by Doug Niles
“That is something, dear Uncle Siggy, I shall count on you to prevent!”
Jaymes felt the rough bark of the apple tree chafing against his back. His arms were shackled behind him and around the trunk of the tree, so there was little he could do to ease the pain. When he twisted his head, he could see the big fire, glowing between a ring of trees, and he sensed that the princess was over there, talking about him with the leader of the knights. The knights had found the sword, Giantsmiter, and of course they had taken away his crossbow and dagger. His magic ring, a gift from Coryn, remained on his middle finger of his right hand, all but useless behind his back.
It didn’t take any great stretch of imagination to realize that Princess Selinda had played him for a fool, lulling him into a sense of security before springing her trap. Why had he listened to her? If he had simply knocked her over the head, he would be far away from here by now, across the stream and safely onto the plains. Instead, he had followed her like a bumbling puppy.
How Jaymes had underestimated the princess—to think he had been so busy admiring her courage, her cool assessment of risk and danger, when all the while she had been playing a game, pulling him around like a pet with a ring through its nose.
Still, regrets were a waste of time. What was done was done. He wondered about Dram and the two gnomes—there was no sign of them. They must have escaped in the confusion. The loyal dwarf, no doubt, would remain nearby for a while, looking for an opportunity to stage a rescue. Jaymes shifted, counting ten knights within sight of where he was sitting. Half were watching him. The rest were staring into the surrounding darkness. A whole regiment of dwarves couldn’t rescue him under the circumstances. Far better to hope that Dram, Carbo, and Sulfie were far away and safe.
He heard a stirring among the guards, saw several of them straightening to attention as someone approached.
“My lady!” one protested. “You should not come near the villain!”
“Nonsense.” He recognized Lady Selinda’s curt, confident voice. “He is well restrained, I’m sure.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Then I am perfectly safe, Wendell. Of course, you may keep an eye on us, but please do so from over there. I would like a few words with the prisoner, in private.”
“But—my lady!”
“In private, Wendell.” Her tone was gentle but steely at the same time.
The knight called Wendell stalked over to Jaymes and glared daggers at him. “Not a hint of any threat to the lady—not a gesture, the merest expression, of disrespect—do you understand? Or I will be only to happy to cut out your black heart and feed it to the crows!”
Jaymes met the knight’s murderous stare but made no reply. Wendell’s hands twitched, and he looked ready to deliver a sharp kick with his iron-shod boot. Instead his face contorted, and he spun about, taking a dozen steps away. He stood there at attention, his eyes fastened on the prisoner with furious intensity.
Selinda came over and sat on a stump of wood. She wore a sturdy leather skirt split up the middle, with woolen leggings and an unadorned shirt. Her blonde hair was looped into a ponytail behind her. She sat easily, leaning her elbows on her knees as she studied Jaymes. She had a curious expression in her eyes—amusement, mingled with wariness and contempt—and her slender fingers interlocked as she joined her hands before her.
“I told you Dara Lorimar was my friend,” she said quietly. “Her father was like an uncle to me. If you killed them, you will suffer their fate. How did they die? Did they suffer?”
Jaymes winced, looking away. He drew a breath, felt her eyes boring into the side of his head. “Tell me the truth now. Do you know how they died?”
“She died with a sword in her hand,” he said, finally. “I think the first blow killed her—she did not suffer long in any event. The lord … it was worse for him. His leg was broken, he was bleeding from several stabs. In the end it was the fire that killed him.”
He looked, saw that her eyes were shining, wet with tears that did not spill onto her cheeks. Her fingers were taut, the knuckles white. “And the Sword of Lorimar? How came you to bear it?”
Jaymes met her look. “He dropped it when he fell. It was too valuable to consign to the flames, so I took it away,” he answered.
“Thank you for your honesty,” she said, her voice hoarse, and, for the first time, absent its usual quality of confidence and command.
“Why do you pick at these scars?” he asked.
She snorted. “These are things I want to know. I have many questions,” she added, noncommittally. “After they execute you, I fear it will be too late to find out some of the answers.”
“Are they going to kill me this very night?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level, uncertain he wanted to know the answer.
“Captain Powell wanted to get on with it, yes, but I have persuaded him to wait until you can be taken to Palanthas for a proper trial.” She stood up now, and there was no sense of hesitation, regret, or amusement as she stared down at him. Her eyes might have been fire, but her voice was ice. “When the high court finds you guilty—then I will be ready to watch you die.”
Dram Feldspar’s belly was wet, but he dared not raise himself out of the muck. He glared over at Carbo and Sulfie, but the two gnomes needed no warning—they, too, had flattened themselves along the stream bank, all but buried in the mud, concealed by a dense clump of cat-tailed reeds as the file of knights rode past.
The three of them had spent a cold night here, a mile or more from the grove where they had initially made such a pleasant camp. Dram had seen the knight’s captain as he found Jaymes’ sword. The officer had called out an alarm, summoning his men, sending them toward the abandoned house where the dwarf was certain that his companion was hiding. All of the captain’s attention was focused on that ruined manor.
Dram had wasted no time collecting the two gnomes, snatching up a few possessions easy to grab—including the bag of sulfir Sulfie had been carrying—and slipping past the sentries.
The dwarf and the two gnomes had been able to crawl away from the grove unseen, into the muddy stream. They crawled some distance away from the Solamnic camp. Late at night they heard some commotion, and Dram had inched back close enough to overhear the conversation between a couple of guards. They referred to “the prisoner,” and the dwarf knew his old friend was doomed.
Just an hour past dawn, a few scouts had emerged from the apple grove, cantering northward, splashing through the stream a hundred paces from where the three of them were dug in. Shortly thereafter, the rest of the company rode by, several outriders flanking either side of the main body. Dram and his companions burrowed into the reeds as one of the outriders came dangerously close.
At last the dwarf dared to raise his head, watching the troops pass. He spotted Jaymes, the warrior’s hands shackled to a saddle, another set of chains linking his ankles under the belly of a steed. He rode in the middle of a dozen knights, every one riding with one hand on the hilt of his weapon, one eye on the prisoner.
A moment later the dwarf spotted someone else who stood out from the bulk of stern knights. This person was indisputably a female, a woman who rode astride her horse, not sidesaddle, her posture every bit as proud and capable as any knight. Her golden hair streamed in a plume behind her head as she dug her spurs into her horse, joining the pace of the swiftly cantering knights.
All rode through the stream without breaking stride, the horses surging up the far bank, thundering onto the plains, heading north. In a few minutes they had vanished from sight, but Dram gestured to the gnomes to stay put. Sure enough, the last scouts emerged from the grove some ten minutes after the main body had departed, spreading out, riding watchfully behind.
Once again the three squeezed down amidst the reeds as the last knights passed. The leather-clad scouts on their light horses headed north in the wake of the column, eyes roving from side to side. It seemed to take forever before they dwindled to specks.
; Only then did Dram struggle to his feet, muttering and cursing as he tried to wipe the stinking mud off his tunic. He settled for rinsing most of it from his beard. Finally, with the two miserable, complaining gnomes in tow, he too started northward, following the easily distinguishable spoor of the knightly column.
CHAPTER TWENTY
PROFIT AND LOSS
Ankhar had initial difficulties integrating the human soldiers into the ranks of his goblin horde. The two races possessed an instinctive antipathy that resisted his most persuasive efforts to tame. They were forced to set up their camps some distance from each other. Yet many a passing glance, sneer or curled lip escalated into blows, bloodshed, even a few fatalities.
Ankhar had a brainstorm on the day when Blackgaard came to him and complained that two of his men, suspected of some slight, had been ambushed and severely injured by their allies.
Actually, it was Laka—and Hiddukel, Prince of Lies—who gave her adopted son the idea. She whispered it to him in the dark of the night. At first light the next day, Ankhar asked for a demonstration of battle magic from Hoarst and his compatriots. The half-giant suggested a broad, flat-bottomed valley for the occasion. The many thousands of gobs and hobs assembled in more or less regular ranks on the slopes to watch, while the half giant, together with Laka, Captain Blackgaard, and Rib Chewer, sat upon a low hilltop with a good view of the target zone.
The half giant roared with delight as the Thorn Knights spewed blazing fireballs, searing lightning bolts, and thunderous hailstorms against hapless thickets of thornbushes, a beaver dam, and a clump of cottonwoods. When these had all been reduced to charred pulp, the three wizards demonstrated other talents. One launched from his fingertips a blazing spear that struck down a hapless prisoner staked nearly a mile away. Another, a female elf, vanished from sight and startled the hill giant by appearing behind him. She handed him a conjured rose with the hint of a smile.
Hoarst himself performed the most spectacular spell, calling down a swarm of meteors that apparently obliterated the Thorn Knight, as well as pummeling and cratering a large section of the plain. Only when the dust settled did the viewers see that Hoarst was alive, strolling casually out of the ruined swath of ground. He saluted Ankhar with a little click of his heels and bowed as the half-giant and his companions applauded.
After a moment, the hobs and gobs of Ankhar’s army added a massive roar of approval, awed—just like their half-giant leader—by what they had witnessed. As Laka had predicted, the goblin-kind were more amenable to their human compatriots after that.
“When next we meet knights, there new kind of Truth upon the battlefield!” crowed the commander, clapping the former dark knight Blackgaard on the back. Ankhar was impressed that the man wasn’t staggered by the blow, though the human did murmur something unintelligible underneath his breath.
“What you say?” the half giant asked with a scowl.
“Est Sudanus oth Nikkas,” the Dark Knight captain replied.
“What that mean?”
“Perhaps you know that the Solamnics pledge Est Sularus oth Mithas—My honor is my life?” the human suggested.
“I hear this,” Ankhar lied, starting to lose his patience.
“Est Sudanus oth Nikkas means ‘My power is my Truth.’ ”
The half-giant thought about that saying for a moment, then laughed, a dull rumble of amusement slowly bubbling from his chest. “Yes,” he agreed. “That the way of my army.”
He looked to Laka, who bobbed her skull rattle. The eyes glowed bright green in approval.
“Yes, my power is my Truth,” he repeated.
“Look at these figures!” snapped Bakkard du Chagne, waving the parchments in the general direction of Baron Dekage. “It’s as if the miners are purposely slowing down production—merely to spite me!”
“I am sure that is not the case, my lord,” the aide de camp tried to reassure him. “After all, the rains have been intense during this season. You recall, a score of workers lost their lives when the north dam burst and they were unable to escape their flooding tunnels. Surely that is more a cause of the production drop than any recalcitrance on the part of the common laborers.”
“Bah! You know what those towns are like, there along the north coast! Barely getting on their feet again since the Scourge! So twenty men lost their lives? A hundred should be willing to step forward and take their places! Where else in all Solamnia might they expect to earn that kind of money?”
“Quite right, Excellency. Their ingratitude almost boggles the mind. Er, what action would you like to direct on this matter?”
Du Chagne grimaced and turned to the tall window. As usual, the sun was streaming in, the azure waters of the Bay of Branchala glittering like a million sapphires. Ships plied these waters in increasing numbers, a dozen or more tall-masted galleons arriving in the port. Several massive galleys were just now rounding the point, no doubt bearing tin and spices from the east. The Lord Regent nodded—his share of the docking taxes alone would add more than a hundred steel to his ledgers, for each of the newly arriving ships.
He glanced at the conspicuously empty docks, near the smelting yards. He knew that the coal reserves on the Norlund peninsula were extensive and only now being tapped after long years of wastage under the Dragon Overlords. Every day, those mines should be able to produce enough of their black fuel to send at least one, and soon enough two, heavily laden barges down the coastline. In truth, his smelters, his forges—all his industries!—clamored for the fuel like hungry chicks in an eagle’s nest.
Yet coal production continued to decline. The last barge had arrived three days ago and had already been emptied and towed back to the mines. There were no coal barges in sight in that direction, and the reserve of coal piled near the waterfront had dwindled from the dozen or more mountainous cones that were the norm to a couple of pathetic hillocks that would barely last the week. He thought of his mountain of gold, secure in his towertop high above, and he dreaded the thought that he would have to dip into it to help the city pay for routine operations.
“I won’t stand for it, do you hear!” snapped the Lord Regent. “It is completely unacceptable!”
“Indeed, Excellency. I merely await your orders,” DeKage said patiently.
“Bah—enough of coal headaches for now. Tell me, have any interesting dispatches arrived in the morning pouch?”
“Yes, there is one here, sent by Captain Powell. I believe it arrived by pigeon, shortly after dawn. It has been transcribed for you and is ready for your perusal.”
“Very well—that might be distracting. Let me have it.”
The aide handed it over, and the lord regent perched his spectacles upon his blunt nose. He hated to wear the damned things, they were a sign of weakness, but in truth his eyes were not what they used to be. He certainly could not read the finely printed foolscap of a messenger pigeon’s paper, if it hadn’t already been transcribed into large letters in solid, dark ink. He read the missive quickly.
“Well, this is big news. They have caught the bastard—the Assassin of Lorimar!” He crumpled the short missive and glared at DeKage. “They are bringing him here!”
“Indeed!” The baron allowed himself the luxury of a thin smile. “Good news indeed, is it not, my lord?”
Du Chagne was looking out the window, thinking. It never failed—things always became more complicated. He nodded. “Yes, very good news, of course,” he agreed. “Now, moving on—what else is on the agenda?”
“Very good, my lord. Now, there is the matter of the wheat harvest. As you can see from the charts, it has been a good year on the northern plains. Unfortunately, the late rains have caused two deleterious effects. First, some of the stockpiles have been flooded in the yards on the eastern end of the High Clerist’s Pass. Secondly, some of the road through the pass remains washed out, and it is apparently beyond the ability of the local residents to repair—at least in a timely fashion. I have here a series of messages, urgent requests fo
r assistance from the city.”
“Why must I do everything for these people? Are they too lazy to lift a pick and shovel?” Du Chagne slumped into his leather-padded chair, putting a hand over his face. He was starting to get a headache. He pictured the cost in more gold: gravel purchased from local quarries, teamsters to haul the fill, lazy workers who would siphon off his hard-earned fortune.
Just then, du Chagne’s attention was drawn by a knock at the door. He scowled; his councils with his aide de camp were inviolate unless something significant warranted an interruption.
“What is it?” he barked.
A liveried doorman hesitantly opened the portal and stood at attention. “Begging your pardon, Excellency, but you have a visitor. I told her you were in conference, but she was really quite insistent.”
“She? A woman. Most inconvenient. Who the devil is it, man?”
“The White Wit—that is, the Lady Coryn.”
Du Chagne almost groaned audibly. He didn’t have time for this! “Tell her to come back next week!”
“Er, I can’t, my lord. That is, she’s not here. She spoke to me, and said … let me see, she said, ‘Tell the Lord Regent I await him at his highest counsel.’ Then she blinked out of sight, Excellency.”
“Damn it.” Du Chagne left the baron and his servant, running out the door and up the spiraling stairs to the top of his loftiest tower. His stocky legs propelled him toward the gold that was his only, and thus his highest, counsel. He arrived at the glass-walled room, panting, fumbling for his key at the landing, and when the door opened he stumbled inside, terrified of what he might find.
His gold was still there, every bar of it, stacked just as it had been when he left it that morning. A quick glance across the neat stacks confirmed that not a single ingot had been stolen.
Coryn the White emerged from behind one huge pile of gold bars. Her robe, as pure alabaster as a layer of new fallen snow, glistened in the sun-brightened hall. Silver symbols, etched in thread-thin wire, winked and sparkled as the light shone on the robe.