Darius turned to the sergeant of the guard who was standing off to the side, his face ashen.
“To whom was this embassy sent?” he asked.
The man swallowed and said, “I don’t know. I was merely ordered to meet the ambassador at the Third Delmar Bridge, conduct him safely to Redwood House and then back again. He was there for more than an hour, but who he may have met with is more than I can say.”
Darius’ eyebrows rose. Redwood House was the unofficial town hall of Alston’s Fey, the place where only the highest level meetings were conducted. He had assumed the title of ambassador was simply a shield for some sort of black market dealings with a few of the town’s shadier merchants.
“Redwood House?” blurted a voice behind him, and Darius turned to find Maldonar with the Bishop beside him, both men looking shaken by the battle. “Surely this monster could not have been meeting with officials of the Fey!”
“And who was the goblin here representing?” the Bishop asked slowly.
Frowns all around, the question heavy with danger.
“I’ve known ogres to raid down out of the Mountains of the Winds,” the sergeant said uneasily. “But I’ve never known of goblins this far south, let alone riding in a litter in the full light of day.”
Could the goblin have been sent by Alacon Regnar? wondered Darius uneasily. The thought of rock-goblins allied with the Silver Horde was alarming enough, but coming as an open embassy to one of the governments of the Southlands…! He tried to shake the thought off, reminding himself of the distances involved, the communications that would be needed to arrange such a meeting, the risks to both sides; but who other than the Tyrant of the Northlands could command such an embassy?
“This matter could be of deadly import,” Darius said slowly. He turned to the Bishop. “Has the Church access to any oracle or seer who might give us some hint or insight?”
The Bishop thought and shook his head. “None that could help us in this. Our oracles help a man to look within, not to search beyond himself.”
Darius nodded, but added softly, “Still, we shall need help with this puzzle.”
The Bishop waited a moment and then said, “My Lord Darius, will you not return to the Church and let us tend to your wound? Whatever the answer to this dilemma, you surely will not solve it by bleeding in the street.”
Darius heard the honest concern in the man’s voice, all thoughts of the Inquisition vanishing in the face of this very real danger. He smiled and said, “I should look in at Redwood House to see if I can glean any hint of whom the goblin may have met there.”
“That trail will lead nowhere,” the Bishop predicted. “These traitors will know how to cover their tracks. Come. Come back with us to the Church.”
Darius nodded and smiled, accepting the offer.
Off to the side, a teen-aged boy leaned against a wall and watched the three men go, taking much of the crowd with them.
“So, Glory Man, you pass through barriers of magic as if they were mere cheesecloth,” the figure said in a soft, feminine voice. “And it would seem you have need of an oracle. Perhaps we can find you one.”
CHAPTER 13
The Dead of the Plains
The long line of prisoners trudged grimly through the darkness, men, women, children, all bound with rope, their way lit by dozens of straw-torches held by their Northing captors. The straw-torches (dried grass concentrated and bundled tightly together) smoked and stank horribly, burning out far faster than wood, but they were a common solution to a lack of fuel on the nearly treeless plains.
There were whimpers, curses, and a steady cracking of whips as the guards sought to drive the prisoners on past the point of exhaustion, moving steadily towards the main army still many leagues away. None were allowed to fall, the ropes which bound them together making no allowance for weakness, the faint, the injured, and the dying all carried along by the others; and by the colossal figure at the head of the column.
A huge stone giant led the procession, a terrifying creature dressed in stinking, untreated hides and carrying a great stone club over his shoulder. The lumbering monster was holding the lead of the prisoners’ rope, alternately pulling and dragging the exhausted captives along behind him, hardly noticing the burden as he trudged steadily forward across the plains. The giant’s unflagging pace made it clear that he and his rope would inevitably arrive at his destination, even if he was dragging nothing but corpses in the dirt behind him.
Captain Zarif sat quietly in the grass, his dark clothes blending perfectly with the night, watching with his single eye as that endless procession of pain past by, feeling every aching leg, every blistered and bloody foot. Zarif’s task was to wait until the entire column was within the trap before slipping in and eliminating the guards, leaving the giant and the outlying patrols to Exelar’s men. That, however, was before he had had a close look at that hulking colossus as it marched past.
Never before had the warriors of the plains encountered one of these reclusive mountain creatures, and the monster that had seemed awesome at a distance was overwhelming when only a few yards away. Zarif and Exelar had agreed the giant must be the first target of the ambush, and they had finally decided to bring him down with a hail of arrows, two dozen bowmen firing from close range out of the darkness, the huge target impossible to miss. But staring at the monster now as it passed by in the flickering glare of the straw-torches, Zarif was re-considering.
The creature stood three times the height of a normal man with muscles which seemed chiseled from solid stone, and arrows would be no more than bee stings, serving only to drive him to fury. Zarif had a sudden mental image of the maddened giant turning and stamping on the helpless prisoners, exhausted ants tied to a rope to be squashed beneath those huge stone feet. Like all the peoples of Aragon…Kargos… Nargosia…crushed beneath the Northing colossus…
Zarif found himself slowly rising to his feet, even though the giant was barely past him, only half of the column within the jaws of the carefully laid trap. He was moving casually, drifting towards the procession, matching the slow saunter of the prisoners as he closed in on the guards. At various points around him, other dark shapes had risen to their feet, moving with hardly a whisper, the prairie grass giving up its dead. Somewhere behind them, Zarif knew, a barbarian patrol was marching through the prairie night, guarding this convoy of pain as if it were the most precious commodity in the world, and similar patrols roamed the darkness all around the prisoner line. Exelar would deal with them. The giant had to come first.
The guard he was approaching was too distracted using his whip to pay any heed to the grass around him. It was not until one of the weary, bewildered prisoners paused to stare into the darkness that he turned, an angry frown on his face. By then, it was too late. He barely had time to open his mouth before Zarif’s dagger sliced into his chest and punctured his lung, setting loose the air which would have given voice to his warning. Zarif caught the torch from the lifeless hand and fell right in step with the prisoners.
A cry came from somewhere ahead, followed by a strangled sound from behind, and Zarif knew the rest of his men had not been quite so successful as he. No matter. He turned and used his bloody dagger to cut the rope which held the nearest prisoner, pushing the dagger into the hands of the stunned man. Then he turned to the head of the column.
There were harsh shouts from ahead and behind in the cruel tongue of the Northings, orders and warnings being exchanged, the guards only beginning to realize they were under attack. There was a clash of steel and more cries as the rest of his contingent reached the line without benefit of surprise, but Zarif had no doubt about the outcome. After a long, exhausting march, the Northings would be in no shape to deal with a sudden night attack by a fanatical foe. The true guard of the column was the giant.
The stone giant was turning around, a fierce frown on his face as he only slowly grasped the situation, the pause giving Zarif his chance. As the creature dropped the lead rope and be
gan to ready his club, Zarif lunged forward, his sword slashing against the giant’s kneecap, but the blow hardly penetrated, the wound no more than a scratch on a rock. The giant rounded upon him, but more figures were coming forward, more swords flashing out of the darkness, more scrapings against stone. The monster swung his weapon, the stone club plunging down at terrible speed on a hapless warrior, the blow dissolving the man’s head and upper body into red jam.
Arrows were raining in from out of the darkness, the bowmen finding the range, but as Zarif feared, most of the shafts broke against the stone hide and the rest were mere scratches. The giant swung again, his intended victim trying to leap aside, but the club still smashed into his arm and leg, crushing both. The man screamed in pain, crumpling to the ground, but a monstrous foot rose and fell, and the screams were abruptly silenced.
The others hesitated, stunned by this ferocity, but Zarif charged the giant, heedless of the danger, daring the next blow to be aimed at him. He grasped his saber with both hands, letting his speed give him added power, a strangled cry of hatred escaping his lips as he stormed towards his death. The titan raised his club again, but Zarif was already too close, thrusting upwards with all his might, both hands driving the sword almost half-way into the creature’s belly. The giant let out a deafening roar of pain, and a stone fist flashed down at Zarif, the punch breaking his sword and sending him sprawling back towards the line of prisoners. He looked up to see only a small trickle of green blood dripping from the wound he had risked so much to inflict, the sword-point still far from penetrating anything vital.
The furious monster was turning towards him, bent on vengeance, and another titanic foot was raised, plunging down to squash him as well. Zarif’s hand brushed against something on the ground as he scrambled to his feet, and despite the danger, his mind recognized the prisoner’s rope. In an instant, he threw himself towards the stone foot instead of away, hoping desperately he could slip inside the blow. The foot crashed down, driving deep into the ground, missing Zarif’s legs by the merest fraction. But that gave him his chance. He seized the end of the prisoner’s rope and looped it quickly around the ankle of the embedded foot, holding the end and bracing himself against the back of the giant’s leg.
“Pull, you bastards!” he roared to the line of watching prisoners. “Pull for your lives!”
Some were too stunned to respond, some too weary, but the group closest to the head of the line had been watching the fight fearfully, knowing they would be the victorious giant’s first victims, and they acted quickly now. All together, they pulled on the rope, and as the giant spun to reach Zarif again, his feet became entangled, and he stumbled. The force pulled every one of the prisoners off their feet, but the giant couldn’t overcome the momentum of his turn. He staggered once, and then, with a wild bellow, he fell.
The entire earth trembled from the force of the impact, several of the attacking warriors being knocked down, but Zarif kept his feet, knowing he had only seconds in which to act. He grabbed the sword of one of the slain even as he raced towards the head of the giant, the monster even now struggling to turn over, to begin to rise again. Zarif reached the head just as the monster turned his face towards him, the creature’s expression one of all-consuming hatred, foam seething between teeth the length of a man’s finger. Zarif thrust the sword forward, and either skill or luck guided his blow. The sword struck directly into the giant’s right eye, and this time, Zarif rammed it home to the very hilts.
The entire body jerked upwards, ripping the sword out of his grasp, and the giant rose abruptly as if preparing to leap to his feet. But he got no higher than his knees, both hands raised to clutch the mortal wound, the head twitching once, twice, and then he plummeted back to earth, dead at last.
Zarif stood looking down at the fallen monster, maimed in his own image, wiping the green ichor from the punctured eye off his hands, the stench of the creature filling his nostrils. There were sounds, sounds away from the body of the giant, and Zarif looked up with a puzzled frown to find the prisoners cheering, an oddly thin sound as victory tried to make its way through parched throats.
More cries were coming from the prairie, and Zarif saw dark shapes stumbling through the darkness, many of them vanishing even as he looked. The Northing patrol had turned at the sound of battle and walked directly into a hail of arrows from Exelar’s men. He nodded to himself. When they had seen that their arrows could do nothing against the giant, the bowmen had turned to deal with the advancing patrol.
From behind came another series of cries and shouts, and with a start, Zarif remembered the rear guard, his premature attack meaning they had been left out of the trap. He swung back, suddenly conscious he was without a weapon, expecting to see several dozen Northing warriors rushing forward to engage, but all he saw was a confused mass of humanity. The freed prisoners had roused themselves from their stupor and fallen upon their tormentors as they passed, releasing all the pain and anger they had stored up over the endless march, using the very bonds which held them to swamp and strangle their foes. Within minutes, it was all over.
He looked at the line of people beside him, huddling together, trying to care for each others hurts, weeping with relief or gratitude, trying to understand that they were free again, free of the lash, the rope, and the endless murderous trek. The ambush was successful, the giant slain, the Northings dead or set to flight, and Zarif abruptly found himself facing several hundred living, breathing human beings. He felt a stirring as he looked at these people struggling out from beneath the shadow of death, hope breaking out again on their faces. He turned away.
“Dalkar! Give the signal to bring up the horses!” he ordered. “Melsa! Go to Captain Exelar and ask if any of the Northing patrols escaped! Saramore! Find out how many men we lost!”
There was a general shuffling as people raced to do his bidding, all of them knowing that even larger contingents of the Northing army might appear at any moment. He was interrupted, however, by one of the prisoners, an older man who carried himself with a touch of dignity despite his obvious weariness. His thick, silver hair was in total disarray, and he was dressed in torn rags which clearly had once been fashionable clothes.
“Thank you, Good Sir,” he said haltingly, the formal words helping to give him back some strength. “I thank you in the name of every person here. I am…that is, I was the mayor of the town of Barrock of the Free Lands, and many of these poor wretches are my people. May Mirna bless you for setting us free.”
Zarif looked at him blankly, the words barely registering. Finally he said, “You do not thank the dead, nor do you bless them.”
The mayor flinched slightly. “The dead, you say?” Then he sobered, nodding slowly. “The Dead of the Plains. Of course. Yet even to the dead, we can offer our thanks.”
Zarif felt another faint stirring, an emotion long crushed and forgotten. He pushed it aside.
“We struck not to free you, but to kill Northings,” he said. “Do you think you are so much better off now? Your homes have been torched, your crops seized or burned, and there is yet league upon league of open prairie all around you with the Northings from the other prisoner trains coming in hot and vengeful pursuit. Do you still wish to bless and thank us?”
“At least we shall die a free folk as we were born,” the mayor answered stoutly. “And I shiver to think what fate awaited us at the end of this journey. You say there are other prisoner trains? What doom awaits them, think you?”
Zarif looked down the line of crouching ex-prisoners, wondering what the Northings had seen when they looked at them.
“We are not sure of the enemy’s purpose,” he answered slowly. “But it seems that the Tyrant himself has ordered all prisoners to be marched to the front of the Northing army, and he has sent several stone giants to insure their speedy arrival. Whatever the reason, it is enough that he wishes them there for us to do our best to set them free.”
“Think you he wants us as some kind of hostage?” the may
or asked.
Zarif only shrugged. “Perhaps. I do not doubt that the lords of Castar, Strallia, and Maccabor now chafe and fret beneath the cowardly pact they made with Regnar. They are bound tightly by treaty and enemy garrison, yet I think they would still rise against the invader if their loved ones were not held hostage in Nargost Castle. It is possible that the Tyrant seeks to tie them more securely by the sheer numbers of hostages he holds.”
The hostages. Zarif’s eyes narrowed again as his mind returned to the women and children locked and guarded within Nargost Castle. Then he shrugged, knowing any thoughts in that direction were useless. Nargost Castle was invulnerable to a small band of horsemen, no matter how fanatic they might be.
“We shall at least be one less card in the enemy’s hand, then,” the mayor answered. “And it will take some small tithe of his power to hunt us down again. This time, we shall not be as easy to catch; nor as willing to surrender.”
A wintry smile crossed Zarif’s lips, the first hint of emotion he had shown. He glanced down at the fallen colossus at his feet. “We cannot know how the war goes or what effect, if any, we have upon it. Yet even a giant must fall eventually if pricked by enough pins.” He paused, glancing towards the dark horizon, his eyes for once looking beyond the present. “Your only chance is to head southwest, towards the forest. The Northings may be reluctant to pursue far in that direction, and I doubt if they will dare to enter the wood.”
The mayor smiled in response. “And food and game will be easier to find there. That, then, shall be our goal. Mayhaps we shall draw a drop of blood from this titan as well.”
There were answering smiles from the people around who had overheard, an animation that replaced the hopeless exhaustion of only moments before. Zarif turned away, looking towards the darkness. Victory, freedom, life, hope, all had been achieved here.
But he had not found what he sought.
CHAPTER 14
A Rage in the Heavens (The Paladin Trilogy Book 1) Page 21