by Doug Niles
The elemental king remained missing, and he could hope and pray it would continue to inflict damage and spread terror among the lands of the humans. Hoarst was slowly recovering from his nearly fatal wounds, but the Thorn Knight, as yet, was unable to attempt to create another wand of control. Without such a device, Ankhar was not about to make any rash predictions about the conjured creature.
As usual, he turned to the counsel of his stepmother. She listened sagely as he discussed the losses his army had suffered and pondered his next course of action.
“The Prince of Lies, as always, knows the Truth!” declared the old hobgoblin. She picked up her skull rattle and shook it at him. Immediately he felt a swelling of his power and his determination as the blessing of the dark god was bestowed.
“Battles will be lost, and battles be won,” she intoned. “In the shadows of mountains, my victorious son!”
“Aye,” he said. “Sage advice, as usual. We need to move away from here, to use the mountains as shelter. The Solamnics will come for us, and there we will meet them.”
In the back of his mind, he suspected the elemental king, too, might have gone into the mountains. If it emerged, he could at least try to recapture it with the ruby box the old crone had repaired. Then if only the Thorn Knight would recover his senses.
“There you will destroy them, my son!” cackled Laka gleefully.
Ankhar nodded and touched his mother tenderly on her frail, bony shoulder. “Est Sudanus oth Nikkas,” he said, satisfied that he had made the right decision.
“Were you thinking about me, while you were off in Solanthus, battling that terrible monster?” asked Selinda.
The princess of Palanthas was alone with her beloved, having sent the efficient—but overly intrusive—servants away with the last of the dessert dishes. She had ordered up a magnificent torte, with iced cream and red berries that had been shipped from far down the coast and transported in cases filled with ice. The palace chef had outdone himself, creating a sweet, chilled pastry that had been beautiful to behold and sumptuous to consume.
Unhappily, her guest had only picked at the delicacy, and eventually the cream, the berries, and the torte had all melted together to form an unappetizing sludge on his plate. One of the servant girls had eventually carried it away, looking almost tearfully at the culinary magnificence wasted.
But of course, the lord marshal was tired, drained by the perils he had faced over the past few weeks. It was, the princess knew, nothing short of a miracle he was even alive. He hadn’t told her much about the monstrous elemental being, but even his scant description sent a chill of terror down her spine. She clutched his hand until her knuckles turned white, as if the pressure of her grasp would be enough to ward off any future dangers.
She was terribly worried about him. The stories she had been hearing from her servants lately were quite distressing. The people were complaining that the war was taking too long, that the army cost too much money! Didn’t they understand how important this war was? And how difficult? To Selinda such complaints were heartbreaking, and she had wasted no time in speaking up for this great man whenever someone dared to criticize him within her hearing. So vehement was her defense that it had not taken very long before people stopped voicing these thoughts in Selinda’s presence.
“But the battle in the city … you drove Ankhar’s army out of Solanthus?”
“Yes—a costly battle, but a key victory. Now the three wings of the Army of Solamnia are closing in on the city. They might even be within sight of the walls by now.”
“Shouldn’t you tell people, then?” she asked. “I’m sure there would be rejoicing. Everyone would be happy about that.”
“Whether the people of Palanthas are happy is not my concern,” he said with a shrug. His eyes met hers as he reached into a pocket of his tunic. “I have a gift for you. From Solanthus.”
She was thrilled. “But … how in all Krynn did you—?”
“Here,” he said, reaching into a fold of his tunic.
He pulled out a small bundle of white gauze and handed it to Selinda. She carefully unfolded the material to find a pair of elegant gloves with lace extending far up the wearer’s forearms. She gasped with delight and pulled first one, then the other onto her hands.
“They’re beautiful!” she cried. She leaped to her feet, dashed around the small table, and embraced him. “I love them!”
“Good. I was thinking of you while I was there and wanted to bring you something so that you would know that.” He stood, gently easing out of her hug, just as someone knocked on the door and quickly opened it.
“Marie!” snapped Selinda, looking around in dismay to see her maid’s head poking through the widening aperture.
“Begging your ladyship’s pardon,” the girl said. She was wide eyed as she curtsied. “It’s the lord inquisitor. He wishes to see you—claims it’s very important! He’s here, right outside—”
The servant was interrupted as the dour, hawk-faced cleric pushed past her. “My dear princess,” he declared haughtily. “The hour is nigh upon midnight! I beg of you to consider your reputation, your standing in this fair city. You cannot allow this man to remain here! I fear considerable damage has already been done to your prestige. If you won’t send him away for your own sake, think about your father!” The inquisitor turned stiffly to regard the lord marshal. “I beg you, my lord, leave immediately.”
Jaymes stared at the priest with an expression of wry amusement on his face. Selinda, however, glared at him in fury. “How dare you intrude here? Does my father know?”
“It is your father, dear child, who sent me,” Frost replied mildly.
“Where is he? I’m going to speak to him immediately!”
“You will find him in his private drawing room, I believe. I suggest you go there at once.”
Selinda didn’t even take time to throw on a shawl. She rushed toward the door, pushed past the cleric, and started through the palace hall. She didn’t glance back, didn’t notice Jaymes Markham and Inquisitor Frost eyeing each other very carefully indeed.
“Good evening, my lord,” said the cleric … eventually. He bowed stiffly.
“Actually, let us walk together,” the lord marshal said, brushing past the inquisitor then turning to beckon him with a wave. “It’s time we all went and had a talk with the lord regent.”
“Father, you had no business sending the inquisitor to my apartments!” Selinda declared hotly as soon as she had entered the drawing room, trailed by one of the two guards.
“I’m sorry, Excellency!” the guard apologized. “I told her you couldn’t be—”
“That’s all right, Roland. You may go now. Good evening, my dear,” said du Chagne coolly, rising from his chair beside the dark hearth. “I can see that you’re upset, but surely you will understand that it was for your own good.”
“I see nothing of the sort!” she retorted. “We were having a pleasant dinner, and poor Jaymes is terribly weary from the war, from his travels. We were doing nothing wrong!”
“Of course not, child. I trust you implicitly. But you know how people talk!”
“Let them talk,” she replied, drawing herself to her full height—she was an inch taller than her father. “I’ll have something to say to them when the time is right, but for now I will say it to you in private.”
“Yes?” the regent said warily.
“I intend to marry that man,” she announced. “And there is nothing you can do to stop me!”
Her father took the news surprisingly well, she thought. He merely gave her a sharp look and sat down in his chair again. Father and daughter both turned to the door as it opened abruptly, allowing Jaymes and the lord inquisitor to enter the room.
“What are you doing here?” du Chagne demanded of the lord marshal.
“Time is short; I need to return to the front. This is no time to stand on ceremony. We might as well get some matters settled right now,” Jaymes replied evenly.
&n
bsp; “What matters are those?”
“Your daughter and I intend to be married.”
“She was just now telling me something about that,” du Chagne replied dryly.
“Did she tell you that the ceremony is going to take place tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? Impossible!” This, at last, brought the lord regent to his feet, his face purpling. As for the lord inquisitor, he looked stunned and at a loss for words.
“Tomorrow!” cried Selinda, astonished and as pleased as her father was shocked. She threw her arms around Jaymes’s neck and hugged him close. “Yes—it must be so!”
“There’s no way the arrangements can be made so quickly,” the lord inquisitor interposed, forcing himself to sound reasonable. “There are auguries to be made; an auspicious date must be determined. And of course, this is a matter of high statecraft and diplomacy—surely you’ll want to have representatives from the other Solamnic realms, at least? And Sancrist? The Grand Master himself will certainly wish to be present!”
“There’s no time for that, for any of that,” Jaymes responded curtly. “The campaign is at a crucial stage, and I must return to my army at once.”
“Why not get married when matters in the field have been resolved?” Inquisitor Frost asked after a long pause, finally finding his voice.
“Because this marriage is a key step in the ultimate victory of my army,” Jaymes replied firmly.
“I should think you’d have more important things to do than to argue this matter while your troops are still on the battlefield and the enemy is ringed around Solanthus!” Lord Regent du Chagne declared. “Ankhar remains a formidable opponent.”
Jaymes shrugged. “I have his measure. He’s formidable, indeed, but so am I. This fight won’t take much longer. But I am here to make two demands of you.”
“Demands?” The lord regent’s eyebrows rose in an expression of disdain. “Aren’t you busy enough, fighting a battle for the future of Solamnia? What else do you want besides the hand of my daughter? I suppose you’d like a dowry, a gift of gold as well!”
“I am not interested in your gold. But I am risking my army on the field of battle. Indeed, I am risking my life. I am fairly confident that my passing would not be terribly mourned by your lordship.”
Du Chagne gestured impatiently for Jaymes to get to the point.
“Two things: One, your daughter will marry me tomorrow—you see yourself that she wants it to be so and has agreed. The wedding will take place immediately … before I return to the plains.”
Du Chagne’s jaw tightened, but he said merely, “And the other demand?”
“Lord Frankish commanded the Palanthian Legion. You will recall, the general challenged me, and he paid for that mistake with his life. I believe his legion is currently without a commanding officer. I claim the legion in lieu of a dowry. There is no one more deserving of that post, no one more appropriate to command your private army.”
The lord regent appeared to consider the stakes very carefully before he spoke tersely. “Very well. You shall have the legion. Now get out of here, and let me speak to my daughter and my high priest. There is much that we have to arrange.”
Jaymes was already heading toward the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ACQUISITIONS
The lord marshal visited the Crier’s Guild before dawn on the following day. With the expenditure of a single sparkling stone, he contracted two dozen heralds, and by sunrise these men and women were abroad in the city, announcing the news of the royal wedding that very evening. This development stunned and excited the people of Palanthas.
By the time Jaymes returned to the lord regent’s palace at noon, riding the white gelding that Donny had tended for him, the population was joyously thronging in the street. Their displeasure with the progress of the war had been forgotten; they cheered and hailed him as he passed, and lined the roadway leading down from the palace, eagerly anticipating the wedding procession they expected to witness later in the day.
Within the palace, the lord marshal went immediately to Bakkard du Chagne.
The marshal was received by the regent in the palace drawing room. Du Chagne sat sullenly and listened to the lord marshal outline his intentions.
“I will take command of the legion immediately,” Jaymes informed du Chagne. “I intend to use an honor guard from the legion for the wedding. Immediately following the ceremony, the entire force will march with me to the plains, where I will launch the final phase of the war.”
“So you really intend to go through with this sham of a marriage? This mockery?” said du Chagne, finally finding his voice.
“Your daughter seems to be happy; I should think that would please you. She has chosen a setting for the event and has asked a priestess, a friend of hers, to preside over the vows. And yes, of course I intend to be there and as you put it, go through with it.”
“And what of me? My station—my house—my gold? I suppose you intend to claim everything eventually?” The lord regent patted at the sheen of sweat on his balding head with a handkerchief. “I’ve suspected it all along: you intend to ruin me!”
“Whether you are ruined or not is of little concern to me. But you should understand that you have brought all this upon yourself,” said the marshal with a shrug. “It was foolish to put Lord Frankish in a position where I had no choice but to kill him. It was he who challenged me, but I am certain you were behind his foolhardy attempt on my life.”
“But I have granted you command of his legion!” du Chagne retorted. “As for my daughter, I don’t know what kind of hex you’ve placed upon her, but—”
Jaymes reached out his fist and pounded it on the desk, causing the regent to recoil with a squeal. The marshal’s eyes narrowed to slits, and he seemed to be controlling his temper only with visible effort. His hands were shaking as he drew himself up to his full height, glaring down at the pudgy man who was the father of his bride.
“Matters between your daughter and myself are not your concern,” he said sharply. “You will do well to remember that in the future. I told you that your welfare or ruin is no concern of mine, but if you try to block my plans, if you try to obstruct me.…” He laughed once, a bark of contempt. “Well, you saw what happened to your assassin … and what happened to your three dukes when they tried to challenge me. Next time, my steel will be seeking your own heart. Consider yourself warned, dear father-in-law.”
Chuckling, the lord marshal walked around the large office, stopping to admire the view from the windows. Du Chagne stared at him but said nothing, nor did he attempt to rise from his chair. The first rays of the sun spilled from beneath a layer of golden clouds, casting the entire valley—the city and the bay—in a shimmering, almost ethereal glow.
The scene of transcendent beauty went unnoticed by du Chagne.
“As for this”—Jaymes gestured, encompassing the palace, the city, all the view in sight—“you can keep it. I have no interest in your station nor, believe or not, your gold. Except, of course, what may be necessary to fund military operations. That bill you will continue to pay.”
The lord regent merely glowered. There was nothing, really, that he could say. Jaymes walked to the door, turned the handle, and glanced back at du Chagne.
“The wedding will occur this evening. For reasons that I don’t fully understand, Selinda wants you to be present. So can I expect you on your best behavior?”
For several breaths the regent’s jaw worked, but his mouth couldn’t seem to form words. Finally, he nodded curtly. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
Generals Dayr, Markus, and Rankin led their separate columns eastward across the Plains of Solamnia, moving as swiftly as their exhausted troops could march and their weary knights could ride. The outposts of Ankhar’s army had no choice but to fall back before them, for without the river as a defensive barrier, they were too widely scattered to oppose. If these units—mainly goblin riders and human mercenaries—had not retreated,
the mobile columns of knights would have isolated and destroyed them.
However, each of the three army wings had been brutalized by the costly river crossing; then the combined force had been shocked and battered by the passage of the monstrous elemental being. Even though the Solamnic troops had not directly confronted the creature, it had inflicted a thousand casualties in a matter of moments.
Now hundreds of wounded were being tended by clerics in a great hospital camp set up on the west bank of the river. Many supplies had been expended or lost in the crossing or burned by the elemental. Food, spare weapons, and medical resources were in short supply.
General Dayr’s Crown Army had been reduced to less than half its starting strength. The shower of arrows had killed many men in their boats, and countless others had drowned when the frail little crafts had capsized. In the immediate aftermath of the battle, the Crowns had been forced to lick their wounds on the west bank and were able to cross at a ford only when the goblin cavalry had withdrawn to avoid being outflanked.
The Sword Army of General Rankin had not lost quite as many of its rank and file, but his elite knights had been shattered in the charges against Blackgaard’s pikemen. Their courage had been epic, but their tactics disastrous. The steady lines of the defenders, their tight discipline, enabled the long weapons to gut hundreds of horses and pierce the flesh of nearly as many riders. The pathetic remnant of Sword Knights accompanying the columns of infantry eastward effectively numbered only a few hundred now.
General Markus and the Army of the Rose had fared a little better than their northern counterparts, but even that force had been considerably reduced. In addition to the casualties suffered in the crossing, Markus had been forced to detach a sizable contingent to screen the army from the prospect of attack from the Garnet Mountains.