by Dragon Lance
Zanpolo looked at the other two warlords, who sat calmly, hands folded across the pommels of their saddles.
“Moristan. Caminol. What say you?”
Moristan, commander of the Bronzehearts, inhaled and exhaled slowly. “For six years,” he said with customary deliberateness, “I’ve done nothing but collect taxes and chase unworthy bandits. When the nomads invaded, Wornoth kept us here to defend the city, even though the barbarians had no way to breach the walls.”
Caminol’s response was more succinct. “The Lightning Riders serve the empire, not one man,” he said, nodding to Tol and the other two warlords.
“So, what will you have us do, my lord?” Zanpolo asked Tol.
Hope surged through Tol’s weary frame. “Take Caergoth, first,” he said. “Will the hordes inside resist us?”
“A few young hotheads might, and Wornoth’s guard. No one of consequence.”
“Then let’s enter now. The governor will think we have surrendered and you have captured us!” The three warlords agreed.
Tol hurried back to his people, still clustered around the oak tree. When he told them what had transpired, they were incredulous. Except Miya.
“That’s Husband,” she said, shrugging. “Throw him in a pit of snakes, and he’ll make friends with all the vipers!”
The Juramonans formed two columns, one behind the other, and set off toward the city. Tol rode at the head of the foremost column. At Zanpolo’s order, the unconscious Lord Hallack was draped over his horse and the beast’s reins given over to one of his men. Word flashed like lightning through the Caergoth troops: instead of fighting Lord Tolandruth, they were going to follow him!
Riding close to Zanpolo toward the city gate, his men chanting his name, Tol was filled with emotion. His mind whirled, but not with battle plans. He couldn’t stop thinking of Valaran as he’d last seen her: her face white as the ermine robes she wore, green eyes spilling tears onto winter-pale cheeks.
Whatever happens, you must live – because I will return.
That was the promise he’d made her on the snowy field outside Daltigoth. With every warrior he gained, every battle he won, he was coming closer to fulfilling that oath. Yet no battle, no honor could make him complete until he held her in his arms again.
Chapter 21
THE ANVIL
Tol’s entry into Caergoth was more confusing than glorious. Zanpolo chose to return the same way he left, via the Centaur Gate. The gate opened readily enough, but the soldiers there were plainly puzzled to hear the returning warriors shouting the name of the man they’d been sent to destroy. Zanpolo quickly ordered his own men to displace the city troops at the gates. No blood was shed; after a brief scuffle, the surprised soldiers found themselves imprisoned in their own barbican. Their compatriots, looking down on these events from the battlements, abandoned their posts.
“Little birds are flying away,” Miya said, gesturing toward the fleeing men.
Tol nodded. The men would certainly carry word of his coming to Lord Wornoth. As there was no way to prevent it, there was no reason to worry about it.
The first city square beyond the Centaur Gate was known as the Starwalk. Its broad white pavement was marked with bronze stars, and black lines of basalt radiated from a common point not quite in the center of the square. The square was a public observatory. By standing on the lines or on the various bronze markers at appropriate times during the year, ordinary folk could mark the movements of the moons and stars.
This day, it was not being used for any lofty purpose. Like all Caergoth’s public squares, the Starwalk had become a squalid shanty town crowded with war refugees.
Tol reined up. His Juramonans halted behind him. Zanpolo stopped his own horsemen and doubled back to see what was wrong. He found Tol surveying the smoky, fetid scene in the Starwalk with a scowl on his face.
Zanpolo grimaced with understanding. “I know,” he said. “With a few hundred sabers I’d clear this trash out!”
Tol shook his head, but said nothing. He turned in the saddle to look back at the column winding behind him. There was Queen Casberry, once more in her beloved sedan chair, borne on the capable shoulders of Front and Back; Uncle Corpse and his Dom-shu, a bit worse for wear; and the half-elf huntress, Zala, who had refused all aid and still carried her frail father. Still further back, the ugliest Silvanesti in the world led a human militia comprising artisans, merchants, farmers, and herders. Somewhere in the city, thousands of men were wearing out horses to join Tol’s army. Retired warriors, they’d left home and hearth and taken up the weapons they’d hung up years ago. In their company was the oddest contingent of all – soldiers of an army Tol had defeated, now led by a wealthy, embittered woman who had lost her own daughter in a struggle not her own.
All these people – all these different people – had come so far and done so much because of him. Their loyalty, their faith in him, had brought them from every corner of the empire and lands beyond.
Dismounting, Tol handed the reins to Miya, who’d been walking alongside.
“Watch out,” she said, seeing the look in his eyes. “Husband’s up to something.”
“All of you stay here. No matter what happens, stay here till I call you,” Tol said.
He walked into the maze of temporary shelters covering the Starwalk. The refugees moved out of his way. They knew to make themselves scarce when a warrior came near. They came from half a hundred small towns, from isolated farms, and from semi-nomadic camps. Not all were Ergothian. This human avalanche had been set in motion a thousand leagues away, by the arrival of the bakali and by attacks from plainsmen also displaced by the lizard-men. Most refugees regarded Tol blankly as he moved among them. If they did react, it was with fear.
Anger swelled in Tol’s breast. This was not why he had become a warrior. Most Riders of the Great Horde, born into wealth if not outright nobility, considered this their due – daily tribute in the form of terror. But Tol had chosen the life of a soldier because it promised more than endless years grubbing in the dirt, herding recalcitrant pigs, and praying daily to the gods for sun and rain, but not too much of either. He’d led a full life, earned loyal friends, and loved an intelligent, beautiful woman. The time had come to pay for those past pleasures and glories.
Forty paces away from his waiting comrades he found a waist-high stone pedestal and climbed on it. An alabaster disk was inset in its top. From this spot, when the square was clear, one could mark the passage of Solin through the seasons.
Those immediately around him fell silent and regarded him uncertainly. The quiet spread through the square, with neighbor nudging neighbor and gesturing at the warrior standing atop the Solin pedestal. Tol waited until the silence was complete, then spoke.
“People, listen to me! I am —” An instant’s thought, then — “Tol of Juramona. I bring you good news. The tribes who ravaged your homes have been defeated!”
There was no response. A baby began to cry. Several people coughed.
“You can go home! The nomad invaders are gone!”
The baby continued to howl. There were more coughs. A woman called out, “We ain’t got no home! They burned it!”
“You can build another!” Tol replied. “But you must leave the city! It’s too crowded for you to remain!” He was amazed disease hadn’t broken out among the refugees already.
“You drivin’ us out, m’lord?” asked a man standing nearby.
Exasperation sharpened Tol’s voice. “No! I’m telling you, you can leave! The nomads are driven out.”
“So it’s safe?”
Tol’s impatience evaporated. He answered honestly. “No, it’s not.”
The crowd began to mutter, confused and unhappy. Tol raised his voice again, saying, “But when were you ever safe? Were you safe when cruel warlords ruled over you, and a ruthless, mad emperor ruled them? You’ve never been safe, but the nomads have been defeated, and you must leave Caergoth. Here, there is only poverty and illness!”
Unfortunately, the wider import of his words was lost.
“The emperor is mad?”
“We was never safe? I thought the city wall was supposed to keep us safe.”
“I told ya’ they’d come to drive us out, and here they are!”
“This emperor is mad, too?”
“Let’s get out’fore they attack us!”
Some refugees grabbed their meager possessions and set out for the nearest gate. Others argued whether to stay or go. These grew so heated that Tol was jostled off the platform.
When he disappeared into the crowd, Zanpolo and his captains spurred their mounts forward. They separated Tol from the mob and ushered him back to his waiting people.
Zanpolo’s bearded face wore a smile. “Clever stratagem, my lord! You’ve sowed the seeds of a riot,” he said. “It will tie up Wornoth’s loyal troops!”
Tol didn’t bother answering. He hadn’t meant to start a riot. He’d hoped to make the people understand they should reclaim their lives and not blindly follow the whims of emperors, warlords, or any of their lackeys. But the hopeless, helpless squatters didn’t see him as “Tol of Juramona,” born one of them. To them, he was Lord Tolandruth, Rider of the Great Horde, oppressor and protector. That he could be interested in their well-being was as unfathomable to them as the workings of the celestial map on which they squatted.
The noise around him quickly grew deafening. The unrest Tol had unintentionally incited radiated outward, spreading from the Starwalk through the clogged streets, to the next square, and the next.
“What did I tell you?” Miya shouted above the chaos. “When Husband acts, the world trembles!”
“This is crazy!” Tol protested. “I told them to go home and live for themselves. They think I threatened them!”
Tylocost said, “You did threaten them. You told them they weren’t safe. Safety was the one lie they all believed in.”
Zanpolo bawled orders at his men. Tol, feeling stunned and stupid, mounted his horse.
They headed for the citadel, sited atop the tallest hill in the city. Zanpolo’s hordes banged their sword hilts against their armored chests. The ominous sound frightened the refugees and they shrank from the column of fighting men. The hordes cleaved through the crowd without bloodshed, as Riders swatted slow-moving squatters, or booted them aside.
At the Great Square of Ackal Dermount, near the center of the city, they encountered their first serious opposition. The square seethed with panicked refugees, and at the opposite end of the plaza were several hundred horsemen in the funereal white and silver livery of the Governor’s Own Guard. Their sabers were out.
“Here’s where we cleave a few skulls,” Zanpolo said.
“Can we try persuasion?” asked Tol.
“Not with them, my lord. They take Wornoth’s coin, even as the Lord Governor takes the emperor’s. They’ll fight.”
Tol knew he was right. “Give quarter to any who ask for it, but we must reach the citadel before Wornoth seals himself inside.”
Zanpolo rallied his own horde, the Iron Falcons, with a roar that made Tol’s hair stand on end. With an answering bellow, the Riders raised their sabers high, then extended them at arm’s length. Zanpolo called for a point charge. In the tight confines of Caergoth’s streets, there wasn’t room for a full-tilt attack.
The Iron Falcons bolted across the Great Square. On their flanks, the Lightning Riders and the Bronzehearts surged forward. The Juramona Militia broke out of marching order and formed a wall of shields around those on foot. Tol rode with Zanpolo.
Innocent townsfolk and terrified refugees raced out of the way of Zanpolo’s charge. Some did not make it, and were trampled.
The Governor’s Own men were confused. They thought Zanpolo’s attack was directed at the refugees choking the Great Square. Their hesitation lasted only briefly, but it was long enough. If they had withdrawn immediately up the narrower side streets, Zanpolo’s thrust would have been less effective. Instead, they took the full brunt of the Iron Falcons’ charge.
Tol was bent low over his horse’s neck, Number Six extended. A guardsman tried to deflect his point with the small iron buckler strapped to his left forearm. Dwarf-forged steel pierced the buckler and, propelled by Tol’s strength and the horse’s speed, drove on through with only a momentary scrape of resistance. As their horses collided, Number Six buried half its length through the man’s neck. Tol recovered, and the guardsman slid lifeless to the ground.
After the initial contact, a brisk, slashing battle followed. The weight and power of the Falcons drove the Governor’s Own men back to the walls of the House of Luin, the hall of the Red Robe Order in Caergoth. Stubbornly, the governor’s men fought on.
“We can’t spend all afternoon at this!” Tol shouted at Zanpolo. “Keep going here – I’ll take my footmen on!”
“Can you really get through with that lot?” said Zanpolo, with a Rider’s traditional disdain for foot soldiers.
“They got me here, didn’t they?”
Tol broke off and rode back to his Juramonans, standing at the other end of the Great Square. All the civilians had fled and he made quick time across the empty plaza, sheathing his saber as he arrived.
Tol and the militia would head for the palace, with Zala leading the way. Her father, Voyarunta, and the other wounded would remain behind with the Dom-shu men. Miya, armed with spear and shield borrowed from a Dom-shu warrior, stood ready to go with Tol.
He gave her a surprised look, and she shrugged. “If you get yourself killed and I’m not there, Sister will skin me.”
Tol’s lips twitched at her reasoning, but he addressed himself to Queen Casberry, asking her to remain behind also.
The kender queen, dressed today in a sky blue tunic and matching trousers, consented and immediately invited Voyarunta to join her in a dice game called Three Times Dead.
Tol divided the two thousand men of the Juramona Militia into four companies of five hundred. Each company would follow a different route through the grid of streets, marching parallel to each other and reuniting before the main gate of the Caergoth citadel. Zala gave them quick directions that would allow them to avoid the public plazas, where troops loyal to Wornoth might have congregated.
Tol’s orders were simple. If challenged, the militiamen should fight. But if the opportunity arose, they were to offer opponents the chance to join them, and keep heading toward the palace.
The four companies set off at a trot. Tol, Miya, and Zala went with the center-right column. Tylocost accompanied the far left.
As they progressed, the streets grew increasingly narrow. Miya complained and Tol explained the constriction was intentional, to prevent large bodies of troops from attacking the governor’s palace.
At one intersection they flushed out a band of archers. The militia company charged, but the surprised bowmen, armed only with mauls for close-range fighting, turned and fled.
After passing down another tight street, the Juramonans found themselves before the citadel’s ceremonial gate. This portal, dedicated to Draco Paladin, was open, and some fifty soldiers wearing the governor’s colors milled about it in confusion. As the Juramona spearmen emerged from the alley, the soldiers sent up a shout. The ponderous double doors of the gate began to close.
“Secure that gate!” Tol bawled, and his contingent rushed pell-mell for the portal.
Tol was confronted by a subaltern wearing a fancy gilded helmet. The fellow was half Tol’s age, but wielded his slim blade with skill. Twice he scored, cutting a bloody line on Tol’s right arm and left thigh. Tol tried to cut him with his stronger blade, but his strikes met only air. The young officer was never still for very long. He darted from side to side, avoiding every swing aimed at him.
Sweat stung Tol’s eyes. His breath moved up and down his throat harshly. He’d never been adept at fancy dueling, and as the contest dragged on, his years began telling on him.
Finally, his enemy’s bright iron blade wh
isked over Tol’s shoulder, snagging briefly on his earlobe. As blood spurted from the cut, Tol managed to seize the man’s wrist.
“Yield!” he said. “Don’t fight us, join us!”
The subaltern punched Tol in the chest with his buckler. Tol staggered backward. The tip of the young soldier’s blade flashed toward his eyes. Reflexively, Tol threw his head back. A cut opened on the bridge of his nose.
Angry now, Tol gripped his saber in both hands. He made a whirling parry, binding up the officer’s slender, straight blade. The fellow hit him again and again with the iron boss of his small shield, but Tol ignored these blows, concentrating on the motion of the blades. At the top of an arc, he flung his hands up, yanking the young officer’s sword high. Disengaging, Tol drove Number Six at his opponent’s heart.
The subaltern brought up his buckler. An iron saber would have been turned aside, but Tol’s steel point punched through the shield’s brass rim and kept going, running the officer through. Mortally wounded, the fellow stumbled backward, dropping his sword. He gaped at Number Six, its hilt nearly touching his chest. There was no pain or fear on his young face, only bewilderment. He simply couldn’t understand how the saber had penetrated both his buckler and his damascened breastplate.
His eyes grew distant, and his lifeless body fell sideways, as Tol recovered Number Six.
“Husband, the gates!”
Miya’s warning drew Tol’s swift attention. The great portal was slowly swinging shut.
Her warning had been heeded by another as well. Out of the melee dashed a slight figure, sword in hand and a floppy hat on his head. Tylocost, running ahead of his men, sprinted for the closing doors. With the fleetness and agility of his race, he wove through the battle, avoiding swords and spearpoints with astonishing dexterity. Reaching the gate, he twisted sideways through the rapidly diminishing gap.