As he passed her he shook his head. "Do I need to make any comments for Desh Krohan as to appropriate attire and timeliness, Majesty?"

She chuckled. "No. I have heard them all. I'll be ready in a few moments, Merros."

She barely tolerated the maids helping her remove the full regalia and ostentatious gown that went with it. When they had finished she smiled her thanks and immediately went over to her closets, sorting quickly through the clothes and throwing down a heavy blouse of white and dark brown riding pants. When the maids started to make noises of shock she shushed them and went about her work getting dressed.

Within five minutes she was back in the hallway and looking at the moderately surprised expression on Merros Dulver's face.

He managed not to say anything, but she could see him thinking it.

"What?" she demanded.

"It's not for me to speak on how the Empress of the Fellein Empire dresses herself."

"You're right, it's not."

"But if I were going to speak on the subject and having seen what your cousin's choices in hair stylings did to the men in the courts, I would point out that remarkably few women in the courts can carry off riding breeches with quite the same level of flair."

She shook her head. "What do you mean?"

"No disrespect meant, of course, Majesty, but have you see the backside on you cousin Danieca? I dread the notion of her trying to squeeze into a similar set of breeches in the name of fashion." His voice was direct and dry and he made it a point to be looking elsewhere when he spoke.

"Oh, by the gods, Merros! You're as bad as Desh!" Her laughter carried down the expansive corridor, momentarily dwarfing the sounds of the score of men walking behind her in perfect unison.

"Speaking of gods, Majesty, I was thinking we might want to have a discussion with a few of the church elders who helped at your coronation."

"Whatever about?"

"Well, mostly I feel if we are dealing with people who look to their gods for answers we should at least consult with the representatives of our own deities."

Nachia considered that and nodded. "What if they don't give the sorts of answers we like?"

Merros let a lazy half-smile flicker across his mouth. "We might want to investigate finding new gods...."

Desh made it into his chambers as quickly as he could, blinking back the bloody tears that burned at his eyes. There had only been seven occasions in his very long life where the spirits of the Sooth came seeking him and each time it was agony. The last time had only been a month or so earlier, and that had ended with a massive eruption and the murder of one of his closest friends.

He was not looking forward to what the spirits might have to say. He wiped the blood from his eyes and staggered over to the dark wooden cabinet where he kept the offerings he made to the Sooth. The stones took weeks to carve just the right way and required energies he could rarely afford to sacrifice. To those who understood their value, the simple stone spheres with their elaborate markings were worth a hundred times their weight in precious gems. To the Sooth they were the only guarantee of getting information without being tortured in the process.

Desh grabbed four of the stones, blinking away crimson tears and heading for the small room off the main chambers he called his home.

The floors of silver, pounded thin and meticulously polished, the walls of oiled iron, the ceiling of deep red liquids best not contemplated too carefully. The chambers never gave him comfort but they gave him something else he needed; a chance to understand what was coming his way. A hint of the future that he needed from time to time.

The meeting place of sorcerer and spirit.

Desh fell across the floor and grunted in pain as he rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling above.

He did not need to speak and so he chose to remain silent. Instead he opened his eyes and looked toward the seething red waves above his head and they flowed toward him and covered him in their unkind embrace.

Sometimes the cost of knowledge is minor, but no sorcerer would ever expect truth to come without pain.

Desh Krohan was not disappointed.

Chapter Seven.

The mountain dwarfed everything Andover had ever seen before. He'd known that for a while now, certainly over the last two days the vast slopes of the black shape had grown to hide away the grit and storms of the Blasted Lands and replace them with their brooding presence. He could no longer guess how high the mountain rose, because the top of it was lost in the clouds.

All his life the largest thing he had ever seen was the city of Tyrne, where he'd been born and raised. The city was immense to be sure, but it was a structure built by man and for the first time in his life he understood that nature could build on a much grander scale.

The cave before them was another example of that scale. The gates of Tyrne were possibly higher at the main entrances to the city, but the Durhallem Pass was a fiery tunnel cut through the entire mountain and looking into it was unsettling. Dark stone lit by streaks of red light that seemed almost to pulse as he looked at it.

Andover's voice sounded small even to his own ears. "Are you sure it's safe?"

Drask stood next to him, his face lit by the reddish hues, his eyes ablaze with that same light. "If you mean will the mountain fall down, it is safe. If you mean will you survive entering the pass, that is up to the followers of Durhallem and the King Tuskandru."

The answer was not at all comforting.

"So what now?"

"We walk." Drask started forward and the other members of their troupe did the same. With no other choice, Andover followed. His hand slid along his side until he felt the haft of his weapon and took comfort from the grip. The Sa'ba Taalor walked with no real change in their demeanor, meaning they remained alert and their bodies moved with the same predatory grace as always. He gave no thought to the way he walked, but might have been surprised to know how much of that same relaxed gait he'd adopted over the last few weeks.

Delil walked next to him and Bromt stepped to the side, his eyes narrowed into slits. He could never tell if the man was angry or merely trying to see something far away when he looked that way, but the appearance was one of great rage barely suppressed, so he kept his distance just to be safe. As he had been struck no less than a thousand times by the man in the last few weeks of travel it seemed a safer way to move about.

Delil spoke and for that briefest instant he was taken aback by the soft voice. The weather in the Blasted Lands, never gentle to begin with, had been storming, and all of them were virtually buried under layers of armor and cloaks. Well, except for Andover. He didn't have any armor. Just a lot of clothes and the gamey hide of a Pra-Moresh. "They will be with us soon, Andover."

"Who?"

"The guards of the pass."

"What will happen?"

Delil turned to look at him and her eyes wandered over his form, assessing his appearance and taking his measure. "They will challenge you."

"Why?"

"You are tiny."

"I'm taller than you!"

"No. At best you are my height but you are tiny. They will challenge you just because it is fun to see you squirm."

Andover nodded his head. So really they were bullies. He had met his fair share of them over the course of the years, hadn't he? Memories of Purb and Menock flashed through his mind; recollections of a dozen times they shoved him around and brought him to the edge of tears because he let them. And then of course, there were his hands....

He remembered the hammer coming down, the pain of flesh and bone exploding under the impact.

He remembered how it felt to return the favor after he had been granted his new hands.

They stepped out of the shadows. He'd been looking but never seen them. The four men were dressed in black armor and sported black weapons. Two carried axes and two more had swords. All of them had bows. The two furthest back, the swordsmen, had their bows readied. The men with the axes stepped forward and rested hands on the handles of their weapons.

Drask called out sharply and the men looked to him. Once again they spoke in whatever hidden language the Sa'ba Taalor shared with themselves and with no others as far as Andover could tell.

The closest guardsmen looked at Andover and came closer, their eyes glowing with the odd and unsettling light that all their kind seemed lit up with inside. One of them came closer and Andover let himself relax as he looked the man over from top to bottom.

None of the Sa'ba Taalor seemed to have uniforms, not as far as Andover could tell. They'd explained their beliefs of weapons and armor alike, that it was best a person make their own, the better to be certain the tools of war were as close to a perfect fit as they could be.

This man was no exception. His armor appeared rough, but Andover immediately understood why. It was designed to imitate the walls of the great cavern they were traveling through. At a distance the stone seemed almost smooth, and in the areas where volcanic glass was lit with the rage of Durhallem it was often closer to smooth, but the stone had been carved by the Sa'ba Taalor after their god Durhallem demanded it. They'd expanded the tunnel the god created until it satisfied him. In the process they had left the marks of their tools and that is what the armor mimicked. It was an impressive level of work.

The axe he carried sported an equally rough looking blade of obsidian. A really very large blade, to be sure, but cut from the black volcanic glass. From what Bromt had explained to him, the followers of Durhallem were occasionally gifted with an offering of obsidian by their god. According to what the man told him the obsidian was harder than steel and considered a great honor.

The man was enormous a which seemed to Andover one of the two sizes of most Sa'ba Taalor men: enormous and gigantic a and carried himself with as much strut and posture as the most offensive of the City Guard back home. Purb would have been proud.

"Why do you come before Durhallem today?" The man's voice was rough, his use of the common tongue was adequate but with a thick accent. Had Andover not grown accustomed to the accents of the Sa'ba Taalor he'd have been at a loss for what the man said.

He answered in the language that the Sa'ba Taalor shared with others, an archaic form of the same language according to Desh Krohan, but different enough that Andover had spent as much time learning it as he had how to fight. "I am here to pay my respects to your gods and to thank them for the gift of my hands."

His voice was much calmer than he'd expected. His eyes looked the man over continuously, reading the man's motions, his stance, and what little he could see of the stranger's face behind the black veil hidden under his black helmet.

The man stared back and was likely doing the exact same thing. And then the guard stepped forward and looked down at him, physically as he was easily a head taller. He switched to the same language that Andover was using. "Why would the gods care about you or your hands?"

Andover sighed and pulled away his gloves, revealing the cold iron of his miraculous limbs. The eyes of the guard looked from the hands to his face and back again, studying carefully.

And when the man's hand reached for his axe, Andover stepped in close and drove his right fist into the guard's throat as hard as he could. It was purely reflex. He did not stop to think if the guard was reaching for a weapon or scratching at an uncomfortable part of his armor, he just stepped in and struck as soon as the man moved.

And as the man gagged and stepped back, he hit him again. There was a part of Andover that was perfectly fine with his actions, but it was a small part, really, barely large enough to notice. The rest of him was horrified. The guard had merely asked him a rough question. That was hardly reason to attack.

And yet his left hand dropped down and caught his enemy's wrist in iron fingers. His hand clamped down on that wrist with all the power he could muster and broke skin, tortured muscles, and crushed bone before the hand reaching for the axe could pull the weapon from his belt and drive that lethal blade through his face.

Andover Lashk used his other hand to strike the guard's jaw savagely and felt bones breaking against both of his iron hands.

And that little part of him roared in triumph as the guard staggered back from the unexpected pain.

The other guard was moving now, heading for him, and his weapon was already drawn as he came closer.

Andover shoved against the guard he was fighting and staggered him backward toward his companion. The first guard was bleeding and broken, the second stepped to the side, moving around his wounded friend.

Andover shrugged a shoulder and his hammer dropped to his waiting hand with practiced ease. As the second guard pushed past his injured companion Andover was already bringing his hammer around from a lowered position, his muscles straining and accepting the demands he made. The grip felt as natural in his hand as if it were part of the same metal. In truth it was, as he'd forged it from the remains of the very iron used to create his amazing hands.

The second of his enemies blocked the punishing blow from his bladed hammer and snarled something in a language Andover did not speak. Still he could understand an insult by the tone used and he stepped in closer, crouching down and pushing toward the man with his weight.

The guard was larger than him and had a longer reach. From any sort of distance the man had an instant advantage. Delil had explained that and Bromt had reinforced it. Drask had listened to their words and watched their actions with barely a change in is expressions, but he nodded his head now as Andover swept the heavy head of his hammer at his enemy's knee instead of using it conventionally. The guard hissed as the heavy weapon slammed into his knee and sent him staggering, trying to keep his balance.

Andover let out a hiss of his own as the axe came up in a hard arc aimed at his face. His free hand caught the edge and he felt the metal surfaces scream across each other. Say what you will and call it a blessing that his hands were metal but he still felt that edge trying to cut and it still hurt enough to make him scream.

His adversary had reach and he had weight advantages, too. Andover saw his arm coming and could do nothing but try to get out of the way as a fist the size of his face smashed into the side of his head. He was not fast enough to get away clean, but he avoided part of the damage. His ear burned and his head rang but he was conscious.

As Andover reared back, trying to shake off the blow, his enemy pushed into him, limping from the blow to his knee but not nearly stopped by it. Andover hissed into the man's face as he pushed back and felt himself sliding across the ground, unable to resist the sheer bulk of his enemy.

He pushed himself in close again and used his left hand to scrape and claw at the man's face, pulling at the veil covering the lower half. Metallic fingers caught cloth and flesh alike and ripped.

The guard howled in pain and pulled back as much as he could in the situation. His face was bloodied and Andover felt wet heat spilling across his iron fingers. There was a certain dark, visceral satisfaction in the man's agony.

Andover hauled his hammer up in a tight grip, letting his hand slide up the long haft before he brought it around. The hammer's uneven head brushed his fingers. Close to his thumb the rounded head pushed down with comfortable familiarity. The heavy blade on the other side of the hammer covered his fingers like a shield and he heard himself screaming as he drove the entire affair up into his enemy's face.

The guard fell back soundlessly, bleeding from the great gash Andover's hammer opened across his nose and his mouth alike. Whatever the veil had hidden was ruined beyond his ability to identify any features. Teeth and blood alike slopped over his hand.

He was horrified by his actions, but that little voice that was so pleased to be in a fight was crowing with joy now.

No time for that.

The first guard came at him again, and this time he was better prepared. The axe blade skidded down the length of Andover's hammer and then took a slice out of his outer thigh, just above his knee.

The pain was impossible to ignore but, despite that fact, Andover had no choice. If he took the time to think about the pain he would be a dead man. The same rules applied as had before, the man was larger and had a better reach. Up close and personal was the only chance he had of surviving this.

The hammer was tight in his hand and he stepped in closely and used the blade of his weapon, ramming the wetted edge into his enemy's armored stomach with all the force he could muster. It was a small wound that got past the armor, but it was a starting point, and as the man grunted and tried to get away, Andover bent his knees and dropped a bit lower, then lifted with both legs forcing the hammer's head into the wound with all of his body's weight.

The axe caught in the heavy hide of the Pra-Moresh and was lifted and brought down one time, twice and third time, each blow smashing into Andover's bound ribs with crushing force.

Andover used his free hand and sought to catch his enemy's wrist, but failed. His close quarters tactic was working, but not completely. The axe wasn't getting through his thick cloak but each impact was agony. He either finished this quickly or he was going to die.

The hammer's blade was still pushed into the man's torso and warmth slicked his fingers. He pulled the hammer free from the wound and let it drop down and felt the heavy weight sink down into his enemy's thigh, the blade cutting through muscle and sinew and catching on bone.

The guard only grunted and stepped back, pulling his axe free from the hide that had impeded it. The obsidian blade whipped back and the guard went with it, dropping into a defensive posture.

Andover stepped back and felt a grin pull at his lips. "You've lost. Yield." The wound in the man's stomach was moderately worrisome. He would heal from it in time, barring infection. But the hammer had cut deep into his leg and a heavy flow of blood poured down his trembling, weakened calf. He would bleed out very soon.

The man shook his head and spat.

Andover could not believe that any sane person would continue to fight until the words Delil and Drask had both used a hundred times rang in his mind: Durhallem does not believe in mercy and neither do those who follow him. The guard brought his axe around and let loose a bellow that shook the walls of the pass. Despite his readiness, Andover flinched and then did his best to block the blow.

The axe's blade screeched along the iron rings wrapped around the hammer's haft and carved into the wood of the handle. It stopped against his iron fingers and caused a bark of pain. Andover let the hammer drop and rammed the palm of his hand into the guard's face, felt bones crack and bleed under the veil and watched the man's head snap back at the impact.

The other hand he used to block the axe again. And then he stepped back as the guard tried to come for him and fell to one knee, his leg giving out. Andover did not let himself think. His foot caught the handle of the hammer and he hooked it upward, catching with his right hand.

Then he brought the hammer up over his head and brought it down with all of his might. His enemy looked on, trying to bring his weapon up to defend himself, but failing as the axe fell from blood-starved fingers.

The helmet on the guard's head let out one loud clang as the hammer crushed it into a new shape and the man fell forward, dead.

Andover looked over the dead men and reached for his hammer. Two more. Two more and he might have a chance of surviving the fight long enough to meet up with Tusk.

King Tuskandru. The man whose guards he had just killed. No. Only one. The second guard's face was a bloody pulp, but he was still alive. He still breathed.