by Dragon Lance
Their exchange seemed to restore a measure of Hanira’s poise. She straightened, and her manner underwent a subtle shift. Although still dirty and disheveled, she seemed more like the woman Tol remembered.
“I will send Tindyll to you for our orders,” she said briskly. “Are we bound next for Daltigoth?”
The abrupt change surprised Tol, but he answered her readily enough. “We have one stop to make first,” he said.
“We have business in Caergoth,” Kiya put in. “A treasure to reclaim.”
*
At that moment, Tylocost beheld the pale walls of Caergoth. The southward march of the treasure caravan had been without undue incident. The vigilance of the Juramona Militia and Tylocost’s active cavalry escort discouraged any from approaching too closely.
The ranks of the Royal Loyal Militia dwindled as the city drew near. No one ever actually saw a kender leave, but a handful vanished each day. The weird desertions were not confined to the kender; the Household Guard evaporated as well. Some days the only sign of Casberry’s personal guard was the dwarf doctor and centaur standard bearer, who could always be located by his uncommon stench. By the time the towers of Caergoth came into view, the kender queen led barely a hundred followers, most of whom were hired humans. She wasn’t distressed. In fact, she acted as if nothing untoward had happened. For his part, Tylocost was happy to have fewer kender to deal with.
They approached the empire’s second largest city with caution, using the line of hills northwest of the city to hide their line of march. Studying the walls from a hilltop just over a quarter-league away, Tylocost found it strange they had encountered no Riders from the city’s garrison. With bakali and nomad invaders about, warriors should be patrolling the countryside.
With his more than human vision, Tylocost could see the city gates were shut, save for one, the Dermount Gate on the north side. It was guarded by several hundred troops. A thin stream of people came and went through the portal.
The elf’s plan was to wait for Tol, keeping out of sight until his arrival. Like any good general, though, he craved information, and wished he could know what was happening in the city.
He made this comment in Zala’s hearing. With a shrug, she said, “I could find out if you like. I could enter the city.”
Since her father was a resident of Caergoth, Zala had a glean – a brass token that identified her and allowed her to pass in and out of the city. Given the threat hanging over Caergoth, her glean might no longer be honored. She was willing to try. She could find out whatever Tylocost wanted to know, and look for her father at the same time.
She put aside her weapons, save for a belt knife, and commended Helbin to Tylocost’s care. The wizard had been distracted. He’d spent much of the day toying with a small glass mirror, fitted in a hinged wooden box. It appeared to be an activity that caused him great frustration.
“You watch yourself, girl,” Tylocost told her.
Zala felt strangely pleased by his concern. The Silvanesti was arrogant and opinionated, but there was something about him that made her want to please him. If he weren’t so hard to look at —
She ruthlessly suppressed that thought. No good could come of such feelings.
Leaving the hidden caravan behind, she started down the hill toward the city. As she descended the slope, she picked up speed, until she was jogging rapidly. She’d been too long in the company of soldiers, refugees, and captives. The exhilaration of being on her own flooded through her. For a moment she allowed herself to think of freeing her father and running away with him, away from unsightly, vexing elves, notions of honor, warlords, and kender. If she ran without stopping, beyond the empire, to the end of the world, perhaps she would find peace.
By the time she reached the queue of people waiting to pass through the Dermount Gate, she’d put away such extraneous thoughts. Instead, she concentrated on appearing to be nothing more than a young woman bent on visiting her aged parent.
All those entering Caergoth were searched. Soldiers carried out this process with rapid, rough thoroughness. Packs were opened, their contents dumped on the ground; pushcarts were upended, babies’ swaddling was groped. Faced with bared swords, no one protested.
The officer in charge of the gate guards examined Zala’s glean and pronounced it outdated.
“What’s your business in Caergoth.
“I’m visiting my father. I haven’t seen him in a while.”
Her mixed heritage gave rise to ribald comments from the soldiers. The harassed officer growled at them to shut up. He daubed the glean with a spot of white paint.
“This means you have twenty-four hours. If you’re caught in the city after that, you’ll be thrown in prison as a suspected spy.”
She nodded curtly, moving on.
The city beyond the thick wall had changed since her last visit. Caergoth had always been an orderly city, with wide, clean streets and well-scrubbed stone buildings. No longer. Now the lanes were crowded with people, wagons, horses, and livestock. Half the population of the province seemed to be trying to squeeze within the walls. It was obvious they did not know that Lord Tolandruth and the landed hordes had driven out the raiding nomads.
Her father lived on the top floor of a rooming house in the scribes’ district. His two rooms were small, but cheap, clean, and except on festival days, quiet. He wouldn’t be home – the empress had had him taken to the citadel – but Zala headed there first anyway. If possible, she wanted to wash and change clothes before going to the governor’s palace. Tiring of the lewd and ugly comments from passers-by, she untucked her hair from behind her ears so it would hide their shape.
The trip through the clogged streets to the scribes’ quarter took an age. Market squares, once lined with neat, widely spaced rows of stalls and pushcarts, were now crammed with tents and squalid with the offal of thousands of squatters. Pickpockets and cutpurses worked the mobs. After fending off a fourth attempt to steal her purse, Zala grew so annoyed she broke the pickpocket’s wrist and left him howling on the pavement.
The last square between her and the scribes’ district was the city’s largest, Luin’s Field. Bounded on three sides by Caergoth’s major temples, it was a sacred space used for religious ceremonies and imperial parades. It was always kept spotlessly clean, with not even the smallest bit of litter allowed.
When Zala beheld Luin’s Field, however, shock froze her in place. The square had been turned into an army camp. Warriors were quartered along its sides, and its center was taken up by huge cages, row upon row of stout wooden posts joined together by iron strapping. The cages were filled with people. Some, clad in buckskins, were plainly nomads, but others looked to be city folk or peasants. At least a thousand captives were being held in Caergoth’s most sacred square.
An Ergothian soldier, trying to get by her, asked sarcastically, “Something ailing you, girl?”
Instantly, Zala assumed a slightly hunched posture and looked at him with wide eyes. Stammering, she asked, “Who are those people, sir? Why are they here?”
As she’d guessed from his voice, the soldier was an older man. Her shy, deferential manner caused his tone and expression to soften. She imagined that he had daughters of his own at home.
“We need every room in the citadel to house the garrison,”
He said. “Lord Wornoth emptied the citadel dungeon and put the scum here.”
After admonishing her to “get herself on home,” the soldier moved away, and Zala approached the cages. In the general confusion, she was able to get within a few paces. She walked slowly along, looking anxiously for her father among the wretched captives.
“Has anyone seen Kaeph the scrivener?” she asked as she walked. “An old man with white hair and a bald spot on his crown? Anyone know Kaeph the scrivener?”
For a long stretch all she heard were negatives. Finally, one of the prisoners, a coarse-looking woman with a city accent, answered in the affirmative. Zala stepped closer to her cage.
/> “I seen him,” the woman repeated. “He’s in with the condemned – the cages around the corner, facing the Temple of Corij.”
Zala thanked her. The woman thrust a hand through the bars, snatching at Zala’s sleeve. “A favor for a favor! Tell Mextro I’m here! Mextro, the innkeeper at the Golden Galley! My name —!”
Her plea was cut off as a soldier thrust the butt end of a spear through the bars and struck her in the belly. The woman fell back. Under the guard’s unfriendly glare, Zala moved on.
As befit a warrior nation, the Temple of Corij was the largest and most splendid in Caergoth. Built of white marble, it was floored in red granite, to honor all the warriors’ blood spilled for the empire. The temple rose in a series of sloping terraces, making a step-sided pyramid. At the pinnacle, in a small columned portico, an ever-burning flame was tended by the warrior-priests of Corij.
The cage facing the temple was isolated from the other enclosures. Warriors on horseback circled it. Friends and family of those within hovered outside the perimeter of guards, looking for loved ones among the many prisoners.
Zala called her father’s name, but could hardly make herself heard over the cries of the others around her. “Kaeph the scrivener! Where is Kaeph the scrivener?” she shouted.
“He may be dead already.”
The words had come from a woman prisoner sitting close to the bars a few paces further along. Zala walked quickly toward her. The woman was very tall, even sitting down. Her hair, cut to chin length like Zala’s own, was brown, and she wore the embroidered deerskins of a forest woman. Her accent was urbane, also like Zala’s.
“Why do you say that?” Zala demanded.
“Many have been beheaded – the latest batch was three days ago. Go to the citadel, you can see the heads.”
“Do you know Kaeph the scrivener?”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know anyone but the Dom-shu I came with.”
Zala recognized that name. Lord Tolandruth’s constant companion, the female warrior who called him “Husband,” was a Dom-shu. Perhaps she could persuade this sullen giantess to help her if they proved to have a mutual acquaintance.
“I know a woman of your tribe,” she said. “Her name is Kiya. Very tall, like you, but with blonde hair.”
The Dom-shu’s weary gloom vanished instantly. “Father! Come here!” she shouted, bolting to her feet. Her head touched the bars roofing the cage.
A tribesman joined her. His yellow hair and beard were streaked with white, but he moved smoothly through the shuffling prisoners.
At the female prisoner’s request, Zala repeated what she’d said.
The elder’s face glowed with relief. “She lives! She is free! What of the Son of My Life?”
The Dom-shu woman leaned close to the bars and murmured, “Does Kiya travel with a man, brown hair, brown eyes, a short beard, and nearly as broad in the shoulders as he is tall?”
“Yes. Lord Tol —”
“Keep that name between your teeth,” the Dom-shu woman snapped, then grinned widely. “The gods still love him, and his friends, too, I pray! Girl, I am Miya, sister of Kiya, and wife of that man you know!”
Chapter 17
GOOD FOR NOTHING
All that remained of the Isle of Elms was a few score tree trunks, upright but limbless and charred black. They stood, stark and lonely, across a great scar of burned land. Upwind from the smoldering remains, the Army of the East was arrayed on the plain in parade formation. The time had come to deal with the captive nomads.
As with the nomads captured after the battle of Juramona, infamous malefactors, those who had committed specific outrages against the people of Juramona and other towns, were identified and culled from the prisoners. These thirty or so nomads received summary justice. The rest of the defeated were stripped of horses, weapons, and armor and turned loose.
From horseback, Tol regarded the sullen crowd of captives before him. His expression was grim.
“I give you mercy this once,” he said. “If any of you enters the empire under arms again, you will receive no quarter. Now go home!”
Riding away at Tol’s side, Egrin asked, “How do you know they’ll leave?”
“The land for leagues around has been stripped bare. They must go home to hunt and fish, or starve.”
Egrin cast a glance back over his shoulder. As predicted, the mass of defeated plainsmen was moving off to the east, a gray-brown body hugging the scorched plain.
*
Zala returned to Tylocost in a fever of excitement. She had found her father, alive but ill, in the same cage that held the Dom-shu. Once she told them who he was, the Dom-shu prisoners agreed to look out for him, and she swore on her life to return with help. They told her to hurry. The governor was fond of staging random executions, to intimidate the restless refugees sheltering in his city. There was no telling how much time the Dom-shu or Zala’s father had.
There were eleven Dom-shu in the cage: Miya, her father, and the small retinue of warriors who had accompanied them. Miya introduced her father as Voyarunta, a name she seemed to find amusing. As Zala did not speak their language, she missed the joke. The Dom-shu had been captured by a company of imperial horsemen, riding south from a losing encounter with Tokasin’s nomads. To Ergothian eyes, a barbarian was a barbarian; they made no distinction between forest-dwelling Dom-shu and plains-dwelling Firepath. When Miya pointed out she was Lord Tolandruth’s wife and the Dom-shu were at peace with the empire, all she got for her temerity was a boot between her shoulders. She and her people had been languishing in Caergoth’s cages for eight days.
“This is what I get for chasing that fool husband of mine,” Miya grumbled to Zala.
“You insisted on going,” said her father. “All was calm in the village until you decided to leave the Great Green and search for your sister and husband.”
“You did not have to come along!”
The forester chief folded his brawny arms. “Am I to let my last daughter go wandering across the grassland without a strong blade at her side? What kind of father would do such a thing?”
“I didn’t need you following me! You only slowed me down!”
“You’d be in a nameless grave by now if I hadn’t come.”
Father and daughter were still arguing when Zala stole away. Despite the threat of random beheadings and the days they’d spent in the fetid, uncomfortable cage, the foresters were in good spirits. Their faith in Lord Tolandruth was unshakable.
Zala’s father, on the other hand, was in very poor health. A cough had settled in his chest, and he’d grown pale and haggard. He could not remain much longer in the open, at the mercy of the sun’s heat and the night’s damp, living in filthy conditions with meager food and water.
Tylocost received her fervent outpouring of news with his usual aplomb. He evinced more interest in the conditions inside Caergoth than the condition of the prisoners. Zala paced up and down before the Silvanesti and Queen Casberry as she described what she’d seen: the crush of refugees, the nearly impassable streets, the patrolling soldiers.
“How many soldiers?” he asked.
She shrugged, and he made an offhanded remark about ignorant girls who couldn’t count beyond their own fingers and toes.
Zala backhanded him. She lashed out so quickly Tylocost was caught completely by surprise. Her hand connected solidly with his cheek, rocking his head back and leaving a livid impression of her long, tapering fingers. Militiamen around them snickered and Casberry applauded.
“My father’s life is in peril, elf! Save your insults for later!” Zala spat.
Tylocost made no move, just stood, hands at his side, staring at the shaking huntress. His face was bright red. Finally, he cleared his throat.
“What would you have us do?” he said, his voice low. “We don’t have sufficient strength to attack the open gate, much less storm the city. And the treasure must be guarded. Lord Tolandruth will be here soon —”
“I’l
l free them,” Casberry said matter-of-factly.
The kender queen stood up in her chair. She straightened her orange shirt and buckskin trousers, tugged at the bottom of her leather vest – this one dyed sky blue – and stepped out onto the ground.
“I’ll free the prisoners.”
Tylocost, his acid tongue temporarily muted, merely asked her how.
Her eyes vanished into pools of wrinkles as she smiled. He thought she looked very like a cheerful prune. “Not by storming gates and attacking cities,” she said sagely. “We’ll do it the kender way. All I need is the Royal Loyal Militia.”
“What Royal Loyal Militia?” Tylocost protested. “Most of your people deserted long ago.”
Casberry looked askance at him, saying to Zala, “Slap him again, honey.”
In spite of herself, Zala laughed. Tylocost kept a wary eye on her.
“Not one of my Royal Loyals has deserted!” Casberry proclaimed. “They’re about, even if your dull senses can’t see them. They’re looking around, listening. All I have to do is call, and …” She waved a hand. “Come nightfall, we’ll free your father and Lord Tolandruth’s big wife.”
“We?” said Tylocost.
“Certainly. What kind of queen would I be if I sent my brave troops into peril alone?”
The Silvanesti imagined the gnarled old queen, decked out in one of her astonishing outfits, entering Caergoth in her sedan chair and proclaiming, “Make way for the Queen of Hylo!” He shook his head to dislodge the ludicrous picture.
To his amazement, the queen appeared to have been telling the truth. Although she made no proclamation, nor sent out any heralds, kender began returning to the hidden camp. Over the course of the day, they arrived – alone or in small groups – bearing whatever odds and ends they had ‘found’ while wandering. They filed past their monarch, and Casberry greeted each by name. She asked particular ones to volunteer for the mission to Caergoth. All agreed cheerfully, without hesitation or questions.
“They’re quite fearless, aren’t they?” Zala said admiringly.