It had taken the long wagon train five days to reach the Vingaard River and two more to get all the wagons across. It was fully a week after the fording that the massive column finally drew near to the lofty, snow-peaked mountains of the Garnet Mountains. Dram had sent a scout party, led by his wife, ahead of the main body. As the mountains took shape on the horizon, Sally returned to the caravan to inform him they had located a valley with the requisite characteristics: flat ground in the bottom, plenty of water, and hardwood forests nearby.
“It’s right up there, through that notch in the foothills,” she explained, pointing. Though she had been apart from him for a week, she avoided meeting Dram’s eyes.
“Good,” he replied. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Look, I know this is hard on you-leaving the Vingaards and all. I just want you to know that I’m grateful; I’m glad you’re here.”
“I am here,” was her reply. She left unspoken the truth they both understood: she was a dutiful wife and would follow her husband wherever he needed to go.
“All right!” Dram shouted, urging on the lead wagons. “We’ve got a destination. Let’s roll on up there so we can get to work!”
As befitting Solanthus’s status as a stoutly fortified city, the ducal palace was more like a castle than a grand manor. Situated near the center of the city, it was easy to find, and as the kender and lord marshal emerged from between the Cleft Spires, they made their way directly to the grand structure. Four tall towers rose, one each at the corners of the walled compound, which occupied an entire city block.
The streets themselves were nearly abandoned. The swordsman drew minimal interest from the few passersby, though the citizenry inevitably gave the kender a look of horror and clutched whatever purses and valuables they carried tightly to themselves as they hurried past.
Moptop ran ahead of Jaymes as the two approached the massive gate at the front of the palace. Immediately a pair of guards scrambled from a little hut beside the gate, one taking each of the kender’s arms and lifting him right off the ground.
“Hold it right there, you rascal!” one declared, shaking the little fellow rather more than was strictly necessary.
“Hey! Ow! That hurts!” cried Moptop, squirming fruitlessly in the double clasp.
“He’s with me,” Jaymes said, striding forward. “Let him go.”
“And who in the name of the Abyss are you?” asked the second guard, his hand on the hilt of his sword. When the marshal didn’t slow his approach, the man released the kender and drew his weapon, extending it aggressively.
“Hold it there, stranger,” he said in warning then addressed his companion without shifting his gaze. “Lew, better call out the sergeant major.”
“Do that,” Jaymes replied. “But let the kender go.”
“Who are you, sir?” huffed the mustachioed knight who emerged from the guardhouse a moment later. “What’s the meaning of all this?”
“I’m Lord Marshal Jaymes Markham, commander of the Army of Solamnia. I’m here to see the Duchess Brianna, and this kender is my guide. I ordered him released, and if your man doesn’t comply, I’ll see that he’s not fit to hold so much as a chicken leg when dinner comes around!”
“There, there,” soothed the older guard. “Lew, release the kender. Max, go tell the majordomo that the duchess has a visitor-give him a good description. In the meantime, why don’t we all just calm down and get this sorted out?” He fixed Jaymes with a wary look. “Though, if you’d been around here for a while, you’d know that none of us has had so much as a glimpse of a chicken leg in quite some time.”
Moptop made a great show of wounded dignity in adjusting his topknot and tunic, making sure all his pouches were in order. He stalked back to Jaymes with the air of one who had endured a great insult, but the dignified effect was somewhat ruined when he stuck his tongue out at the scowling Lew.
“You’re the lord marshal, eh?” said the sergeant major, making an elaborate show of spitting a stream of tobacco off to the side. “Don’t have much of a uniform. I suppose that would have been a bit of a distraction, when you rode through the enemy lines, eh? You and your kender guide.”
“I’ll tell my story to the duchess,” Jaymes said easily. He stood a dozen paces away from the guard post, watching as more men appeared atop the palace wall. A door opened off to the side and still more guards hastened out, quickly circling outward to form a ring around the two visitors.
“So did you get a look at the half-giant when you slipped past his tent?” continued the sergeant major, swaggering forward. He had an increasingly skeptical look on his face. “Maybe share a cup o’ tea with him?”
The guards numbered more than a dozen, and all of them regarded the visitors with blatant hostility. Their faces were gaunt and unshaven, and their sunken eyes gleamed with suspicion. The effects of hunger were clearly visible in every face.
“Psst-I don’t think they’re very glad to see you,” Moptop whispered loudly, tugging on the lord marshal’s sleeve. “Maybe we should go back to the Cleft Spires.”
“We’ll stay here until we have a chance to talk to the duchess,” Jaymes replied calmly.
“Maybe she’s got some more important business than talking to a spy,” the guard sneered.
“He’s not a spy! He’s the lord marshal of the whole army, and I’m his professional guide and pathfinder extraordinaire!” the kender declared, bristling. “And we didn’t come through Ankhar’s army-we found a new way to get here! And you just better-hey!”
Moptop squawked in alarm and ducked behind his companion’s legs as a shadow suddenly flashed above them. A large net, a circular web with heavy weights around the fringe, soared from the wall, having been flung at them by a pair of guards. It spun itself taut and dropped toward the two travelers standing outside the palace gates.
In the same instant, Jaymes reached over his shoulder and pulled Giantsmiter from its sheath. Blue flames flashed in the sunlight as he swept the weapon in an arc over his head, neatly slicing the strands of the net as it plummeted. The weights carried the fringes to the ground, but the swordsman and the kender stood, unencumbered, in the middle of the ruined net.
For the first time, the sergeant major’s eyes showed the shadow of respect. He scowled darkly, while several of his men whispered among themselves. “That’s the sword of Lorimar, all right,” one of them said quite audibly. “Mebbe he is who he says.”
Further debate was prevented by the arrival of a woman, a very young woman of striking beauty, dressed in a supple leather skirt that reached to her feet. Hair of coppery red spilled across her shoulders, curling and full. Her face was pale except for the dark circles surrounding her sunken eyes. Her cheeks, neck, and arms had the same slightly gaunt look that was characteristic of everyone in the besieged city, but they were also alight with a glow of warmth, greeting, and something else-hope, perhaps.
“My Lord Marshal,” she said, stepping through the ring of guards to approach and holding out her hand in greeting. Jaymes took it and bowed. “How nice it is to see you here.”
“The honor is mine, Your Grace,” he replied.
“Sergeant Major Higgins,” she said, turning and regarding her guard with slight disapproval. “Perhaps you could help our visitor disentangle himself from the net?”
“But… Your Grace! So you do know this man?” Higgins sputtered. “He’s not from the city-and yet, how could he come through the siege lines?”
“I have never met him-but he looks exactly as Dara Lorimar described. Those eyes! They look like they could stab you from ten paces away. The beard is a nice touch, my lord. It gives a weight of maturity to your countenance.” She turned to the sergeant major, the hint of a smile playing about her lips. “And from what Dara told me about him, years back, I should think that if Jaymes Markham wanted to pass through the lines of a siege, he would be able to figure out a way to do that.”
“I showed him the way!” Moptop proclaimed.
“How very
nice of you,” the duchess said with a dazzling smile. “You must be a splendid guide.”
Moptop beamed in return, and seemed to grow a good two inches.
The city of Solanthus was still intact, Jaymes could see as the duchess led him through the streets toward the western quarter. The buildings were mostly made of stone, and many of them loomed two or three stories high. Their facades were undamaged, their stonework and outer staircases clean and neat. But upon close inspection he saw that many structures had an unfinished look, and this was because wooden porches had been pulled down. Benches were gone, and even unnecessary doors had been removed.
“We burned almost all of our wood during the last winter,” Brianna explained. “Even so, we lost a thousand people-mostly the very old and the very young-to the cold.”
“Your brave stand has been remarkable,” Jaymes acknowledged. “The whole of Solamnia is heartened by your example.” Even to his own ears, the words sounded hollow. How could anyone who was not here understand what these people had been going through?
He noticed, as they passed corrals and stables and small barns, that there were no animals about. They, like the wood, had undoubtedly been consumed during the nearly two years of siege.
“We were faced by a new attack just a few days ago,” Brianna explained as they walked, without ceremony, through the city streets. “It was a being of magic, gigantic in size, terrible in its destructive force.”
“I received word of that,” the lord marshal replied. “A wizard told me-she described the creature as an elemental, a magical composite of fire and water, earth and air.”
“Oh! Did she tell you how we might kill this magical foe?” the duchess asked.
“Not in so many words,” Jaymes said, shaking his head. “That’s one of the reasons I came here; I am helping her search for the answer.”
“Come this way, and I will show you some of the damage it wreaked.”
They passed several knots of defenders, all of whom stood at attention when they saw it was the duchess approaching. The men of her garrison obviously regarded her with affection bordering on awe. They hastened to clear a path for her, lunging to kick pieces of rubble out of her way, following her reverently with their eyes as she walked past them. Despite her beauty, there was nothing of lust in their expressions-rather, they reflected more the adoration a young boy might show for his mother.
Jaymes noted the duchess’s eyes were filled with sorrow, however, as she guided him and Moptop through the city, escorted only by a quartet of palace spearmen who materialized an unobtrusive distance behind them. Word spread, seemingly through the cobblestones themselves, announcing her approach. The people turned out along the whole way, leaning from upper windows, lining the walks beside the narrow streets. They did not cheer, but quietly nodded, bowed, and curtsied as the duchess passed.
These same people regarded Jaymes with frank curiosity and an occasional scowl of apparent hostility.
“They remember the promises of Caergoth and Thelgaard,” Brianna explained apologetically, “and the knights who never appeared here. Very little is known about you, of course, though we have word that your army came north across the Garnet River. But they have had so little cause for hope in this last year.”
“As of now, my army should be crossing the Vingaard. Relieving your city is our objective, but even so it will take days for my armies to close in upon the enemy camp.”
“Until then, of course, we must continue to survive,” said the princess coolly. They came around a corner and saw a whole block of devastated buildings. “Come this way. We’ll climb the wall, and you’ll be able to get a good look.”
They made their way up a narrow stone stairway, quickly ascending to the top of a city wall. The duchess climbed the steps with easy grace. At the top, she gestured to an adjacent area that looked like the desolate ruin of some long-past civilization.
“Just a week ago this was a complete, fortified castle,” Duchess Brianna remarked sadly. “But the fire-giant did all of this damage in less than an hour. More than a hundred men died.”
Jaymes nodded his head. He had seen Garnet after it was sacked and burned by Ankhar’s horde, but this devastation was worse. The rubble contained jutting pieces of broken stone and shattered timbers, but the wreckage was so thorough, he found it hard to imagine that the materials he could identify had once been part of an actual building.
He eyed the duchess, whose faraway look was full of unspoken heartbreak. She was so very young, a year or two past twenty at the most, but she carried herself with impressive dignity and purposefulness. Her leadership, the marshal knew, had inspired the long and stubborn resistance that Solanthus had offered to the besieging army.
“Why did you come?” asked the duchess, turning to him suddenly. “It cannot have been easy to get here-I know about the magic shield raised by the Cleft Spires. And couldn’t you do more to help us by being with your army, and riding at its head?”
Taken aback, Jaymes pondered before replying. “Whatever did this to your city, it’s a force that alters the balance of this war. This battle will be decisive. I needed to see this creature for myself, to formulate some kind of strategy to fight it.”
“What can you, one individual, do?” she demanded then shook her head. “I’m sorry. I know how important it is to keep up hope; it’s the only thing that keeps us going. But how can we muster any optimism in the face of this? ”
She indicated the gap where the gatehouse had been, where the enemy was busy within Jaymes’s view. Under a screen of heavy shields rolled in on carts, dozens of ogres were hauling rocks away. They were building tall, wide barriers to either side, clearly clearing a path for an attack that would smash through the city streets at some point in the near future.
“We showered them with arrows on the first day,” Brianna explained with an edge of bitterness. “But we have only so many arrowheads, though the armorers’ smithies are working day and night to produce all that is necessary. We’ve been melting down pots and pans, shovels and plows. But we can’t maintain a constant barrage.”
“They’re very methodical about it, aren’t they?” Jaymes watched a team of ogres maneuver a shield forward, while a dozen others advanced, picked up the rocks strewn everywhere, and started to heave them to the sides. The rock barrier, as it rose continually higher, gave protection to the ogres, while funneling an attack into the city.
“I suppose this is just one of several routes of advance that are being prepared,” said Jaymes quietly, “and when they are ready, then he will once again release his elemental.”
“And what will happen to us then?”
“I have with me a tool, a magical tool. The wizard thinks it might allow me to understand something vital about this conjured giant. In any event, I think our goal must be to strike at those controlling the elemental. It will be waste of time to attack the elemental itself.”
“A waste of time,” murmured Brianna, frowning.
“But there is cause for hope. Imagine a vicious dog, restrained by chain and collar, clubbed by a brutish master. When freed, that dog can be counted on to turn on its master. Perhaps we can free the elemental to turn on its controllers.”
“My Lord Marshal,” the duchess said, smiling suddenly. As she took his arm her excitement was palpable. “You must tell me more about this vicious-dog strategy. And I’m certain you’re famished and tired. Please, let’s return to my palace-I will provide you and your companion with guest apartments and then ask you to join me for dinner.”
Moptop and Jaymes were shown to private rooms in the palace. The dinner invitation, it seemed clear, did not extend to the kender, and Moptop would have felt slighted if he didn’t feel the tug of more interesting temptations.
“You go ahead and have a boring dinner,” he told Jaymes cheerfully. “I’ve never been in a palace under siege before, and I’m going to have a look around this place.”
“Try to stay out of trouble,” the lord marshal coun
seled, not very optimistically. He took the time to wash some of the dust out of his hair and beard; then he surprised himself by deciding to shave, trimming his whiskers to some semblance of neatness. By the time he was finished, a servant girl had come to escort him to the dining room.
There were several other guests, including two noblemen, Lords Harbor and Martin, and Lord Martin’s son, Sir Maxwell, who was a Solamnic Auxiliary Mage-a Kingfisher. An empty chair had been placed at the table, in memoriam to a brave captain named Cedric Keflar. He had led the valiant but futile defense of the West Gate, paying with his life.
“He left behind three children and a wife who is terribly sick,” Brianna explained sadly. “And yet he did his duty by us all on that terrible day.”
“The Oath and the Measure compelled him, Your Grace,” said Sir Maxwell. “He was an inspiration to all of us who served under him.”
“Tell me,” Jaymes said, turning to the Kingfisher. “Have you found much use for your spells in withstanding this siege?”
The young man nodded seriously. “Not yet. But I have been marshalling my resources, and I have ideas for what may be helpful in the future, my lord.”
“Sir Maxwell has proved an excellent spy,” Brianna said. “He masks himself in all manner of sorcery and has become thoroughly familiar with Ankhar’s camp.”
“That is good,” acknowledged the lord marshal.
“Why is it taking so long for your army to come to our relief?” asked Lord Harbor. “We hear of victory after victory, yet these triumphs are remote to us, and so far as I know, your troops are still on the far side of the Vingaard.”
“Perhaps you don’t know as much as you think you do,” Jaymes replied.
Over a meager meal of bread, dry cheese, and thin soup-all of which was presented on elegant china and eaten with silver utensils-Jaymes shared information about the campaign to date. He outlined the ongoing plan for crossing the Vingaard.
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