The savage’s large ears shifted subtly—no doubt tracking his warriors’ movements by their sound. All had fallen quiet behind Maddek. Waiting for his signal.
A signal would not come. He’d given an order that as long as the savages remained on this side of the river, the alliance soldiers and Parsathean warriors were not to kill them except in defense of their own lives. Maddek cared not if the Farians overran the territory south of the Lave, from the Bone Fields to the Salt Sea. He would leave them in peace. Yet if they crossed the Lave, they would die.
Many did die. But this one hadn’t lifted its blade toward Maddek, so it would not.
Slowly Maddek backed away, gaze never leaving the crouching savage. His mare nickered softly behind him. Eyes still on the Farian, he swung up into his saddle.
Kelir laughed at him as they rode toward the bridge. “Now you wait for that savage to attack our camp?”
Poking at him with the same words Maddek had said to the young soldier. Maddek grinned, for despite Kelir’s teasing, he knew that the warrior would have made the same choice. Perhaps the savage would cross the river with intention of raping and killing every human it encountered. But Maddek would not kill even a Farian for what it had not yet done.
If the savage crossed the river, however—then Maddek would tear its head from its shoulders.
His attention was caught by the mounted figure watching them from the opposite end of the bridge. Enox, his first captain—who ought to have been at camp, sleeping in her furs after a night spent along the river.
Silver beads glinted in her dark braids as she cast him a dour look. “A thousand warriors you have at your command. Could you have not sent them to kill that beast instead of taking it upon your own head?”
Never would Maddek send warriors into a battle he was not also willing to fight. Nor would Enox. If Maddek had not been upon the Lave this morning, it would have been she who led that charge and felled the maddened siva. “Warriors accompanied me across the bridge,” he pointed out. “It is no fault of mine if my mount was fleeter than theirs.”
Her snort echoed Kelir’s. Yet she had not come to reprimand him, Maddek knew.
Drawing his mare alongside hers, he asked, “What brings you?”
“Dagoneh has arrived with a company of Tolehi soldiers,” she said, reining her horse back toward camp. “And a message for you from the alliance council.”
Maddek frowned and urged his mare to keep pace. “What message?”
“He would not give it to me, but is waiting to speak with you.”
Unease slithered through his gut. Not many years ago, he’d delivered a message from the alliance council, too.
Maddek had assumed command at the Lave eight years past. In the six years following, not once had Maddek journeyed home to the Burning Plains, until his parents had requested from the council a three-year leave, so that they might find him a bride and see him married. In his absence, Iova of Rugus had assumed command of the alliance army. Before even three seasons had passed, however, the alliance council bade Maddek to return to the river with a message for Iova—the Rugusian king was dead—and to resume command while that realm’s affairs were sorted. Iova was to have returned when all was settled. Yet despite the passing of a winter, she had not.
Now the alliance council sent another message, and Dagoneh would not tell Enox what it was? That could not bode well.
Yet Kelir’s mind had taken a happier route. “Perhaps they have finally found you a bride.”
His parents. Though Maddek had returned to the Lave, a bride for him they’d still intended to find—one who might strengthen ties between Parsathe and the five realms that made up the alliance. A royal daughter, or a noblewoman.
Very likely a woman like Iova, who was not only a fine soldier but also aunt to the dead Rugusian king. If Iova had been younger, or if she’d had a daughter, Maddek suspected that he would already be married.
For all that it would be a marriage designed to strengthen the alliance, however, never would his parents choose a bride unsuited to him. Though finding a warrior among the noble houses might prove too difficult a task, no doubt she would be honest, never lying or speaking with sly tongue, for she would become Maddek’s closest advisor. If from Toleh, then she would