The History of Krynn: Vol III

by Dragon Lance

  Behind the Dom-shu chief, naked blades gleamed. Determined not to be taken without a fight, the escapees had helped themselves to the weapons of the ancient heroes on display.

  Almarden raised no objection, saying only, “May Corij and Mishas favor you. Good luck.”

  Voyarunta and his warriors moved out first, and the rest of the escapees followed them into the dark street of the barrel-makers. Queen Casberry had shed her priestly garb somewhere along the way. She tossed the high priest a cheery, “Thanks!” as she departed.

  Last in line were Miya, Zala, and Kaeph. The old man was moving on his own now. To Miya’s surprise, he and the priest of Corij embraced before parting. Zala, her short sword back in her hand, surveyed the street outside, then waved her father forward.

  As Almarden gave Miya a saber, she asked, “Why do this, holy one? We were prisoners of your governor. Why help us escape?”

  “The rulers of our land are not always just. When Queen Casberry came to me, my duty was clear. Corij will judge my actions, not Lord Wornoth.”

  Almarden watched Kaeph and Zala move slowly away. “Besides, what man could refuse to save his own brother’s life?”

  *

  “Enough.”

  Wornoth, seated in his governor’s chair, frowned. Despite the best efforts of two brawny guards, Helbin still refused to say why he was in Caergoth, or how he had entered the city.

  “Why are you here?” he demanded yet again. “Who came with you?”

  Helbin lifted his bloody face. One eye was beginning to swell shut, so he peered at his captor through the other.

  “I came with the Queen of Hylo!” he said, and no one believed it.

  One of the guards raised a meaty hand, but the governor waved him off.

  “I have a death warrant for you, wizard, signed by the emperor himself. Tell me what I want to know, and your death will be quick and merciful.”

  Helbin made as if to speak again, but a fit of coughing interrupted him. At Wornoth’s direction, the soldiers dragged the wizard to a sitting position.

  “Your days are numbered, savage,” Helbin finally rasped. “The greatest warlord of our age is coming fast upon you. I may die, but you will not long outlive me!”

  “What are you raving about? What warlord?”

  “Tolandruth of Juramona.”

  Wornoth snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous! The emperor banished him years ago.”

  Helbin’s split lips moved in a ghastly smile. “Mark my words. He is coming.”

  The wizard’s certainty, even after such a beating, rocked Wornoth. At his last encounter with Lord Tolandruth, the formidable warlord had threatened to kill him.

  He declared, “Tolandruth is a condemned exile, and a traitor. If he dares show his face in Caergoth, his head will decorate the highest tower of the citadel!”

  The wizard began to shake. Thinking him broken at last, Wornoth beamed. His toothy smile froze when he realized that Helbin was laughing, not weeping.

  Wornoth snapped, “Take him away! Carry out his sentence at once. I’ve no time for his foolish threats!”

  The soldiers dragged Helbin to his feet. He realized the time had come for a last, desperate act. He had a single spell remaining, one he’d prepared before leaving Tylocost’s camp. He wasn’t certain its effects were reversible, but trying it was better than death – he hoped.

  He pushed a parchment-thin wooden chip out between his teeth. Through all his rough treatment, he had kept the chip hidden beneath his tongue. The sigils on its face were clear and sharp, not eroded by blood or saliva.

  Wornoth immediately spotted the chip. Certain it was magical in nature, he shouted for the guards to stop the wizard.

  He was too late. Helbin bit down, snapping the chip in two.

  In the next instant, the wizard began to writhe as though in terrible agony. As the guards drew back in fear, the ragged silk of his crimson robe shredded and long, black feathers pushed through skin and cloth. Helbin’s sandy hair fell out, revealing a mass of flame-red skin. His head shriveled. Gray eyes darkened and shrank. His swollen, bloody mouth elongated into a hard yellow beak.

  In the space of half a dozen heartbeats, man transformed into vulture – a monstrous, black-plumed creature fully as tall as Helbin had been. The vulture spread its wings and uttered a single, sharp screech. The cry was deafening.

  Terror-stricken, Wornoth tried to climb over the back of his tall, heavy chair. He shrieked at his men to kill the monster.

  The closest soldier tried to bring out his dagger. The vulture’s hooked beak raked a bloody line across the man’s face, from right eye to chin. The soldier threw his hands over his eyes and fell aside, cursing.

  The way was open. Talons slipping on the polished marble floor, the huge vulture scrambled away, wings flapping.

  The guards in the audience hall had only spears and sabers, no bows. They could not hem in the flailing creature. The vulture reached an open window and leaped onto the wide stone ledge.

  Casting one last black-eyed glance over his humped shoulder, the vulture that had been Helbin the Red Robe let out a piercing scream and leaped into the air.

  Wornoth rushed to the window, following the vulture’s flight. Dawn was breaking over Caergoth. When the black curl of the vulture’s wings finally vanished, the governor turned his gaze downward. The sight that met his eyes sent an icy shaft of fear through his gut.

  An army was mustering on the plain outside the city. A sizable army, it bore before it the standard of Juramona.

  *

  Hundreds of miles away a pall of dirt and smoke hung high over the collapsed bakali stronghold. Two days had passed since the end of the battle, and still the dark cloud remained.

  Few Riders of the Great Horde knew what the great earthen mound contained, but the despair of the lizard-men over its fall was powerful. A great blow had been struck against the invaders.

  Even so, the bakali’s withdrawal, though swift, was in good order. Under the cover of roiling clouds of dirt, they had formed into three compact columns. They retreated swiftly northwest, toward Ropunt Forest. Caught off guard by the sudden change of fortune, and utterly exhausted, the imperial army did not try to stop them.

  Ackal V had his victory, but it was not the crushing triumph he’d expected. Half his army was dead or wounded. An entire horde, the Thorngoth Sabers, had perished in the collapse of the bakali mound. The battlefield was heaped with the dead and dying of both sides.

  A prolonged blast of trumpets had summoned the surviving commanders to attend upon the emperor. Servants spread a gold and scarlet carpet on the blood-soaked ground, and Ackal V’s portable throne was set up. Prince Dalar, looking wan and limp, was delivered to his father by two brawny Riders who had been guarding him. The boy was required to stand at his father’s right hand.

  There weren’t many warlords left to answer Ackal V’s summons. Many of those who finally gathered before him were swaying on their feet from exhaustion or wounds. All were streaked with gore, grime, and sweat.

  Vanz Hellman was in remarkably good condition. Although his armor bore the marks of many blades, his face and bare arms were unmarred. Ackal V ordered the towering warrior forward, and Hellman went down on one knee before him.

  “What is your will, Majesty?”

  Even restrained, his voice rolled out like thunder.

  “My will is to have your head on a pike! Why didn’t you come immediately, when I ordered you into battle?” Ackal said.

  “I did come, Your Majesty. My hordes broke the lizards’ resistance.”

  “You delayed responding to my command!”

  Dalar flinched at his father’s shout, but knew better than to retreat a single step from his prescribed place.

  The kneeling warlord pressed a hand to his heart. His gesture of sincerity seemed somehow mocking.

  “As commander of the reserve, sire, I had to judge the best time to strike. I waited until the lizards were deeply committed against Your Majesty
’s position, then I attacked.”

  “You hoped they’d kill me first!”

  “No, sire!” Hellman said instantly. “I acted to insure victory. I am Your Majesty’s most loyal servant.”

  Ackal V regarded Hellman through narrowed eyes for a long, heart-pounding moment. It was a ruthless warlord indeed who dared dispute with the Emperor of Ergoth, but Ackal V could not deny that Hellman’s final charge had been perfectly timed. The carnage around them was testimony to that.

  Ackal V did the one thing that made even the bravest of his commanders tremble, Vanz Hellman included. He smiled.

  “Very well. I am sure of your abiding love for the throne of Ergoth. As a loyal servant of the empire, you will gather what remains of the army and pursue the lizard-men.” The emperor’s tone was almost genial. “Harry them out of our realm. Drive them into the sea, and spare none, do you hear? I want to hear of nothing but mounds of bakali skulls from here to the Seascapes!”

  Hellman stood. His demeanor remained calm, but sweat trickled down his smooth, dark face. He vowed he would carry out the emperor’s command.

  “See that you do,” Ackal V said. “Your life is pledged against your success.”

  Hellman and his retainers withdrew. Other warlords were called forward to give accounts of their losses. The death rate was unusually high – neither the Ergothians nor the bakali had shown mercy to those who fell. When a handful of survivors from the right wing of the army told of the discovery of eggs inside the mound, it became clear why the lizard-men had fought with such tireless abandon.

  The emperor commanded the priests and clerics from his entourage to come forward. These learned folk were led by a priestess of Zivilyn named Talatha.

  Although the eldest of the group, Talatha was not yet middle-aged. She wore her dark hair tightly confined in a long braid, and her moss-green robe was simple and shapeless.

  Ackal V wanted to know why the bakali had fought their way to the heart of the empire to build their nest, when they could have done so anywhere.

  Talatha cleared her throat and replied, keeping her eyes lowered, “Great Majesty, I believe they were compelled to do so by their own natures.” She held a hand out, and a lesser priest put a thin scroll in it. “This document is from the time of the Dragon Wars. It speaks of the life cycle of the bakali. After many generations, the lizard folk are driven by instinct to return to the breeding ground of their ancient ancestors.”

  The emperor’s brows rose in surprise. “That’s a revelation. Why was I not told this before?”

  His words, spoken gently, drained the color from Talatha’s face. Nervously, she fingered her gold medallion of faith.

  “The, uh, document is a most obscure one, Your Majesty. No more than a gloss, pasted onto a larger scroll in the temple library, it was discovered only this day, during the battle, as we searched for the meaning of these events.”

  Ackal V made no reply. Instead, he called for wine. He did not offer refreshment to anyone else. Talatha and her colleagues remained still, gazes deferentially on the ground. Only after he’d drained his golden goblet twice did Ackal dismiss Talatha. She led her people away in grateful haste.

  The emperor addressed his warlords again. “We must make absolutely certain all the bakali eggs were destroyed. I don’t want to have to fight again when the creatures’ progeny hatch out among us!”

  The bakali stronghold would be excavated, he decreed, and every egg found inside destroyed. Ackal did not specify who was to undertake this prodigious task, and the commanders began to shift uncomfortably and mutter among themselves. Would the emperor really set his noble warriors to digging, like so many slaves?

  Ackal V laughed, a short, harsh sound. Cuffing his son, he said, “See, Dalar, how the mighty lords of Ergoth tremble at the thought of a little labor!” The boy managed a weak smile at his father’s wit.

  The warlords were visibly relieved by the emperor’s next orders. All warriors not going with Vanz Hellman were to organize into bands and sweep the countryside. All peasants, farmers, or stray travelers they found would be drafted into work gangs; any who resisted would be put to death. These gangs would dig through the bakali mound.

  “One thing more.”

  Ackal V sat back, gripping the arms of his throne. “The tradition of my ancestors demands that I, as victor, raise a mountain of our defeated enemies’ heads here on the battlefield.”

  He paused to send a cold glare across the assembly, then added slowly, “This task you will conduct yourselves. It is the duty of the Great Horde to offer up the enemy dead to their emperor.”

  Not by word or look did the nervous warlords betray their distaste for the gruesome task he had set them.

  By sundown, the emperor’s order had been obeyed. Two great pyramids of death rose beside the fallen mound. One was made of bakali heads, the other of decapitated corpses.

  *

  Valaran stood alone in the palace solarium, before a magnificent wall of firetongue orchids. Bright red in daylight, the stamens of the orchids glowed in the dark like hot coals. Filling a corner of the sunken garden with color, the rare flowers were a pet project of Ackal V’s youngest wife, Lady Halie. Only eighteen years old, Halie was an extraordinary beauty, with thick red-gold hair cascading well past her waist and eyes as violet as the twilight sky. She was the emperor’s current favorite. Valaran knew her husband. He could not be swayed by mere beauty. Halie’s loveliness was coupled with a quiet, obedient disposition – just the sort to find favor with Ackal V.

  Valaran had come to the solarium to read. This morning that simple act, which had sustained her soul for as long as she could remember, brought her no peace. She couldn’t concentrate. As daylight brightened the isinglass panels above her, she abandoned the marble bench to walk the path that wound through the garden.

  If only Dalar was here! Were she certain of the boy’s safety, she could revel in her daydreams of Ackal V hacked to pieces by lizard-men. Instead, all such thoughts ended the same way: Dalar shrieking in hopeless fear, Dalar set upon by bakali, Dalar lying dead on a distant battlefield …

  She smote a clenched fist on the low wall beside the path. She would not give in to mindless fear. She was a woman of reason and intellect, a Pakin. Her husband might be evil, a brutal tyrant, but he wouldn’t allow harm to come to his son. Succession was intensely important to him.

  If only her other nightmare could be rationalized away so easily.

  White robes flapping in the wind. The old woman screaming, growing smaller and smaller with distance. A heart-stopping impact.

  “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

  Valaran flinched at the unexpected interruption. A lady of the court was rushing toward her. Flushed with excitement, her starched headdress askew, the woman dropped a quick curtsey, her slippers skidding on the white marble.

  “Majesty! Talatha, priestess of Zivilyn who accompanied His Majesty, has sent word to the College of Wizards,” she panted. “The emperor has achieved a signal victory – the lizard invaders are defeated!”

  Valaran said nothing. In fact, she was so pale, so motionless, so long silent, the lady-in-waiting grew concerned.

  “Your Majesty?”

  “Praise the God of Battle,” Valaran finally said, her voice toneless. “The empire is saved.”

  Chapter 20

  WEAPON OF CHOICE

  Pale predawn found Tol riding slowly down the ranks of the Juramona Militia. Tylocost rode beside him. Egrin and the mounted hordes were on their way, but with Miya at risk inside the city, Tol could not wait.

  He directed the men to straighten their line, to hold shields and spears up. It wasn’t going be easy to intimidate the governor of Caergoth with only two thousand foot soldiers and five hundred Riders. Wornoth commanded at least twenty-thousand seasoned troops. Still, knowing the governor for the weakling he was, Tol felt it worth the risk to try to bluff him into releasing his prisoners.

  The militia was deployed across the face of a lo
w knoll east of the city. At their backs, scarcely a quarter-league away, flowed the Caer River. Instead of their usual close ranks, the men were positioned in open order, like spots on checkered cloth. Shields were held out on their left and spears to their right, as they tried to take up as much space as possible. From the high walls of Caergoth they might appear as though twice their number. The demi-horde of Riders Tol held in reserve, just behind the knoll.

  Tol and Tylocost turned their mounts about and rode back toward the center of the line.

  “What if the garrison sorties?” the Silvanesti asked. “We’ll have to hold them off till Egrin arrives.” Tylocost’s disbelief was silent but unmistakable. Tol nodded to some veterans he recognized in the ranks, then said, “What’s the matter? Don’t elves like to gamble?”

  “In point of fact, no. We find the human love of hazard inexplicable. It’s an extravagance we prefer to avoid.”

  Tol chuckled. As a general, Tylocost was famous for taking enormous risks. At the Battle of the Capes he defeated an Ergothian force eight times larger than his by dividing his army. The Ergothian commander, Lord Lembroth, could not attack one of Tylocost’s divisions without exposing his flank to the other. Lembroth’s nerve failed utterly after the elf repelled attacks on both forces. Lembroth lost his army and his life.

  Tol was taking a terrible risk today. The treasure recovered from the nomads lay unguarded in Tylocost’s hidden camp. Egrin, with thirty thousand Riders, plus Hanira’s Tarsans, was at least half a day’s march, perhaps a whole day’s, away. If Wornoth sortied all his hordes, no one in Tol’s small army would live to greet Egrin.

  Tol and Tylocost took up positions at the center of the line. The sun had cleared the knoll behind them, its light streaming across Tol’s army and onto the walls of Caergoth. Lookouts on the walls would have that glare in their eyes. So would Riders emerging from the gate on this side of the city. In a situation like this, any advantage was welcome.

  Signal flags went up from the towers along the wall. Horns sounded, muted by distance and thick stone walls.