by Doug Niles
“Indeed, my lord? I knew Thelgaard was routed most ignobly by the horde of the half-giant. Half his men killed, the rest falling back to the walls of his city. He refused, my lord—absolutely refused—to cooperate with me on a rational plan of defense. Caergoth was still on the field with a considerable force, while I was compelled to return to my own bastion—I did not want the barbaric rascals to get between me and my own fortifications.”
“Good course, that. Prudent, in the event. Thelgaard is a fool, and our path to empire will only be paved when he has been replaced by someone more capable and reliable. You should not risk your own army until the others’ forces have been exhausted. At the same time, you should encourage them to inflict damage upon the enemy.”
“Indeed, lord. Though it seems that Thelgaard inflicted precious little upon the foe. Have your agents informed you how Caergoth is faring?”
“Yes. He has retired to his city, driven by timidity and indecision. Your own city will be the next target of the enemy.”
The duke mumbled his agreement, shivering—for this was the very revelation that had stalked him in his most recent dream. The Lord Regent’s next words surprised him, however.
“If Solanthus falls to the goblins, it is no loss—we can retake it when we desire. However, it is important that the treasures of the vault be retained, for the good of the knighthood. Therefore, you must empty your treasury and bring the Stones of Garnet to safety. I hereby order you to bring those stones to Palanthas for safekeeping.”
“My lord!” Solanthus was appalled. “The risks of such a journey!”
He remembered what it was that had shaken him to the core. In his dream he had been trapped with the stones, here in the city! Both he and his treasure had been doomed by the surrounding horde! Surely that was the meaning of the dream. The Lord Regent was right—he needed to get them out of here for safekeeping!
“Very well, Excellency.” The duke tried to conceal how unsettled he was. In the face of such dire portents it seemed that fleeing with his riches was the only way to preserve his life and his fortune.
“Be quick and secretive about this,” instructed the lord. “You know the White Witch has been asking persistent questions, making a pest of herself, as usual. Give her wide berth.”
“She is wily, the Lady Coryn,” agreed Rathskell. “If she presses me, I do not know if I can thwart her.”
“You must!” Du Chagne’s voice was a hiss. “Do whatever it takes to stop her! Do you understand?”
“Anything?” the duke asked, with a gulp. “Her powers are daunting, my lord! But I shall do what I can—”
“Rathsky?” The voice—a familiar nasal whine—came from the bedroom. He could picture the duchess sitting up in bed, looking around in confusion. How much had she heard?
“I must go!” the duke said urgently.
The Lord Regent scowled darkly, but the voice rose—“Rathsky! Rathsky!” She was out of bed now, approaching the alcove!
Rathskell dropped the cloth across the mirror and blew out one of the candles. He took the other in his hand as he pulled the secret door aside to find his wife, blinking sleepily, with her hair in a tousled mess, just outside the alcove.
“Oh, there you are. What are you doing?” she asked. “Where were you?”
“Just a little meditation in my private closet,” he said. “I have so many problems of state to worry about.”
“Well, I can’t sleep very well if you are jumping up and meditating all the time,” she said, grumpily, stumbling back toward the quilts. “Why don’t you come back to bed?”
The duke’s eyes narrowed as he watched her. That was close.
“Yes, dear,” he said quietly. “It is time.”
They could no longer be described as a horde. Ankhar and his followers moved out of the Garnet Mountains and onto the plains—not as any rag-tag barbarian force but as a formidable army.
Even before the worg-riders emerged from the forested foothills, the commander had dispatched a dozen auraks—the only draconians capable of true flight—on aerial reconnaissance of the lands across the planned route. They reported universally that the knights seemed to have withdrawn into their great fortresses and were patrolling only in the immediate vicinity of each city’s walls.
Even so, the half-giant enforced strict discipline as his army swept across the plain. He had hundreds of lupine cavalry covering the ground before and to either side of his mighty columns. His footsoldiers marched in thunderous cadence. His regiments teemed with goblin spearmen and swords. There were huge phalanxes of archers, draconians advancing with wings furled, including companies of kapaks and baaz, commanded by snarling, whip-cracking sivaks.
Riding in the midst were the heavily armored knights of the Blackgaard’s Brigade, forming a solid block, a crushing hammer to be wielded in accordance with the army commander’s will. The legions of humans, mercenaries and brigands who had joined together marched shoulder to shoulder with gobs and draconians that had been their lifelong enemies. It was an impressive tide of martial power, driving across the landscape like a force of nature.
Over the course of five days the army made steady progress toward the great, walled fortress city of Solanthus. As they drew near all of the human outposts retreated within those lofty battlements—“Like turtle pulling in legs and head!” Laka cackled—and Ankhar’s troops were not even subjected to harassing attacks as they spread in a vast semicircle around the city.
Of course, Solanthus was not an easy target. It stood at the northern terminus of the Garnet range, on a commanding bluff overlooking the plains to the east, north, and west. Gentle ramps had been excavated in all three directions, carrying wide, smooth roads up to the city’s massive gates. Yet each gatehouse was a small castle in its own right, and each road passed directly beneath the parapets of the city wall for a good quarter mile before reaching the gates, so any attacker would have to run a lethal gauntlet before coming close to those massive, ancient barriers.
The city’s great landmark, its Cleft Spires, rose above the walls, the towers, everything else. This great natural pillar, cloven in half by a blast of lightning many centuries before the city was founded, loomed hundreds of feet high. The two halves bent away from each other, curving above the great marketplace at the heart of Solanthus.
Ankhar knew all this, and knew to be patient.
His army made a sprawling camp outside those three plains roads. There was another, much narrower, track leading out of the city to the south, climbing through a perilous series of switchbacks as it ascended along the front ridge of the mountain range. That was no path for an army or for the flight of a panicked populace. Instead, the commander knew to keep his eyes and his army trained on the three great gates, intimidating the enemy army and the lord huddling behind those high, thick walls.
He was standing in the middle of his camp, staring up at the north gate, when one of the guards came up to him in the late twilight hours. “Lord Ankhar?” said the hobgoblin, snuffling loudly. “An ogre is here to see you.”
The half giant nodded. He followed the guard through the camp toward the darkening expanse of plains. To the south the vast bulk of Solanthus rose against the sky. The walls and towers of that ancient bastion were already aglitter with torchlight.
The half giant shook his head at such foolishness. Didn’t the knights know those flames only served to night-blind their own men and provided no defense against the great army before their city?
At the edge of the camp, the hulking chieftain could not disguise his surprise. There was not just “an ogre” to see him, but a feathered and painted ogre chieftain of strapping sinew and size. Even more significant, this visitor stood at the head of a vast column of his fellow ogres and another great host of hobgoblins and gobs. There were at least two thousand fresh warriors, and all of them pressed forward, casting admiring eyes toward the huge war leader.
“Lord Ankhar?” asked the ogre, prostrating himself on the ground at the ha
lf-giant’s feet. Behind him, the great company of savages knelt in unison.
“I Ankhar.”
“I am Bloodgutter, chief of the Lemish vales. Even beyond the mountains we have heard tales of your deeds among the plains of men. You have battled the knighthood on the open field and defeated them! Your victories are the birth of legend, and you give us hope against our hated foe. We hurried here over many days of marching to offer you our swords, and our blood.”
“Aye. Lemish long way. You a bold ogre.”
“In truth, lord, Lemish is a poor country now. We were driven there in ages past by the armies of the knights. For years we have waited for a chance at vengeance. We ask only a fair position in your army, lord Ankhar. For that, we will gladly give you our trust, our lives.”
“Est Sudanus oth Nikkas,” the half giant said. “My power is my Truth.”
“I pledge my tribe to the Truth that is Ankhar,” the ogre said, bowing his head.
“You serve me? Only me?” asked the half-giant.
“To the death, lord!”
“Very good,” said the war chief, pleased by the surprise reinforcements. “Make camp with ours. Welcome. Bloodgutter valued sub-captain. Rest and eat. We attack humans soon.”
The duke gazed at the Cleft Spires, which rose higher than the loftiest castle tower and broader even than the great gatehouses that stood astride the three highways leading from the city.
Solanthus was a plains city, though it stood in the shadow of the mountains. Now the plains were lost, taken by the horde—the army—of Ankhar. Who knew how long the city itself would last?
The duke felt a stranglehold of fear, like a fist clamped on his throat. He had to get away from here—he had to flee!
“What is it?” The Duchess of Solanthus, her face pale, confronted her husband as he paced back and forth in his private offices. She was a beautiful woman, much younger than her husband, but now her face was drawn, almost haggard with worry. Duke Rathskell’s obvious fear only made her more terrified.
The Duke of Solanthus was wringing his hands, as he had been doing throughout the night. Couriers had been bringing him a steady stream of reports, and he knew that his city was nearly surrounded. The last news—that a great brigade of ogres had joined the foe—had driven him to an uncharacteristic burst of profanity. That outburst, emerging from beyond the closed door of his chamber, had brought his wife running in concern. He glared at her, then back at the message. Abruptly the duke crumpled the sheet and cast it aside with a furious gesture.
“I must get the Stones of Garnet away from here!” he declared. “The Lord Regent commands it—he needs them to bolster the knighthood across Solamnia!”
“But … Rathsky? You always said those stones were yours, to be used as you see fit! Not for Bakkard du Chagne or the other dukes. Isn’t that right?” she asked, as sweetly as she dared.
“I see fit now to take them away from here!” he snapped.
“But the goblins!” gasped the duchess, waving in the general direction of the city walls. “They have ogres and draconians with them too! There must be ten thousand of them out there! They could attack at any moment! Should we really be worrying about the stones”
“No … I mean yes, my dear,” said the rail-thin duke, as he glowered at the walls, the floor, at everything in sight, including his wife. Still, he forced himself to speak calmly. “I must save the stones, and of course that means I must leave the city with them.”
“What are you going to do?” the woman asked breathlessly.
“Well, I have no choice,” snapped Rathskell, decisively. “I will place the most portable of my treasury—the gems and jewelry—into strongboxes and have them loaded onto a wagon and personally drive that wagon up the mountain road. I will head for Caergoth. That way, at least I will be able to exert my influence on Duke Crawford—he will bring his troops to the city’s aid!”
“How will you—I mean, we—get out? The road to Thelgaard and Caergoth is blocked by that terrible army of savages!”
“I told you—the mountain road, my dear. And not we—just me. It is rough, but with a good team and driver, I should be able to get up into the foothills before the wretches know what I am about. With luck, I can reach Caergoth in three days and be back with a relief force within a week in plenty of time to rescue you.”
“But—what about the city? Your castle?” The duchess sniffled. “What about me?”
“Captain Rankin will be in charge. As long as he keeps the gates closed and the walls manned, you will be safe here. I can’t ask you to take the risks of the road, my dear. If we can keep those wretches focused on Solanthus, it may be that Caergoth will be able to fall upon them from behind. Yes, that is my plan, and if I so say so myself, a brilliant plan, with bright hopes for success!”
“Do you really think so?”
The duke fixed his wife with a withering glare.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
TREASURE ROAD
Horribly seared by the black dragon’s acid, Carbo writhed in pain as Jaymes bore him along, the bluff above the broad Vingaard. They made camp at the first shelter they reached in a grass-lined ravine, and Dram gave his small flask of dwarf spirits to their injured companion. The strong drink seemed to alleviate the little fellow’s pain, but it couldn’t do anything to heal his grievous wounds. The acid had burned his flesh away and blinded him. They stretched him on a blanket on the ground. He held his brother’s and sister’s hands, as, gradually, his labored breathing grew quieter, more relaxed.
Carbo died shortly after sunset, and the companions laid him to rest in a small grave, watered by the tears of his sister and his long-lost brother. Jaymes and Dram, having dug the grave, stood uncomfortably by as the bereaved pair sobbed out their farewells.
“You should never have come for me,” cried Salty Pete, his narrow shoulders quivering. “This wouldn’t have happened—he’d still be with us!”
“No,” Sulfie said, sniffling, wiping her large nose with a handkerchief. “He wanted to come and find you. He was so brave.”
Jaymes cleared his throat, touched his chin, his heart. “I think he’s proud that he helped to get you out. He was a hero.”
“But he’s dead! Sheedra killed him, called him a ‘nasty’! I hate her!” Pete proclaimed.
“Well, she’s dead too. Jaymes and his sword took care of her,” Dram said.
“I’m sorry it was too late for your brother,” the swordsman said.
Jaymes turned and stalked to the edge of the ravine. He looked at the murky waters of the Upper Vingaard, his fists clenched into white-knuckled knots in the gathering darkness.
“Jaymes—wake up.”
The warrior was awake in an instant, sitting up, reaching for his sword, until he recognized the white-robed enchantress who had suddenly appeared, as she so often did, without warning.
“What is it?” he asked, throwing off his blanket and rising to his feet. “You have news?”
He and his three companions were camped on the open plains, several days march south of the Brackens and the grave where they had buried Carbo. Sulfie, Pete, and the dwarf still slept. Nearby, two casks stood with their gear, containing the rest of the explosive compound they had been able to ferret away from Sheedra’s lair.
“The Duke of Solanthus is moving the contents of his vault to Caergoth or Palanthas. He will take it on the road himself. If our suspicions are correct—if he is the one who ordered the murder of Lord Lorimar—the green diamonds will be among that treasure.”
“Do you really think it was him?”
Coryn shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know what to think. Remember what you told me: The house was attacked by six knights, none wearing the sign of an order.”
“But they were Solamnics, I’m sure of that,” the warrior asserted. “One of them was standing over Dara’s body and muttering, reciting that foul pledge—Est Sularus oth Mithas.”
“And she was already dead?”
“And the attackers?”
Jaymes shook his head. “I’ve told you all this before … more than once.”
“Be patient. Tell me again,” said the wizard.
“I can’t remember details. I lost my head, to be honest. I was in such a rage, I killed them all. Five of them, and quickly. The last one talked a bit—only told me his lord would be pleased.”
“Could they have been bandits?”
“No, there was discipline in their attack, like knights. That vow—I will swear on what’s left of my honor that they weren’t Dark Knights. They were Solamnics.”
“Then it must have been Rathskell,” the enchantress said. “We know he was furious when Lorimar denied him the right to seek Dara’s hand in marriage. Thelgaard strikes me as too stupid for such deviousness, so I think Solanthus is the one. He will be leaving with his treasure before the dawn.”
“Why? Isn’t the safest place for his treasure within the walls of his own castle?”
Coryn gave him a sly half-smile. “Let’s just say that all of the lords are having an attack of nerves. The Lord Regent feels he is short of funds. Perhaps I had a little something to do with that.”
“What, you stole his gold?” Jaymes asked.
“Of course not!” The white robe feigned shock. “I did fix it so that he might be a little reluctant to spend it. In any event, Solanthus plans to ride even before the dawn. He will take the mountain road to the south so he can avoid the horde on the plains.”
The warrior frowned. “I’ll never get there in time,” he said, shaking his head. “Even with a fleet horse—”
She cut him off, her smile broadening. “Well, there are more expeditious ways to travel than even astride the fastest horse.”