He fumbled for the crystal given to him by his lord. Golgren had to be warned.

  Khleeg held the stone up. Realizing he was holding the blasted thing in front of the wrong eye, he switched to the other and concentrated on the Grand Khan with all his will.

  His brave warriors roared as they met their oncoming fate.

  The crystal flashed—

  And suddenly the world around Khleeg shifted. The battle scene vanished, replaced by rocky terrain that might have been days away or just a few yards from where he had stood.

  Vertigo struck the ogre. His legs folded under him.

  Khleeg blacked out.

  Golgren sensed the crystal calling to him as he rode just a few paces behind Barech and the scouts guiding them into the mountains. Aware that if one of the other two were trying to contact him it suggested a matter of great importance, the Grand Khan immediately located Tyranos’s creation and put it to his eye.

  But the crystal revealed nothing but muddiness.

  Thinking of Garantha, Golgren concentrated on Wargroch. A tense moment passed before the younger officer replied.

  “Grand Khan?”

  “Garantha. All is well there?”

  The question seemed to confuse Wargroch momentarily, but he confidently replied, “Yes, Grand Khan! All is well!”

  Golgren dismissed Wargroch from the crystal without further discussion or explanation. He concentrated on Khleeg.

  Regrettably, even after more than a minute, his second in command did not respond.

  “What is it, my lord?” asked Idaria.

  The Grand Khan thrust the crystal back into his pouch. “Nothing.”

  But his thoughts lingered on Khleeg. In his mind Golgren ran over the officer’s intended route and found no cause for concern. The first danger should not have come until the combined hands reached the Nerakans, days away. Could the black knights have slipped so far into Golthuu as to have attacked Khleeg already? Golgren considered that highly unlikely if not impossible. Yet, there had been several incidents of late that more than verged on “impossible.”