Two days passed in silence.
The village down the road lay still as a graveyard. No smoke rose from the chimneys. No war cries echoed from the ruins. It was as if the Burned Men had simply evaporated.
Solomon waited until the third evening. Prudence was his shield, but time was his enemy.
Inside the command tent, he summoned his lieutenants.
"Do you know why they haven't attacked?" Solomon asked softly, turning away from the map.
Lushen and Lauchlan shook their heads. They looked haggard; the waiting was harder than the fighting.
"Because I told you to dip the spear points," Solomon said. "Do you remember the mix? Feces. Rotting entrails. Sugar syrup."
The two men grimaced. They remembered vividly. The soldiers assigned to stir the "soup" had vomited for three days. It was a vile, unholy concoction.
"Why, my lord?" Lauchlan asked, voice trembling. "It seemed... cruel."
Solomon stepped closer, the firelight catching his eyes.
"Because a clean cut heals," he whispered, his voice like the scrape of a knife on bone. "But a dirty cut festers. It swells. It burns. It turns a scratch into a death sentence."
"The Burned Men treat wounds with fire," Solomon continued. "But fire cannot burn out poison that is already in the blood. By now, half of them are likely dead or dying, rotting from the inside out."
Lushen and Lauchlan stared at him, horror dawning on their faces. They looked at their lord—the young boy with the angelic face—and saw something terrifying.
He is not a knight, Lushen realized. He is a plague.
"My lord..." Lushen whispered. "May the Seven forgive us."
"The Seven help those who help themselves," Solomon said, his voice snapping back to normal. He clapped his hands. "Now! Assemble the men. It's time to harvest."
Three hundred men stood in formation. They looked different now. The slouch was gone. Their armor was polished. They held their spears with the easy confidence of men who had seen the enemy bleed.
Solomon walked along the high ground, looking down at them.
They look like soldiers, he thought. Now let's see if they fight like them.
"My soldiers!" Solomon called out.
"Two days ago, you stopped the charge of the Burned Men! You broke their wave upon your rock!"
"And now look! They hide! They cower in their holes like wounded rats! They are afraid of you!"
He didn't mention the poison. He didn't tell them the enemy was dying of dysentery and gangrene. He needed them to believe they were invincible. Confidence was a weapon, and he was sharpening it.
"They came here to rob us!" Solomon shouted, pacing back and forth. "They carry the wealth of a dozen villages! Gold! Silver! Furs! It is all sitting there, waiting for someone to take it!"
He drew his Myrish blade and pointed it at the silent village.
"I promised you wealth! I promised you a future! It is right there!"
"Kill them! Strip them! Let us get rich!"
The reaction was immediate.
"Kill!"
"Gold!"
"Rich!"
The roar was deafening. The men weren't cheering for king or country. They were cheering for the jackpot. Their eyes burned with greed, their breath coming in short, ragged gasps.
Solomon smiled. Perfect.
He raised his hand for silence.
"One last thing!"
He pointed a finger at the crowd.
"Do you remember their leader? The giant with the axe?"
The men nodded. Vok son of Nagga was hard to forget.
"Whoever brings me his head," Solomon announced, "gets a bonus. Twenty silver stags from the loot!"
The crowd gasped. Twenty stags was a fortune.
"And!" Solomon added, raising his voice. "Another twenty stags from my own purse!"
"Forty silver stags for one head!"
"For an arm? Five stags! For a leg? Five stags!"
"Eighty stags total for the man who brings him down piece by piece!"
The formation disintegrated into a frenzy. Men were shaking with excitement. Eighty stags? A man could buy a farm with that. He could buy a wife. He could live like a king in Mirekeep.
"I want that head!" someone screamed.
"It's mine!" another roared.
Tommen gripped his spear until the wood groaned. Forty stags for a head. He looked at the village, his fear completely forgotten.
He didn't see a terrifying barbarian chieftain anymore. He saw a walking bag of money.
Solomon sheathed his sword.
"Go," he whispered to the wind. "Go and collect your pay."