by Doug Niles
He looked at her questioningly.
“Let me have your ring,” she said.
Puzzled, he pulled the golden band off of his finger and handed it to her. She held it up and murmured an incantation, repeating the quiet words three more times. When Coryn handed the ring back to him, it felt slightly warm.
“Go ahead, put it back on,” she instructed. “You will be able to use it to teleport four times—you must picture the place you wish to go. Turn the ring twice around your finger, and it will take you there.”
A shiver ran down his back as Jaymes slipped it over his finger. The warmth it emanated felt pleasant, comforting.
“Do you know the mountain road south out of Solanthus?” she asked him.
“Yes. I know it well from my goblin-hunting days. Dram and I just traveled that way to meet with Cornellus.”
“Good.” Coryn handed him a small leather bag. “Here,” she said, answering his raised eyebrows, “this is a magic bag. In case,” she added with her sly half-smile, “you find yourself with a few more treasures than you can easily carry in your pockets.”
He nodded. “It should come in handy,” he said.
By now Dram had awakened, and the two gnomes were also stirring. Jaymes filled them in. “You should make for the Vingaard Mountains with all haste,” he said. “I will catch up as soon as I can. Tell Swig Frostmead I’ll be bringing his money.”
After a hasty goodbye, the White Witch wrapped them both in the cocoon of her magic, and they were gone.
The wagon rumbled along the narrow mountain way, skirting the steep foothills of the Garnet Range. The Duke of Solanthus and his driver clung to the rails and the reins, trying to stay perched on the jolting seat. A column of a dozen Knights of the Crown clattered along ahead of the four sturdy workhorses pulling the wagon, while a similar detachment followed close behind.
The road was dangerous. To their right, the slope spilled down to a cliff, which hung over a dry ravine some two or three hundred feet below. To the left, the land rose sharply.
They had departed through a little-used gate in the very south of the city walls, far from the main roads connecting Solanthus to the rest of Solamnia. Fortunately, there were no goblins near this route. Leaving before dawn, they had been able to travel high into the mountains before the sun rose. Behind them now they could see the ogre army sprawled across the plains like locusts, a dark smudge extending for miles in three directions around the walled city dominated by the stark landmark of the Cleft Spires.
Duke Rathskell glanced over his shoulder, not at his besieged city but at the four strongboxes lashed into the wagon’s cargo bed. They were all filled with jewels. Probably enough jewels to ransom his city, he reflected sourly, but they were bound elsewhere.
“My lord duke!”
Rathskell saw one of the men from his trailing escort galloping forward, waving for his attention. He kept his grip on the side rail, gritting his teeth at every wrenching bounce, waiting for the man to catch up to the rumbling wagon.
“What is it?” snapped the duke, even as the driver, at his orders, kept urging the team of horses onward.
“Goblins, my lord,” said the knight. “A large number have moved onto the road behind us. They seem bent on giving chase.”
“How many of them?” he asked.
“A detachment. A good-sized group, to be sure—maybe a thousand of the bastards. We didn’t spot them at first, and now they are but a few miles behind us.”
Rathskell cursed. “Are any of them mounted?” he demanded.
“No, sir. The party appears to be on foot.”
“Good. We should be able to outrun the wretches. Now go back to your post, and keep an eye on them! Let me know if you see any sign of worg-riders or if they appear to be closing the gap.”
“Aye, lord!” The knight snapped off a salute and turned to ride away. Rathskell was still watching him when he was stunned by the loudest explosion he had ever heard. Dust and smoke rmixed with gouts of fire billowed across the road behind the wagon. The duke watched in disbelief as the man and horse, propelled by the blast, went soaring into space and tumbled toward the base of the rocky precipice along which the road skirted.
The team of horses bucked and surged ahead in sudden panic, lurching the heavy vehicle forward over the bumpy road—until, moments later, a second blast obliterated a great section of that roadway, right in the path of the advancing wagon. The lead horse fell, part of its head torn away by the explosion, while another steed shrieked piteously and went down with a broken leg.
“What’s happening?” demanded Rathskell, panic setting in as he stood up and drew his sword. The driver didn’t answer. Instead, he clasped both hands to his bleeding forehead where a shard of rock had smashed him, then slumped, unconscious, in his seat.
The wagon was trapped, the duke could see—two sections had been blown out of the cliff-side road, blocking passage forward and back. The two blasts had neatly separated the duke from his escort of knights. Some of those men had recovered their senses but were forced to rein in at the edges of the gaps. There was no way for the mounted men to reach their lord.
“Are you all right, Excellency?” called one captain, astride an agitated horse at the edge of the forward gap. “Are you hurt?”
Rathskell shook his head, still trying to grasp what had happened. Was it magic that had torn the very roadway off of the mountain? He didn’t think so—not from the ogres.
“Stay there, lord! We’ll try to reach you!” cried the captain, the leader of the detachment at the front of the column.
One brave rider volunteered. The knight urged his horse into a gallop and tried to leap the still-smoking breach in the road. The distance was too great, and both horse and rider tumbled over and bounced down the cliff, finally settling in gruesomely distorted poses among the broken rocks below. Wincing, the duke looked away toward the rear. He saw the knights there taking a defensive posture down the road, dismounting, drawing weapons. Several of the men were hauling fallen timbers out of the woods, making an impromptu breastwork. With a sickening sense of apprehension, the duke remembered the goblins—“maybe a thousand of the bastards”—coming at them hard and fast from that direction.
Only then did Duke Rathskell notice a lone swordsman step into sight, on the island of road with the duke and his trapped wagon. The man’s weapon, a mighty blade, was gripped in both his hands, as he approached the disabled wagon.
He wore a cape, and his whiskered face was devoid of any emotion. But his eyes were dark, and smoldered with contempt.
“I know you. You are the Assassin!” spat the duke, as Giantsmiter blazed even brighter than the sun on that bright mountainside. The duke whipped out his own slender rapier and jumped down to the road.
“I’ve been called that,” Jaymes said, “but I’m no assassin, and I didn’t kill Lorimar. You, of all people, should know that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Rathskell. “You killed him, and you slew his bitch of a daughter, too!”
Jaymes lunged at the duke, nearly gutting him. The nobleman, though taken by surprise, fell back. The knights on both sides of the gap in the road shouted curses and warnings.
“Be careful how you talk about the Lady Dara,” Jaymes hissed. “You don’t want to have too many lies on your lips when you go to meet the gods.”
A master swordsman, the Duke of Solanthus was grim now and circled warily. Jaymes brought Giantsmiter over his head in a whistling smash, then swiftly chopped from the right and the left, advancing remorselessly against his foe. The smaller man leaped back, using the edge of the wagon as a shield, stepping around the two restless horses remaining from his team.
Rathskell charged into Jaymes’s attack with parries and thrusts, forcing the taller man away from the wagon, backing him to the edge of the precipice. The warrior stopped at the edge, driving his own blade with powerful overhand blows, again and again knocking aside the duke’s slender weapon.
Changing tactics, Rathskell scrambled up into the bed of his wagon, swinging wildly down at Jaymes’s head until the warrior jumped up next to him, forcing him back. For several moments they slashed and cut at each other, both standing in the wagon, their blows whistling over the four strongboxes resting there. Finally, Jaymes made a rush, and the duke half jumped, half fell off the wagon, again retreating to the edge of the slope.
With a sinking feeling the duke saw with a glance that the knights of his rearguard were engaged at their roadblock with a mass of goblins. The ogres were howling with bloodlust, while he was engaged in a fight for his life. He stabbed at Jaymes’s legs as the tall man neared, then turned and ran to the far end of the broken shelf of isolated road.
Here the men of the duke’s forward guard had dismounted and were trying to make their way along the precipitous gap on foot. One man had already plunged to his death and lay in a heap next to the horse and rider who had failed the earlier attempt. The rest of the men were busily coiling rope to belay the next climber.
Rathskell knew they would not reach him in time. He was a skilled swordsman—once he’d thought himself the best in the world—but he could see that he was no match for the Assassin. The duke’s sword was first-rate but useless against the legendary Giantsmiter. He screamed his frustration as he attacked.
Giantsmiter blocked his best efforts again, this time smashing his rapier, the loose shards of steel shattering and tumbling down the mountainside. Rathskell turned to flee, and Jaymes made a swift slash through his enemy’s hamstring. The wound exploded in blood. The duke collapsed, his right leg nearly severed. He groaned in pain and fear as the fiery Giantsmiter brushed his immaculately trimmed mustache.
“Which one has the green diamonds?” asked the swordsman, indicating the four strongboxes.
“I don’t know what you mean—I have never heard of green diamonds!” protested the stricken nobleman.
Jaymes scowled and cut him on his other leg. “Don’t be a fool. You’ll get nowhere lying to me!”
“I’m not lying!”
Jaymes squinted. He turned and slashed the locks off of the four strongboxes, one after the other, then searched through the piles of glittering diamonds and rubies.
“I’m going to ask you one more time. The green diamonds?” he demanded.
“I’m telling the truth—I’ve never heard of any such diamonds!” cried the duke.
Shouts came from behind them, cries of alarm mingling with the clash of steel. “The goblins are closing in,” Jaymes noted. “They’ll be able to scramble along the cliff easily enough. They’re not as encumbered with armor, as your knights.”
Rathskell groaned in pain as he twisted to look in horror. His rear detachment was fighting bravely, but the odds were overwhelming. Each knight had killed six or eight goblins, but there were only a few dozen men back there, and they were facing hundreds of attackers. One by one, the knights were falling, slain or grievously wounded or, in some cases, simply pushed from the cliff by the press of goblin bodies.
Jaymes pulled out the plain leather sack Coryn had given him. He picked up the gems and jewels from one strongbox—and, though the box was several times larger than the bag—he poured the contents in. He repeated the process with each of the other three boxes, and when he was done the sack bulged only slightly.
“Wait! Please, you can’t leave me here!” begged the lord. “The goblins—”
He looked back and saw that only a few of his defenders remained on their feet. It wouldn’t be long now. Already several of the brutal attackers were starting to scale across the sheer cliff. The duke couldn’t stand, couldn’t even crawl for all the pain he was suffering. His one leg was utterly useless.
When he turned back to plead again for his life, he could only moan in despair. The mysterious attacker, with his satchel full of a city’s worth of jewels, had disappeared.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
COMMERCE AND A COMPOUND
Swig Frostmead let the stream of glittering gems flow from one calloused palm to the other. The gleam in his eyes was, if anything, even brighter than the myriad speckles of light that sparkled and glinted from the cascading jewels. He looked up at Jaymes and flashed a grin so broad it was almost a leer.
He coughed, growing serious. Frowning, he looked at a gem closely, examined another, then set them aside, his face now a mask of bored disinterest. Jaymes knew these Stones of Garnet were impeccable, perfectly cut by master jewelers, large and pure, but the warrior said nothing, his own face as empty as the dwarf’s.
“Er, yes,” Swig admitted, his tone grudging. “I think these will cover the agreed-upon costs. Of course, I will have to have my appraisers go over them with an eyeglass. Just to confirm, though the cut certainly looks acceptable to my unpracticed eye. Not that I suspect anything amiss, but a fellow can’t be too careful in matters like this.”
“No,” Jaymes said calmly. “A fellow can’t.”
He wondered what the dwarf would think if he knew the fortune in stones he had been offered was only a fraction of the wealth the warrior had expropriated from Duke Rathskell’s strongboxes. He had used the second teleport spell to take him to a place that nobody would suspect, where he had buried most of the gems. Of course, Swig Frostmead didn’t need to know all the details, and Jaymes smiled to himself, knowing that whenever he needed to buy more sulfir, he would always have plenty of stones.
After all, a fellow couldn’t be too careful in matters like this.…
“Now, as to delivery …” The dwarf was ready to see the deal through. “We’ll have to charge a standard fee for that, of course, but I have willing dwarves, with strong backs, available for the work. Just depends on how far you want them to haul the stuff.”
“Actually, I was hoping you might suggest a place,” the warrior said. “Perhaps some land nearby that you’d be willing to lease to me? I’ll be setting up a rather large operation and will need the lease for some time. We could perhaps arrange for, say, ten years use, with a clause allowing for extension if things work out. Of course, I’ll want to contract with your clan exclusively—with probably some assistance on security, and other odds and ends. Not to mention we’ll be needing regular supplies.”
“Eh, what? You don’t say. Ten years. Just for starters? Hmmm. That kind of takes me by surprise. What will you be doing on this land?” asked the dwarf, his eyes glimmering.
“That has to remain a secret, for the time being.”
“Huh. A secret. What will you be needing security for?”
“Privacy. I’ll need plenty of water and a good source of nearby timber. I’ll want to hire some more of your fellows—at top wages, of course—to do some logging, building, and such.”
“For good wages, I can probably find you some workers. I like the way you do business, my friend, and I know just the place to set up your operation. I think things can be arranged without difficulty. Of course, there’s always plenty of work for us deep in the mines, but some dwarves are willing to work under the open sky.”
“Well, then,” said the dwarf chieftain. “Let’s take a walk, shall we?”
They emerged from Swig’s lodge into the breathless clarity of a mountain morning. It had been more than two months since Jaymes’s earlier visit, and now he saw the aspen forests of the Vingaard Range were brightened with the gold foliage of autumn.
Unlike his previous crossings of the plains, however, his journey here had been instantaneous. Using the second magical charge in the ring Coryn had given him, Jaymes had arrived in Meadstone only a few hours before. He had surprised Swig at his breakfast table, but the dwarf had gleefully set aside his porridge for a look at the precious stones that he now, very carefully, wrapped up in a soft cloth and secured in his pocket. “It’s just over this ridge, here. Private, like you wanted, but not too far to haul the sulfir. Hope you don’t mind a little stroll.”
“In this mountain air? What could be better?”
They passed the mouths
of numerous mineshafts on their way out of the village. Jaymes was impressed to see the mountainous piles of yellow stone that Swig Frostmead’s miners had been able to excavate in the weeks since they had made their deal.
For a long while they climbed through an open forest on a gentle ascent, heading companionably upward on a smooth, wide trail. They crossed the crest of the ridge by midmorning and about two hours later reached the base of the next valley. After spending another hour walking back and forth, pacing off the dimensions of a clearing, studying the flowage of water in the stream, the dwarf and the warrior agreed that this area would suit their agreement.
They worked out the terms of the lease with a handshake and another few gems. “Ten years,” Swig said, clearly pleased with the deal. “Don’t worry—we’ll keep the Salamis off your back.”
Jaymes narrowed his eyes. “I don’t recall mentioning the knighthood.”
Swig chortled. “You didn’t have to. We’ll keep everyone else off your back, too—you can count on it!”
In truth, Jaymes knew the hill dwarves had no legal property rights to this valley. He could have built his operation here and hired dwarf laborers without paying Swig so much as one steel. Now, however, he had made the greedy hill dwarf a vested partner in his plans, and Swig and his doughty fighters would help guard this place against outsiders.
The very next morning Jaymes paid a score of newly hired dwarves to clear the trees away from a flat stretch of ground. The tall, straight trunks they would trim and stack to use as building timbers; everything else would go into a massive firewood pile that would provide the raw material for charcoal. A few extra gems sprinkled among the workers proved an invaluable recruiting tool, and by the next day he had all the workers he could possibly use—that was not even counting the dozens of dwarves who were busy hauling sulfir over the ridge and down into the place Jaymes decided to call, simply, Compound.
He knew it would take Dram, Sulfie, and Salty Pete a good long time yet to reach the Vingaard Mountains, since they were coming on foot, but there was plenty Jaymes could do to get the place ready. Within another few days, hill dwarves were busily erecting timber-walled buildings to serve as a factory, storage sheds, and outbuildings. The water from the fresh stream was diverted into a holding pond. After a week the reservoir was full, and they allowed the stream to resume its plainsward course.