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  “Sir—”

  Thomas walked to the wall, where several robes hung. He stripped off his own.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m becoming a servant. Their robes aren’t as light as the warriors’.”

  William followed suit. They pulled on the new robes and stuffed the old under the servant’s blanket. They would need those again.

  “Wait here. I’m going find out more.”

  “What? I can’t—”

  “Wait here! Do nothing. Stay alive. If I’m not back in half an hour, then find me. If you can’t find me, get back to the camp.”

  “Sir—”

  “No questions, William.”

  He straightened his robe, pulled the hood over his head, and walked from the room.

  THE TENTS were really one large tent after all. Nothing less than a portable castle. Purple and red drapes hung on most walls, and dyed carpets ran across the ground. Bronze statues of winged serpents with ruby eyes seemed to occupy every corner. Otherwise, the halls were deserted.

  Thomas walked like a Scab in the direction the servant had shown him. The only sign of life came from a steady murmur of discussion that grew as he approached Qurong’s quarters.

  Thomas entered the hall leading to the royal chambers and stopped.

  A single carpet bearing a black image of the serpentine Shataiki bat whom they worshiped filled the wall. To his left, a heavy turquoise curtain separated him from the voices. To his right, another curtain cloaked silence.

  Thomas ignored the thumping of his heart and moved to the right. He eased the cloth aside, found the room empty, and slipped in.

  A long mat set with bronze goblets and a tall chalice sat in the center of what could only be Qurong’s dining room. What Thomas called furniture was sparse among the Desert Dwellers—they lacked the wood—but their ingenuity was evident. Large stuffed cushions, each emblazoned with the serpentine crest, sat around the mat. At the room’s four corners, flames licked the still air, casting light on no less than twenty swords and sickles and clubs and every conceivable Horde weapon, all of which hung from the far wall.

  A large reed barrel stood in the corner to his right. He hurried over and peered in. Stagnant desert water. The water ran near the surface in pockets where the Desert Dwellers grew their wheat and dug their shallow wells. It was no wonder they preferred to drink it mixed with wheat and fermented as wine or beer.

  He wasn’t here to drink their putrid water.

  Thomas checked the hall and found it clear. He was halfway through the entryway when the drape into the opposite room moved.

  He retreated and eased the flap down.

  “A drink, general?”

  “Why not?”

  Thomas ran for the only cover the room offered. The barrel. He slid behind, dropped to his knees, and held his breath.

  The flap opened. Whooshed closed.

  “A good day, sir. A good day indeed.”

  “And it’s only beginning.”

  Beer splashed from the chalice into a goblet. Then another. Thomas eased as far into the shadow as he dared without touching the tent wall.

  “To my most honored general,” a smooth voice said. No one but Qurong would refer to any general as my general.

  “Martyn, general of generals.”

  Qurong and Martyn! Bronze struck bronze. They drank.

  “To our supreme ruler, who will soon rule over all the forests,” the general said.

  The goblets clinked again.

  Thomas let the air escape his lungs and breathed carefully. He slipped his hand under his cloak and touched the dagger. Now! He should take them both now; it wouldn’t be an impossible task. In three steps he could reach them and send them both to Hades.

  “I tell you, the brilliance of the plan is in its boldness,” Qurong said. “They may suspect, but with our forces at their doorstep, they will be forced to believe. We’ll speak about peace and they will listen because they must. By the time we work the betrayal with him, it will be too late.”

  What was this? A thread of sweat leaked down Thomas’s neck. He moved his head for a glimpse of the men. Qurong wore a white robe without a hood. A large bronze pendant of the Shataiki hung from his neck. But it was the man’s head that held Thomas’s attention. Unlike most of the Horde, he wore his hair long, matted and rolled in dreadlocks. And his face looked oddly familiar.

  Thomas shook off the feeling.

  The general wore a hooded robe with a black sash. His back was turned.

  “Here’s to peace then,” Martyn said.

  Qurong chuckled. “Yes, of course. Peace.”

  They drank again.

  Qurong dropped his goblet and let out a satisfied sigh. “It is late and I think the pleasure of my wife beckons me. Round the inner council at daybreak. Not a word to the rest, my friend. Not a word.”

  The general dipped his head. “Good evening.”

  Qurong turned to go.

  Thomas forced his hand to still. A betrayal? He could kill them both now, but doing so might raise the alarm. He would never get to the Books. And Qurong might assume that their plan had been overheard. He and William could just as easily slit the leader’s throat as he slept later.

  Qurong drew aside the drape and was gone.

  But the general remained. Imagine, taking out Martyn! It was almost worth the risk of discovery.

  The general coughed, set his goblet down with care, and turned to leave. It was in his turning that he must have seen something, because he suddenly stopped and looked toward Thomas’s corner.

  Silence gripped the room. Thomas closed his hand around the dagger. If killing Martyn ruined their plans, then doing so took priority over the Books. They could always—

  “Hello?”

  Thomas held still.

  The general took two steps toward the barrel and stopped.

  Now, Thomas! Now!

  No, not now. There was still a chance the general would turn away. Taking the man from the side or back would reduce his chances of crying out.

  For a long moment, neither moved. The general sighed and turned around.

  Thomas rose and hurled the dagger in one smooth motion. If the mighty general even heard the whoosh of the knife, he showed no sign of it. The blade flashed in rotation, once, twice, then buried itself in the base of the man’s neck, severing his spinal cord before the man had time to react.

  Like a sack of rocks cut loose from the rafters, the man collapsed.

  Thomas reached him in three long strides and covered the general’s mouth with his hand. But the man wouldn’t be raising any alarm.

  Thomas jerked his knife out and wiped the blood on his robe. A trickle of blood ran down the man’s neck. One, two spots on the floor.

  Thomas hauled the man to the barrel, hoisted him up, and eased him into the water. Their mighty general would be discovered drowned in a barrel of water like a common criminal.

  Thomas found William where he’d left him, standing in the corner, barely visible from the doorway.

  “Well?”

  “We have to wait. Their fearless leader is with his wife,” Thomas said.

  “You found the bedchamber?”

  “I think so. But like I said, he’s busy. We’ll give him some time.”

  “We don’t have time! The sun will be rising.”

  “We have time. Their mighty general, Martyn, on the other hand, does not have time. If I’m not mistaken, I just killed him.”

  THEIR WAIT lasted less than thirty minutes. Either Qurong’s allusion to his wife was for the benefit of his general, or he’d forgone pleasure for the sake of sleep; no sound other than a soft steady snore reached Thomas’s ears when he and William listened at what they assumed to be Qurong’s bedchamber.

  Thomas pulled back the drape and peered into the room. A single torch lit what looked like a reception room. One guard sat in the corner, head hung between his legs.

  Thomas lifted a finger to his lips and pointe
d at the guard. William nodded.

  Thomas tiptoed to a curtain on the opposite end of the room, eyes on the guard. William hurried to the guard. A dull thump and the Scab sagged, unconscious. With any luck, the guard would never confess to being overpowered by intruders. He was a guard after all, not a servant, and guards who let thieves sneak up on their Great One surely deserved to be drowned in a barrel.

  Thomas peeled back the curtain. The bedchamber. Complete with one fearless leader spread out, facedown, snoring on a thick bed of pillows. His wife lay curled next to him.

  They entered the bedchamber, closed the flap, and let their eyes adjust. A dull glow from both the adjacent hall and the reception room behind them reached past the thin walls.

  If the servant girl hadn’t misled them, Qurong kept the Books of Histories in the chamber behind his bed. Thomas saw the drape. Even in the dim light Thomas could see the cords of metal woven into the walls all around the bedroom. Qurong clearly had gone to great lengths to keep anyone from slicing their way in.

  Thomas eased across the room, dagger drawn. He resisted a terrible impulse to slit the leader’s throat where he lay next to his wife. First the Books. If there were no Books, he might need Qurong to lead him to them. If they found the Books, he would kill the leader on the way out.

  He reached an unsteady hand out and pulled the drape aside.

  Open.

  Thomas slipped in, followed by William.

  The room was small, dim. Musty. Tall bronze candlesticks stood on the floor in a semicircle, unlit. Above them on the wall, a large, forged serpentine bat. And beneath the bat, surrounded by the candlesticks, two trunks.

  Thomas’s heart could hardly beat any harder, but somehow it managed exactly that. The trunks were the kind the Horde commonly used to carry valuables—tightly thatched reed, hardened with mortar. But these trunks were banded by bronze straps. And the lids were each stamped with the Shataiki crest.

  If the Books were in these two trunks, the Desert Dwellers had embraced them as part of their own evolving religion. The Books had come from Elyon long before the Shataiki had been released to destroy the land. And yet Qurong was blending these two icons, which stood in unequivocal contrast with each other. It was like putting Teeleh next to a gift from Elyon and saying that they were the same.

  It was the deception of Teeleh himself, Thomas thought. Teeleh had always wanted to be Elyon, and now he would make sure that in the minds of these Scabs, he was. He would claim history. History was his. He was the Creator.

  Blasphemy.

  Thomas knelt on one knee, put his fingers under the lid’s lip, and pulled up. It refused to budge.

  William was already running his thumb along the lip. “Here,” he whispered. Leather ties bound rings on both the lid and the trunk.

  He quickly sawed at the leather. It parted with a soft snap. They glanced at each other, held stares for a moment. Still nothing but soft snoring from the leader’s chamber.

  They pulled up on the lid together. It parted from the trunk with a soft scrape.

  The problem with being caught in this room was that there was only one way out. There would be no quick escape through a cut in the wall. In essence they were in their own small prison.

  They tilted the lid toward the rear together, and as soon as the leading edge cleared the trunk, Thomas knew they had struck gold.

  Books.

  He lifted quickly. Too quickly. The lid slipped from Thomas’s fingers and thumped to the floor. It struck one of the candlesticks, which teetered and started to fall.

  Thomas dove for the bronze pole. Caught it. They froze. The snores continued. They set the lid down, sweating profusely now.

  The Books of Histories were leather bound. Very, very old. They were smaller than he’d imagined, roughly an inch thick and maybe nine inches long. He estimated there were fifty in this trunk alone.

  He lowered his hand and smudged the thin layer of dust that covered one of the Books. Clearly they hadn’t been read in a long time. No surprise there; he wondered if any of the Horde could even read. Even among the Forest People, only a few still read. The oral traditions sufficed for the most part.

  The book came up heavy for its size. Its title was embossed in corroded foil of some kind: The Stories of History. He opened the cover. An intricate cursive script crossed the page. And the next. The same writing from his dreams. English.

  Plain English. Yet the daughter of Qurong had said the Books were indecipherable. So the Horde couldn’t read then. Unless there was something unique about these books.

  He set the book down and lifted another. Same title. Down in the trunk all the other Books he could see bore the same inscription, although some had subtitles as well. He lay the book he held on the floor.

  “It’s them.” William barely whispered.

  Thomas nodded. It was most definitely them, and there were many. Too many for Thomas and William to take.

  He motioned to the other trunk. They cut the leather thong and pried its lid clear. It too was full of books. They eased the lid back down.

  “We’ll have to come back,” Thomas whispered.

  “They’ll know we were here! You killed Martyn.”

  Not necessarily. That could be the work of a disgruntled soldier, Thomas thought. On the other hand, they had cut the leather fasteners on the trunks. They would need to be retied.

  They could take a few with them, perhaps one that made reference to—

  Qurong coughed in the adjoining room.

  He froze. There was simply no time to rummage through the trunks now. They would have to come back with more help and haul them off whole.

  Sounds of stirring from the bedroom sent Thomas into action. He motioned with his hands and William quickly understood. It took them longer than Thomas hoped working in silence, but finally both lids were secure. He snatched up the single book he’d withdrawn and stood to examine the trunks. Good enough.

  They waited for a long stretch of silence, then slipped past Qurong, ignoring the impulse to finish him. Only after he had the Books. He couldn’t risk a full-scale lockdown on the camp due to Qurong’s death. With any luck at all, no one would know the bedchamber had been violated. They stole back to the servant’s quarters, switched back into the cloaks they’d worn, and squeezed through the cut in the canvas wall.

  “Remember, walk slowly,” Thomas said.

  “I’m not sure I could walk fast. My skin is killing me.”

  The Horde slumbered. If anyone even saw the two on their midnight walk through the middle of camp, they didn’t show themselves. Twenty minutes later Thomas and William left the tents behind them and hurried out into the dark desert.

  THEN WE go now!” Mikil said. “We have an hour before the sun will rise. And if they’re sleeping, what does it matter if our skin has or hasn’t changed? I say we go in and kill the lot of them!”

  “Let me wash first,” William said, standing. “I’d rather take a sword across my belly than put up with this cursed disease.”

  Thomas looked at his lieutenant. Neither of them had washed yet—the possibility of returning before the sun rose had delayed their decision.

  “Wash,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  William marched to his horse, stripped off his garments, hurled them to one side with a muttered curse, and began to splash water on his chest. He winced as the water touched his skin—after only two days the disease wasn’t advanced enough for water to cause undue pain, but he clearly felt it.

  “We’re losing time, Thomas,” Mikil said. “If we’re going to go, we have to go now.”

  She was still furious at having been left out. Thomas could see it in her eyes. She still couldn’t understand why they hadn’t just slit Qurong’s throat while he lay sleeping.

  He lifted the book they’d retrieved and opened the cover once again. The first page was blank. The second page was blank.

  The entire book, blank!

  Not a single mark on any
of its pages. How could this be? The first book he’d picked up had writing, but this one, the one he hadn’t looked in, was empty.

  They had to get the other books. Mikil wanted to kill Qurong, but they couldn’t do that until they knew more. And until they had both trunks.

  He slapped the book closed. “It’s too risky. We’ll wait and go in tomorrow night.”

  “You can’t last until tomorrow night!” Mikil said. “Another day and you’ll lose your mind to the disease. I don’t like this, not at all.”

  “Then I’ll bathe and go in tomorrow with the ash, like you. We can’t rush into this. The opportunity may never come again. How often does Qurong come so close to our forests? And this plan of his troubles me. We have to think! By the accounts from the Southern Forest, Martyn was courting peace. It may be in our best interests to play along with this plan of theirs without letting on that we know.” He stood and walked toward his horse. “There are too many questions. We wait until tomorrow night.”

  “What if they move tomorrow? And the Gathering is in three days—we can’t stay out here forever.”

  “Then we follow them. The Gathering will wait. Enough!”

  A horse snorted in the night. Not one of their horses.

  Thomas instinctively dropped and rolled.

  “Thomas?”

  He pushed himself to one knee. Rachelle?

  “Thomas!”

  She rode into camp, slipped from her horse, and ran to him.

  “Thomas, thank Elyon!”

  RACHELLE KNEW it was Thomas, but his condition stopped her halfway across the sand. Even in the dark she could see he was covered by what looked like gray ash, and his eyes were pale, nearly white. She’d seen the rot, of course. It wasn’t uncommon for members of the tribe to gray when they delayed bathing for one reason or another. She’d even felt the onset of the disease a few times herself.