Chapter 5

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(Six Months Later)

“It was all a waste of time, Quyloc,” Wulf Rome growled, throwing his leather riding gloves on the table. “The rebels were gone by the time I got there. No threats or bribes were enough to get anyone to talk. We never found out who was behind it.” Scowling, Rome leaned on his knuckles on the table, the muscles in his thick arms knotted.

In contrast to Rome, Quyloc was the picture of calm. He sat in a chair on the other side of the table, his elbows on the armrests, hands steepled before him, face expressionless. His white-blond hair was thin and cut short. He wore a fresh green cloak and a green cotton tunic tucked into soft breeches. His sharp-featured face was scrubbed clean, his fingernails precisely trimmed. His voice, when he spoke, was careful and measured, nothing wasted, taut and clean. “You believe it was one or more of the nobility who stirred them up.”

“Of course it was. Who else would it be? Every time I turn around those coyotes are nipping at my hamstrings. I’m sick of it!” The slight breeze through the open window behind Rome did little to dissipate the odors of sweat and horse and leather that emanated from him. The two men were in a small room high up in Bane’s Tower. The window afforded a clear view of palace and grounds down below. Beyond that lay the city of Qarath itself, spread around the high point that the palace and tower stood on.

Quyloc pulled his dagger out and spun it in one hand. “So execute the lot of them. If you don’t know which nobles are behind the troubles, kill them all.”

Rome slumped into a chair, the steam gone from him suddenly. Quyloc wondered if he had ridden here nonstop from Thrikyl. His face was lined with dirt and sweat, his eyes bloodshot. His thick black hair and beard were matted. There was a black smudge high on one cheek, just over the old scar that ran from his cheekbone back to his ear. Quyloc could see him turning these words over in his mind and knew his old companion was thinking that conquering Thrikyl was turning out to be easier than ruling it. The former ruling class of Thrikyl had raised intrigue and political ferment to an art form, and they never stopped finding ways to agitate.

By contrast, Qarath’s nobility was quiet these days, almost docile. Even the most belligerent had to see how rabidly the masses were united behind their new king. He was the Black Wolf, the man who singlehandedly defeated Thrikyl and ended the war. On top of that Rome had made himself even more popular by throwing open the gates of the prison—where so many had been wrongly imprisoned for so long—and the royal granaries—giving away food to every one of the poor who showed up with his hands out. Within a few days of taking power he slashed the oppressive taxes that had done so much to grind the people down and turned over much of the nobility’s lands to the peasants who worked them. That was right about the time he booted the nobles out of the palace and down into the streets where they had to face the same laws and the same justice as the common folk.

It was a vast understatement to say that Rome was popular in Qarath.

Just thinking about it all still made Quyloc’s head hurt. He’d missed out on a great deal of sleep in those first heady months, dealing with the ramifications of Rome’s hasty acts. Nor was it over yet. The royal treasury would be some time recovering from the loss of all the grain supplies, not to mention the pay raises he’d given all the soldiers.

The countryside was chaos, the populace fighting over who got what land. At least they’d finally stopped trying to burn every manor house they could get their hands on. Again and again Quyloc had tried to impress on Rome the importance of consulting with him before making any major decisions, but he hadn’t had much luck. The big man got an idea in his head and he ran with it without stopping to think. That his decisions were almost all wildly popular among a populace too long downtrodden didn’t go far in ameliorating the problems afterwards.

“I don’t like it,” Rome said at last. “My rule is based on law. I won’t execute anyone without proof.”

“Then your problems will continue,” Quyloc said. “And every day that this drags on will embolden others to join the unrest. Give it enough time and eventually you will have full-scale, open rebellion.”

But Rome continued as if he hadn’t heard him. “It’s the sort of thing Rix would have done. It’s not right. I won’t be like him.” As he spoke, Rome drew the black axe that was strapped to his back and laid it on the table between them.

The axe.

The weapon that started it all.

As always, the weapon drew Quyloc’s eye. The haft was carved to look like the body of some unusual creature, with its legs folded in close to its body. On either side of the head was carved a closed eye. The lower part of the cutting edge was split slightly, as if to convey a partially opened mouth.

Whoever had done the carving had been very skilled. The work was meticulous in its detail. There were even tiny scales—or feathers, it was hard to tell—carved into the body.

It wasn’t made of steel. If Quyloc had to guess, he would have said it was made of obsidian, the black volcanic glass that traders from the far south sometimes brought to Qarath. It had the same milky, almost translucent look to it.

But he didn’t think it was obsidian. No weapon made of obsidian could have done what he’d seen that axe do in Thrikyl. No weapon ever made could do what he’d seen that axe do.

Quyloc frowned. He wished he could remember where they found the axe. He remembered fleeing into the Gur al Krin and he remembered the firestorms that forced them to find shelter in that tumble of huge stones. And he remembered crawling out of the Krin, half dead from thirst, Rome carrying the axe.

But in between there was nothing.

Where did they get the axe? What happened to the other soldiers?

It bothered him, not being able to remember. He had a feeling something important had happened during that lost stretch of time, something they should remember. One time, a couple months ago when he and Rome were sitting in this very room late at night, he’d asked Rome about it.

“Do you remember how we got it?” he asked him.

“Of course I remember.” The axe lay on the table before Rome like a slice of night and he was stroking it with his fingertips. “It was…in a cave or something. Buried in the dirt I think.”

“You don’t remember either.”

“Not exactly,” Rome said irritably. He didn’t like to talk about the axe, and for the most part Quyloc never brought it up because he didn’t like to talk about it either. He was afraid if he talked about it his envy and his bitterness would show.

It should have been mine, was the irrational thought that always came to him when he looked at the thing. It was promised to me.

“But what difference does it make?” Rome continued. “It’s here, it got me this kingdom. Beyond that, who cares?”

To which Quyloc had had no answer, no more than he had now. What difference did it make, after all? What mattered was that it did what it did. The rest was details. Except that Quyloc was not a man who could accept things at face value and let them be, like Rome could. Life had taught him all too clearly that no hand was completely open, that nothing was given without a price.

Coming out of his reverie, Quyloc said, “The farmers are complaining again. They don’t like your order to open the royal granaries and distribute the grain to the poor. They say the bottom’s dropped out of the market now, and it’s driving them all to ruin.”

Rome gave him what was almost a sheepish grin. “Is that true?” When Quyloc nodded he went on, “I never thought of that. I just hate to see people hungry while good food goes sitting. You’ll look into it, won’t you, Quyloc? Find a way to keep giving those people that grain and still take care of the farmers’ problems?”

Quyloc couldn’t suppress one irritated sigh. He’d come from the same dirty alleys Rome did. He didn’t like to see people starve either. But this was what Rome always did. He saw a problem, a knot, and instead of stopping to figure out how to untie it, he simply slashed it and went on his way. Then he turned to Quyloc to pick up the pieces. But all Quyloc said was, “Of course I will.”

Rome gave him a relieved look and cracked his knuckles. “Thanks, old friend. You know how I hate all that administrative grackle. Who’d’ve thought being a king could be so dull?” He gave a short, barking laugh. “Well, if that’s all, I think I’ll head down to the barracks and find Lucent. He bet me a pot of ale his nag could beat mine in a race and he lost. I’m going to collect.”

His look grew pained when Quyloc picked up a heavy sheaf of official-looking parchments from the table and dropped them with a meaningful thud. “Did I mention how tired I am? We rode almost straight through.” He’d come into the city with only a handful of men. The rest of the soldiers he’d left Thrikyl with were probably a day behind. It was hard to keep up with Rome once he got moving.

Quyloc’s answer was forestalled by a new presence in the room, as a voice neither man had ever heard before said, “Unfortunately, you men have far bigger problems to deal with than farmers and uprisings.”

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