The Conqueror's Shadow (12 page)

He learned, as well, that his captor had sharper ears than Corvis had given him credit for.

“You might as well relax,” the fellow said in the gruff tone of a man who loved his pipe. “It's a long journey back east, and it's not going to get any more comfortable for you.”

He turned as he spoke, and the sight of his unshaven cheeks and heavy-lidded eyes punched through Corvis's remaining haze like a ballista. Images of that morning flickered back into memory … The man leaping out at him from where he'd lain concealed in a shallow culvert … Corvis drawing his own weapon in a desperate parry … His attacker's blade, covered in foreign runes, shearing
clean through
Corvis's sword as though it were made of so much bread crust …

And all had gone black, until he woke tied atop this horse. Corvis knew full well that he should be dead now, had his attacker wished it. The man must have struck with the flat of his astounding sword.

“Who are you?” Corvis asked, startled at how gruff his own voice sounded.

“Evislan Kade. Perhaps you've heard of me.”

The prisoner swallowed once. “Perhaps” indeed! Corvis took a moment, running mental eyes over the list of enemies he'd made in recent years. (It was, though certainly far smaller than the list he would one day accumulate at the head of a mercenary army, already growing uncomfortably large.)

Still … “I can't possibly be worth enough to interest someone like you,” he protested.

“You'd be surprised,” Kade told him. “As it happens, Colonel Nessarn's family is more than a little rich, and more than a little perturbed at what you did to him. Now be a good little bounty and shut up for a while, or you'll spend the rest of the journey gagged.”

And for four laborious days—days in which Corvis spent all but a few moments tied either to a horse or a tree—that was the extent of their conversation. They traveled along game trails and forest paths, never drawing anywhere near the main highways.
Corvis was tired, hungry, and sore, and he was certain that he was nothing but one large bruise from his knees to his hips. Still, he struggled to remain alert, ever watchful for even the smallest opportunity …

It came in the late morning of that fourth day, as Kade dragged his “bounty” off the horse for an all-too-infrequent rest break. Brusquely he shoved Corvis into a stand of bushes in order to answer nature's various demands, and Corvis nearly gasped aloud as a clump of thorns gouged rivulets of blood from the skin of his left hand. And then, instead, he smiled, and snapped off the largest of those thorns between his fingers.

It wasn't much of a tool, but it was more than Kade expected.

When evening fell, and the bounty hunter moved toward the horse to truss his captive up against a tree for the night, Corvis had managed to pick and tear through only about half the individual strands that made up the rope about his hands. It would have to be enough.

A desperate yank against the weakened bonds shredded the flesh of his wrists, but the coils gave way with a vicious snap. Corvis twisted low in the saddle, one hand dropping to the pommel of Kade's sword even as he drove the other forearm into the bridge of his captor's nose. Kade staggered back, blood flowing from both nostrils, and Corvis straightened, the hunter's sword in his hand, ready to bring the flat down against the horse's flank …

And froze, mesmerized, for the weapon was
moving
beneath his fingers. Runes danced along the edge of the blade, and as they passed it was a blade no longer, but the haft of a much heavier weapon. What had been the sword of Evislan Kade was now a terrible war-axe, just barely small enough to wield in a single hand.

Somewhere, in a part of Corvis's mind normally accessible only in his deepest nightmares, a voice uttered a single word.

“Sunder.”

Kade lunged, and Corvis—scarcely taking his eyes off the magnificent, malevolent weapon—threw a punch that landed on
an already broken nose. Even as the bounty hunter crumpled to the dirt, Corvis reached down with the axe, slit the bonds around his feet, and kicked the horse into motion.

And still he did not look around him, did not look where he was going, but had eyes only for the prize in his fist. He knew what it was, of course, knew well the legends of the Kholben Shiar, the demon-forged blades.
For
a weapon of such power to simply fall into his hands so easily, it seemed almost a sign from the gods themselves.

Corvis Rebaine moved deeper into the woods, his mind awhirl with thoughts of chance and power, and a growing sense of destiny.

THE SUN BEAT DOWN
hot as ever, but here, in the foothills of the Cadriest Mountains, was some measure of relief. The range cast its long and jagged shadow over the hills and valleys below, a curtain against the worst of the sun's wrath. Within that shadow, thick green grasses covered the earth and animals roamed the valleys, feasting upon those grasses—or upon one another.

Not a bad place to live, if one didn't mind a distinct lack of human company. For one trying specifically to
avoid
such company, it was paradise.

In a wide valley nestled between two unusually tall foothills stood a house. Well, perhaps “house” was a bit generous: It was a single large room surrounded by four crude but sturdy walls. Within lay a pallet of furs atop a pile of hay, to serve as a bed, and a slab of tree to form a chair or table.

The room's only truly notable feature hung on the inside wall, closest to the door: a suit of partial armor, consisting of thick leathers and crude metal plates, accompanied by a long spear with a jagged blade and a single-edged straight sword that grew thicker near the tip. The sword and armor both wore the layers of dust that accumulate through years of neglect, but the spear showed signs of more recent use.

Behind the house was a simple wooden pen containing a flock of
sheep and a small herd of fat pigs, and only their bleats and cries broke the stillness of the valley.

The entire scene was utterly pastoral—at first. Only when one of the woolly sheep wandered near the house, munching idly on grass or bleating mindlessly at the passing clouds, would any observer acquire an accurate sense of scale. The house, and everything in it, was built to accommodate a figure more than twice the height of an average man.

Standing on his front porch, little more than a few heavy wooden planks laid flat upon the ground, Davro held a hand to shade his eye from the sun and gazed contentedly at the lands around him.

Although dressed in a simple, nondescript tunic and leggings, he was an impressive figure. Large even for an ogre, Davro towered a full thirteen feet over his surroundings—almost fourteen, if one counted the length of curved horn jutting from his forehead above his single central eye. His skin was a flushed, angry red, and thick brown nails grew from the tips of his fingers, which numbered only four on each hand. Two small tusks protruded from his lower jaw, nestled within a mouthful of large and painfully sharp teeth.

Davro, one of the finest warriors of his tribe, had been expected to become the tribe's next chieftain. Just as soon as he and his brethren returned from fighting alongside the armies of the human, Corvis Rebaine.

His present lifestyle, one he'd lived for many years, would have deeply shamed the other warriors of his tribe. They would, in fact, have been forced by their own code of honor to kill their favored son.

But none of them knew. And considering how far the ogres dwelled from the Cadriest Mountains, Davro saw no reason they ever should.

A series of snorts from behind the house, concurrent with the sound of a large snout rooting about in the trough, reminded him it was just about time to slop the hogs. He turned from his contemplation of what he considered “his” valley, preparing to wander back through the house …

And spun back abruptly as a sudden hint of movement caught his eye. Was he imagining things? Had one of the sheep somehow slipped the pen?

No. No rogue livestock, this; the figure resolved itself into the shape of a man leading a horse. He must have spent a great deal of time picking the smoothest, easiest routes in order to have gotten a mount so far into the foothills.

The ogre hadn't set eye on another sentient creature in years, and he wasn't inclined to start inviting guests to lunch now. With a bit of luck, the man was smart enough to let himself be frightened away; and if not, there were other, less equivocal options.

He stepped quickly into his house, pulling his great spear from the wall. The weapon had seen little use over the years, having functioned only to protect its owner's herds from mountain lions or the occasional far-ranging wolves. But it was sturdy as ever, kept well sharpened, and ready as it had ever been to drink the life of two-legged prey.

Davro fixed his face in the most vicious, tusk-bearing expression of mindless rage he could manage, a look that once sent many experienced warriors fleeing in terror. With an earsplitting bellow he knew would carry across the valley, he raised the spear over his head and charged across the springy grass, his long legs devouring the distance with startling speed.

The man's horse reared in fright and tried to bolt, but the human held tightly to the reins, speaking calmly to the terrified animal. By the time Davro drew near, the creature was sufficiently calm that it was unlikely to try to break away, though its eyes rolled about in its head and its breath came in heavy gasps.

The human, however, merely raised an eyebrow at Davro's charge. Not only had he not fled in mortal terror, he showed no real reaction at all.

This man
, Davro decided,
must be a lunatic. No honor in killing a lunatic. I'll give him one more shot
.

“Leave this place!” the ogre snarled, his voice deep and rasping, his words slurred slightly by a mouth not meant for the speech of man. “You are not wanted here, human! If you stay, you are dinner!”

“So theatrical, Davro?” the human asked, the corner of his mouth quirking upward in a tiny smile. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

Davro slowly lowered his spear, growing ever more confused, and
peered down at the stranger. “Friend? I don't think I know you, human …”

“Sure you do. Besides, you wouldn't eat me anyway. You told me once you hate the way humans taste. That's why you always left the cleanup to your lieutenants.”

Recognition began to dawn. The man's face and build were not familiar, but … that voice. He knew the voice, even if he couldn't quite place it.

The ogre tensed, spear half raised, as the man reached for the saddlebags on his horse. But rather than grab the large axe, the human dug inside the bag and removed what appeared to be a skull. His brow furrowed in puzzlement, Davro only barely reacted quickly enough to catch it as the human tossed it toward him.

“Perhaps this will jog your memory, Davro.”

Davro stared at the skull—no, not truly a skull, a
helm
—that had landed in the palm of his hand. His eye widened, his breath catching in his throat. Ever so slowly, he felt his fingers slacken of their own accord, and he heard, seemingly from a great distance, the sound of his spear striking the ground.

“Lord Rebaine …”

“SO YOU'RE
NOT
TRYING
to conquer Imphallion?” Davro asked for perhaps the fourth time. The ogre, it seemed, was having some trouble with the concept.

They sat comfortably inside Davro's house, the ogre perched upon the stump, Corvis on the thick mattress that smelled repulsively of untanned hides. Each held before him a mug of broth, Corvis having supplied his own mug from his traveling gear. He'd insisted on letting the ogre take a moment to get over his shock before he'd explained his purpose in coming here, even told him to take a minute to feed the pigs, who were by then squealing angrily at the delay in their dinner.

And then he'd told Davro an abbreviated version of the tale: his escape from the basement of the Hall of Meeting in Denathere, his years with Tyannon, and, most important, the attack on Mellorin.