The Black Shriving (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 2) (45 page)

Maur sat still, staring at him. Tharok held her gaze for as long as he could, and then dropped it.

What a relief! He felt light, hollowed out, as if the Sky Father himself could pass through his body. But beyond that was a growing sense of shame. It was as if every kragh was staring at him through Maur's eyes, staring through the web of lies and manipulation that he had wrought without thinking once about right or wrong.

"That explains it," she said at last. "At Porloc's feast you were like a brute, drunk and ignorant, just another kragh amongst the hundreds celebrating his claiming of World Breaker. But then I saw you put on that metal band. You changed. Became... more than you are. That explains it all." She shook her head. "To think that all this time you have been manipulating us. No, worse. Manipulating yourself."

Tharok took a deep breath, trying to settle himself. "It's over now. I've put it aside. Golden Crow showed me that it was leading me down the wrong path. That it was convincing me to use that human's power over others when such power would have been more wrong than I can express. Did you know that that human, Gregory, is going to one day become – never mind. I should have killed him when I had the chance. But it's over."

"Not while you still own the circlet," said Maur. "While you still own it, you have the choice of putting it back on."

"I won't," said Tharok, his voice suddenly heavy, vicious. "It's done me nothing but harm."

"Not true," said Maur. "It saved your life up in the Valley of the Dead. It made you warlord when Wrok would have made you a slave. It has brought you to this point."

Tharok shook his head, trying to understand his own feelings. "True, but that was all. There is a darkness to it. Ogri wore that band. It must have used him as it was using me to acquire power. To unite the tribes. But Golden Crow said that Ogri's spirit was lost as a result, and I would have lost my own as a result of its power. The decisions it was convincing me to make, forcing me to make, by making those choices seem to be the best. Ogri became the greatest kragh we have ever known. But at what cost?"

Maur pursed her lips around the nubs of her tusks. "What are you going to do?"

Tharok grinned at her then, the expression apparently so unexpected that Maur's brows rose. "I may be but a simple kragh, but I have managed to find my own solution. I haven't worn the circlet all this time. Once, while we were in Porloc's city of Gold, I took it off and got drunk. I ended up buying Nok's freedom, and he's about as close to personal clan as I have. And that human woman – I don't know why I freed her. Pity, perhaps. But, Maur, the knowledge in her head! In that small, delicate skull of hers is the knowledge that could set humans fighting humans. She knows secrets that will make the empire's slaves rise up against their masters. With that distraction, they won't be able to fight us off. With this information, I can win through the Grand Convocation."

"Humans fighting humans? But what of their religion?" Maur's frown deepened. "They all obey their leaders for fear of their souls."

Tharok opened his mouth in quick rejoinder and then closed it again. He hadn't thought of that. "I will speak of this with Nok. He knows their religion well. If we can but understand how to twist the knife, then the humans will fight each other and never see us coming. All we need do is show the other kragh that Abythos will be ours for the taking, and I'm sure they will flock to me as if I had brought a hundred trolls to our side."

Maur rubbed at her jaw. "Perhaps. Even more so because I can't think of any other option." She paused. "What do you think of her? This human woman?"

"Think of her?" Tharok blinked. "How do you mean?"

"Her hair is very fine, like spun moonlight. Her skin looks very smooth."

Tharok laughed. "She is like a bird's nest, so frail that a touch might break her bones. She reminds me more of a sickly child than anything else." He paused then, and canted his head to one side, eyeing Maur, who turned to look away. "No," he continued, his voice growing deeper, quieter. "There is nothing about her that makes me think of her as a true woman."

Maur growled and rose to her feet. "Enough."

Tharok grinned and stood as well. "How long have you been without a mate, wise woman?"

Her punch, thrown from the hips with all the power of her legs behind it, caught him across the jaw, snapped his head around, wrenched at the thick muscles of his neck. He staggered, blinking away the tears, and righted himself with the help of the rock on which he had been sitting. Maur was glaring at him, and that caused him to grin wider, putting one hand to his jaw.

"Too long, it seems," he said. She growled again and stepped forward, fists raised, and he put up his hands. "Enough. I've a mind to survive the night."

"Then see to it that you stop speaking nonsense, idiot. I am the leader of the wise women, and you are a fool who has been led by the nose to where you stand today."

Tharok's grin slipped from his face, and he narrowed his eyes. "I have learned from my mistakes."

Maur wasn't intimidated. "Have you? Then give me the circlet. I'll hold it for you until you decide what to do with it."

Tharok hesitated. Give her the circlet? Even though he was no longer wearing it, knowing it was in his pack gave him comfort. He still had access to the answers it held, the clarity it gave him. And why was she asking for it? Did she wish to use it herself? He studied her face, met her scathing slate-colored gaze, and then he sighed. If anybody could be trusted with it, it was Maur. She would rather gut herself than lose control of her own mind.

"Fine," he said, dragging the word out. "I'll collect it. Wait here."

He entered the hut, ignoring Nok and Shaya, and moved to his pack, where he dug free the small chest. With his back to them, he took the key from his belt and unlocked the chain, then opened the lid to gaze upon the ugly iron loop. He raised his hand to run a finger about its length, to trace its circular shape, and then hesitated. It had brought him so far...

His sudden impulse to touch it alarmed him, and it seemed to him then like a snake in the grass, a dangerous, poisonous thing. He snapped the lid shut. Best it was gone.

Turning, he saw that Nok and Shaya were watching him. They were seated on a worn goatskin, a board between them on the squares of which little stones had been placed. Shaya looked away, but Nok held his gaze.

"What?" asked Tharok.

"Nothing," said Nok. "Just wondering what you're going to do with that thing."

"What business is it of yours?"

"Only that I follow your commands."

"And?"

"Those commands might change if you wear it."

Tharok exhaled powerfully. "So, you know."

Nok shrugged his massive shoulders. "I've had an idea. I have been watching you closely since you freed me. It's hard not to notice the difference."

"How many others know?"

"That, I can't tell you."

Tharok looked down at the small chest. "I'm giving it to Maur for safekeeping."

Nok nodded. "Good."

"Good?"

Nok shrugged again and looked back down at the board. He frowned for a moment before he reached out and carefully took up a black stone between his talons and moved it forward. "Good," he said again, and looked up with a wry smile. "I like you better when you are yourself."

Tharok couldn't help but smile. "Of the two of me, I am the most charming."

Shaya snorted, and when Tharok raised a brow she looked down at the board quickly, trying to control her smile. Good, Tharok thought. She was regaining her spirit.

"Play with your stones. I have to go run the whole tribe with my charm."

He stepped outside, the wooden chest under his arm, and saw Toad speaking with Maur.

"Look, don't get angry at me," said Toad, still panting as if he had been running. "Nakrok told me to bring a message to you."

"Since when do you serve Nakrok?" asked Tharok.

"I don't. But he wanted to get word to you, and I offered to bring it myself rather than escorting Crokuk kragh all the way here. He says he needs to talk to you. Secret news has reached him about the Tragon. Everything has changed. He urgently invites you to his fire to exchange words."

Tharok hesitated. The urge to put on the circlet became overpowering. What was he missing? What did this mean? The circlet would tell him. Would show him what to do. Instead, Tharok handed the chest to Maur and shuddered as it left his grasp.

"Very well," he said to Toad. "The hour grows late. Best we resolve this now. I'll summon Nok. Lead on, little Toad. Take me to the Crokuk."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Toad led Tharok, Maur and Nok down from the warlord's hut and through the Red River tribe, past small, smoky fires, the dancing flames illuminating the lowered faces and outstretched hands. Past the goatskin huts, the heavy frame packs, then the group of mountain goats tied up at the outskirts of the camp. Tharok saw Golden Crow by the central fire, speaking to a group of children who were listening with fear to whatever tale he was telling, and to the side a group of kragh warriors watching a ceremonial duel between two young warriors. Rabo, Tharok saw, was judging the outcome.

The stars scintillated in the heavens above. Tharok spent a moment looking at them, then paused to gaze back at his tribe. Nok and Maur paused alongside him, with only Toad going on a few feet before he caught on and stopped.

"One day," said Tharok, more to himself than to the others, "the number of campfires gathered together will rival the stars. This truly is but the beginning. And you were all here. You were all a part of the process." It felt as if the circlet were whispering from the corner of his mind – a ghost of its ambition, an echo of its visions of conquest. "When the Grand Convocation is summoned and the highland tribes unite, then will the storm break and the traditional patterns of history will be broken as well."

Tharok shook his head, dispelling the thoughts and feelings that were washing over him, and turned to the others. "Come. To the Crokuk. I have other matters to take care of tonight. I hope Nakrok will be quick."

Toad led them into the Crokuk camp. The fires there were smaller and much more numerous, small sparks of dull orange and yellow that were contained in little pits of wood. Crokuk soldiers looked up at them as they passed, slight and wiry as large children, and Tharok was struck by the memory of the Tragon he had killed – their small bodies falling to his arcing arrows, their faces as he struck them down in the depths of his fiery rage. He gazed upon the faces that turned up from the evening business of dinner and conversation to regard him, and it seemed as if he were seeing the Tragon assassins once more, repeated over and over again, staring up at him from the depths of the Valley of the Dead.

Unnerved, Tharok shook himself and strode faster, overtaking Toad and forcing the smaller kragh to quicken his pace to keep abreast. The darkness seemed a palpable thing, giving way before Tharok as he marched forward, thrusting his way through its body as he approached the central fire. He wasn't overly superstitious, but he felt a chill pass through him regardless due to his macabre turn of thought.

The central Crokuk fire was composed of five small fires that burned in a ring, so that the assembled Crokuk kragh could sit in a large circle around it as they spoke, some fifteen of them in all. Each was wearing expensive armor, tailored to their limbs and bodies, painted black with the Crokuk tribal crest in garish yellow over the breast and back plate. Nakrok was sitting on a boulder that had been dragged to the fire's edge to serve as his seat, and a thick and sumptuous cloak was wrapped around his wiry frame, as black and lustrous as the depths of the night itself between the stars.

Conversation ceased as Tharok entered their firelight. Eyes snapped to him, and mouths curved in pleased smiles. Nakrok sat upright, and those kragh seated immediately before Tharok rose to their feet and moved aside, making room so that he could face the fires and the seated Crokuk directly.

"You have asked for my presence," Tharok said gravely. "And I have come. Let it not be said that the Red River fear invitations from our allies."

"No," said Nakrok. "That won't be said. Though I am surprised you came with so few. A woman and your pet beast. Is that all you bring when entering possible danger?"