Mordan’s left arm was ablaze with pain. Beside the loss of his hand, the dragonmark on his shoulder burned, as it always did when he used its power. He stood for a moment, fighting the darkness that pressed down on his eyes, and then fell on top of the dead elf.
Chapter 2
Farewells
Mordan awoke in a low tent, with an elderly halfling woman leaning over him. He tried to sit up, but she shushed him and pressed him back. He was too weak to resist. His left hand ached abominably.
The next time he opened his eyes, he found Dern sitting beside his bed. The halfling scout looked at him solemnly as he struggled to sit up.
“Drink this,” Dern said, handing him a mug of steaming broth. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, but you’re going to be fine.” He paused, then said, “Perra couldn’t save your hand. I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t till Dern spoke that Mordan looked down and saw the tightly bound stump of his left wrist. Odd, he thought, still light-headed from the effort of sitting up, I could swear I can still feel my hand. He took the mug in his right hand and sipped at the hot, bitter broth.
“I thought your Jorasco healers could fix anything,” he said after he had drunk.
Dern grimaced. “Some of them can,” he said, “but not all.”
Mordan drained the mug, feeling his head clear and his pain subside as he did so. Whatever Perra’s limitations, her healing potions were effective. He pushed his lank blond hair out of his eyes and swung his legs off the cot—actually two halfling-sized beds lashed together—stooping in the low space. He was still a little light-headed, but felt strong enough to walk. He looked for his sword, and as his eye lit on the elegant elven rapier beside his cot, he remembered the battle.
“I saw Garn fall,” he said. “Is she … ?”
Dern nodded. “We wrapped her body and put it on her pony,” he said. “We figured she’d want to be sent back to the Mror Holds. Perra cast a preserving spell on her.”
“Anyone else?”
Much to Mordan’s relief, Dern shook his head. “Nothing serious.”
Mordan swung his legs off the cot and got to his feet. Dern held back the flap of the tent.
Outside, the troopers sat on brightly colored rugs, in the open middle of the camp. Grasht hoisted a drink as four giggling halfling women brought him a huge rack of hammertail ribs, tottering under their weight. His shoulder was bandaged where the arrow had struck him; it was just a flesh wound, and as he told anyone who would listen, he’d had worse. Around him, the others relaxed and enjoyed the hospitality of Dern’s tribe. There was a moment of silence as Mordan appeared, followed by a loud cheer. The troopers shuffled to make space for their leader, and he motioned Dern to sit beside him.
“How did you miss them?” he asked as more food arrived. Dern was too good a scout to overlook a troop of Valenar cavalry in open terrain.
“I don’t know.” The halfling grimaced, more in puzzlement than apology. “Maybe they were invisible. Their leader’s cloak would have hidden him, but it couldn’t have covered all of them and their horses.”
“At least none of them had any spells,” said Mordan. “Maybe they used a scroll or something.”
“They must have seen me, though,” Dern said. “They didn’t charge till Redwind had landed.”
“They saw all of us,” said Mordan. “No question of that.”
“You don’t like hammertail?” Dern asked, half-rising from his cushion and gesturing at the meat before Mordan. “Could be there’s some hardhead or flatmouth.” Halflings were particular about their hospitality, even those outside House Ghallanda. Mordan reached for the food.
“No, it’s good,” he said. “I was thinking, that’s all.” He fell to eating with deliberate relish.
Screams of laughter erupted behind Mordan, and he looked round to see Grasht squaring off against a skin-clad halfling warrior in a clear area beside the main firepit. Grasht was wielding a tent-pole—a center-post as thick as his opponent’s waist—like an oversized quarterstaff, and the halfling was circling him with a thin stick in one hand.
A crowd had gathered around them, laughing and shouting encouragement as the halfling ducked under Grasht’s sweeping blow and darted in to tap him on the chest with the stick. Mordan shook his head and smiled. The halflings had always liked Grasht. With his size, his bluster, and his swagger, they seemed to regard him as a curiosity. He certainly enjoyed their hospitality.
When the feast was over, Mordan went to pay his respects to the group’s elders, who sat on brightly colored rugs in the middle of the camp. Mordan had met Lath Yoldrum and old Hazlon several times in the past—their tribe had been providing the Company of the Skull with scouts and outriders for years—but they always made an impression on him. Neither would have stood much taller than his belt-buckle, but somehow their presence was bigger than they were. Hazlon, the tribe’s shaman, was an arresting sight with his brightly colored headdress, necklace of lizard teeth, and feathered staff carved from the leg bone of a clawfoot lizard. Yoldrum, on the other hand, was dressed in dyed cloth and tanned hides like any member of his tribe, with his graying hair drawn back in a hunter’s ponytail. Only the quiet strength in his dark eyes and the scars of man hunts set him apart from his people.
“You are better,” the lath observed. “That is good.”
“I’m alive, thanks to your healer,” said Mordan, using the dialect of the Plains out of courtesy, “but I think my fighting days may be over.” He held up his stump.
“That might be a good thing.” The lath shrugged. “You can go back to your people and live in peace.”
“I don’t have any people,” he said.
Hazlon chuckled softly. “Your quarrel will be mended,” he said, without further explanation.
Mordan made a non-committal face. He had never talked to anyone about his family. The old halfling was probably guessing. Everyone who signed on with the Company of the Skull had something in their past. The shaman’s eyes rested briefly on the rapier that Mordan wore.
“You should keep that sword,” he said. Etiquette had prevented Mordan from asking if it was magical, and he was glad that Hazlon had raised the matter.
“It belonged to the leader of the elves we fought,” he said.
“I can feel it humming,” said Hazlon. “It’s strong against the dead who walk. The Valenar knew they’d be fighting your dead soldiers. You’ll find it useful.”
Mordan bowed his head to the old halfling. It would have been impolite to point out that the undead of Karrnath were on his side, or that the Company of the Skull had nothing to do with them.
“Thank you for your help and hospitality,” said Mordan.
As he began to stand, Hazlon put a hand on his arm.
“You have a brother,” he said, “with the name of a king. There is trouble around him—and great danger. Your people need you.” His expression—and the fact that he spoke in the common tongue of humans—convinced Mordan that he was deadly serious.
“I didn’t know you spoke our language,” he said.
Hazlon’s habitual smirk came back. “There are many things you don’t know,” he said, as if talking to a small child. He pressed something into Mordan’s hand: a small leather bag on a thong. “This will protect you,” he said.
Interlude
Thirteen-year-old Kasmir ir’Dramon gritted his teeth and fought with all his strength. Laughing with savage glee as he pinned Kasmir down, kneeling on his chest and holding his wrists against the ground, his older brother’s face blotted out most of the sky. Kasmir felt the bump of the anthill pressing into his back, and the ants were starting to crawl inside his clothes. He struggled as they stung and clenched his jaw tighter to stop himself from crying. Gali held him firmly, grinning all the time. Over Gali’s shoulder Kasmir saw the laughing face of his brother’s friend and classmate, Berend Hintram, who was staying for the summer. They had both just completed their first year at Karrnath’s prestigious Rekkenmark military academy and were still wearing their cadet’s uniforms.