[Ergoth 01] - A Warrior's Journey

by Paul B. Thompson

  “The Red Wrack!” she cried, retreating.

  Tol felt the pit of his stomach fall away. His men had the plague! Since they’d not encountered any contagion directly, he realized it must be spread by the fog. Neither he nor Egrin could believe the bakali clever enough in sorcery to manufacture the mist themselves, which meant a wizard must be involved.

  Five bakali lay lifeless in the clearing, the final wisps of fog clinging to their bodies. The city guardsmen looked over the slain lizard-men and regarded their commander with new respect. Tol brushed aside their admiration.

  Shancy and the other woodcutter women were terrified by the sight of the dead lizard-men. They wondered if their men had met the same fate the bakali had obviously intended for Tol’s troop. Tol promised them he would look out for their missing loggers as his troop made its way north.

  The soldiers’ coughing was growing worse, and many complained of severe headaches. Although they were obviously suffering, Tol ordered them to prepare to move on. They had to find the missing scouts.

  * * * * *

  They headed deeper into the wood. Although they called periodically to their missing comrades, their cries attracted no answers. Stealth was out of the question anyway, what with half the men or more coughing ceaselessly. The tiny red splotches were growing, covering the men’s faces with a crimson stain. The Red Wrack was upon them, and Tol didn’t know what to do. Lord Urakan’s army was served by an entire train of healers, yet they were said to have barely held out against the disease.

  He contrived to touch both Narren and Egrin with the Irda nullstone, thinking its power might transfer, but their symptoms did not abate.

  Tarthan and the thirty men under his command had been farther from the clearing than the rest and seemed less affected by the plague mist. Tol sent them ahead as a vanguard. Before midday Tarthan sent back word they’d found a recent trail.

  When the main body caught up with Tarthan, Tol found the warrior standing in a dry creekbed that wound through the woods. A grim expression on his dark face, Tarthan pointed to several bare footprints, surrounded by three-toed bakali prints.

  Tol knew those long, narrow footprints. One of the Dom-shu sisters had been abducted by the lizard-men.

  Taking the lead himself, he drove his men relentlessly onward. The tracks continued, following the old stream bed.

  Near dusk, they found Sanksa and Kiya hiding in a tree. With happy shouts, the two swung down, and for the first time in their “marriage,” Kiya threw her arms around Tol and embraced him with real ardor.

  “I knew you would come!” she said. “Hurry! They have Miya!”

  As they moved out, Kiya explained that she, her sister, and the two men had risen well before dawn and gone out to reconnoiter as planned. When the mist first formed, they climbed trees to see over the fog. Then the bakali appeared. Communicating by hand signals, the scouts decided Valvorn and Miya would warn Tol, while Kiya and Sanksa stayed aloft to keep an eye on the lizard-men. Once Miya and Valvorn were in the fog, they lost consciousness, however, and the bakali fell on them. Valvorn was slain immediately and Miya taken captive. Sanksa and Kiya had been following the lizard-men all day. Tol had caught up with them as they rested briefly in the treetops.

  “Miya is in their camp, two hills away,” explained Sanksa. The plainsman’s copper-colored face was grim. “I counted twenty-eight lizard-men.”

  Tol drew his saber. “Let’s rush them!”

  “Wait,” Egrin said, struggling to draw breath. “Why not work around the camp and take them one by one?”

  “There’s no time. Besides, the way everyone’s coughing, the bakali will surely hear us coming.”

  Tol sent Tarthan’s healthy men straight on, while four companies under Narren, Wellax, Allacath, and Lestan followed as closely as they could. Egrin’s band would swing wide on the right, while Frez’s men took the left. The remainder, under steady Darpo, would wait in reserve, moving up where and when the situation warranted.

  Tol followed Tarthan’s men through the widely spaced trees. Light was failing fast, and he didn’t want the bakali to elude them in the coming darkness.

  From the top of the hill, they plunged down the slope, slipping and falling in the loose leaves. Deaf oldsters could have heard them coming, and as they advanced up the facing slope arrows flickered through the trees. A few men were hit, and the first wave of Ergothians faltered.

  Rallying his men, Tol hacked through a wall of briars and kept going. Arrows thudded into trees and turf around him. Gasping and coughing, but still slogging forward, Narren’s company topped the hill and started down behind Tarthan’s. Tol heard crashing in the underbrush, punctuated by hacking and wheezing, and knew Egrin’s men were on their way as well. He saw the dark silhouettes of several bakali as they stepped out from behind trees to loose their missiles. More of his men toppled, arrows in their chests.

  “Long live the emperor!” shouted Tarthan, raising his sword high.

  The soldiers answered in ragged fashion and charged uphill the last twenty paces. Confidently, the small group of bakali waited, thinking the line of sharpened stakes around their camp would halt the humans, who could then be punished by a rain of arrows. Tol reached the stakes first, and wormed between them without much trouble. The lizard-men had bungled. They had spaced their stakes to stop enemies as bulky as themselves, not such slender humans.

  The bakali were poorly equipped with plundered weapons. Although they fought tenaciously, by the time Egrin’s men closed in from the opposite side, the lizard-men were all dead. Tol searched the camp for Miya, finding her under a flimsy lean-to of willow leaves and moss. She was staked out on the ground, hands and feet bound with thick rawhide straps. Tol was shocked to see her at first because she’d been stripped of her clothing and her skin was covered with bloody red streaks.

  “Husband!” she shouted. “Glad to see you. Get me loose, will you?”

  Egrin and Narren arrived at the lean-to, and Miya managed a surprising yelp of modesty. Startled, the two men withdrew.

  Tol sawed at her bonds with his dagger. “What happened? Did they hurt you?”

  “Nay, I’m not harmed.” She stared in the direction where Narren and Egrin had come and gone, making sure they did not return.

  “What are all these marks?” He rubbed a finger down her arm. The red streaks smeared at his touch.

  She explained the bakali had been in the process of marking her for butchering when Tol and his men arrived.

  “These lizards eat humans!” she said. “Lucky for me, they like certain cuts better than others. They took too long, arguing over who would get what part of me.”

  The image she conjured up was horrible, but Tol found himself grinning with her.

  “What part did they consider the choicest?” he asked, thinking thigh or calf, but Miya pinched the ball of her left thumb.

  “Two of the lizards were going to fight to the death over who got this part of my hands,” she said with a shrug.

  Miya recovered her discarded clothing, using a scrap of hide to scrub away the bakali’s butcher marks.

  Tol said, “I’m glad you’re well. Kiya would never forgive me if anything happened to you.”

  “Huh! She stayed safe in a tree. Next time, she gets to run from lizards.”

  Shouts from the bakali camp sent Tol dashing out of the lean-to. Tarthan was waving to him.

  “We found another prisoner, my lord,” Tarthan called.

  Tol followed him into a crude bark hut, expecting to find one of the woodcutters. It was dark inside, but he could see a man sitting in the dirt, legs crossed.

  “Someone bring me a light,” Tol said.

  “No need,” said the stranger. “I have one.”

  A glowing yellow ball formed, hovering over the stranger’s outstretched hand. By its light, Tol saw that the man was somewhere past thirty years of age, with thinning brown hair and a high forehead. He wore a belted gray robe, striped on the sleeve and hem in blue
satin. The linen was much-mended, yet the garment was still far too fine for the forest. His fleshy face was drawn and haggard, the countenance of one accustomed to easy living, but who hadn’t experienced much lately.

  He uncrossed his legs, standing awkwardly. “I am Mandes,” he said, pronouncing his name as though it were recognizable and important. “At your service, sir. And to whom do I owe my deliverance?”

  “I am Tolandruth of Juramona.”

  “Ergothian, aren’t you?” Tol nodded. Mandes gave a slight bow, saying, “Thank you for rescuing me, my lord. I thought my days were truly numbered!”

  In response to Tol’s original call for light, Allacath arrived, bearing a blazing brand. Kiya and Narren were close on his heels. Mandes drew his outstretched fingers together, and the globe of light he had created flared and died.

  “How long have you been a prisoner of the lizard-men?” Tol asked.

  “Many days. I’ve not eaten in so long. Can you spare a crust or two?” Narren gave Mandes what rations he had on him. The former captive devoured the stale bread and smoked beef strips.

  They left the tiny hut, Mandes wincing with every step. He had large, soft feet, and was obviously unused to being barefoot. He looked around the camp, counting the dead bakali.

  “Five are missing,” he said.

  Tol waved a hand. “Don’t worry. They’re all dead. I killed the others this morning.”

  Mandes’s thin brows arched. “You? Alone?”

  “Yes. My warriors were paralyzed by a sorcerous mist.”

  “And you weren’t affected?”

  Tol let the question fade, as the answer was obvious. He was watching the reunion of the Dom-shu sisters. Kiya and Miya did little more than grunt and nod at each other, but he could tell they were delighted to be together again.

  The bakali camp yielded little else of value—a handful of coins, a woman’s silver torque, and a hodgepodge of weapons, most in poor condition. Tol set a party of his healthiest soldiers to work building a pyre for the lizard-men’s bodies. There was enough disease abroad in the land without adding rotting corpses to the mix. Six men in Tol’s band had died in the fight, and they would be buried more traditionally, as befitted Ergothian warriors.

  Tol sat on a log while this activity whirled around him. He had a quiet word with Narren and Egrin and they herded Mandes over to him.

  “Tell us your tale, wizard,” Tol said, poking a small fire on the ground in front of him. “Who are you, and how did you get here?”

  Mandes drew a deep breath, throwing out his chest and striking a pose. “I am from Tarsis, as my manner of speech no doubt told you,” he began. “I was once a respected exponent of the theurgical arts in the city of my birth. That changed, however, as the guilds took over, forcing independent practitioners like myself to conform or face summary punishment.”

  “Guilds? You mean the White and Red Robes?” said Tol.

  “Yes! May they stew forever in the belly of Chaos! I, Mandes the skillful, Mandes the learned, was hounded to join the Order of the Red Robes. I refused.”

  “So they ran you out of town?”

  Mandes’s proud posture deflated, the firelight playing over his dejected expression. “Aias, yes. I fled one step ahead of their ghostly enforcers, vile wraiths raised to steal my wits as punishment for defying their orders!” He stamped his foot, grimacing when his heel struck a sharp stone. “The guilds would reduce the noble art of magic to a trade, with apprentices, journeymen, and masters who decide who can practice and where. Mandes the proud, Mandes the free, will not submit to such coercion!”

  “Hmm.” Tol flexed his fingers, nicked and scarred from the day’s battles. “What happened after you left Tarsis?”

  “My self-imposed exile was precipitous,” Mandes said, face flushing. “I departed without food or proper clothing. I wandered the countryside for many, many days, coming at last to the shores of the sea. There I chanced upon a Kharland trader stranded on a bar. In exchange for my help freeing their vessel, they conveyed me to their destination.”

  “Ergoth?”

  The sorcerer shook his head. “The Gulf of Hylo. Specifically, a kender town on the eastern shore called Free Point. There I remained for half a year, selling my services to those magically deprived folk. It was a miserable place, I must say. No culture, no real stimulation for a man of intellect like myself.” He grimaced. “That, and the kender stole back almost every fee I collected. I resolved to leave, but the bakali descended on the port before I could do so.”

  Mandes described how a fleet of six ships, disguised as merchant vessels, landed bakali warriors on the Free Point waterfront. Before the day was out, the town was theirs. All non-kender were rounded up. Some were killed immediately and eaten by the lizard-men. Others were made to work as slaves. Mandes would have suffered one or the other fate had he not demonstrated his magical talents to the bakali commander.

  “What happened to the kender of the town?” asked Tol.

  “Oh, a few were caught and killed,” said Manes. “But most got away. Kender have a way of making themselves scarce.”

  “Why didn’t you use your spells to escape?” Egrin said.

  “I was preparing a conjuration that would have transformed the entire scaly mob into pillars of sawdust, but one of them hit me on the head before I could finish the third incantation—”

  “Why did you create the stupefying mist for them?” Tol asked, rising to his feet.

  Mandes blinked once, slowly. “If I had not, they would’ve killed me.”

  “And the plague that goes with it?”

  “The illness is not my doing. I know nothing about it!” the wizard proclaimed, throwing out his chest.

  “Can you cure the sickness?”

  “I shall do my best for your gallant men,” Mandes said. “After all, you saved me from those awful lizards, and for that I am deeply grateful.”

  Tol did not readily trust the mage. He might be nothing more than an innocent prisoner, or he might have been in league with the bakali. Regardless, if he could cure the plague, Tol would use him, trustworthy or not. He appointed four men to watch over Mandes while he prepared a cure for the Red Wrack. Once his men were well, Tol would take the wizard to Lord Urakan, so he could work his cure on the imperial army. After that, Mandes’s fate would lie in Urakan’s hands.

  Using an old brass cauldron salvaged from the bakali camp, Mandes made a decoction of roots, bark, and herbs, gathered skillfully despite the dark night. Two sips of the hot potion, and the sick men could immediately breathe freely. In short order their red splotches faded, and their coughs ceased.

  The wizard’s swift success only made Tol more suspicious. How would Mandes know exactly how to cure the illness unless he’d created it in the first place? It was enough to make Tol extremely wary of the wayward sorcerer.

  Tol had doses of the cure sent back to the blockhouse for the woodcutters and their families. The same two riders were charged with carrying to Daltigoth Tol’s report on the bakali and the plague, as well as another missive to Valaran.

  When they were ready to move, Tol had Mandes placed on a horse and led the animal himself, so he could keep an eye on the strange fellow. Lord Urakan was camped above the headwaters of the West Caer River, twenty-two leagues away. Tol tried not think of how many Ergothian soldiers might die of the Red Wrack in the five days it would take for them to reach the camp.

  Chapter 18

  Ally or Monster

  The sprawling imperial army camp looked more like a shanty town than a military encampment. The pall of smoke which hung over the site was visible five leagues away. Twenty thousand men, plus at least as many traders, sutlers, and camp followers, had carved out a blight on the once-pristine grassland. Intermittent bouts of heavy rain had drenched the great army of Ergoth, which was now sinking ignobly into a lake of mud. The camp was too large to protect with the usual stockade, so the hodge-podge of tents and shacks were surrounded by a deep, muddy trench. An a
ppalling odor permeated the scene—the combined stench of disease, death, and the manure of horses, cattle, and chickens.

  Afraid to expose his men to Urakan’s tainted hordes, Tol left them outside the vast, ill-favored camp and rode in with only Egrin, Narren, and Mandes. Kegs of the sorcerer’s curative potion were slung on the backs of four sturdy horses.

  On the journey from Ropunt, Mandes had proved an entertaining, garrulous fellow. There was no doubt he was clever, and when he wasn’t being blindingly arrogant, he was fascinating company. He knew all the gossip of Tarsis (at least up to the time he fled), and he entertained Tol and his comrades with colorful accounts of life in the wealthy port city.

  The sentries they encountered were listless and gray-faced. More than the Red Wrack was plaguing Urakan’s army, the men reported. Ague and flux were rampant. The sentries themselves were so weak they could barely stand.

  Outside Lord Urakan’s tent, Tol and Egrin dismounted, leaving Narren to watch Mandes and the kegs. They entered and found Urakan at his table, alone, with his head in his hands.

  “My lord?”

  Urakan looked up. The arrogant, iron-limbed general Tol had known in Daltigoth was gone. In his place sat a tired, dispirited man, his beard starting to go white.

  “Lord Tolandruth! And Egrin, Raemel’s son, isn’t it?” he said hoarsely. He stood, propped up by his hands on the table. “By the gods, I never thought to see you here!”

  They clasped arms all around. “I had word from Prince Amaltar you were on your way north, but he didn’t say you were coming to see me,” Urakan added, somewhat plaintively.

  “This wasn’t part of my original mission,” Tol replied. He described their encounter with the bakali and the subsequent capture of Mandes. Tol expected the old warrior to demand the sorcerer’s head for aiding the lizard-men, but the instant Urakan heard the word “cure,” that’s all he cared to know.

  “I’m burying fifty men a day,” he said, eyes dark with pain. “Is there enough potion for the entire army?”