The Last Warrior. Susan Grant

with hands upturned, helpless.

      Soldiers, here. It had never happened before. Superstitious beliefs kept Tassagons from venturing inside Kurel Town, an overcrowded but orderly warren of row houses and shops. Most were certain they’d fall victim to the wizardry and charlatanry that allegedly occurred inside the walls, and left them alone. Both peoples had shared the capital peacefully, until King Xim had ascended to the throne. A few short months after being crowned, his deep distrust of her people was culminating in this: soldiers inside the ghetto.

      At the gates, a crowd had gathered. Between the bodies, she caught glimpses of bright blue-and-white military uniforms, but no sign of her mother’s shining blond curls or the tall, lean frame of her father, his long auburn hair always neatly tied at the back of his neck.

      She knew now what she’d find. She knew.

      “Beth, no. Don’t go closer.” Some tried to hold her back, but she broke free. No stopping her from her destination. A gut-deep dark knowledge of what she’d find had taken over many streets ago, driving her through the crowd to a scene she could not absorb, let alone believe.

      Her boots scraped to a halt over the gravel in the road. For a moment the world went silent. Then a steady sound like a metronome arose as she took in the sight of her mother lying on her back in a pool of blood, her limbs flung crazily.

      Like a discarded rag doll, stuck in paint. In those seconds, Elsabeth was oddly detached as she turned her disbelieving eyes to her father, who lay on his stomach, two arrows in his back, his outstretched arms forever frozen in the act of leaping to shield his wife from the arrow that had lodged in her throat.

      The metronome was her heartbeat, and it surged in volume and speed until it was drowned out by a howl of unimaginable grief.

      Hers.

      “They’re dead,” the others were telling her, hands stroking, holding, trying to soothe what was utterly inconsolable. “Dead…”

      The loss was incomprehensible—not only to her but to all in the ghetto. Her mother and father’s blazing personalities had eclipsed all who encountered them, including their own daughter. She’d grown up in their shadows, content with her place there, assisting by logging supplies and organizing shelves, working for hours. Tucked away in the hushed peace of the medical storage room, she’d wondered how two people whom everyone noticed could have had a child as invisible as she, whose only adventures were confined to the storybooks she read.

      And now they were gone, taken suddenly and brutally, leaving her reeling in a world she’d never imagined facing on her own.

      Beside the burning bonfires of their funeral pyres, she rocked on her knees, weeping. King Xim had done this, a madman sitting on a throne. The memory of his soldiers’ uniforms danced like flames behind her eyes. Could the wearing of those uniforms legitimize crimes committed in the king’s name? Never. She’d not let the slaughter of her parents be forgotten. She’d not let their deaths be in vain.

      She stared into the blaze until the searing heat dried her tears and cauterized her grief. Then she lifted her gaze, following the trail of glowing ashes skyward, her parents’ final journey. She, too, was reborn, finding new purpose in a vow forged by the heat of their funeral pyres.

      By the holy arks of Uhrth, if it took her the rest of her life, she’d see the king responsible for the deaths of her parents and for violence against a peaceful people removed from the throne. Xim and all his cronies banished, forever and ever.

      CHAPTER ONE

      THROUGH A SPYGLASS, General Uhr-Tao peered at a row of lookout towers whose sentries surely were looking back at him. The spires of the palace they protected glowed like newly forged spearheads in the glare of two suns. Four full cycles had passed since he’d last ridden inside those massive fortified walls to attend the wedding of his sister to the man who was now king. Then, he’d been in the company of only a few horsemen. Today, it was the thousands he’d earned the right to lead.

      Though well defended, the eastern walls were not as thick or tall as the other three. He’d plan his breech there. Once inside, his army would overwhelm the home guard. The gates would open, and the city would fall.

      But of course, none of that would be necessary. Tao lowered the spyglass, holding it to his chest. Satisfaction filled him knowing he’d never have to fight such a battle, and he reveled in it, realizing he could finally put away the mental trappings of war.

      The spyglass went back in his saddlebag, perhaps for good. Even at this distance he could smell the city. Scents of incense and roasting meat mixed with the dust churned up by the men and beasts surrounding him. He breathed deep, remembering. Then, faintly, above the grinding and clanking of his army, shrill horns of welcome pierced the air, signaling the opening of the gates.

      Home.

      All told, he’d spent more than half his life away in the Hinterlands, battling the Gorr, going out on his first campaign before he’d shaved his first whisker. He’d never dreamed he’d see this day, his triumphant return home for good; he’d never allowed the fantasy of it to tempt him for fear it would have distracted him with hope in the face of impossible odds. But here he was, in one piece, all his limbs attached and working, a fate he owed as much to being in the right place at the right time as he did to blood and sweat. Or, he well knew, to not being in the wrong place as so many others were.

      Thank you, Tao thought as the moment hit him, for sparing my life when so many others perished.

      Uhrth rest their souls.

      Then, a slow smile as he lifted his head. “Gentlemen!” he belted out. Blinding sunlight struck his helmet and leather armor as he raised a gloved fist high. “Today, we will bask in glory. Our victory, our peace. Final, decisive, hard-won. This is the last march of the last war, and we are the last warriors!”

      The men’s whoops and howls made his heart pump with joy. Their grins blazed beneath the shadows of countless helmets. Tao laughed out loud as Chiron pranced and blew, sensing the fever of celebration, long overdue. It had been a grueling slog from the blood-soaked killing fields of the Hinterlands, the days dusty and monotonous and the nights interrupted by tortured dreams. Not all battle scars were visible. Survival, however sweet, came with a cost.

      Along the way, the army’s depleted state had left them vulnerable to not only roving bands of Gorr stragglers but to the Sea Scourge as well. Burned in his mind was the memory of the Scourge’s shadowy ships mirroring the progress of his army across the southernmost land-bridge. Part human, part Gorr, the treacherous pirates were the offspring of humans who’d mated with the “Furs”—by choice or by force, no one knew. Human at first glance, they were said to have inherited Gorish eyes capable of charming a man’s soul right out of his body, if he was careless enough to stare.

      Sea Scourge pirates kept the waters off-limits. This time, however, they’d stood down and let the Tassagons pass. Did they fear him, or did they approve of what he’d done to the Gorr? Perhaps it was a little of both.

      Even after entering human territory, Tao had been forced to keep up his guard. The Riders of the sweeping central plains considered the grasslands theirs. They saw nothing wrong with stealing horses and leaving a careless Tassagon without boots or a mount on the open plains.

      And then, there were the Kurel. The people living in self-imposed exile in the Barrier Peaks had allowed his army to use the passes through their mountainous home, saving many weeks of travel, yet they’d never once lifted a hand—and certainly never a weapon—to help stave off the Gorr. Not since their scientist ancestors in the days of the Old Colony had caused the near extinction of human civilization. Not scientists. Sorcerers. Dabblers in the banned dark arts of science and technology. Many emigrated to the capital to live, serving his countrymen through teaching, tallying figures and writing, the tedious chores Tassagons either didn’t want to do or couldn’t do for themselves. But, they wouldn’t join the army. Conscientious objectors? More like cowardly freeloaders. The Kurel accepted the benefits of the peace Tassagons won without being willing to pay. What did they want for that sham? A halo,