Lord Enkian was losing his temper. Normally cool-headed, his impatience at the delay was exacerbated as he was pressed on all sides by soldiers, traders, emigrants, and foreigners of every race. He was about to order his riders to draw swords and force their way through when he spied Tol and waved him over.
“The whole world comes to Daltigoth!” Tol had to shout above the melee.
The marshal was not amused. “The doings of peasants and riff-raff do not concern me. I must enter the city before nightfall. I may have come the furthest distance, but the emperor will not be told Enkian Tumult was the last of his lords to arrive!”
“Perhaps if you took only a few retainers you could work your way through.”
“The Marshal of the Eastern Hundred does not enter the imperial capital like a Caergoth clerk, with only a handful of lackeys at his heels! I will enter with my full escort!” Enkian fixed him with a hard, unfriendly eye and added, “See to it, Tol. Disperse the mob.”
Tol knew better than to ask how he was to cleave through a crowd of harmless, quarrelsome folk without causing dangerous panic or bloodshed. “I shall do my best, my lord.”
He wended his way back to his motionless men. Miya and Kiya, in grass capes and hats, offered him a steaming cup of cider. The resourceful sisters had found someone in the supply wagons with a charcoal burner. Tol sipped the warm brew gratefully.
“What are our orders?” Narren asked.
Tol regarded his friend over the rim of the cider cup. “Lord Enkian says we must part the crowd for him, but how? We can’t go through with leveled spears!”
“Too bad that Morthur Grane fellow is dead,” Miya said. “He could magic these folk asleep, like he did us.”
Her words sparked an idea. Tol dug in his belt pouch and fished out Morthur’s sapphire ring. He was about to slide it on his finger when Kiya stopped him.
“Don’t. It is an evil ring.”
“How evil can it be? You only slept. Truly evil magic would have killed you.”
Kiya was adamant. “There are worse things than death.”
He ignored her and pushed the ring onto his finger. Holding out his hand, as he’d seen Morthur do, he waited. Nothing happened.
“Maybe there must be words spoken,” Narren suggested.
The crowd rippled, forcing Tol’s group to step lively to keep their balance on the wet pavement. Kiya climbed on a wagon wheel and peered over the heads of the mob.
“More warriors arrive,” she reported. “Their banner has two blues-one dark, one sky.”
“The Marshal of the Northern Hundred,” said Tol, removing the ring from his finger. Lord Enkian would be pleased to know he was at least ahead of them.
Miya took the ring from him, and Kiya barked, “Sister! Beware!”
The younger Dom-shu grinned, saying dismissively, “Faw, grasslander magic. This ring is as lifeless as its former owner. And it’s pretty!”
She slid the ring on over her gloved finger. It was a loose fit.
“A very fine stone,” she said smugly, and brought her hand up to admire the jewelry. She had to clench her fingers into a fist to keep the ring from sliding off and being lost in the mud underfoot.
Without a sound, Narren and Kiya collapsed, along with fifty or sixty of the nearest people. Tol caught Kiya, staggering under her weight. He propped her back against the wagon, as the ox team sighed and laid down in their traces.
A momentary hush fell over the crowd, then a woman screamed. In a circle twenty paces across centered on Miya, every living thing had dropped unconscious. Men and women, a cart full of gnomes, two kender (their hands still in others’ pockets), horses, oxen, a poulterer’s caged chickens-all lay inert. Only Tol and Miya remained upright.
Cries of “A curse!” “Poison!” “Plague!” began, low at first, then rising in volume. Panic erupted as those not stricken struggled to escape whatever baleful influence had struck so swiftly. Carters lashed their beasts, turning away from the bridge. Ahead, terrified folk trapped on the bridge leaped into the Dalti. Fortunately, though the river here was deep, it was also placid.
“Put your hand down!” Tol said sharply to Miya.
Startled by the efficacy of the magic ring, she complied immediately.
A shout went up from the west bank as the bottleneck broke open. People on horseback, in wagons or carts, and on foot burst off the end of the bridge and fanned out across the riverbank. Over the heads of the stampeding crowd, Tol could see Lord Enkian, vainly shouting orders at his mounted escort. No discipline could be maintained in such a rout. The marshal and his retainers were swept away by the rushing tide of people and wagons.
Tol took Morthur’s ring from Miya and put it away. Once the ring was safely tucked into his pouch, his comrades began to stir.
Miya squatted down by her groggy sister. “I hexed you!” she announced happily. “You went down like a rotten elm!”
“Shut up,” Kiya growled.
The others roused too. By the time they had collected themselves and shaken the wagon drivers awake, the great bridge was temporarily clear of traffic.
Tol looked back at the eastern shore. The men of the later-arriving marshal of the Northern Hundred were scattered to the horizon. It would take them half a day to regroup. To the west, toward Daltigoth, Lord Enkian had vanished from view. At least the stampede had driven them in the right direction. Despite the strangeness of their success, Tol couldn’t help but grin.
“Men of Juramona, forward!” he called to his foot soldiers. The rain still fell, but the day now seemed brighter.
The peninsula between the two branches of the Dalti was low and flat, covered by a patchwork of rich farmland. Imperial roads had been built on causeways above the fields, orchards, and pastures, so traffic to the capital would not damage the lush cropland below. Already the neatly ruled plots of black earth were streaked with fresh green sprouts. The paved causeways were wide enough for one wagon to pass another unimpeded. Tol was amazed to see the hard stone was rutted with the imprint of the hundreds and hundreds of wheels that had passed over it.
To the southwest the sky lightened, clouds thinning and rain easing. When they came to the west fork of the river, the Juramona contingent was relieved to see ten broad bridges spanning the waters. Traffic streamed freely across the gleaming white stone bridges toward the city, now only nine leagues away.
A rider in Enkian’s retinue was waiting on the far shore to collect the baggage train, and Tol’s escort. As he led Tol to where Lord Enkian waited, in a grove of pines alongside the Ackal Path, the rain finally ceased.
Tol saluted the marshal. Enkian pointedly did not ask how he had broken the bottleneck on the eastern bridge. “I want the baggage train to stay close behind us from now on,” he said. “The streets of Daltigoth teem with thieves, and I don’t want to lose any property before we reach the Imperial Palace.”
The only way for Tol’s foot soldiers to keep up with horsemen was to ride, so he divided his men, ten to a wagon, and bade them climb aboard. He and the Dom-shu sisters rode in the lead wagon.
Enkian’s escort removed their wet cloaks and donned clean, blood-red capes. They fixed scarlet horsehair plumes to the combs of their helmets and to their horses’ bridles. Finery in place, they set off.
The valley opened before them. Like the peninsula, it was bursting with abundance. On the north side of the road were endless rows of fruit trees-apple, cherry, pear, and a host of others. The rain-freshened air was scented with the perfume of the flowering trees.
On the south side of the road, the valley floor was dotted with herds of shaggy red cattle. Hundreds grazed behind stout timber fences. All bore the same brand on their hips: a curved line with a simple cross at one end. Parver, the wagon driver, explained that the saber symbol was the emperor’s own brand. The entire vast herd belonged to the lord of all Ergoth.
An arrow-straight canal paralleled the road. Long stretches of it were banked with slabs of granite. According to Parver, the
Dalti river had been diverted into the canal, which ran all the way to the city. Rafts and barges (some visible as he spoke) traversed it to the main river, and thence all the way to the Gulf of Ergoth and the sea.
They rolled past a monumental pillar engraved with many lines of hieroglyphs. Atop the marker was the bust of a stern-looking man with a square-cut beard and a tall, conical helmet. The glyphs identified him as Ackal II Dermount, son of Ackal Ergot and the builder of this section of the road..
More statues appeared along the imperial way, each at least four times larger than life: emperors, empresses, famous generals, and heroic warriors. Miya and Kiya were quite fascinated. In the forest, only gods merited images, and the women asked if the sandstone and marble effigies were the gods of Ergoth. Tol, whose rudimentary reading skills were overtaxed by the flowery language beneath the names on the memorials, lied a little and said they were.
They came abreast of two rather ominous statues whose heads had been struck off, the names on the bases effaced. Tol didn’t need labels to guess these had been images of Pakin Zan and, most probably, his son Emperor Ergothas III.
As they passed the last of the statues, the sky suddenly cleared and sunlight flooded down. Tol could see a distinct line of light and shadow on the ground behind them. The sky overhead showed the same sharp delineation; the gray clouds did not thin gradually, but rolled solid as a ceiling up to a line beyond which was only clear, brilliant blue sky and gentle spring warmth.
The wizards of Daltigoth must be great indeed to command the clouds and hold back the rain, Tol mused.
The sunlight illuminated a great mass of mellow white stone rising ahead from the surrounding fertile fields. Daltigoth, capital city of the empire, filled the valley from the canal in the east to the foothills of the Harkmor Mountains on the south and west. Tol and his people were still two leagues away, yet the city spread from horizon to horizon, blotting out everything else. A constant haze hung over it-smoke from a prodigious number of inns, taverns, temples, and family hearths-but this faintly blue pall did not dim the gleaming expanse of the imperial city.
The first things Tol noticed were the towers. A profusion of lofty pinnacles jutted skyward, in every shape and color. About half boasted high, pointed roofs covered in green copper or gray lead. The rest were flat-topped with crenellated parapets, like the wooden watch towers of Juramona. A few towers-the very tallest, gathered in a group at the center of the city-were made of a polished white stone, and their conical roofs were gilded with pure gold. Seeing them flash in the sun, the Dom-shu sisters finally lost their tribal stoicism and began to point and exclaim with excitement.
The gray stone city wall came into view. It was many times the height of Juramona’s wooden stockade, yet even this prodigious barrier was dwarfed by a truly massive white curtain wall that encircled the inner grouping of those tallest, gilded towers.
Other roads converged on the Ackal Path. From his perch on the wagon seat Tol could see streams of mounted warriors approaching on every side. Thousands of fighting men surrounded them, each with a crimson plume attached to his polished helmet. Tol recognized hordes from every far-flung corner of the empire-from the borderlands of the north, the great cattle estates of the south, and the woodlands in the east. Each contingent bore its own banners and standards. Every color in the world was represented, and the standards depicted creatures mundane and fantastic-serpents, panthers, wolves, great birds, griffins, and even dragons.
In spite of this mighty and glorious panoply, Tol knew his party was the equal of any. Ahead of the creaking wagon, Lord Enkian and his escort rode at a stately walk, the breeze filling their crimson capes. Arrogant and conniving though the marshall might be, at that moment Tol was proud of him, proud of Juramona, and proud to be a part of the magnificent procession making its way to Daltigoth.
Looking beyond the marshal at their intended destination, Tol saw the Ackal Path led straight to a massive fortified gate in the outer wall. He could scarcely credit his eyes-the gate alone was a hundred paces high, twice the height of the wall it pierced. Huge, terraced columns flanked the entrance, the arch of which was heavily carved with weathered figures intertwined in complex ways. The gate’s swinging doors were only half the height of the arch, but were still quite impressive. Tol asked the knowledgeable Parver about the fantastic portal.
“It’s called the Dragon Gate. The great hero Volmunaard fought a black dragon, Vilesoot, on this spot,” said the wagoner. “The gate was erected to commemorate Volmunaard’s defeat of the evil beast.”
“A man beat a dragon?” scoffed Kiya, and Miya snorted her disbelief.
The garrulous driver raised his eyes heavenward. “By Draco Paladin, it’s true! He dealt Vilesoot a deathblow, but Volmunaard died too, consumed by the monster’s vitriol.”
Closer, they could see the frieze encircling the Dragon Gate, which told the story. Volmunaard, twice life size, rode out from Daltigoth in old-fashioned banded armor. Pictures showing his battle with the dragon were carved sequentially around the arch. The last detail on the right side of the gate showed the dragon dead and the hero perishing in a cloud of Vilesoot’s acid-breath.
As three great roads converged here, the structure was not wide enough to handle the traffic flowing in and out of the city. Tol resumed his seat by Parver as the wagon entered the shadow of the monumental portal.
The gatehouse was a small fortress of it own, garrisoned by bored-looking men in dusty iron breastplates and short kilts. Tol nodded to them. A few returned the gesture. They were commoners, foot soldiers like his men.
As he wondered how even a gang of men could close such ponderous metal-clad gates, he saw the answer: an ogre. Twice Tol’s height and twice his girth, the ogre stood just inside the swinging doors of the gate, wearing an iron collar affixed to three heavy chains secured to the stone city wall. A human with a sharp goad stood by him, ready to prod the hulking creature into action.
Tol was amazed that an ogre would work for humans, chained and guarded though he was. Parver sagely pointed out the reason for the ogre’s acquiescence: His eyelids were sewn shut. To control their powerful captive, the Ergothians had blinded him.
Once inside, the caravan from Juramona became embroiled in a fresh snarl of traffic. Tol quickly quashed Miya’s suggestion that she use Morthur’s ring again. Fortunately, Lord Enkian hadn’t been stopped long before a gang of guards charged out of the Dragon Gate armed with cudgels. They waded into the crowd and, with well-placed blows, got things moving again very quickly. It was a harsh but effective tactic, and Tol had the feeling it happened often.
He ordered his men off the wagons. Spears in hand, the footmen kept gawkers and pilferers back as the caravan crawled through the streets at a slow pace.
Tol tried not to stare at all the sights; he was on duty now, with the good reputation of Juramona at stake. Still, it was impossible not to notice the tall dwellings lining both sides of the street, four and five stories high. At street level were artisans’ shops, vegetable sellers, sausage and cheese vendors, bakers, petty diviners, and wineshops. Where two roads met, larger establishments loomed: full-fledged taverns, inns, and houses of healing.
“What noise!” Kiya called, still riding on the lead wagon. “Why does everyone talk at once?”
Tol had once thought Juramona noisy and impossibly busy. As a boy riding into town behind Egrin, he’d nearly panicked at the commotion. Yet compared to Daltigoth, provincial Juramona was quiet as a cemetery. The sheer number and variety of people to be seen were amazing. Lowly beggars in dirty rags jostled with prosperous merchants in leather and high-horn ladies in sumptuous velvet. The wealthy went about with armed escorts and haughty retainers, parting the crowds of half-naked seamen, gnomes, dwarves, and kender who the filled the wooden walks lining both sides of the street and spilled into the roadway. A cacophony of languages assaulted the ear.
Rolling past a whitewashed inn called The Four Winds, Tol saw two shaggy male centaurs involved
in a raucous conversation with a red-bearded dwarf and a handsome black-skinned woman. The woman was dressed in leather breeches and a leather tunic, with a knife nearly as long as a sword hanging at her waist. Her thick braid of hair reached nearly to her knees. He hadn’t realized he was staring until the woman turned and regarded him with hands on hips and a measuring expression in her eyes. Flushing, Tol looked away-
— and found that he himself was the object of several other pairs of eyes, unfriendly ones. Three men were idling in the doorway of the inn. Lean types, with scarred faces and tight-fitting clothes, they each wore slender swords hanging from leather baldrics. Egrin’s warning about duelists came to mind, and Tol shifted his gaze quickly ahead.
After what seemed an age, the caravan at last reached the high white wall they’d seen from the valley. This turned out to be the boundary of the inner city. From ground to parapet, the wall was covered with low-relief carvings-coronations, entire battles, and enormous images of the gods, with Corij, Mishas, and Draco Paladin predominating. Within the wall were just two households: the emperor’s palace and the college of wizards. The future Tower of Sorcery would rise from the grounds of the wizards’ enclave.
The caravan halted before a closed gate in the inner city wall. Guards handsomely bedecked in black iron armor and scarlet tabards came out to confer with Lord Enkian. The exchange went on for some time, with much nodding and pointing from the guards. At last, Enkian sent the bulk of his entourage away, to be quartered in local inns with warriors from other provinces. Tol, his footmen, and the wagons remained, waiting.
Enkian waved Tol forward. He jogged to the marshal, followed as always by the Dom-shu sisters.
“Master Tol, your men are to seek accommodation in the Canal Quarter, by the river,” Enkian said.
“Are any hostels set aside for us, my lord?”
“No, but all lodging houses in Daltigoth are required to accept provincial troops wherever they can fit them in. Your room cost will be borne by the Juramona treasury, but food and drink are at your own expense.”
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