Padric continued to stare at the gates. “This is your mummery, goblin. Pull the strings and let’s have done. The lady is chilled to the bone.”

“Aye,” Torcan leered. “She does look…cold.”

Padric did not respond, but turned so that he blocked the goblin’s appraising view.

“I have a gift for you,” Torcan said mildly and gestured.

Slouch Hat came up to the chariot flanked by Red Caps bearing torches. The husk carried a banner before him, a crowned skull wreathed in flame worked upon the rippling cloth.

“A husk is a rare slave,” Torcan pronounced.

Padric merely nodded. The Swinehelm could use Slouch Hat for this fraudulent posturing all he wanted. It only served to bring Padric closer to his allies. The proud bearing the husk adopted with the banner in hand made Padric wonder if he had not somehow maneuvered himself into this position. The husk was frightfully clever and displayed a cunning that was nothing short of deadly. Exactly who that cunning would lead to death was still a question.

A man appeared atop the battlements and Torcan waved his axe over his head. The man yelled something down into the city and there came a grinding squeal from behind the gates before they slowly began to swing open. Torcan and his retinue made for the entrance, followed by Slouch Hat. The goblin driving the chariot gave the pair of black horses a snap of the whip, sending the chariot forward in a start. Padric lurched backward and had to quickly grasp the side of the carriage to keep from spilling off the back. Svala’s feet remained steady. He laughed bitterly in his throat. Let the conquered people of Black Pool see what a buffoon Torcan meant to enthrone. The air grew colder as they passed through the yawning stone tunnel of the gatehouse and it was Padric’s turn to shiver.

Before them, the dark cobblestones of a wide street ran between rows of aged structures. Padric was relieved to see that no crowd of beleaguered citizens had been assembled to greet them; no blank and desperate faces staring at him with fear and hatred. Only the Middangearders were present, spaced along every few hundred paces, spears and shields held carelessly. Padric heard the clanging tramp of the Red Caps marching through the gate behind him. It was a force of more than two thousand armed goblins, many of them veterans of countless wars over hundreds of years, and as their foot stomps banged into the cobbles, they announced undeniably that Black Pool now belonged to them.