The other members of the Black Talon bowed before Safrag, cementing his role as their leader, their new master. As he straightened, Yatilun cautiously brought up a subject thorny but familiar to the spellcasters. “What about the Grand Lord Golgren? What if, by fate or luck, he lives? He will wish vengeance! We cannot permit that, and yet we are weakened.”
“The mongrel does live,” Safrag informed them, startling more than one there with the new depth of his knowledge. “I sensed it. Whether he retains control for very long, though, is a question. For the time being, while we recuperate, we shall let him live and let him play at ruler. The dream is our ultimate goal and our ultimate destiny. The Grand Lord Golgren may continue to be a useful tool. When we are ready, he shall pass as all grand khans and lord chieftains have passed.”
“When we are ready …” repeated a Titan. “When we are ready …”
“Dauroth promised it would be soon, but he never said how we would finally accomplish it!” said a second. “The signets and other artifacts from the tomb were to assist, but that was all! He never told us how he would forever liberate all Titans from the continual need of elixir. The bones are a temporary solution! He never told-”
“He told me,” the former apprentice turned master replied with a gracious smile, displaying all his teeth.
As the others stared at Safrag with fresh i nterest, Morgada shifted her position nearer to the new leader. Safrag steepled his fingers in contemplation then expounded, “He told me his intentions only a day ago. The dream finally revealed to him the necessary path. It will take more sacrifice, more determination, but it will at last lead us to fulfilling all!”
“Pray, good Safrag,” the Titaness asked demurely. “What information did Dauroth relay to you? Can you give the rest of us some hope, some clue? Is that permitted?”
“I would not leave my fellow Titans wandering in the dark like the rest of our fallen race, dear Morgada. All shall know our course, for all shall be needed for the hunt.”
Yatilun frowned. “ ‘Hunt’? You almost sound like Hundjal when you speak so, Safrag! What are we hunting this time?”
The former apprentice smiled in a manner very much like that of his late mentor. He spread his arms wide again, as if to embrace all those present. “A dream in itself, a legend that has been determined at last to be fact. We owe Dauroth a debt for revealing to us the final piece.” His smile widened even more. “We hunt the resting place of the Fire Rose.”
That brought renewed gasps and gaping from the Black Talon. “The Fire Rose?” someone shouted. “But it is only reckless myth!”
“A myth Dauroth forbade us even to research,” reminded another, “for all the tales of it, he said, had endings most dire.”
“I ever found that strange,” Yatilun admitted. “Why forbid seeking something that supposedly did not exist?”
Safrag waved away all their doubts and superstitions. “The master sought only to protect those too eager to be of assistance. The Fire Rose is our key. You may trust me on that point.”
Yatilun shook his head skeptically. “But how can we find this thing so long lost? How do we track a legend so ancient?”
“Like calls to like. Dauroth taught us all that lesson. We can and will find it.”
“But to do that, we would need-”
“A part of the legend. A minute piece of the myth. Yes, Yatilun. Yes, all of you … Dauroth and I managed to discover a small fragment of the Fire Rose.” Safrag’s eyes burned with ambition, though he spoke modestly. “A thing in itself very powerful. We shall use it to find that to which it belongs.” He bowed his head at the empty space where his master had last stood, last stood staring at Safrag. “As Dauroth wished us to do.”
Idaria tended to Golgren, who had passed out just as the slave reached him, as best she could. She kept his head up, scanning the carnage for another living being who might help them. It was more than an hour before three warriors in breastplates came across the pair. Under her guidance, they carried the grand lord as carefully as they could toward the capital.
Golgren awoke during his journey and, despite his injuries, commanded the pair to set him down so he could walk. When they protested, he muttered, “It would not show strength to be carried through the gates like an infant.”
He accepted a supporting arm from two of the warriors out of necessity but kept his head high and his expression defiant. As they wended their way toward Garantha, survivors began to collect behind Golgren. Their numbers were small, but he hailed each. Most welcome was the survival of Khleeg. The officer, ugly even for an ogre, was even less appealing of face, bruised and bloodied and scraped. Khleeg was a ghastly sight. His toadlike mouth was still bleeding, and one tooth was gone. A huge bulge over his left eye made it nearly impossible for him to see out of that orb. His nose was also broken. Yet he silently took up a position near his master and, armed with an axe not his own, marched as if leading a parade of victory.
By the time they reached Garantha’s gates, a little more than a hundred warriors-many of them limping and even, in some cases, dragging wounded legs-marched with the grand lord. It was a sorry lot, admittedly, but at the same time one that set Golgren’s blood stirring with pride.
Another familiar figure met them at the gate. Wargroch, fairly untouched and mounted, leaped down from his horse and dropped to one knee. “Grand Lord, I thought all dead! I search and search then return here! When I hear of your living, I bring you this!”
He turned the horse so Golgren could mount. Golgren couldn’t suppress a grin, in spite of the pain, as he mounted. He looked back to survey the survivors of his force, nodding at Idaria nearby, then raised his hand and clenched his fist.
The beaten, broken soldiers shouted out his name. “Golgren! Golgren!”
Seeing one trumpeter among the guards still manning the ruined walls, the grand lord gestured. The trumpeter hastily put the goat horn to his mouth and blew hard. Another trumpeter farther away picked up the note and joined in. As Golgren started to ride, the capital resounded with one blast after another.
Khleeg renewed the shouting. “Golgren! Golgren!”
The other warriors followed suit and, within a minute, many onlookers did too.
And as the small party rode deeper into the devastated city, more and more ogres came out to line the cracked streets or halted their cleanup efforts to stare at the return of the grand lord. Many joined in the cheers and shouting.
At they turned toward the palace, Golgren’s eyes narrowed. He suddenly guided his horse in a different direction. Khleeg, Idaria, and the others did their best to keep up, not knowing what he had in mind. But Golgren did nothing by chance or accident.
As word continued to spread ahead of the march, ogres from various sectors of Garantha joined in the grand lord’s wake. Many were warriors left to defend the city, overjoyed to find their leader alive, even if so badly battered. But many ordinary citizens, in growing numbers, swelled the parade.
At last, Golgren arrived at his chosen destination. It was not the Jaka Hwunar, where he had once intended his glorious climax to take place, but rather the temple of Garantha’s patron spirit. The ancient edifice was intact-minus one column that had broken free and tumbled down the steps-and the area was clear enough of debris to enable a crowd of citizens to surround the grand lord as he rode the horse up the steps. At the top, Golgren leaped down as if full of fresh energy and entirely unharmed from his ordeal. Not even Khleeg or Idaria were allowed to know the pain that made him wince, the jarring of his bones when he landed on the stone steps. Golgren bound his mount’s reins to one of the columns then turned and stood before the many assembled ogres. Over his chest he still wore his mummified hand, and that he suddenly held high.