Bult meant to hamstring me and leave me for the trolls— that was clear from the gleam in his eyes and the angle his wrist made with the sword's blade when he raised his arm. He could have had his will with me; I was weak with fear and sick with defeat. Sour blood filled my mouth. There was no strength left in me to move my legs out of harm's way, if he'd taken his cut right then. But Bult lugged his stroke and gut-kicked me instead.
Today I am the Lion of Urik, invulnerable and invincible. In the form Rajaat has given me, the finest steel cannot harm me. With an exercise of whim, I can hide my shape beneath an illusion of any creature I imagine. But when I was a mortal man, there was nothing about me that warranted Bult's respect. I took after my mother's folk: light-boned and slender. From my earliest days I'd learned the tricks of balance and leverage because I never had my father's and brothers' strength. I could carry Jikkana because I knew where to lift; I could fell a troll because I knew where to balance, where to pivot, how to coil my entire body and release its power in a serpent's strike.
Knowledge was my weapon, I told myself as I lay there in the dust, blood and bile streaming from my face. I was smarter than Bult; I was better, but first I had to breathe and protect myself from the kicks that came from all directions. Ignoring pain and blurred vision, relying on instinct—knowledge—alone, I caught a foot as it struck my ribs. I twisted it one way as I rolled the other. Finally there was a groan that didn't come from my throat, and a few heartbeats for me to rise up on my hands and knees.
I choked when I tried to breathe and spat out a tooth or two. My hair dragged in the muck my blood had made of the dust, but my lungs were working again, and my thoughts were clearer. I heard Bult sidestepping, taking aim at my flank. Raising my head, I caught his eye.
I nailed Bult, midstride. He backed off, and his mouth worked silently a moment before he said: "Get up, farm boy. Get up on your feet, if you dare, or crawl away as you are."
We'd heard that trolls could track by scent, that their noses were as good as their night eyes. The way I was bleeding on the ground and clutching my side, Bult guessed I'd be troll-meat whether he hamstrung me or not. And probably he was right: I was a deadman, but I was done running from trolls and wasn't going to start crawling from my own kind. I got to my feet and stayed there. A few of my fellows sucked their teeth with surprise or admiration. I didn't know which. I didn't care. My blood settled.
"Cowards," I repeated, including my fellows in the curse. Bult took a step toward me. I spat out another tooth that left a bloody mark on his cheek, and he stayed where he was. "Little children, a little bit afraid of trolls, a lot more afraid of the Troll-Scorcher. Eyes of fire!" I recalled my cousin, five years dead and forgotten in the ruins of Deche. "I've seen the Troll-Scorcher's magic, his eyes of fire, just like you. I've seen them at the muster—nowhere else. I've seen Myron of Yoram burn the heart out of a trussed-up man when we're all camped for muster, but I've never seen his awful magic out here."
I believed what I said, and I hated Myron of Yoram more than I hated Bult or any troll that ever lived. It gave me the strength to take a step in Bult's direction.
"Call him, Bult. Call the Troll-Scorcher. Tell him what I've done. Tell him to come and burn me with the eyes of fire. I'll die for him, Bult, that's what we're here for, isn't it? Call him!"
Once a month, as Guthay's golden face cleared the eastern horizon, we'd all gather around the fire, hand in hand, to shout the Troll-Scorcher's name to the night. When we'd shouted our throats raw, Bult would drop to his knees, his veins bulged and throbbing across his brow, and he'd tell the Troll-Scorcher how many trolls we'd seen since the last time, what they'd done, and what we'd done, which never changed: they ravaged, and we ran.
"Aye, Bult," someone behind me said. "Call the Troll-Scorcher. Let him decide."
"Manu's right. Maybe the Troll-Scorcher listens to us; maybe he don't. We see his mighty-bright officers, an' they tell us he's wagin' war somewhere else, but never near us." Another voice in the crowd.
"Never near no one," a woman added, sweet honey to my ringing ears. "Never met no one at the muster who didn't say the same thing: they seen trolls all year, an' never once seen the Scorcher."
I could feel the power of persuasion around me. "Call him, Bult," I taunted, then reached out for my fellows' hands and shouted our champion's name.
We all shouted as if Guthay were rising. Bult hit the dust with his eyes squeezed shut. Nothing happened—but, nothing ever happened when a poor, mortal human called Myron of Yoram.
When the time came and the dark magic was mine, I gave all my templars medallions—lumps of fired clay for most of them, but hardened with my breath, so they'd never doubt that I could hear them, see them. No less than Jikkana, Bult was my teacher; he taught me that in the field, fear, morale, and discipline are different words for the same thing.
And I learned from my younger self, too. If Myron of Yoram had been half a man to begin with, he'd have heard Bult that day. He'd have stirred himself across the netherworld—I know he had the power, what he lacked was will and wit—and he'd have struck me down with the eyes of fire.
It was not a mistake I've ever made. When my templars call me, my will is theirs; and when they rebel or rise against me, I reduce them to grease and ash, as if they'd never been born.
Not Myron of Yoram. I killed Jikkana, my solitary troll, and ten thousand others since, but Myron of Yoram killed Bult.
"It's outrage," I said softly while Bult still struggled to catch our champion's attention. "We stand by, human men and women, while trolls ravage our own folk. If we don't run, we howl at the moon, like beasts, hoping, year after futile year, that someone will hear us, that someone cares enough to come and kill our enemies for us. What sort of man do we serve? What sort of man is Myron of Yoram, Myron Troll-Scorcher? It's been ages since he led his army to victory in the Kreegills. Now he hoards trolls like a miser hoarding metal. He doesn't want victory—he wants his eyes of fire to burn slow from now until eternity!"
Chapter Six
"It's been ages since Guthay wore two crowns for seven days, and then, a single crown for another three nights. Ten nights together, Omniscience! Not since the Year of Ral's Vengeance in the 177th King's Age," Enver said, reading from a freshly written scroll. "The high bureau scholars have taken half a quinth to research the archives, but they've at last confirmed what you, Omniscience, no doubt, remembered."
Hamanu nodded, not because he agreed, but because when Enver's recitation slowed, it was time for Enver's king to nod his head... and recall what the dwarf had said. Hamanu did pay attention to what his executor told him, and certain words or intonations would prick him to instant awareness. For the rest, though, Hamanu remembered faster than Enver recited. He listened with an empty ear, gathering words the way a drip bucket gathered water, until it was time to nod, and remember.
Having nodded and remembered, Hamanu's thoughts went wandering again as Enver read what the scholars had dug out of the Urik archives. He had not recalled the exact date when Guthay had put on her last ten-night performance—the systematic reckoning of years and ages meant little to him anymore—but he certainly remembered the event, two years after Borys, Butcher of Dwarves, had become Borys, Dragon of Tyr. That year, whole swaths of the heartland had turned gray with sorcerous ash, but, yes, Guthay had promised water in abundance and kept her promise.
As she'd kept it this year.