“No!” cried Thelgaard. “I swear it upon a thousand gods!”
“The truth!” snarled Jaymes, bringing the blade down on the floor, shattering the flagstones in front of the cringing, kneeling duke.
That sudden violence seemed to help Thelgaard recover some of his composure. Still on his knees, he drew his bulky body upward and glared at Jaymes. His expression was calm, even peaceful.
“I swear upon upon the tomb of my wife that it wasn’t me.”
Jaymes was taken back. He had expected the man to lie, was fully prepared to kill him, but all his instincts told him that the terrified lord was telling the truth.
With a sudden retch, the duke toppled forward, vomiting violently, gasping and spewing until he was a sweating, shivering mess.
Jaymes turned and left him like that, a broken lord, kneeling in his own spew.
Lady Selinda found life in Palanthas as boring as ever. She spent a lot of time on the upper parapets of her father’s great palace, gazing at the mountains, the bay, the sky, and the clouds. Almost with fondness she thought of the desolate plains, the long ride that had brought her back home. No longer did she fear sea voyages-indeed, the notion of salt air and an ocean wind struck a romantic chord in her breast, as never it had done before.
Her father was more irascible than ever. His fury at the escape of the Assassin had remained at a fever pitch, and neither Captain Powell nor the regent’s daughter had been inclined to seek his company. Even his treasure room didn’t seem to soothe him. He ordered shades pulled over all the great glass windows, so the Golden Spire no longer gleamed over Palanthas. He was far too unpleasant about the whole topic for his daughter even to think about asking him why he rarely visited that once favorite refuge.
In her heart, she blamed the escape of Jaymes Markham for casting a vile spell on her father and the whole castle, and she knew that she had only herself to blame for that episode.
It was early in the evening, and Selinda was looking forward unenthusiastically to dining alone, when she was startled by a knock on the door of her private chambers.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“The one called the White Witch,” came the answer.
“Coryn!” Selinda threw open the door and embraced the enchantress, then quickly pulled her into the room and closed the door. “I have been hoping you would turn up sooner or later-though my father tells me you have been terribly busy this summer.”
“So, I understand, have you,” said the black-haired wizard, looking at her.
“Oh, Coryn-you know everything! So you know I captured the Assassin, and we were bringing him here, but he escaped.”
“Yes, I know you’ve met him. I have too.” Coryn looked closely at the princess. “Do you really think he killed Dara and her father?”
“He’s certainly capable of murder,” Selinda said, a little defensively. “He killed a brave knight of my escort, Sir Dupuy. Dragged him right over the edge of a cliff.”
“Well, then you would be interested to know they claim he has struck again. Another murder.”
“The Assassin has murdered someone else?” The princess felt a twinge of confusion and dismay. “Whom did he kill?”
Coryn shrugged, strangely noncommittal. “I didn’t say he murdered someone. I said, people claim that he did.”
“Who is claiming?” Selinda pressed? “Who was killed?”
“The Duchess Martha of Caergoth. Duke Crawford claims that the Assassin, identified by his burning sword Giantsmiter, came into his chambers and struck down his wife in her bed.”
“Lady Martha!” Selinda gasped. “But she was… harmless!” Only after a moment did she shake her head. “Wait, that doesn’t sound like him, not at all. He’s a dangerous killer, but why would he kill the wife of Duke Crawford? Was the duke hurt, also?”
“Strangely enough, no,” answered the mage. “He was present and witnessed the killing, but the Assassin did him no harm.”
“That makes no sense,” Selinda said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Coryn agreed. “But that’s what they are claiming. They’re tearing about Caergoth in a frenzy, looking for him.”
“It seems a bizarre mystery,” the princess admitted. “Why would the Assassin kill harmless Martha?”
“Why, indeed,” Coryn said, turning to leave. “I wanted to warn you. Be careful.”
“You too. Good bye,” said the noblewoman.
It was only an hour after the white wizard had gone, that Selinda found Captain Powell at the waterfront. The Palanthian flagship, Pride of Paladine, was tied to the wharf and was being provisioned and made ready to sail. She told the veteran knight what Coryn had told her.
“The duchess? Killed in her bed, in the palace?” Powell said, frowning.
“The duke was there, but unhurt.”
“It seems… it seems very unlikely indeed, my lady,” the captain observed cautiously.
“I think so also. Too strange.” In that instant, Selinda made up her mind. “Captain. I have a mind to return to Caergoth. Leaving as soon as possible and going by ship. Will you accompany me?”
“My lady princess, I would be delighted.”
“Good. I’ll tell my father.” She realized as she said it that she meant tell, not ask. It was a good feeling. “We can sail on the morning tide.”
Ankhar raised the mighty spear over his head. The green tip glowed ever more brightly, despite the sun that was just beginning to poke above the eastern horizon, casting the tall keep of Thelgaard into long shadows across the plain. The horde covered a vast ring of plains, the landscape dark with their numbers.
All awaited his command.
He knew that much of the population of the city had fled even before his army had arrived on the scene. Long files of refugees made their way south, toward Caergoth, and Ankhar had let them go-he and his army no longer killed for killing’s sake.
Now the half-giant stood for a long while and admired the ranks of horses and wolves and their riders, of broad-backed ogres and wing-stiff draconians, the legions of gobs and hobs extending to the far horizon in orderly lines. It was dawn, and the light of the sun glinted on the brass roof of the keep.
“Charge!” cried the Ankhar. His ordinary shout was loud as thunder, but the power of the Prince of Lies amplified its volume. As the green light pulsed from the spearhead in his hand, the commander’s words were not just heard by every single one of his soldiers, no matter how far away they stood-each word was felt as a visceral impulse to work the will of their leader and his god.
The goblins surged toward the low walls of Thelgaard. Archers filled the sky with arrows that rained down upon the few men who dared to defend the city. Ogres marched forward to the beat of heavy drums that echoed through the ground and the city walls. Teams of humans rushed to the walls, scrambling up crude ladders. Brandishing swords, they swept along the battlements and dropped down the inside walls to spread out through the tangled slums.
The brigade of ogres from Lemish carried a heavy trunk as a ram and battered down the weakly manned city gates. Thousands of attackers followed them, swarming into the main avenues. Draconians scrambled up the walls and launched themselves from the heights, gliding on their wings to outflank the small bands of defenders who tried to make valiant stands.
Hoarst and the other two Thorn Knight spellcasters concentrated on the army barracks and armory, igniting the wooden structures with fireballs, blasting with lightning and ice the panicked soldiers who stampeded for safety. The killing would have been greater except Thelgaard’s army was so depleted that the strongholds were already largely abandoned.
Gobs and hobs and all the other invaders rushed through the streets of Thelgaard, right up to the great keep, the castle that had stood for more than a thousand years. Its walls were high, but flying draconians seized key towers, quickly dropping ropes to their comrades swarming through the moats. Within an hour the curtain wall had been cleared, and the attack swept through the courtyards, penet
rating into each barracks and stable, every corner.
The army of Ankhar was an unstoppable tide. They plundered and killed, burned and looted. Pockets of knights fought to the death, while those citizens who had lingered tried to escape and mostly died. Fierce battles raged here and there, while other parts of the city, bereft of defenders, were, gleefully looted.
Finally the attackers arrived at the great hall of Thelgaard Keep. Here the mass halted, parting ranks so that the commander could have the honor of the ultimate moment. Ankhar strode forward, stopping before the stout entry to the keep.
“Est Sudanus oth Nikkas!” he roared.
The half-giant bashed open the doors to the hall with one mighty blow of his own fist. He charged in with his gleaming green spearhead poised, ready to drive death through the heart of the lord.
The Duke of Thelgaard was already dead, the blood still draining from the cuts he had made on his own wrists.
Captain Dayr looked back at Thelgaard Keep. The invaders had claimed the entire city in a few hours of savage assualt. Dayr and two score men had held out in the west gatehouse for a full day, watching as the rest of the city was overrun. The attackers had taunted them with word of the duke’s suicide, but the forty men in the gatehouse-all knights-had inflicted grievous losses at the cost of only two dead.
Finally, as night had fallen, Dayr led the group on a bold escape. They seized horses from a corral outside the walls and rode bareback onto the plains. Some of the worgs and riders gave chase, but they were exhausted from the day of battle while the knights’ horses were fresh. The knights had soon left their pursuers behind.
“Est Sularus oth Mithas,” Dayr murmured, seeing the banner of the Crown torn down from the castle’s highest tower.
His honor was his life, but that honor did not require him to die, not in the service of a lord who lacked even the spirit to wield a weapon in his own defense. Dayr thought bitterly of all the men who had died in the Battle of the Crossings and here because of the ignobility of the Duke of Thelgaard. The captain himself had ordered men to their death based on his master’s foolish commands. It was a mistake that Dayr vowed never to repeat.
Sometimes honor required that a fighting man retreat so that he could live to fight another day.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Immaculate Army
Early on a cool autumn morning the whole city of Caergoth was astir. Although most of the duke’s great army remained in the field, camped just south of the Garnet River, Duke Crawford had kept his personal guard, nearly a thousand knights, with him in the city. For a week those knights, and every courtier, noble, and priest had been involved with the pageantry attending the Duchess Martha’s funeral.
The duke, in fact, was rather taken aback at the evidence of his late wife’s popularity. For all her simplicity and faults, she apparently had struck a chord with the common people of Caergoth, who demonstrated their genuine grief. Patriarch Issel had delivered a stirring eulogy, and six of his stout clerics had borne her casket to the royal vaults, in the catacombs of Temple of Shinare below the city.
Now, at last, the funeral was over. Knights and squires bustled to prepare for an expedition. Wagons filled with freight lumbered through the streets, starting for the camp of the army some thirty miles away. Great herds of fresh horses to replace battlefield losses and cattle to feed the hungry troops were driven eastward through the city gates and out across the plains.
Finally, after an interval for one last civilized breakfast, it was time for the duke himself to depart. The thousand knights of his personal guard would escort him into the field, where he would take command of the larger force. The companies of the Ducal Guard were organized by the colors of their mounts. First came the blacks, then the chestnuts, followed by the grays, and finally the whites. Each rider was clad in gleaming armor, the silver outline of the rose visible upon every breastplate. The horses trotted in formation, as precisely as if they were leading a coronation parade. They proceeded out of the gates of Caergoth in ranks of four, proudly leading down the long, swept pavement of the King’s Road.
The duke himself rode in a carriage, with Sir Marckus and Sir Reynaud on their chargers beside the open vehicle. The lord accepted the cheers of his adoring populace as he rode through the streets and out the gates, enjoying the accolades so much that it seemed considerably dull once they left the city and were left merely trundling along the road-good, paved highway though it was.
Because of that road they made very good time, and in two days they rode all the way to the crossing of the Garnet River. Here the army was camped beside one of the engineering wonders of the Solamnic Realm: the King’s Bridge. The span of white marble had stood for hundreds of years, since long before the Cataclysm. Indeed, it had been erected by dwarven masons under the auspices of Istar’s Kingpriest and had once been called the Kingpriest’s Bridge. After the fall of that great city and the convulsions of the Age of Despair, the people of Solamnia had chosen the shorter appellation.
Lord Lorimar had erected his manor in the shadow of this bridge on the north bank of the great river, and the ruins of that once-splendid house could be glimpsed from the crossing. The duke felt his eyes drawn to the charred site, even as he shuddered in horror. Dara Lorimar had been such a beautiful woman… what a shame she had to die that way.
More relevant to Crawford’s immediate future-and a relief to his distracted mind-was the spectacle of the great army, more than ten thousand men encamped along the south bank. The men exploded with cheers as their lord rolled through the vast tent city.
The next day the duke led his entire army across the bridge, which was nearly a quarter mile long. At the north end, where the road started across the vast plain, he climbed one of the two watchtowers, and relished the sight of his great army flowing over the gleaming span, and forming into neatly organized columns on the north side of the river.
The Garnet River was not as great a waterway as the mighty Vingaard, which lay to the north and drained the vast swath of the plains through the port of Kalaman into the northern ocean. But the Garnet was still deep and fast-moving and bore snowmelt and rainwater from the mountains of the same name through the fertile bottomlands of Caergoth into the Strait of Ergoth. Marshy banks kept the troops away from the river’s edge. Like the road itself, the bridge was paved in granite slabs, and stood as proof of the greatness of the Solamnics.
First across were the knights of the Ducal Guard on their uniformly colored horses. Next came the ranks of pikemen marching in crisp formation, the silver tips of their tall weapons glimmering like a field of diamonds. This column alone stretched more than a mile long. The pikemen were followed by legions of men armed with sword and shield, with more long ranks of those carrying crossbows. Finally the catapults and ballistae rumbled along, the great war machines pulled by straining oxen-even those ponderous beasts had been combed and brushed to a sheen, their tack polished and buckles shined to a dazzling brilliance.
Duke Crawford stood atop the bridge tower and watched the mighty column as it marched past. He allowed himself a moment of pride, reflecting that no force on all of Krynn could stand against his multitude on the battlefield. His captains saluted him, their horses prancing with heads held high. Trumpeters brayed, and festive banners and pennants snapped in the breeze.
In all, the column was more than ten miles long, each detachment formed of men loyal to him, sworn to the Oath and the Measure. They had come from Sancrist, Sanction, and Palanthas, from even farther outposts across the continent of Ansalon, but they would obey his orders alone. Every polished piece of equipment, each steel blade and razor-edged arrowhead, had been provided for such cause as he deemed right and proper. His great power almost made him swoon in his saddle.
“Why the glum face?” the duke asked Captain Marckus, who stood in the position of top honor on Crawford’s right. “Does it not look like a splendid army?”
“Aye, lord. There is no more splendid looking army. Please forgive
my melancholy-I was but reflecting that the late duchess would have been delighted by the pageantry.”
“Ah, yes, the Lady Martha was always one to relish a display,” the duke allowed, grimacing. Marckus was always reminding him of the last thing he wanted to remember. As a practical man, he had come to see the death of his wife-distasteful as the whole affair had been-as a blessing. Now he was free to seek a truly worthy wife!
His mind wandered to the Princess Selinda. He recalled the golden sheen of her hair, the breathtaking swell of her breasts beneath her velvet gown. Now that was a woman who would make a proper wife! Not only that-by virtue of her own rank, she could raise a duke to the status of a king. The duke imagined Selinda’s certain delight when he communicated to her, hopefully in person, news of the great victory he was about to win. He wished she could be there to welcome him when he returned, victorious, from the field of battle-what a perfect moment!
Now, as the duke stood on the tower and watched, it took more than three hours for his army to make the crossing. In fact, he stepped back from the brink several times for refreshment, and once even enjoyed a short nap under the shade of a hand-held awning. When he awoke, his troops were still marching past! They gave a hearty cheer as he again appeared at the battlement and offered them an encouraging wave.
Impatient at last, he climbed down the many steps from the tower, mounted his charger, and started to ride away. He passed uncomfortably close to the ruined manor of Lord Lorimar-the blackened, burned structure seemed to stare ominously at him. He spurred his horse forward, cantered along the side of the great column as it advanced northward. He knew that he cut a dashing figure as he rode his stallion, trailed by a dozen or so men of his entourage.
Caergoth was going to war! He felt a twinge of nervousness, suddenly conscious that this was real war. The news from the east was dire. The horde of Ankhar had sacked Thelgaard. Solanthus was isolated, the duke slain. Crown and Sword had been humbled by a mere barbarian chieftain. It was time for the Knights of the Rose to set matters right. The Lord of that order, Duke Crawford of Caergoth, was just the man to command the forces of good.
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