Brothers in Arms

by Margaret Weis

  5

  YOU WERE GOING TO TELL ME ABOUT GENERAL ARIAKAS,” KIT reminded Balif.

  The two had lingered in bed until the morning. Now they walked through the streets of Sanction, heading for the armed camp north of town where the general had established his headquarters.

  “I meant to fill you in last night,” Balif said. “You gave me other things to think about.”

  General Ariakas had never been far from Kit’s mind, but she mixed business with pleasure only when absolutely necessary. Last night had been pleasure. Today was business. Balif was an agreeable companion, a skilled lover, and thankfully, he didn’t make a nuisance of himself by wanting to walk with his arm around her or holding hands with her, claiming her as his own personal possession.

  But Kitiara was far too hungry to be satisfied with the small fish she had lured to her net. When the time was right, she would toss him back and wait for a bigger catch. She was not worried about hurting Balif’s feelings. For one, he had no feelings to hurt. For another, he was under no illusions. He knew where he stood with her. She had rewarded him for his efforts, and she guessed he would use her to gain a more valuable reward from General Ariakas. Kit knew Balif too well to believe that he had kept track of her out of the goodness of his heart.

  “Shall I tell you what I know of Ariakas or what is rumored?” Balif asked, speaking to her but not looking at her. His watchful and distrustful gaze focused on each passing person as he came toward him, glanced at each as he passed behind him. You watched your front and your back in Sanction.

  “Both,” Kit replied, doing the same.

  The soldiers she encountered regarded her with respect, stepping aside to allow her room to pass and regarding her with admiration.

  “Looks like you’re the talk of the town,” Balif observed.

  Kitiara was feeling especially good this morning, and she gave her admirers her crooked smile and a toss of her curls in reply.

  “ ‘If truth is the meat, rumor is the sauce,’ ” she said, quoting the old saying. “How old a man is Ariakas?”

  “Oh, as to that, who knows?” Balif shrugged. “He’s not young, that’s for certain, but he’s no grandfather, either. Somewhere in the middle. He’s a brute of a man. A minotaur once accused General Ariakas of cheating at cards. Ariakas strangled the minotaur with his bare hands.”

  Kitiara arched her dark eyebrow skeptically. In this instance, rumor was a bit hard to swallow.

  “The truth! I swear it by Her Dark Majesty!” Balif averred, raising his hand to the oath. “A friend of mine was there and saw the fight. Speaking of Her Majesty, our Queen is said to favor him.” He lowered his voice. “Some say that he was her lover.”

  “And how did he manage that?” Kit asked mockingly. “Did he travel to the Abyss for this rendezvous? Which of her five heads did he kiss?”

  “Hush!” Balif was scandalized, reproving. “Don’t say such things, Kit. Not even in jest. Her Dark Majesty is everywhere. And if she is not, her priests are,” he added, with a baleful glance at a black-robed figure, skulking among the crowd. “Our Queen has many forms. She came to him in his sleep.”

  Kit had heard other terms for encounters of this sort, but she refrained from mentioning them. She had little use for other women in general, and that included a so-called Queen of Darkness. Kitiara had been raised in a world where the gods did not exist, a world where a man was on his own, to make of himself what he would. She had first heard rumors about this newly arrived Queen of Darkness years ago, on her various travels throughout Ansalon. She had discounted such rumors, figuring this Dark Queen to be another creation of some charlatan priest, out to swindle the gullible. Just like that foul priestess of the phony snake god Belzor, a priestess who had died by Kit’s hand, with Kit’s knife at her throat. To Kitiara’s surprise, the worship of the Queen of Darkness had not petered out. Her cult had grown in numbers and in power, and now there was talk of this Takhisis trying to break free from the Abyss, where she had long been imprisoned, returning to conquer the world.

  Kit was quite willing to conquer the world, but she intended to do it in her own name.

  “Is this Ariakas a good-looking man?” she asked.

  “What did you say?” Balif returned.

  They were passing the slave market, and both of them put their hands over their noses to avoid the stench. They waited to resume their conversation until they were well away from the area.

  “Phew!” said Kit. “And I thought the rotten-egg smell was bad. I asked if Ariakas was a good-looking man.”

  Balif appeared disgusted. “Only a woman would ask such a question. How the devil should I know? He’s not my type, for certain. He’s a magic-user,” he added, as if one went along with the other.

  Kit frowned. Her people were from Solamnia, her father had been a Knight of Solamnia before his misdeeds caused him to be cast out. Kitiara had inherited her family’s distrust and dislike of wizards.

  “That’s no recommendation,” she said shortly.

  “What’s the matter with him being a wizard?” Balif demanded. “Your own baby brother dabbled in the art. You were the one who got him started, as I recall.”

  “Raistlin was too weak to do anything else,” Kit returned. “He had to have some way to survive in this world. I knew it wouldn’t be by the sword. From what you’ve told me, this General Ariakas has no such excuse.”

  “He doesn’t practice his magic that much,” Balif said defensively. “He’s a warrior through and through. But it never hurts to have another weapon at hand. Like you keeping a knife in your boot.”

  “I suppose,” Kitiara said grudgingly. So far, she was not much impressed by what she’d heard of this General Ariakas.

  Balif saw this, understood, and was just about to launch into another tale of his admired general, a tale he was sure Kit would appreciate—how Ariakas had risen to power by the murder of his own father. But he had lost Kit’s attention. She had come to a halt outside a smithy, was gazing with rapt attention at a shining sword displayed on a wooden rack outside the shop.

  “Look at that!” she said, reaching out her hand.

  The sword was a bastard sword, also known as a hand and a half sword, for its blade was longer and narrower than that of a traditional bastard sword—a factor Kit appreciated, since male opponents tended to have longer arms. Such a sword would compensate for her shorter reach.

  Kitiara had never seen such a marvelous sword, one that appeared to have been made for her and her alone. She removed it carefully from its stand, almost afraid of testing it, fearful of finding some imperfection. She tried her hand around the leather-wrapped grip. Most grips on bastard swords were made for a man’s hand, were too thick for hers. Her fingers wrapped lovingly around this grip, it fit her perfectly.

  She checked the balance, making certain that the blade was not too heavy, which would lead to an aching elbow, or too light, tested to see that the pommel balanced the weight of the blade. The balance was ideal; the sword seemed an extension of herself.

  She was falling in love with this blade, but she had to be careful, cool, not rush into this blindly. She held the sword to the light, examined all the parts—tugging on them, shaking them—to make certain that nothing rattled or wobbled. This test passed, she checked to see how the swept hilt fit her hand. Kit checked the clearance between guard and hand, making small testing movements with her wrist. The guard bars were ornately carved and lovely to look at, but appearance counts for nothing if the bars dig into your hand or forearm.

  She stepped into the street, took up her fighting stance. She held the blade out in front of her, taking note of the length and the feel of the sword when extended. She tried a couple of test swings, halting them abruptly in mid-swing to determine the momentum and to see whether a movement, once begun, could easily be changed.

  Finally, she placed the sword tip against the ground. Holding the sword in both hands by the guard, she applied pressure until the blade curved in a shall
ow arc. You don’t want a blade so brittle it will break or one that will bend and stay bent. The blade was supple as a lover’s caress.

  The smith was banging away at his work inside the shop. His assistant, who had been keeping an eye out for potential customers and to shoo away kender, hurried to the door.

  “We have much finer blades inside the shop, sir,” he said, bowing officiously and gesturing inside to the hot and smoky interior. “If you’d care to step inside, sir—I beg your pardon, madam—I can show you the master’s work.”

  “Is this some of your master’s work?” Kit asked, keeping a fast grip on the sword.

  “No, no, madam,” the assistant said, looking scornful. “Note these other blades. These are the master’s work. Now, if you’ll only step inside …” He tried again to lure her into the shop, where he would have her at his mercy.

  “Who made this sword?” Kitiara asked, having duly noted the other blades, noted the poor quality of the steel and the shoddy workmanship.

  “What was his name?” The assistant frowned, trying to recall such an unimportant detail. “Ironfeld, I believe. Theros Ironfeld.”

  “Where is his shop?” Kitiara asked.

  “Burned down,” the assistant said, rolling his eyes. “Not an accident, if you take my meaning. He was too high and mighty for the likes of some in Sanction. Thought too well of himself. He had to be taught a lesson. We would not normally carry such inferior work, but the poor fellow who sold it to us was down on his luck, and the master is a most generous man. You appear to be a woman of discriminating taste. We can do much better for you. Now, if you’ll just step inside the shop …”

  “I want this sword,” Kit said. “How much?”

  The assistant pursed his lips in disapproval, spent several more moments trying to dissuade her, then named a price.

  Kit lifted her eyebrows. “That’s a lot for a sword of such poor quality,” she said.

  “It’s been taking up shelf space,” the assistant said sullenly. “We paid too much for it, but the poor fellow was—”

  “Down on his luck. Yes, you mentioned that.” Kitiara haggled with the man. Eventually she agreed to pay the price he asked, if he threw in a leather sheath and belt for free.

  “Pay him,” she told Balif. “I’ll pay you back when I have the money.”

  Balif brought forth his purse and counted out the coins, all of them steel and all marked with the likeness of General Ariakas.

  “What a bargain!” Kit said, buckling the belt around her waist, adjusting the fit to where it was comfortable and the sword was in easy reach on her hip. Had she been an inch shorter, the long blade would have dragged the ground. “This sword is worth ten times the amount that fool wanted for it! I will pay you back,” she added.

  “No need,” said Balif. “I’m doing well for myself these days.”

  “I won’t be in debt to any man,” Kitiara said with a flash of her dark eyes. “I pay my own way. Either you agree or you take back the sword.” She put her hand to the buckle, as if she would strip it off then and there.

  “All right!” Balif shrugged. “Have it your way. Here, we go this direction, across the lava flow. The general’s headquarters is inside a great temple built to honor the Dark Queen. The Temple of Luerkhisis. Very impressive.”

  A long, wide natural bridge made of granite spanned the Lava River, as it was known by the few natives left in Sanction after the arrival of the Dark Queen’s forces. The river flowed down from the Doom range of the Khalkist Mountains that surrounded Sanction on three sides to pour, hissing, into the New Sea. The city was isolated, well protected, for only two passes led through the mountains, and these were heavily guarded. Anyone caught walking those paths was captured and taken into Sanction, to a second temple built to honor the Dark Queen and her evil cohorts, the Temple of Huerzyd.

  Here all those entering Sanction were questioned, and those who gave the right answers were free to go. For those who did not have the right answers, there were the prison cells, with the torture chamber located conveniently nearby, “just a hop, skip, and a jump” (a kender’s last words) from the morgue.

  Those leaving Sanction by more pleasant and less permanent means needed a pass signed by General Ariakas himself. All others were detained and either forced to remain in Sanction or were escorted to the dread Temple of Huerzyd.

  Balif had provided Kitiara with a letter of safe passage and a password, so she had been permitted to enter Sanction without making any side trips. She had arrived by ship, the only other way in and out of Sanction.

  Sanction’s harbor was blockaded by ships of Ariakas’s army, which watched the surface, and by fearsome sea monsters, which guarded the deep. All pleasure craft and small fishing vessels belonging to Sanction’s inhabitants had been seized and burned so that people could not use them to sneak past the blockade. Thus General Ariakas kept his troop buildup secret from the rest of Ansalon, who probably would not have believed it anyway.

  At this time, almost four years prior to the start of what would become known as the War of the Lance, General Ariakas was just starting to gather his forces. Agents such as Balif, wholly loyal and completely dedicated, traveled in secret throughout Ansalon, making contact with all those inclined to walk the paths of darkness, appealing to their greed, their hatreds, promising them loot, plunder, and the destruction of their enemies if they would sign their lives over to Ariakas and their souls to Queen Takhisis.

  Bands of goblins and hobgoblins, harried for years by the Solamnic Knights, came to Sanction, vowing revenge. Ogres were lured out of the mountain strongholds by promises of slaughter. Minotaurs came to earn honor and glory in battle. Humans arrived, hoping for a share of the wealth to be won when the elves were driven from their ancient homelands and the rest of Ansalon ground beneath the heel of General Ariakas. Dark clerics reveled in their newfound clerical power—a power given to no one else on Ansalon, for Queen Takhisis had kept her return to the world a secret from the other gods, with the exception of one, her son, Nuitari, god of dark magic. In his name, black-robed wizards worked their arcane arts in secret and prepared for the glorious return of their Queen to the world.

  Nuitari had two cousins, Solinari, the son of the god Paladine and goddess Mishakal, and Lunitari, the daughter of the god Gilean. Solinari was god of white magic, Lunitari daughter of red or neutral magic. The three gods of magic were close, bound by their love of magic. Their three moons—the white, the red, and the black—orbited Krynn, so it was difficult for one to keep something hidden from the others, even one as cold and dark and secret as Nuitari.

  And so there were those on Ansalon who saw the shadows cast by dark wings and who had begun to make their own preparations. When the Dark Queen finally struck, four years hence, the forces of good would not be taken completely by surprise.

  That day was not here yet, only foreseen.

  The stone bridge spanned the Lava River, opened onto the grounds of the Temple of Luerkhisis. The bridge was guarded by Ariakas’s own personal troops—at the time, the only well-trained force in Sanction. Kitiara and Balif waited in line behind a wretched merchant who was insisting that he had to talk with General Ariakas.

  “His men wrecked my establishment!” he said, wringing his hands. “They smashed my furniture and drank my best wine. They insulted my wife, and when I ordered them to leave they threatened to burn down my inn! They told me General Ariakas would pay for the damage. I am here to see him.”

  At this, the guards laughed loudly. “Sure, General Ariakas will pay,” said one. Removing a coin from his purse, he tossed it on the ground. “There’s your payment. Pick it up.”

  The merchant hesitated. “That’s not nearly enough. I want to see General Ariakas.”

  The guard frowned, said harshly, “Pick it up!”

  The merchant gulped, then bent to pick up the steel coin. The guard kicked the man in the rear end, sent him sprawling in the dirt.

  “Take your payment and be gone wi
th you. General Ariakas has better things to do than listen to you snivel about a few pieces of broken furniture.”

  “Any more complaints from you,” said the other guard, getting in a kick for himself, “and we’ll find some other place to do our drinking.”

  The merchant struggled to his feet, clutching the coin, and limped off toward the town.

  “A very good day to you, Lieutenant Lugash,” said Balif, approaching the guard post. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “Captain Balif.” The lieutenant saluted, stared hard at Kitiara.

  “My friend and I have an audience this afternoon with General Ariakas, Lieutenant.”

  “What’s your friend’s name?” asked Lugash.

  “Kitiara uth Matar,” Kit answered. “And if you have a question, ask me. I can speak for myself.”

  Lugash grunted, regarded her appraisingly. “Uth Matar. Sounds Solamnic.”

  “My father was a Knight of Solamnia,” Kitiara said, lifting her chin, “but he wasn’t a fool, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “Thrown out of the knighthood,” Balif said in an undertone. “Gambling, working for the wrong people.”

  “So she told you, sir.” Lugash sneered. “The daughter of a Solamnic. She could be a spy.”

  Balif stepped between the lieutenant and Kitiara, who had drawn her new sword halfway from its sheath.

  “Simmer down, Kit,” Balif advised, laying a restraining hand on her arm. “These are Ariakas’s own personal troops. They’re not like that piss-pants who tried to manhandle you yesterday. They’re veterans who’ve proven themselves in battle, earned his respect. You’ll have to do that, too, Kit.” Balif glanced sidelong at her. “It won’t be easy.”

  He turned back to the lieutenant. “You know about the information I gave the general on Qualinesti. You were there when I related it to him.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Lugash, his hand on his own sword, his gaze dark on Kit. “What of it?”