by Doug Niles
That range was Ankhar’s home territory, and he had used the forested slopes and rocky valleys before to launch his actions. So Markus had sent companies of swordsmen and archers, positioning them to the south, where they were responsible for keeping an eye on the many routes out of the mountains. The elemental king had last been seen striding into the heights, and they were also scouting for any sign of the monster.
All three wings of the great army inched steadily eastward, however, driving Ankhar’s cavalry and mercenaries steadily before them. By the time they drew near to the city of Solanthus, scouts reported that the enemy was withdrawing from his siege lines. First reports indicated the horde was falling back to the east or southeast, possibly toward the savage realm of Lemish—known to be a stronghold of the ogre race. But details were sketchy, and the mountains also promised concealment, shelter, and a place to regroup.
Finally, the Solamnic Army stopped within sight of the Cleft Spires of Solanthus. The soldiers could clearly see the great swath of destruction where the mighty West Gate lay in ruins. Beyond stood the towers of the city. A fortified line of trenches and wooden breastworks faced them, but already it was clear that those enemy positions had been abandoned.
The three generals, Dayr, Markus, and Rankin, met face to face to debate their next move.
“Any word from the lord marshal?” asked Markus, as soon as he and the other two generals had dismounted.
“None,” Dayr replied. Rankin said the same. When the captain of the Freemen, Jaymes’s personal bodyguard, arrived a moment later, Markus put the question to Captain Powell.
“I’m sorry, General. But we have had no word since the White Witch sent him into the city—and that, I fear, was many days ago.”
“Do you think he’s still in there somewhere?” Markus asked, indicating the looming bulk of Solanthus. “Could some trap await us inside the city?”
“No, it seems like Ankhar is falling back,” Rankin guessed. “There ought to be nothing to prevent him from coming out to us now. It’s strange, this long absence and silence.”
While the three generals were discussing their options, two noblemen rode out of the city to greet them. Lords Harbor and Martin welcomed the troops of the liberating army and sadly informed the generals that the Duchess Brianna had fallen heroically in the ultimate battle just at the moment of victory.
They recounted the tale of the city’s battle with the elemental, and Jaymes’s role in that clash. But when asked about the lord marshal’s whereabouts, the two noblemen could only shrug and report that he had disappeared from within the ducal palace. No one had seen him depart the building, and several days of vigorous searching had turned up no clues.
“However, we have to believe that he left the city safely as mysteriously as he arrived,” Martin reported. “Probably by magic. The kender who came with him also disappeared, at more or less the same time. Believe me, we would know if the kender was still about.”
Mystified, the three generals and two nobles retired to the headquarters of the encampment, where they might, with more comfort, mull over a plan of action.
“Ankhar’s army is only a dozen miles to the east,” Martin explained after they had all settled with tea and a ration of biscuits. “We’ve had scouts following him, and it doesn’t seem like he’s in a great hurry to flee. Can’t you strike him there soon?”
All three generals shook their heads, though it was Markus who offered the explanation. “Our men are exhausted, and we are all woefully under strength. This army needs rest, replenishment, and reinforcements—if any can be found. It would be rash to the point of recklessness to charge into battle now, even if we could catch up to the fiend.”
“But he’s right there, within your grasp!” insisted Lord Harbor, gesturing vaguely toward the east. “Surely this is an opportunity we can’t afford to pass up?”
“What about your own garrison?” asked General Rankin sharply. “Do you have perhaps a thousand knights ready to ride? Can you contribute five times that many footmen to our strength? Or two regiments of archers, with twenty arrows for every man?”
“Of course not!” the lord retorted. “We have barely survived this siege with a skeleton garrison. We have perhaps three hundred horses, woefully underfed. And our footmen are half starved. But we drove the enemy away—we have already given our full measure!”
“What my colleague means,” Lord Martin suggested diplomatically, “is that we have also suffered and are diminished. It seems obvious that, even if we combined all our forces, we don’t have enough troops to confront the enemy—not at the present time, at least.”
Sir Templar arrived to find the two groups huddled around the campfire, their command counsel rapidly deteriorating into sighs and long, gloomy silences.
“Sirs,” he reported breathlessly. “I have received word from one of my fellow clerics, in Palanthas.”
“Do you mean that inquisitor fellow?” asked Dayr suspiciously. “I don’t trust anything he has to tell us!”
“No, not him.” The young Clerist knight, who had proved his worth to the generals beyond any doubt when he screened the bridge attack over the Vingaard, spoke frankly. “In point of fact, I share your suspicions about the inquisitor, especially where this army is concerned. But I received an ethereal missive from a priestess, Melissa du Juliette. And she is a woman, a cleric, I trust implicitly.”
“And what did this priestess have to say?” asked Markus impatiently.
“The lord marshal is in Palanthas!” The words, the momentous news, seemed to burst excitedly from the Clerist. “He’s been there twice in the last month, apparently, most recently appearing there several days ago. Evidently he travels by magic—perhaps the White Witch teleports him. The first time he was there, he fought a duel with Lord Frankish over the Princess Selinda—it was Frankish who issued the challenge—and the lord marshal won, I’m pleased to report. Frankish himself was slain. Today the lord marshal is marrying the princess—it was she who was the cause of the duel. and finally, Lord Marshal Jaymes has taken command of the Palanthian Legion and will be marching at its head on the morrow, hastening here to join us at the front! With him are marching a thousand knights, and six or eight thousand infantry!”
“Well,” General Dayr said, with the first smile that had graced his visage since the successful crossing of the Vingaard. “That rather changes things, I should say.”
Selinda disdained the great temple in the center of Palanthas, and instead had selected a modest chapel of Kiri-Jolith for her wedding site. The whole city was celebrating the holiday, but there would be less than a hundred people who could actually crowd into the small building. Of these guests, virtually all were friends of the bride from the court or diplomats who represented places from across Ansalon.
The presiding cleric, Melissa du Juliette, a young priestess of Kiri-Jolith, was not the most experienced nor best-known member of the clergy. But she had been a young maid at the regent’s court when Lady du Chagne was alive, and there she had befriended and mentored the young princess. Now Selinda remembered her wisdom, affection, and kindness and asked Melissa to preside over the marriage ceremony. Melissa had warned Selinda that she would offend a number of the temple’s hierarchy by selecting the young priestess to perform the ceremony, but the princess had shrugged away her concern.
“I have offended them already,” Selinda said coolly. “Jaymes is not a nobleman, and this match is unthinkable to the hidebound who consider themselves the adjudicators of what is right and proper. But I love him … and I believe he is the greatest man of the age.”
“Marrying for love is good,” Melissa replied diplomatically. “Though your courtship did happen so quickly. Are you sure you don’t want to wait for a little time to pass?”
“No—we must marry now. We are both in a hurry. And he has a war to win!”
“This immediate wedding—was it his idea?” asked the priestess.
“I can’t even recall,” the princess
declared. “No—he proposed to me, of course, but I insisted we marry at once, before he returns to the front. Oh, Melissa, I’m so happy!”
“I’m glad,” the cleric said, tenderly touching the younger woman on the cheek.
So the nuptials were arranged and commenced before sunset on that very day. The lord regent was present, looking splendid in a gold frock coat and powdered wig. He escorted his daughter down the aisle in the center of the great church, bowing—ever so slightly—as Lord Marshal Jaymes Markham stepped forward. The princess gave her father a peck on the cheek then took the arm of the man she was marrying.
If anyone noticed that neither Lord Inquisitor Frost nor the Kingfisher, Sir Moorvan, was in attendance, they did not remark on the fact. There were whispered comments, however, about the absence of Coryn the White—who was known to be in the city. She was a famous ally of the regent’s, a friend of the bride, and a steadfast companion of the groom’s, so where was she? Inevitably her absence provoked speculation. Was she jealous of the princess? Did she, in fact, love Jaymes Markham, as many gossiped? Or did she have secret reasons for objecting to the match?
The celebration was heightened when good news arrived from the battlefield. Carrier pigeons brought the first reports, but overnight several couriers arrived from the plains, riding their staggering horses through the city gates. Their dispatches were posted throughout the city, announcing the relief of Solanthus, the general retreat of Ankhar’s army, and the continued advance of the Army of Solamnia. Even without its famous commander, the steadfast Knights of the Rose, Crown, and Sword were liberating conquered lands and rekindling the legendary glories of their historic orders.
Everyone agreed the bridal couple made a splendid match—boding well for the future of the Solamnic nation. To the common people it mattered little that Jaymes Markham was not of the nobility. His martial air inspired awe and boosted by the good news from the front, fresh admiration. As for Selinda, she embodied the city’s legacy, symbolized by the lofty rank of lord regent held by her father, the highest ranking possible in the Solamnic territories, considering the kingship no longer existed.
When at last Jaymes and Selinda made their appearance outside the chapel, the citizens in the square cheered lustily. Selinda was radiant in a gown of white silk, embellished with gauze, accented with strands of pearls at her throat and wrapped around both wrists. Her golden hair, coiffed magnificently atop her head, sparkled with an array of diamond combs. Her happiness was plain to all, as she did not wear a veil.
The lord marshal, somewhat to the surprise of the few who knew him, was also resplendent. He wore a red coat, white trousers, and tall black horseman’s boots that had been shined to a fault. A black, knee-length cape accented his wedding garb. Jaymes wore a ceremonial sword—which the most astute recognized as the blade with which he had killed Lord Frankish in the duel—in a jeweled scabbard at his belt.
They stood at the plaza, accepting the accolades of the throng, for nearly half an hour, until people pressed so close that the honor guard of Rose Knights from the Palanthian Legion was forced back almost to the door of the little church. Before the couple turned to reenter the chapel, Jaymes leaned over and spoke briefly to the captain of the honor guard.
“Have the legion assemble outside the city tonight, in bivouac,” he said. “We march for the plains at first light.”
“As you command, my Lord Marshal,” replied the captain, awed and overwhelmed by his new leader. He and his men had been forced to cool their heels in the city for the past two years, while their counterparts in the three armies had been waging a glorious campaign for Solamnia. Now they would see action at last!
By the time the doors closed behind Jaymes and Selinda, the captain was already gathering his lieutenants, issuing orders, and ensuring the lord marshal’s command would be immediately obeyed.
The lights winked out in the great manor on Nobles Hill, except for the pale glow that emanated from the central alcove in the wizard’s laboratory. The image in the bowl had just been displaying the plaza, with its cheering throng and the newlywed couple, and now it returned to the interior view of the chapel of Kiri-Jolith, following through the door as Jaymes and Selinda passed inside, away from the adoring crowd.
The white wizard was very still as she watched the image, her hands tightening into white-knuckled fists that gripped each side of the porcelain bowl. Coryn watched as the couple passed into a darkened hallway, toward a side door that would emerge onto a quiet street where a carriage awaited, the conveyance that would take them up the hill to the regent’s palace for their wedding night.
Before they reached the door, the white wizard saw, Selinda paused and pulled on Jaymes’s arm to stop him. She looked up at him, her eyes, her whole face, radiating a transcendent happiness. With a sly smile—a smile Coryn had seen many times, very near to her own mouth—the lord marshal leaned down and kissed his bride. He gathered her into his strong arms in an embrace. The princess pulled him even closer, her arms reaching around his neck, pulling him down as they pressed their lips together.
Coryn splashed the wine with her fist, scattering the liquid around the room. Then she put her face into her hands and cried.
The next morning Jaymes rode out before dawn. The legion camp was already astir, as Captains Weaver and Roman had anticipated their new commander’s arrival.
“Tell me your numbers,” the lord marshal said as he dismounted, accepting a cup of steaming tea hurriedly brought by a captain’s aide.
“We have a little more than a thousand Knights of the Rose,” reported Weaver, “two thousand pikes, an equal number of longbows, and better than three thousand militia swordsmen, in companies of three hundred men apiece.”
“Good,” said the lord marshal. “Weaver, I hereby promote you to general. Captain Roman, you will be second in command. The legion will now be known as the Army of Palanthas, and we will be marching over the High Clerist’s Pass to the Vingaard and beyond.”
“Yes, my lord! Thank you!” declared the two officers.
“Now, let’s get these troops on the way. We have a war to win.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CONCENTRATIONS
‘Do you think it has a chance of working this time?” Sulfie asked, eyeing the bombard weapon skeptically. The weapon was a massive tube, half again as long as the previous versions and somewhat thicker. It was angled slightly upward, the muzzle facing in the general direction of a small lake in the valley below. “Even with all the extra steel holding the boards together, I’m not sure it will be enough.”
“All we can do is ram a ball down the barrel and see what happens,” the mountain dwarf replied philosophically. “But if this one doesn’t work, I’m not sure we’re ever going to be able to get something we can use.”
The bombard was set up on a low ridge beside the New Compound. The target range was downstream of the town and industrial complex, a shallow body of water marked by lily pads and few floating geese who were—they hoped—about to be startled out of their reverie. The already thriving town snaked along the valley floor below them, a swath of wooden buildings, smoking foundries, and storage yards that was already larger than the original Compound in the Vingaard range.
In a matter of only three weeks, the whole place had sprung into existence, transforming a pastoral wilderness into a smoking, churning manufacturing center. Houses for the workers were still going up, a dozen of them every day, but the production facilities were going strong. Charcoal was being rendered in long fire sheds, and great mixing chambers measured and prepared the charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter in proper proportions to create the black powder.
One reason for the increased size of the installation was the enthusiastic participation of the dwarves of Kaolyn. No doubt inspired by the new market for their steel, that alloy of legendary strength and flexibility, the dwarf king himself had taken an interest in Dram’s endeavors. He had sent several master smiths and stone carvers, as well as miners an
d forgers, to work in the New Compound—for very good wages, of course.
Soon after the manufacturing was under way, Dram had received word from the Solamnic Armies. The lord marshal was marching overland from Palanthas, leading a large reinforcement of fresh troops, the Palanthian Legion, to join the forces in the field. The mountain dwarf knew that battle was imminent, and any help from the New Compound was urgent.
Rogard Smashfinger, the emissary of the king of Kaolyn, had climbed the ridge to join Dram and Sulfie and a host of hill dwarf laborers, for the experimental firing. Now they stood about, impatient and agitated, waiting for this crucial test. “If this doesn’t work,” Dram had confided, “we’ll be looking at next year before we can make another try.”
The tube itself was considerably modified from the barrel that had exploded in the Vingaards, regretfully claiming the life of Sulfie’s brother, Salty Pete. There were twice as many steel bands around this device, and the ironwood logs were fitted together with tongue-in-groove carvings that ensured even more of the pressure from the blast would be contained. Furthermore, Dram had assigned the Kaolyn stone carvers to carve boulders in perfect spheres, in the exact dimensions of the weapon’s bore. He had already assembled dozens of potential missiles and now only awaited the successful test of the actual weapon.
The fuses, too, had been radically improved. After much experimentation, using the usual trial-and-error method, they had learned that by soaking the twine in a salty brine before infusing it with powder, they could regulate more carefully the flammability of the long strings. No longer did they find, by accident, that an occasional fuse would burn furiously fast or refuse to ignite at all. Now the crucial igniting component of the bombard had been standardized so that every one of the fuses burned predictably.
The black powder itself still possessed the potential for unpredictability. But now all the grains of the ingredients had been ground to standard specifications, and the mixing process had become more efficient and tightly controlled. With careful inspection of the raw materials, still more inconsistencies had been weeded out of the process.