Brothers in Arms

by Margaret Weis

  She reached for her belt with her other hand, fumbled with numb fingers until she located the book containing the map that led to the egg chamber. She shook so she could barely hold the small volume. Wanting only to be rid of it, she flung the book into the open tomb.

  “There!” she said bitterly. “Satisfied?”

  The force released her. She snatched her hand from the tomb, rubbed her chill fingers, massaged life into them.

  The burial chamber might be a safe haven, but Kitiara had seen all of it she wanted. She left by the silver and gold gate, taking the same route her brothers had taken, and kept walking until she had left the burial chamber and Sir Nigel far behind.

  The sound of voices brought her to a halt. Up ahead, she could hear her brothers’ voices and their footfalls echoing along the corridor. She could have caught up with them, but Kit decided she didn’t want to see them. She didn’t want to have to answer their questions, didn’t want to have to make up a story to explain why she was here and what she was doing. Above all, she didn’t want to join them in reminiscences about the days gone by, past times, old friends—especially old friends. She would wait here in the corridor until she was certain they were long gone, then she would sneak out.

  Kitiara leaned back against the rocks, made herself as comfortable as she could. She wasn’t bothered by the darkness. She found it soothing after that eerie and unnatural light in the Knight’s tomb. Resting, she considered her future. She would return to Lord Ariakas. True, she had failed in her mission to steal the dragon eggs, but she could lay the fault for that failure squarely on the dragon. Since sending the dragon to find the eggs had been Lord Ariakas’s idea, he had no one but himself to blame. She would be the one who had salvaged this mission, had seen to it that the dragon paid for his crime of disobedience, had taken care that the body of the slain beast was buried where no one would ever be the wiser.

  “I’ll have my promotion,” Kitiara reflected, stretching out her legs. “And this will be just the beginning. I’ll make myself indispensable to Ariakas, in more ways than one.” She smiled to herself in the darkness. “The two of us will have the power to rule Krynn. In Her Majesty’s name, of course,” Kit added with an apprehensive glance into the darkness around her. She had witnessed the Queen’s wrath, had come to respect it.

  She had witnessed another power that day, the power of love, of self-sacrifice, of honor and resolve. She made nothing of that, however. Any feeling of respect she might have held for the Knight had vanished in resentment that he had bested her at the tomb. Her hand still hurt.

  Exhausted by her efforts, Kitiara rested, half-dozed. She could no longer hear her brothers’ voices. They had probably reached the entrance by now. She’d give them time enough to completely vacate the premises, then she would follow and leave this ill-fated temple.

  She found herself thinking of her brothers. She had been disturbed at seeing them, at first. The twins brought back memories of a life and time she’d outgrown, memories of people she didn’t want to remember. But now that they were gone and she was not ever likely to see them again, Kit was glad she’d had this opportunity to see how they had turned out.

  Caramon was a warrior now, it seemed, and though he had not accorded himself with any particular distinction in this magical fight, Kitiara could well believe that in ordinary battles, he would prove himself a good and effective soldier. As for Raistlin, she didn’t know what to make of him. She would never have recognized him had it not been for his voice, and even that had grown weaker than she remembered. But he was a wizard now, apparently, and he had fought Immolatus with a ferocity and courage she found extremely gratifying.

  “Just as I planned,” she said to herself. “They’ve both turned out just as I hoped.”

  Kitiara felt an almost maternal pride in her boys as she sat in the darkness, cleaning the dragon’s blood from her sword, waiting for an opportunity to escape this accursed temple, leave the unlucky city of Hope’s End.

  “Raist! There’s light ahead, isn’t there?” Caramon said hoarsely, his voice raw with fear. “I think I can see it, though it’s awfully dim.”

  “Yes, Caramon, there is light,” Raistlin replied. “We are back in the temple. The light you see is sunlight.” He did not add that it was bright sunlight.

  “I’ll be able to see again, won’t I, Raist?” Caramon asked anxiously. “You’ll be able to heal me, won’t you?”

  Raistlin didn’t answer immediately and Caramon turned his sightless eyes in the direction of his brother. Scrounger, staggering beneath Caramon’s weight, looked hopefully at Raistlin, as well.

  “He will be all right, won’t he?” the half-kender asked in trepidation.

  “Certainly,” Raistlin said. “The condition is only a temporary one.”

  He hoped to heaven that his diagnosis was true. If the damage was permanent, it was beyond his ability to heal, beyond anyone’s ability to heal in this day and age when no clerics walked the land.

  Raistlin recalled one of Weird Meggin’s patients, a man who had stared too long into the sun during a solar eclipse. She had tried treating him with poultices and salves to no avail. His sight had been irrevocably lost. Raistlin did not mention this to Caramon, however.

  “Raist,” Caramon persisted anxiously. “When do you think this will go away. When do you think I’ll be able to see—”

  “Raistlin,” Scrounger said at the same time. “Who was that ugly old wizard? It seemed like he knew you.”

  Raistlin did not want to tell Caramon the truth, did not want to say the words, “Maybe never.” Raistlin feared that even the blind Caramon must eventually see through a comforting lie. Raistlin was thankful to Scrounger for changing the subject and answered the half-kender with a cordiality that both astonished and pleased him.

  “His name was Immolatus. I met him in the enemy’s camp,” Raistlin replied. “Master Horkin sent me there to trade magical goods, but the wizard wanted none of what we had to offer. He wanted only thing—my staff.”

  He paused a moment, thinking how to phrase the next question, wondering even if he should ask it. His need to know was strong, overcame his natural reticence.

  “Scrounger, Caramon, I want to ask you both something.” He hesitated another moment, then said, “What did you see when you looked at the wizard?”

  “A wizard?” said Caramon cautiously, afraid that this might be a trick question.

  “I saw a wizard,” said Scrounger. “A wizard in red robes like yours, only they were more of a fiery red now that I think about it.”

  “Why, Raist?” Caramon asked with disquieting astuteness. “What did you see when you looked at him?”

  Raistlin thought back to the red-scaled monstrosity that for an instant had shimmered in his cursed vision. He tried to put shape and form to it, but nothing emerged. The Staff of Magius had struck at that moment, cast the wizard into darkness, a darkness that had come crashing down on top of him.

  “I saw a wizard, Caramon,” he said. His voice hardened. “A wizard who wanted to steal my staff from me.”

  “Then why did you ask the question?” Scrounger started to ask, but was silenced by a baleful glance.

  “That magic spell you cast was really something, Raist,” Caramon said, after a moment. “How did you do it?”

  “You would not understand if I told you, Caramon,” Raisltin said irritably. “Now, no more talking. It’s bad for you.”

  Scrounger demanded to know how talking could be bad for Caramon’s eyesight, but Raistlin didn’t hear him or, if he did, he pretended that he didn’t. He was thinking about the magic.

  Ever since he had been given the Staff of Magius, Raistlin had been acutely aware of the life within the staff, magical sentience given to it by its creator. He had experienced a vague feeling of inadequacy, as if the staff were comparing him to its creator and finding him lacking. He remembered the terrible fear when Immolatus took the staff from him, the fear that the staff had left Raistlin of its ow
n accord, leapt gladly into the hand of a wizard of more skill and power.

  Raistlin had been overjoyed and relieved when the staff joined him in the battle. After the initial shock of the explosion, which he had sensed coming, but which he had not commanded, he and the staff had acted as a team. He had the feeling that the staff was pleased with itself and that it was also pleased with him. Odd to think, but he felt that he had earned the staff’s respect.

  His hand tightened lovingly on the staff as he emerged from the silver doors into the welcome light of the sun streaming in through the windows of the abandoned temple.

  The sun shone warm on Caramon’s face and he smiled. His vision was returning. He was certain of it, he said. He could see the sunlight and he swore he could see shadowy images of his brother and Scrounger.

  “That is well, my brother,” Raistlin said. “Keep your eyes closed, however. The sunlight is too strong and might do them more injury. Sit down here for a moment while I make a bandage.”

  He cut a strip of cloth from the hem of his robe and tied it gently around it Caramon’s eyes. Caramon protested at first, but Raistlin was firm and, accustomed to obeying his brother, Caramon submitted to being blindfolded. He trusted his brother’s diagnosis, accepted that his vision would return. Fretting and worrying would do him no good, and so he sat with his back against the sun-warmed stone, basked in the light shining on his face, and wondered how the attack was proceeding and if they’d set up the mess tent.

  “Can you walk, Caramon?” Raistlin asked.

  There had been no more tremors, but he had no idea if the temple had suffered any structural damage. Until someone who knew something about such matters came to look at it, he did not trust to its safety.

  This holy place does appear to exert a healthful influence, Raistlin thought, watching color return to his brother’s wan face. His pulse was strong and he stated stoutly that he was well enough to run up good old Heave-Gut hill. He gave it as his opinion that he was completely cured and if Raistlin would just take off this damn rag …

  Raistlin said firmly that the rag must stay. He and Scrounger assisted Caramon to stand. Caramon walked under his own power, accepting his brother’s hand on his arm to guide him.

  The three left the temple to the sunshine and the silver moonlight, to the dead and to the living and the dragons, sleeping safely in their leathery shells, their spirits roaming the stars, waiting to be born.

  20

  HERE THEY COME!” THE SERGEANT OF THE ARCHERS OF HOPE’S END yelled from the wall. As if in witness to the truth of his words, the man standing next to him dropped down dead, an arrow through his helmet.

  The baron’s men stood at the ready behind the gates. One moment there had been confusion, yelling and shouting. The next, disciplined silence. All eyes were on the officers, whose eyes were on the baron, standing atop the wall, looking out at the enemy, an enemy whose numbers seemed to grow alarmingly. Even counting the forces of the city, the baron was outnumbered almost two to one. And these were fresh troops, well armed, with an able, if loathsome, commander.

  Under heavy covering fire, the enemy’s engineers were running across the ground, hauling siege ladders and battering rams. The ranks of the infantry were four deep and marched to the sound of booming drums. Even as he watched death flow toward him across the bloody ground, the baron admired the precise discipline, the men keeping their formation even when arrows from the wall hit their first ranks.

  Looking at the size and might of the forces arrayed against him, the baron was confirmed in his thinking. No matter what others might say, the action he intended was not the rash act of a madman. It was the only way to save this city, save his own forces. If they remained here, hiding behind the walls, the great numbers of the enemy would swarm over them like ants on a carcass.

  The baron turned to look to his own men. They were lined up by company along the road. Each company was eight men across and as many as twenty men deep. There was no talking in the ranks, no foolery. The men were in grim and deadly earnest. The baron looked down at them, and he was proud of them.

  “Soldiers of the Army of the Mad Baron!” he yelled from the wall. The men looked up at him, answered with a cheer. “This is the end!” he continued. “We are victorious this day or we are dead.” He pointed a jabbing finger out over the wall. “When you set eyes upon the enemy, remember that they shot our dead in the back!”

  A roar of anger rumbled through the troops.

  “It is time to take our revenge!”

  The roar of anger swelled to a cheer for the baron.

  “Good luck to us,” he said to the city’s commander and to the lord mayor, shaking each by the hand.

  The lord mayor was ashen in color. Sweat rolled down his face, despite the cool wind that had recently surged out of the mountains. He was a political figure, he could have sought refuge in his own home, and few would have thought worse of him. But he was grimly determined to stick to his post, though he cringed and shook at every trumpet blast.

  “Good luck to you, Mad Lad,” said the elderly commander to the baron and ducked just in time to avoid an arrow. “Confound it,” the old man muttered, with a sour look for the arrow that lay spent at his feet. “Let me at least live long enough to see this sight. Win or lose, it’s going to be glorious.”

  The baron left the wall, ran nimbly down the stairs and back to street level. He took his place on foot at the front of his army, drew his sword, and raised it high. The sun’s bright rays flashed along the blade. He held the sword poised, waiting.

  The gate boomed and shuddered. The first of the battering rams had arrived. Before the enemy could hit the gate a second time, the baron gave the signal.

  The gates to the city of Hope’s End swung open. The attackers cheered, thinking they had breached the defenses.

  The baron let fall his sword. Trumpets sounded, drums rolled. “Attack!” the baron yelled and ran forward through the open gates, straight into the ranks of the enemy. Behind him came Center Company, the most experienced veterans in the army, the most heavily armored and armed. With a savage yell, they thundered through the gates, wielding swords and battle-axes.

  Caught completely by surprise, the soldiers manning the battering ram dropped the oak log, fumbled for their swords. The baron hit their leader squarely in the chest with his sword, drove the weapon clean through the man’s body so that it emerged covered with blood from his back. The baron yanked free his weapon, parried a vicious chop from another of the enemy, who was attacking him on his flank, thrust the sword into the man’s rib cage.

  He tried to recover the sword, only to find his weapon fouled in the man’s ribs. He couldn’t pull the sword free. Fighting and death were all around him. His men were shouting and screaming with rage, blood spattered on them all like rain. The baron placed his foot on the body, held it down and yanked free his sword. He was ready to face the next enemy soldier, only to find there were none. The battering ram lay in front of the gates, surrounded by the dead bodies of those who had wielded it.

  Now began the real battle.

  The baron looked for his standard-bearer, found the man right beside him.

  “Forward!” he yelled and began the advance, his standard snapping in the cold wind.

  Center Company continued their advance on the run, yelling their battle cries, brandishing weapons stained with blood. Arrows from Archer Company, manning the walls, buzzed over their heads and fell among the enemy like vicious wasps, decimating the enemy’s front ranks. For many of the enemy soldiers, this was their first combat. And this was nothing like training. Their comrades were dying around them. An army of savage, screaming monsters hurtled toward them. The front ranks of the enemy halted, the soldiers wavered. Officers plied their whips, shouted for the lines to hold.

  Center Company, led by the baron, hit the front ranks of the enemy with an armor-plated crash that could be heard on the walls. They stabbed and sliced and chopped, showing no mercy, giving no quarter
. They had seen the bodies of their comrades lying before the gate, the black-feathered arrows in their backs. They had one thought and that was to kill those who had used them so treacherously.

  The front ranks of the enemy collapsed under the fury of the charge. Those who stood their ground paid for their courage with their lives. A few fell back fighting. Many more flung down their shields and, heedless of the whips, broke and ran.

  Center Company kept going, plowing through the enemy’s lines, leaving a bloody furrow behind. Other companies came behind Center Company, fighting those of the enemy who, driven by the whips of their officers, came surging in to fill the great gaping hole left by the onslaught of the baron and his company.

  “There’s our objective!” the baron shouted and pointed to a small rise, where stood Commander Kholos.

  Kholos had laughed loudly and derisively at the sight of the baron’s men pouring out of the gate, leaving the safety of the city behind in a mad charge. He waited confidently for his men to overwhelm the baron’s forces, crush them, annihilate them. He heard the crash as the two armies came together, he waited for the baron’s standard to fall.

  The standard did not fall. The standard advanced. It was Kholos’s men who were running now, running in the wrong direction.

  “Shoot those cowards!” Kholos roared in fury to his archers. Foam flecked his mouth. He pointed at his own fleeing troops.

  “Commander!” Master Vardash, his face swollen from his commander’s blow, came running up to report. “The enemy has broken through the lines!”

  “My horse!” Kholos yelled.

  Other officers were shouting for their horses, but before the squires could bring forward the horses, Center Company and the baron smashed into the knot of men and their bodyguards. Master Vardash fell in the first onslaught, his face now a mask of blood.

  “Kholos is mine!” the baron yelled and pushed and shoved his way through the press of heaving, struggling bodies to reach the commander who had insulted him and murdered his men.