of a man with a face of gold. These were the six, dangerous as they may be, who brought life. The seventh was misshapen and black. Upon its head sat a crown of thorns and about its chest was woven a breastplate made from the bones of a thousand animals.
Who really served Regret? There were rumors of men and women who bound themselves to him. Was the creature that killed the harvest master in the village of Plum one such? Or did Regret work in more subtle ways, coming to you smiling and with an open hand so that you served him and never once thought you were doing anything but standing in the light? Argoth thought of his past before he found the Order. He had been a servant of Regret, even though he didn’t know it at the time. Bless the Six, the Order had found him.
At the base of Temple Hill a light moved along a dark street. It passed behind a number of dark homes. Then it reappeared on the fortress road. Whoever held the torch rode a horse and was accompanied by other men.
A half minute more and Hogan rode into the torchlight at the base of the gate road. Beside Hogan sat one of the barbican watchmen. The man called out his name and rank. “We have delivered Hogan, Bowmaster of the Koramites.”
“He’s mine,” Argoth called down. “Dismount, Bowmaster. Then proceed.”
Argoth descended the stairs from the top of the barbican. Before he reached the bottom, he overheard the guards below.
“What’s the warlord doing letting that thing among us? Who can tell which of them is part of the Sleth nest?”
Then someone must have heard him because the conversation fell silent. Argoth walked into the main passageway and then out to the front of the barbican to stand with the five guards standing posted there. Hogan’s escort had departed back to the city barracks, so Hogan walked the ramp alone.
Argoth could have ignored the guard’s earlier comments, but he chose not to. “Do you know what I love about that Koramite?”
“Zu?” said the most senior of the guards.
“Not his might, nor the many Bone Face kills to his name, but his loyalty.”
“Yes, Captain,” said the guard.
“Mark him,” said Argoth. “I would rather have that one loyal Koramite at my side than a whole company of backbiters.”
“Yes, Captain,” said the guard. “Of course.”
Argoth walked with Hogan out of the barbican and onto a wooden drawbridge that led over the dry moat and to the first gate of the fortress. The gate stood open before them like the dark maw of a giant beast, the raised portcullis a sharp row of teeth.
A set of guards with mastiffs stood just inside that mouth out of sight, waiting and watching for an enemy who might be able to slip by all the outer defenses.
On the drawbridge, away from the guards, Hogan ran his fingers through his beard braids and said, “I will hate to lose this tree.”
The Order patterned itself after an aspen tree. Aspens sent runners under the ground that would shoot up saplings, which in turn would grow and send out runners of their own. A grove of aspens could cover acres and acres, and yet, they were not separate trees. They were all connected to one another at the root. And so it was with the Order. Each area where the Order was established had a Root, a trio of leadership, that governed the tree and branches that might grow in that area. Hogan was the chief Root here, Argoth the second. Matiga, the Creek Widow, was the third.
Of course, the guards wouldn’t call the grove an “order.” To them all combinations of people such as Argoth and Hogan were nests, tangles, or murders. For some combinations those were appropriate terms. But not for those of the Order. Nevertheless, the guards would be horrified to know that a Root of the Grove of Hismayas was about to walk right past them.
A tree might be felled by Seekers, but unless they pulled up the whole grove, the Roots would grow another tree somewhere else, and another and another, until the Order filled the earth. Of course, some trees had to be culled to protect the grove.
“Did you contact Matiga?”
“I did,” said Hogan. “She is prepared.”
In each conflict, the Order took great precautions to make sure the full trio of leaders could never be found together at