Outside the headquarters, he heard the camp stirring. The wooden structure had been raised quickly, using rough-hewn logs and branches. His soldiers had done their tasks well, given their minimal resources. They always served him without question, and Utros never disappointed them either. He was their commander.
On his years-long military march, he’d become accustomed to traveling with a fine tent, a place with furs and hangings, council tables spread with maps and battle plans. He wanted to keep Ava and Ruva content, and now he held the two women in his bed, one beefy arm around each as if to crush them against his body and squeeze their energy into him. They lay together beneath a freshly cured yaxen pelt. It wasn’t the same as fine woven blankets or slick sheets from the palace in Orogang, but it was a first step.
The thin mattress was stuffed with dried grasses. Under other circumstances it would have felt prickly and uncomfortable, but his hardened skin didn’t notice such minor things. The smoke from the braziers curled upward, escaping through the gaps in the crisscrossed roof. The dull red glow of burning charcoal and incense bathed the structure in comforting light. The smoke was thick, but Utros could barely smell it. The two sorceresses had added special herbs to the braziers, which sometimes gave him visions and revelations. Now, his dusty lungs seemed dulled to the effects.
But he didn’t need visions. Utros had his mind, and he could make plans.
Scouting parties had returned to the great camp with supplies, having ransacked the homes of a few settlers in the hills, woodcutters, a lone prospector, two men with mules bringing a load of goods to Stravera, all of whom had confirmed the information provided by the yaxen herders Boyle and Irma.
Before long, a raiding party would find the large town itself and bring back more vital tools and materials.
His invincible army would make the world tremble. Utros had swept across the land and seized an entire continent in the name of Iron Fang because he had sworn to do so, and the general always kept his promises.
Now he felt like a beggar. His vast army, though still powerful, was little more than a collection of refugees. The soldiers had no tents and nothing to eat, even if they no longer had an appetite. The glorious city of Ildakar stood before them, huge and impregnable, mocking the army with its wealth and its way of life.
Utros had to know the truth of what had happened to his army. He needed to know what he was required to do next, and he had to understand the answers before his countless soldiers began to realize that their commander might be facing doubts.
“I know you’re awake,” he said aloud. “Both of you.”
Ava pulled away from him, propping herself up on an elbow. Ruva held herself against his broad chest, as if trying to reassure him with the pliability of her breasts, nipples that were hard from the lingering effects of the stone spell, not from arousal. She, too, pulled away.
Lying on his back, he continued to speak. “We have to find out what has happened to Ildakar, what’s happened to the empire. Whom do we serve now?”
“We serve Iron Fang,” said Ruva, “as always.”
“But what if Iron Fang is nothing more than a skeleton in a crypt, or a memory in a history book?”
The women remained quiet for a moment before Ava said, “Then you serve yourself, as we have always served you.”
“I don’t serve myself,” Utros snapped. “I am not a petty tyrant. I don’t do this for my own aggrandizement.”
“You may not, beloved Utros,” said Ruva, “but we serve you. We only supported Kurgan because he is the leader you chose to serve. All your soldiers fight for you, not for Iron Fang. You earned their loyalty. You led them to glory. Iron Fang is merely a tick on the ear of a dog, drinking blood and growing bloated.”
Utros sat up, tossing the heavy yaxen hide aside. “Kurgan is my emperor. If you spoke such words in Orogang, your tongues would be ripped out and burned on skewers before you.”
“We are not in Orogang,” said Ava. “You know that this empire was built because of you, not Kurgan.”
Ruva said, “The emperor doesn’t deserve you, beloved Utros, but my sister and I respect you, so we serve your wishes.”
“Cast some spell or show me visions so I can understand my place in the world. I’ll fight ruthlessly to defend what I must, but not if I don’t know!”
“You already know.” Ava slid out of the bed and walked over to the brazier, tossing more dried leaves into the coals so that the smoke thickened. She waved her hands, making the fumes drift toward Utros and her sister. The general caught the sweet tang of the herbs. “The yaxen herders already told you the answers. Don’t you believe them?”
Utros sighed. “I don’t want to believe them. You say that I’m the heart of this army, but I draw my strength only because I serve my emperor.”
And I have betrayed him with his wife … the woman I love.
“I may be strong, and I may have led these soldiers to many victories,” he said, “but without my emperor, I am like a door without a hinge. He is my commander.”
Ava returned to the bed and sat next to him. She began to caress his chest, while Ruva stroked his back. They touched his cheeks, the smooth skin and the dragon-burn scar.
All he could think of was beautiful Majel with her long black hair, streaked with reddish highlights when the sunshine struck her. Her almond-shaped brown eyes, her tanned skin that was more beautiful than gold, her kisses, her sighs, her moans as he held her, taking her with ferocity in his tent like an animal in heat. And then after that passion was sated, a longer, slower lovemaking as they sang a song with their bodies, a secret song that Emperor Kurgan could never hear.…
“Our magic is given to you,” said Ava, lying down and draping her leg over his, while Ruva touched his thigh, then wrapped herself around him as well. They were trying to tangle themselves in a knot of bodies and cold flesh. They had painted their smooth, hairless skin with fresh, bright colors again, but he could not see the details in the dimness of the smoky fires.
“We will give you everything, beloved Utros, if we can.”
“As you always have,” the general said in a soft voice, and then he responded to their touch.
The sisters had given him their devotion, their love, their energy, their faith, since they were teenage girls. They’d been considered oddities, revered in a small mountain town, which was one of the first conquests General Utros had made in expanding Iron Fang’s empire. Ava and Ruva had been born even closer than normal twins. Their bodies were fused, their legs melded like two soft candles pressed together.
The babies might have died or been cast out by superstitious villagers, but their father took a terrible chance while they were still infants. As their mother wept in despair, the father had taken his sharpest skinning knife and placed the two connected infant girls on a table. He had cut them apart, hacking through the skin and fused bone that was like an intertwined tree. He had broken them apart, splitting their fused legs; then he wrapped the wounds that bled and bled. Their wounds became severely infected. The shrieking babies had faltered, becoming sicker and sicker.
Then they had died. The spirits of the two innocent infants went to the underworld and actually faced the Keeper. Their hearts stopped, but for only a few minutes. Somehow the village healer managed to revive them. The father stood there, his face sagging, horrified at what he had done. But the girls lived. They had been snatched away from the Keeper.
But He had touched them.
Though each had a horrific matching scar on her leg, the girls were strong, and they healed. They tested each other. They grew up and learned how to walk and run so that they barely showed even a limp. But they did not hide their scars; they flaunted them, wearing short shifts, growing up aloof and beautiful.