by Dragon Lance
There was a matching trail on the other side of the creek. The riders had come from the east. As no organized bodies of imperial troops occupied the region, the horsemen must have been nomads. Kiya had to warn Casberry their enemies were near.
Then a remarkable thing happened. The sky was a clear blue, dotted with only a few small, puffy white clouds, but a thunderclap of considerable strength suddenly rolled over the woodland. The sound was strong enough to frighten a flock of birds into taking wing and cause Kiya’s pony to shy.
At the spot where Kiya had watered her horse were four of Casberry’s Householders. A human and a kender were filling waterskins. Another kender stood waist-deep in the stream searching (he said) for gold; a second human was staring nervously at the sky. All had heard the thunderclap.
Kiya sent the nervous human jogging off to warn the queen of nomads in the area. She sent the other Householders back to the column. All went except the gold prospector. That kender, his large ears protruding like window shutters, turned his head slowly from side to side.
“I hear horses,” he announced.
Kiya drew her sword. Before she could ask where the sound was coming from, a gust of wind rushed through the trees, causing her horse to shy again, and three riders burst from the trees on the western bank.
The three were nomads, dressed in buckskins and woven twig armor. They were bent low over their mounts’ necks, horses galloping hard. Two swung wide and rode around the sword-wielding Dom-shu woman without even pausing.
Startled by this tactic, Kiya concentrated on the remaining fellow. His horse reared when she slashed at him. She missed the man but cut his reins, and he toppled backward into the water. In the blink of an eye, his horse was gone, galloping after the other two.
Jumping from her horse, Kiya pressed her saber to the fallen nomad’s throat.
He threw up his hands and cried, “Save me!” With a terrified glance not at his conqueror, but at the shore from whence he’d come, he added, “We were attacked by fell magic!”
She dragged the gibbering man back to her companions, put him in the care of two kender from the Household Guard, then told the queen what had happened.
Casberry, clad in a brilliant, pink-and-gold striped shirt, squinted down at the prisoner from the extra height afforded her by the Royal Conveyance. In response to her high-pitched, imperious demand, the nomad told his tale.
The nomad and his comrades from the Skyhorse tribe had been foraging when they came upon a stone blockhouse by the Juramona road. These blockhouses, dotting the roads at regular intervals, were meant to serve as havens for imperial couriers. The Skyhorse men knew such couriers carried fine weapons and gold. The door was bolted from the inside, so they surrounded the blockhouse and yelled at its occupants to surrender. No one answered.
Undeterred, the nomads were gathering kindling so they could burn the wooden door when a clap of thunder sounded from the clear sky. The four of their number nearest the door were knocked flat by the blast. The others tried to come to their aid, but the windfall kindling they’d been collecting suddenly leaped into the air and hurled itself at them. When stones loosened themselves from the ground and joined the barrage, the nomads fled.
“Your Majesty, we should investigate,” Kiya said. “Someone important may be inside this blockhouse.” Only the rich or the noble could afford to have a mage in such a place.
Casberry tapped a long, bony finger against her yellow teeth. The map of fine lines on her wizened face lifted. “Might be a reward in it,” she mused. “I’ll go myself. Pick up your feet, Front and Back!”
The nomad captive was left to six Hyloans, who wrestled the prisoner to the ground. He flailed his arms and legs, but several kender sat on him as others tore off his clothes. Howling curses, the nomad promised terrible retribution for any violence done to him. The kender ignored him. When he was stripped to the skin and pinned to the ground on his back, a pot of red paint was produced, along with several brushes. The kender proceeded to paint the man red from head to toe.
When they were done, they released him. He rolled quickly to his feet.
“Is that it?” He laughed nervously. “Is that all?”
Kiya suppressed a shudder. “It’s enough. Look.”
The nomad peered at his reflection in the creek. The red paint, together with his pale blond hair, made him look like some insane wraith. Splashing water on himself, he quickly discovered the paint would not come off. He scrubbed himself with handfuls of sand, but the result was same.
This was the punishment known in Hylo as the “Judgment of the True Skin,” usually inflicted on kender who refused to leave home and wander as royal law prescribed. The paint was said to be permanent, but knowing how the little people exaggerated, Kiya reckoned it would probably wear off in a few days or weeks. Still, it was not an experience she cared to have. Anyone the nomad encountered would flee in horror at the sight of him, if they didn’t slay him as a monster first.
The man had begun to draw blood with his vigorous scrubbing, and he continued to scream at them all. Kiya pointed her sword at him and told him to go. To emphasize her words, the kender began tossing mud from the creekbank at the painted man.
“You’re crazy!” the nomad shrieked, backing away. “All of you – you’re crazy!”
“Crazy as kender,” Kiya agreed.
Defeated, humiliated, he scrambled up the opposite shore and crashed away through the underbrush. They could measure the naked man’s progress by the curses that echoed through the trees every time he encountered a thorny obstacle.
Casberry’s army meanwhile straggled onward through the woods. The slender trees finally thinned, revealing the imperial road from Caergoth to Hylo, called by many the Plucked Path. It had been built by ogre slaves, who literally tore trees out of the ground with their hands. Not a paved road like the Ackal Path, its surface was dirt, layered with crushed seashells brought all the way from the Gulf of Ergoth.
Before her mount broke through the trees onto the road, the Dom-shu woman heard loud voices ahead. She tapped heels to her pony’s sides, wondering what new insanity she was about to experience.
Casberry’s bearers stood in the center of the road. The kender queen was leaning forward in her chair, shaking a finger at a gray granite blockhouse and demanding its occupant come out. Around her chair gathered the humans and kender of her Household Guard. Royal Loyals lolled in the greenery on either side of the path.
The blockhouse was a massive structure, two stories high, with a flat roof and arrow slits for windows. The only entrance faced the road and was a squat door of dark oak, strapped with bronze plates. A scattering of broken kindling, and the tracks left by nomad horses supported the story told them by the painted man.
Kiya rode closer to the door and hallooed loudly. A faint stirring sounded from within.
“Are you Ergothian?” she called. “Don’t be afraid! We go to join the army of Lord Tolandruth, camped at Juramona!”
More sounds of movement within, but no response. Kiya dismounted. The door was inset within the large blocks. She glanced at the motley bunch at her back and added, “This is the army of Queen Casberry, of Hylo. They’ve come as allies of the empire.”
Go away!
Flinching, Kiya backed up a step. The whispery, insistent voice seemed to come from right beside her.
Depart now. Go at once!
The command had the opposite effect on the stubborn Dom-shu. She hammered on the bronze door plates with her sword pommel and demanded that whoever was inside come out. Each blow boomed hollowly. The papery voice did not speak again.
Casberry appeared at Kiya’s side. So quietly did she move the Dom-shu had no notion of her presence until, drawing back her arm for another blow, she smacked the queen on the top of the head.
Kiya apologized. “I’m afraid it would take a battering ram to get this door open!”
The queen planted bony fists on her hips and took in the door and surrounding structur
e with a narrow-eyed glare. “I’ll get us in,” she announced. Turning, she shouted, “Bonny Waterwide! You and Rufus, come here.”
Two kender emerged from the soft ferns. Bonny Water-wide was rather tall (for a kender), wearing a leather vest and trousers and sporting blue-black hair gathered into a long topknot. Rufus had short, spiky red hair framing a pale face. He was spinning a toy top on the palm of his hand.
“First one of you to get in there gets a gold piece,” the queen said.
“Three gold pieces,” countered Bonny promptly.
“Two gold pieces.”
“Two gold pieces, and I get to ride in your chair for a day.”
The queen made a face, but agreed.
Bonny grinned, showing long, yellow teeth. “Done!”
Their haggling complete, Rufus quickly began his assault on the blockhouse. Inserting his fingers and bare toes into various arrow slits, he managed to climb the sloping wall to the roof. He lifted the cap off the chimney and climbed down into the flue.
“Good job!” Kiya said.
Hardly had the words left her mouth when a loud yell reverberated from the chimney. Thinking poor Rufus was being gutted, Kiya started for the bolted door, but Casberry’s tiny hand closed around her wrist.
“Wait,” the queen said.
A gout of soot erupted from the chimney. Simultaneously, a loud boom sounded and a red-haired projectile shot skyward. Rufus hit the top of a larch tree, then descended, flopping from branch to branch, finally landing in a cloud of soot on the wildflowers beside the road. After an instant of surprised silence, nearby kender cheered. A Royal Loyal rolled Rufus over and announced he still breathed, but was out cold.
A tapping, pinging sound brought attention back to the blockhouse. Bonny Waterwide had been busy gathering shell fragments from the road and now was tossing these, one at a time, at the structure. Several pieces flew through the arrow slits.
Keeping up the odd bombardment, she stealthily approached the door. She drew a metal object from her scabbard, not a thin sword but a slender iron rod.
In between tossing her seashell fragments, Bonny measured off a section of the rod, then bent it, with some difficulty, over her knee. She spaced off a longer length and bent the rod again at a different angle.
Kiya queried the queen with a glance. Casberry merely looked wise.
Bonny tossed all her remaining shells up the side of the blockhouse. They cascaded down, bouncing and clicking off the close-fitting stone blocks. Before the sound died, she had slipped the rod under the door and twisted it upwards. She stepped down hard on the upraised end of the rod. There was a distinct clank as the door was lifted up slightly, and then Bonny pushed the portal inward.
With a whoop, Kiya rushed forward, sword out. Much of the Household Guard followed.
A wall of wind erupted from the dark interior, sweeping Bonny off her feet. The larger, heavier Kiya leaned into the blast. With great effort, she dragged her feet forward until she could grasp the doorjamb. A lone figure stood inside the blockhouse. The only illumination came from the arrow slits, striping the interior with narrow lanes of dark and light.
The gusting wind suddenly eased, and curious kender scrambled past Kiya. The wind died completely when two knelt on all fours behind the stranger while others bowled him over. Like a pack of puppies, the kender swarmed over the fallen man. Kiya’s sword was at his throat in the next moment.
“Peace, peace! I am not your enemy!” he cried.
Kiya seized him by the front of his robe and shoved him outside into the sunlight.
With much injured dignity, he swept shell fragments and dirt from his red silk robe. He was a tall fellow, and thin, with tightly curled sand-colored hair and a short beard. Every finger bore an ornate, jeweled ring.
“There’s no need for violence,” the Red Robe said. “I told you, I’m not your enemy!”
“That’s for us to decide. Who are you?” asked Kiya.
He refused to say. Several kender hands began reaching for his rings, and he drew back, closing his fists tightly. “Each and every ring is warded! Touch them, and there will be dire consequences!”
Now he had his audience’s undivided attention. The kender demanded they be allowed to see “dire consequences” immediately. Only Kiya’s threats silenced them long enough for her to continue her questioning. The wizard still would not tell her anything about himself or his purpose, but kept insisting he was not their enemy.
He began fingering the large opal ring on his left forefinger. The kender perked up, obviously hoping for a dire consequence, but Kiya laid the flat of her sword tip on his wrist.
“Stop what you’re doing, or I’ll chop off your hands.”
Her calmly delivered threat shook him, but he hissed, “You have no idea who you’re meddling with, barbarian!”
“No, I don’t. So tell me your name.”
Heavy silence ensued. Surrounded by armed, insatiably curious kender and a forester woman with a thirsty blade, and with bands of hostile nomads in the vicinity, the Red Robe made his decision.
“I am Helbin, chosen chief of the Red Robes of Daltigoth. You mentioned Lord Tolandruth; you may take me to him.”
Kiya recognized his name. “You’re not one of Husband’s enemies,” she said, sheathing her sword. “What are you doing so far from the city?”
“I cannot divulge my purpose, except to Lord Tolandruth himself.” par Kiya shrugged, secure in the knowledge that Tol would know how to handle the mage.
After Helbin gathered his possessions and was put under guard, the army prepared to move on. Several kender lifted the still-groggy, soot-covered Rufus onto a horse. Casberry returned to her sedan chair. Immediately an argument erupted between the queen and Bonny Waterwide. Bonny claimed her payment of a day’s ride in the Royal Conveyance. The queen reminded her no particular day had been specified.
“So you’ll just have to wait,” Casberry finished with a satisfied smile.
When they were finally underway, Kiya ruminated on the fact that half a dozen nomads had failed to draw the wizard from his hiding place, but a single kender had succeeded. Maybe Tol’s idea to recruit Casberry and her army wasn’t as ridiculous as it seemed. But what was Helbin doing in these parts? Whether or not he was a respectable member of the Red Robe order, Kiya distrusted anyone from Daltigoth. In her opinion, people from the capital were either Ackal V’s lackeys or his collaborators.
She would keep an eye on Helbin. At the first hint of treachery, she would act. There would be no humiliating red paint for the Red Robe. If he played her false, he would die.
Chapter 12
A FATAL SLIP
The bakali were across the Dalti.
The news flashed through the streets and squares of Daltigoth. No one knew who first delivered the awful tidings, but within a day, everyone in the capital had heard them. Prices of food, wine, cloth, leather, and other commodities tripled in a single day. A family’s carefully horded savings evaporated before their eyes. For the common folk of Daltigoth, there was only one recourse: they rioted.
Hundreds of people spilled out into the streets and market squares, smashing sellers’ stands and assaulting merchants. The city guards were quickly overwhelmed. In the Canal District, warehouses were broken open and looted. This encouraged hundreds more to take to the streets and make their way to the waterfront to join the plundering.
Ackal V, wrapped in furs despite the summer heat, listened stone-faced as anxious representatives of the merchants’ guilds recited the growing chronicle of lawlessness. When they finished, silence descended on the audience hall. The interval lengthened, grew awkward, and the guildmasters and merchants nervously shuffled their feet.
“Summon the city garrison, Your Majesty!” urged the chief of the goldsmiths. “Give the rioters a taste of imperial iron!”
Still, Ackal V said nothing. He seemed lost in a dream, eyes staring into the distance. Valaran, seated at his side, prompted him almost inaudibly. Her
veil, white this time, allowed her to do this without attracting the notice of the assembled commoners. Ackal V glanced at her and smiled. The empress drew in a breath. The closest ranks of petitioners recoiled from the deceptively benign expression on Ackal V’s face. They knew only too well that when the emperor smiled, blood would flow.
“The garrison is arrayed to protect the Inner City,” he said. “There it will remain.”
The merchants and guildmasters dared not protest. Valaran did so on their behalf, albeit most tactfully, her voice low.
“Sire, please reconsider. The safety of the city depends on order being kept.”
“Oh, I shall put Daltigoth in order.” He raised his voice. “Tathman! Captain Tathman, where are you?”
The Wolf stepped forward and bowed stiffly.
“Captain, you and the Wolves will stop the rioting,” Ackal V said simply.
Equally simple was the reply: “As you wish, Majesty.”
Tathman’s sepulchral voice always made the hair on Valaran’s neck rise. The assembled guildmasters were stricken. The thought of the Emperor’s Wolves set loose on the city stunned and terrified all.
The emperor said, “You want order, don’t you? You want an end to the looting, don’t you? My Wolves will pacify the city in one day – maybe less.”
They had come to beg for protection, so the merchants and tradesmen could hardly protest, yet all knew the Wolves were capable of any atrocity. Recruited from the poorest, most distant provinces of the empire, they owed nothing to Daltigoth and everything to their patron.
Ackal V stood abruptly. In a body the guildmasters shrank back from him.
“You see? You have only to ask, and your emperor responds!” He folded his arms and glowered down at the cowering men. His words laced with irony, he added, “I know you’re anxious to return to your shops. Go, and spread the word that peace will soon return to the city – peace guaranteed by the Emperor’s Wolves.”