The Skull Throne

“The ones who talk are fed,” Alin said. “My Tenders and Children all speak Krasian, but the lesser fighters knew little of use.”

He signaled the guards at the far end of the cavern, and they unlocked a heavy door.

Inside, a Krasian man was strapped tightly to a chair. His black turban and white veil were gone, but still Briar recognized the leader of the Krasian scouts. A narrow table in front of him, his hands were splayed out, each finger held tight in a tiny screw vise bolted to the wood. He was breathing evenly, but he was flushed and bathed in sweat. An old bespectacled man, still in the robes of an acolyte, tended the screws.

“This is Prince Icha,” Alin said. “He claims to be the third son of the demon of the desert himself, Krasian Duke Ahmann Jardir.”

“And when my father hears of this,” Icha growled in guttural but understandable Thesan, “he will visit these tortures one thousandfold on every man, woman, and child in the resistance.”

At a nod from Alin, the acolyte adjusted the screws until Icha began to howl. Another nod and he dialed them back until the Icha fell silent again, panting.

“Your father is dead,” Thamos said bluntly. “I watched Arlen Bales pitch him off a cliff.”

“My father is the Deliverer,” Icha said. “No fall can kill him. The Damajah has foreseen his return. Until then, my brother will be the instrument of his divine wrath.”

“How many men does your brother have in Lakton?” Thamos asked.

“More than there are fish in your lake,” Icha said. “More than there are stars in the sky. More—”

Alin flicked a finger, and the acolyte dialed him back into screams. The old man hunched over the screws with no more expression than Briar’s father mending a broken piece of furniture. Briar wanted to hit the man, or to run away and try to forget the scene. But he could not. He drew closer, and when the pain was at last dialed back, Icha looked up and met his eyes.

“The chin will be judged, Briar Damaj, but none so much as you,” Icha gasped. “Everam sends ginjaz to the depths of Nie’s abyss in the afterlife.”

“Not a traitor,” Briar said. “This is my home. You’re the chin.”

But even as he said the words, he wasn’t sure he believed them. He had thought the Shepherd a good man, but what he was doing to the Krasian prisoners was abhorrent.

Perhaps it was time to go back to the bog. Life was easier alone with the cories.

Captain Dehlia put an arm around him. “Come along, Briar. Don’t listen to this animal. You know what they’ve done.”

Briar nodded, allowing himself to be led away, back through the freezing cavern full of starving Sharum.

“This hill,” Thamos said, pointing to the map. “Do you know it, Briar?”

Briar started. Lost in thoughts of the caverns below, he hadn’t been paying attention. He looked at the squiggled lines and blotches of color on the paper, but he could not make out what was meant to be a hill.

“Colan’s Rise,” Dehlia supplied.

Briar nodded. “Know it.”

“If we can position longbows there,” Thamos said, “they can cover the bulk of the port.”

“Lots of Sharum there,” Briar said. “Scorpions. Difficult to take.”

“Not for my cavalry,” Thamos said. “We can trample through and take the scorpions for our own, then continue down the road under covering fire to attack the town proper.”

Shepherd Alin nodded, sliding a finger down the map. “Drawn to the sounds of battle, they will not see your forces, Egar, coming from the south.”

Egar shook his head. “We don’t know how many warriors they have, but it is doubtless more than our two forces combined.”

“Unless the entire fleet moves to retake the docks and beach,” Isan said. “We can land thousands of fighting men and women.”

“That will be bloody,” Egar said.

Isan nodded. “But in six weeks, the lake will freeze, and we will be trapped without supply. The dockmasters are all agreed. We stand to lose far more if we do nothing.”

“When are you planning the attack?” Thamos asked.

Shepherd Alin put down a map with various markings. “These are the typical Krasian troop positions.” He put down a second map, significantly different. “And these are their positions during new moon.”

“Waning,” Thamos murmured.

“The sand rats spend the day in prayer, and then move to defend against demon attack,” Captain Marlan said. “They will not be ready to face our combined forces instead.”

People at prayer, people standing against the cories, and these men were planning to slaughter them. It was no different from what the Krasians had done, unprovoked, but still the thought sickened Briar.

Egar nodded. “That should be enough time to march, but not if there are enemy troops in the land between. We have to know the way is clear, or I cannot commit my men.”

Alin nodded. “We will need to interrogate Prince Icha more … vigorously.”

Briar flexed his hands, thinking of the screws crushing Icha’s fingers, and suddenly he couldn’t breathe. He coughed, trying to force air into his lungs.

“Are you all right, boy?” Shepherd Alin asked.

“What if he don’t know?” Briar asked. “What if things changed?”

“He’s right,” Egar said. “I won’t commit my men to months-old information. We need to know how many warriors they have in the hamlets now.”

“I can go,” Briar said. Anything to keep that horrible old man from adjusting the screws, playing screams like an instrument. “Know where leaders meet.” He pointed to the maps on the table. “Steal maps.”

Captain Dehlia put a hand on his shoulder. “Briar, that’s too dangerous. We can’t ask you to …”

“Didn’t ask,” Briar said. “I’ll go.”

CHAPTER 25

THE SPY

334 AR WINTER

“They just sit there, watching us.” Jayan paced before the great dockfront window of his command center, previously the lavish office of Dockmaster Isadore. “I wish the cowards would just attack and have done.”

A dozen Laktonian warships stood at anchor halfway between Docktown—now called Everam’s Reservoir—and Lakton, still visible in the light of the setting sun. They might once have been fishing and trade vessels, but all had rock slingers on deck now, with archers stationed on the aft and forecastles.

Worst were the newly built scorpions, based on the Krasian design. With the greenland secrets of fire still largely a mystery, it grated on Abban that the Laktonians had so easily stolen the design.

The ships had held the line for months, guarding an invisible border the Krasians had never approached. But for all their armament, the ships were swift, gliding on the lake winds the way a bird might soar overhead. If they decided to attack, it would be swift. Ships switched out of the formation often, and there was no telling if they were crewed lightly to intimidate, or packed with warriors ready to take the docks and beach by storm.

Other ships came and went from the city on the lake, evacuating the dozens of local fishing villages along the lakeshore and desperately foraging for supplies to replace the lost tithe. Jayan sent his half brothers north and south, slogging through the wetlands with their strange demons to crush the hamlets, but most were deserted by the time Icha and Sharu arrived with their forces.