Then, taking a breath, he leapt into the night air. He fell for three yards, his body horizontal with his arms stretched out in front of him. Through the gloves he was wearing to protect his hands from splinters, he felt the smooth rounded surface of the timber mast sliding under his fingers. Then as he descended, he took hold of it and swung his legs in beneath him, catching it between the soles of his feet. For a moment or two, the ship rocked and then all was still again.
Karn allowed himself a smile, pleased with the precision of his work. He was now halfway down the mast. Twenty men were below him and not a single one of them had any idea that he was there. He looked up, hoping to catch the eyes of a few of the archers. They were watching. Then, with a nod, he kicked himself away from the mast and dropped to the deck.
As he fell, he pulled two foils out of scabbards hooked onto his belt and held them clear so he wouldn’t skewer himself on them. And when he landed, they were ready. Using the element of surprise to its full advantage, he made quick work of several men before they even had a chance to grab their weapons, and then the archers above fired a cloud of arrows into the fray.
When it was all over, the bodies of Vlaxan’s servants were removed from the Ensildahir ships and placed on shore in a mass grave. Kindling was found nearby which was used to burn the bodies, then the ships were tidied and inspected for any damage that would prevent them from sailing.
“We’ll return these ships to Ensildahir in the morning,” Ishtvan told his men. “When we are all rested. However, some of us will need to keep watch tonight. I want three watches. We’ll have ten men on each and rotate shifts every three hours.”
He then talked to Karn while the men drew lots for sentry duty.
“Thank you, Karn,” he said. “We couldn’t have done this so quickly without you. And I fear more Ilara lives would have been lost.”
Karn smiled. “Well, I’m glad I could be of assistance. And, of course, I’m very glad that apart from a few minor wounds, we had no real casualties.”
Ishtvan returned the smile but it was not a smile he felt inside. He knew the real reason why they had no serious casualties. It had been too easy. They had had the enemy trapped and were able to attack them from above with no risk to themselves. He spared a thought for Keld at Ensildahir. The battle he was going to face wouldn’t be anywhere near as pleasant. However, what happened at Ensildahir was beyond his ability to control.
“So will you be returning to Ensari tomorrow?” he asked.
“Tonight,” Karn replied. “I have no doubt that Queen Heptapshu will be pleased to hear of our success here.”
“No doubt,” Ishtvan agreed. “I only hope the others are as successful.”
IX. The Battle of Ensildahir
The dawn was now fast approaching. And, to the north, so was the Angdar army heading for Ensildahir.
Keld and Gandon jogged at a good pace through the nearby woodlands where the enemy was most likely to emerge. They had helped with the laying of several traps in the area, designed to take the Angdar by surprise and give them an extra edge in the battle and now, they would see if they worked.
Around them, men were positioning themselves in gullies and behind clusters of trees, disappearing from sight. Keld and Gandon climbed up a small embankment and crouched down with their swords ready. Their hearts were pounding as they heard thousands of Angdar trampling the ground close by.
“They sure got here fast,” Keld muttered.
It was a horrible feeling, waiting for the enemy to arrive. Then, in clusters of twenty or so, the Angdar warriors came into view. It was hard to make out their features in the pre–dawn light but Keld and Gandon saw more than they wanted to.
Then as a several of these groups emerged, a rope was pulled taut across their legs and they fell to the ground. Ilara soldiers leapt from their hiding places to dispatch the fallen brutes but with mixed success.
By mid–morning, many Angdar warriors had passed through the defensive net that had been established in the woods and so the battle was taken onto the open plains before the city itself. But by nightfall, the tides had turned and the Angdar had been driven back into the woods. Then at last, the enemy’s horns sounded over the trees. The Angdar had called a retreat.
In Ensari, Queen Heptapshu spoke with some of her men. “No, the defeat of Vlaxan and his men was thorough. Nonetheless, I would like you to send a small patrol to Berring’s Cove to make sure there were no stragglers. Also, have the northern villagers gone to the safer ground beneath the mountains as I instructed them?”
“They went eventually,” one of the men replied. “Many were very reluctant though and took a lot of persuasion. They all say the Angdar are known to use the scorched earth approach to war when it suits them.”
“Yes,” the queen said. “They’re quite fond of it. Still, it’s better that these people lose their crops than their lives.”
“That’s what I told them.”
“Good man. Well, that’ll be all for now. Messengers from the strait are waiting for me with news of the battle. We have vanquished the Aracean fleet, it appears. However, I’m told there is another message waiting for me as well.”
Karn waited in another room nearby. He had already seen Queen Heptapshu with the news from Berring’s Cove but she had asked him to stay a little longer as she suspected that she might need his help.
It was not a long wait before she reappeared.
“I’m sorry to have kept you, Karn,” she said. “But I have a favor I need to ask. Possibly, a quite important matter has arisen.”
“What is it?”
“We have just received a message from a neutral mage called Shaala,” she told him. “She wishes for another mage to go to her home in the palace of Bellasaire to negotiate her entry into the war against our enemies. She claims that she can help us and we need to take her offer very seriously because right now, we need all the allies we can get. Karn, I need you to go to Bellasaire. Shaala said she would only negotiate with a mage and you’re the only mage here.”
Karn frowned. “What about Morgiana? She’ll be back soon, won’t she?”
Queen Heptapshu shook her head. “She’s taking the fleets to take the port of Hallam while we have the upper hand. And I’ve heard no word from Tal.”
“Well, in that case, I’d be happy to help,” Karn said. “I’ll need a small ship however.”
The queen smiled. “That can be arranged.”
Back in Ensildahir, as he walked past a few groups of soldiers helping the wounded and mourning their fallen companions, Keld saw Gandon talking to Tal and Lord Adeus. Then after a while, Gandon came over to him.
“What was that about?” Keld asked.
“Tal’s going to lead a small group of men to re–take the Arahir garrison and I’m going with him,” Gandon replied. “Without a safe harbor there, the enemy will have to retreat farther to the east or head north to the river. That may also hinder their efforts against Valahir as it’ll make it more difficult for the Angdar to supply the men they have there. They’ll still have Wyvern’s Peak, I guess, but, even so, it’ll help us considerably in the war effort as we’ll be able to relay news on both sides of the mountains again. And if we move fast, Tal believes we can overtake the column and capture the garrison before the Angdar arrive. Are you with us?”
“Well, if we can re–take the lands of Arahir from the enemy, I might be able to finally take a group of men north to Valahir.”
The following day, Ishtvan brought the nine ships of the Ensildahir fleet into the harbor. And as the morning sun rose over the city the next day, he set out with a group of soldiers at Lord Adeus’ request to help Tal at the Black Circle’s garrison in Arahir. At her own insistence, Lorial accompanied them and Ishtvan did not try to stop her. She was governed by her own rules now and her only allegiance was to her friends.
Lord Adeus briefed them on the move. “I imagine they’ll arrive at the garrison tomorrow night so you won’t be far behind them. Hopef
ully they’ll be able to hold it but there could still be thousands of Angdar there so nothing is certain, despite Tal’s belief to the contrary.”
Ishtvan nodded.
“Now, I’ve got a thousand men who are ready to march right now,” the commander continued. “I wish I could spare more but I’m going to need quite a few of them to look after this mess. And Queen Heptapshu also left me with instructions that if we managed to drive back the Angdar here, I was to send at least half the men back to Ensari. She believes the hammer’s going to fall on Kalishar with more certainty than anyone. However, whatever happens there is out of our hands at the moment.”
“True,” Ishtvan said.
“Now, one last thing before you go,” Adeus added. “If the fighting gets too heavy, I’d rather you pull the men out of there. Of course it would be a great gain if we held the garrison but –”
Ishtvan put a hand on his shoulder. “I understand.”
That evening, Karn climbed into a boat on the banks of the Ismene River, a small vessel with a single sail he could manage alone. It was dark by the river, even though he was in the middle of the city, and it was quiet.
Queen Heptapshu had insisted that he stay in Ensari another day, while she waited for more reports from the strait, as it wouldn’t do him any good to be found en route by a stray Aracean ship that had escaped the battle. However, according to her men, the strait was now clear.
Karn pushed his boat into the water with a wooden pole. Then he pulled on the sail and as it climbed up the mast, he turned the boat towards the mouth of the river, letting the wind carry him away.
X. In the Land of Arahir
As night fell, the main column of the Angdar army arrived at their garrison at the northern end of the Entruscian mountains and waited for the guards on duty to open the gates. However, the large gathering of tired soldiers outside the fortress walls seemed to have gone unnoticed. No sentries were to be seen and the gates remained closed. A strained silence hung over the Angdar and they glared at the walls. Three days had passed since they were driven back from Ensildahir and they were weary and footsore. A large chieftain stepped forth.
“Let us in!” he bellowed. Like his companions, he was frustrated by the delay.
He glanced back at a human mage a few yards behind him, one of the surviving lieutenants of Strahd the Invoker who had first led the Angdar armies.
Then, on the battlements, a lone Angdar appeared but the gate remained closed. The chieftain glared at him. Maybe the guard thought that this was funny but he didn’t. He roared in fury at this unamusing act of insubordination. “Open the gates!”
However, the guard on the wall didn’t move. The large chieftain was puzzled. The mage, on the other hand, realizing that something more serious was going on, stepped forward and as he did, the lone guard fell from the wall, landing before his feet.
The mage then looked back up where the dead Angdar guard had been and saw a familiar figure in its place. Tal Orson stood alone on the wall, sword in hand, staring down at him. He had won the race.
The mage commanding the Angdar waved his arm in a gesture that needed little interpretation and Tal leapt back from the battlements as a volley of arrows was fired. He then raced along the wall to the gatehouse where the others waited, while Angdar chieftains barked orders to their soldiers.
When he reached the gatehouse, his companions were at the windows, already firing at the Angdar outside. They had a little protection from the walls of the gatehouse but not a lot. However, the initial skirmish was brief and the Angdar retreated to the woods to organize their next attack.
Soon the only sound Tal could hear was the heavy breathing of his companions.
They then crawled away from the windows and lay down against the rear wall of the gatehouse. The whole room was made of stone and it wasn’t very comfortable to lie against but they were too exhausted to notice.
“Are they gone?” one of the men asked.
Tal shook his head and sat down. He pushed a layer of sweat off his face and ran his hands through his long, thick hair. “No. The Angdar won’t give up this place that easily. They’ll be back and they probably won’t be long either.”
Just then, the door to the gatehouse swung open and another man entered, a falconer they had brought along.
“Did you get the message out?” Tal asked.
The man nodded. “About half an hour ago. I was just waiting until the racket died down a bit before I came back.”
“Sensible enough,” Tal replied. “Are there any sentries still left in the fortress?”
“I think there might be a handful left but I’d say we’ve got most of them. I killed a couple earlier.”
“We’ll have to block the doorway somehow,” Tal said. “I’ll keep watch tonight and make sure none of them try to get to the gate winches. They might try to climb in through one of the windows as well. As for the rest of you, get some sleep while you can.”
The next day in the seas to the south, the sun glistened on the water as the one hundred and forty remaining ships of the Ilara and Maharei fleets glided to their next destination, the Aracean controlled port of Hallam.
The port was enclosed in an array of fortress–like stone walls to protect the ships docked there but there was no extended city surrounding the port, just desert to one side and wild countryside to the other. And within the confines of the port itself, there was nothing save small inlets for the ships to dock and buildings to accommodate the soldiers who manned them.
Morgiana walked across the deck of the Osprey to Lord Bacara, who was overseeing both the Maharei and the Ilara fleets now.
“Take the Osprey in, Ali,” she told him. “And order the other ships to hold back. I am hoping that a representative from the Aracean Empire here will have the good sense to come and speak with us. If one does, we’ll offer them the chance to leave here unharmed. We should be able to take the port without risking the lives of any of our men.”
“As you wish,” Lord Bacara replied before giving the orders.
The Osprey docked and as expected, a representative of the eastern lands was waiting. Morgiana laid down her terms and he was more than willing to accept; he knew any attempt to defend Hallam would be futile with the number of ships surrounding it. Soon, the Aracean occupants had gone, leaving their possessions behind as spoils for Ilara and Maharei.
“Now,” Morgiana said to Lord Bacara, “I want the Ilara fleet to remain here and hold this port as an outpost. Captain Estevan will remain in command and you and I shall return to Kalishar.”
XI. The Palace of Bellasaire
Out in the strait, a storm raged that had not let up for days. With a great thunderclap, lightning struck the water just yards from Karn’s vessel, while waves thrashed the boat without mercy.
Karn had tried waiting out the storm but even now, it showed no sign of coming to an end. With the war breaking out in the Greater Realms, he had decided he could wait no longer and braved it. Fortunately however, he was now quite close to Bellasaire.
Then in the midst of the crashing waves, the gale and the torrential rain, he heard a high–pitched shriek and a gangly winged creature dived straight for him. It looked like a small black dragon, except it had an awkward, skinnier build and its tail was segmented with a sharp stinging tip on its end.
As it dived at him, it leveled out and swung its stinging tail under its body. Karn steadied himself as best as he could on the rocking boat and lunged forward, grabbing hold of the creature’s tail just above the stinging tip. The creature panicked and tried to shake him off so it could fly away but he was too heavy.
Keeping his grip on its tail with one hand, Karn grabbed a knife from his belt with the other and hacked off the stinging end, along with the next three segments of the tail. Then, ignoring its shrieks of pain and anger, he yanked the thing down farther, grabbed it by the neck and dispatched it.
“What the hell would a wyvern be doing out at sea?” he muttered as he flung the
carcass overboard.
He watched as it bobbed in the waves for a moment and then sank into the depths.
Rain pelted the beach where he brought his boat in but the thunder and lightning had not followed him. Around him, dense shrubbery came down to the soaked sand while farther up the coast, he saw the faint lights of a small town.
It was unlikely that it was occupied by Aracean forces but Karn didn’t feel like taking any chances. He had studied a map of the area before he had left Ensari and had decided that he would take a short cross–country route to reach Shaala’s palace at Bellasaire, which was several miles inland, rather than approaching it from the nearby town.
After a couple of hours’ travel, using the road between Bellasaire and the nearby town for the last leg of his journey, he was in sight of the palace. At the point where he reached it, mountains rolled down before him into a wide valley but because it was dark and the rain was still falling heavily, he couldn’t see much of it.
However, he had no difficulty seeing Shaala’s palace rising into the sky. It was an enormous tower, much larger than he had imagined by far. He then remembered what Queen Heptapshu had said before he had set out from Ensari, that it had once been the stronghold of Gammoroth, one of the fallen mages in the first great war. After the remaining mages of the order had driven him from it, it had stood abandoned for many long years. The locals never ventured near it because of superstitious beliefs and even now, they still feared it.
Seeing it with his own eyes, Karn couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t the most inviting of places and he had half a mind to turn around himself. He wondered what kind of person would choose to make their home in such a place but he kept going despite his misgivings.
At the base of the enormous stone structure, several steps led to a modest timber door, the only visible entrance, and it opened as he jogged towards it. Light poured out from inside the building and Karn saw a woman standing there.
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