Shards of a Broken Crown

by Raymond E. Feist

  As they got closer, it grew stronger. Miranda said,

  “That makes me feel like I need to take a bath.”

  “If your husband doesn’t object, I’ll join you,”

  said Nakor. “Come this way.” He motioned toward an opening in the fence, between sections of the building, and they entered.

  Once they had entered, Nakor saw what the structures were. A huge square had three small buildings at each corner. In the center rose six large stones, each one carved with runes that set Miranda’s teeth on edge to view. “What is this place?” she asked.

  “It’s a place of summoning, a place of dark magic, a place from which something very bad will come,” said Nakor.

  They saw movement in the dark, in the middle of the ring of stones. They moved forward quietly. A band of men, all wearing dark robes, stood around a large stone. Behind the stone was a man who stood with arms outstretched, one who chanted something to the sky.

  “Now we know why that man was so afraid,”

  whispered Nakor. “Look!”

  Upon the stone lay a young woman, her eyes wide with terror, a gag in her mouth. Her hands were tied to rings of iron in the stone and she was dressed in a short black sleeveless shift.

  Nakor’s eyes widened as he considered this. “We 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 545

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  must leave!” he said urgently.

  Miranda said, “We can’t leave her there to die.”

  “Thousands will die soon if we don’t leave,” he whispered, holding her elbow and steering her back toward the exit.

  Then there came a rumbling in the air, and Nakor said, “Run!”

  Miranda didn’t hesitate, and followed Nakor out the doorway. The soldiers nearby ignored the two who ran from the building, for their eyes were riveted on the scene before them. A faint blue-green light was gathering around the building, swirling as if being stirred by a giant invisible stick.

  Nakor stopped a few yards before Miranda and held his staff overhead. “Fly!” he shouted.

  Miranda halted, closed her eyes, and gathered her own powers to fly. She leaped forward, as if diving, but rather than falling, she rose. She grabbed Nakor’s staff and hauled him into the sky.

  She flew in a straight line, up the hillside, then began a gentle turn. When she could look down upon the building, she said, “Oh, gods of mercy!”

  Up the coast, a dozen lights like the one before them had blossomed, evil green and blue lights that filled the night with a terrible illumination. Then down the coast came a line of power, moving from each of the constructions, starting somewhere near Ylith and ending below where Miranda flew.

  A note painful to hear rang and below those soldiers camped nearest the building reeled back, from the sound. A faint light spread out in a fan from the building, toward the Kingdom camp, growing fainter as it went. It shifted through the spectrum, going to red, then back to green, then to violet. A last deep 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 546

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  indigo wave faded from view, and the grinding sound suddenly stopped.

  Then, on the battlefield, the dead began to rise.

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  Twenty-Five

  Confrontation

  MEN SCREAMED.

  Erik raced from his tent, barely dressed, holding his sword. Battle-hardened soldiers were fleeing in terror, while others struggled at the front. He grabbed one man, and shouted, “What is it?”

  The man’s eyes were wide with horror and he could only point to the front of the line as he pulled free of Erik’s grasp and ran. Erik hurried to the front of the line, and for a moment he couldn’t understand what he saw.

  His men were fighting a vicious action against the invader, and he leaped forward, shouting, “All units to the line!”

  Then he saw one of the men locked in struggle with a Kingdom soldier who wore the tunic of a different Kingdom unit. For a second he wondered if they had been infiltrated. Then he saw the man’s face, and the hair on Erik’s neck and arms stood up.

  He felt revulsion unlike anything he had known in his short life.

  The soldier trying to kill his former companion was dead. His lifeless eyes were still rolled up in his 547

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  head and the flesh of his face was pallid and slack.

  But his movements were deliberate as he swung his sword.

  Erik jumped forward and severed the thing’s head from its body with a single blow. The head rolled away, but the body kept swinging the sword. Erik hacked again and severed the creature’s arm, yet the creature pressed forward.

  Jadow Shati leaped past Erik and cut the creature’s leg out from under it. The corpse toppled over.

  “Man, they won’t stop.”

  Erik recognized the danger. Beyond the horror of facing men already dead, which had caused one man in four to run in fear, the dead were unrelenting.

  They could not be stopped unless they were hacked to pieces. And while one was being butchered, another would strike and kill a Kingdom soldier.

  Then Erik saw a freshly killed Kingdom soldier rise up, his eyes rolled up in his head, and turn to attack his former companions.

  “How do we fight them?” shouted Jadow.

  “Fire!” said Erik. He turned and shouted, “Hold them here!” and ran to the rear. Men were running forward to answer the alarm, and Erik held up his hands, halting a score of them. “Go to the rear and get all the hay the cavalry left.” He pointed to where the road narrowed. “Lay it from there, to there.” He indicated another point opposite it across the road.

  Then he ran to another squad who were about to run to the front, and shouted, “Strip the tents! Get everything that will burn and pile it on the hay.”

  “What hay, Captain?” asked one soldier.

  “When you get back with the tents, you’ll see the hay.” Erik hurried to the rear, where the engineers 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 549

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  had been sleeping under their partially completed catapults. They were up and buckling on weapons, ready to defend their war engines if necessary. “Are any of these finished?” asked Erik.

  The Captain of Engineers, a stocky man with a grey beard, said, “This one is ready, Captain, and that other over there is just about ready to go. What is going on?”

  Erik grasped the man’s arm. “Go to the front. See where our forward positions are. Return here and aim your catapult at that location.”

  The Captain of Engineers ran off, while Erik turned to the rest of his crew. “How many of you will it take to finish that other catapult?”

  One of the engineers said, “Just two of us, Captain. All we have to do is install the locking clamps on the arm. We could have finished last night, but we wanted to get supper.”

  “Go finish it. The rest of you, come with me.”

  He led them to the baggage train and shouted to the soldiers guarding it, “Get to the front and hold!”

  They ran off, and Erik pointed to a pair of wagons sitting on the side of the road. He asked the engineers, “Can any of you hitch up those horses?”

  All of them answered they could, so Erik said,

  “Get half that oil to the front, where you’ll see them building a barricade, and the other half to the catapults.”

  He ran back to the front. The plan would only work if they could keep the dead soldiers outside the barricade. And until that task was finished, Erik could serve his cause best by using his power to hack apart each dead soldier trying to get past the diamonds.

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  Miranda said, “We must get Pug and Tomas!”

  They watched from a vantage point among the tree
s upon the hillside, as the Kingdom forces rallied to repulse the first wave of undead soldiers. Then Nakor heard horns blowing at the rear of Fadawah’s army. Men under arms gathered and formed up behind the struggle taking place at the diamonds.

  “Yes,” said Nakor. “Get Pug and Tomas, and Ryana if she’s there.”

  Miranda vanished.

  Nakor heard a trumpet sound, and the Kingdom forces at the diamonds retreated to a barrier wall that had been building rapidly behind them. They leaped over it and those who were wounded were dragged up and over it by their comrades. No man wished to die and turn against his comrades.

  Then a fire was ignited and another. Suddenly the barricade was ablaze. Von Darkmoor, he thought.

  Young Erik was thinking fast on his feet.

  The dead stumbled into the flames and noiselessly they flailed about, until they collapsed upon the ground. The few that managed to gain a purchase on the burning barriers were pushed back by spears and poles.

  Then Nakor heard the sound of a war engine firing and in the darkness he could see something flying over the camp to land near the diamonds. A minute later another missile came flying overhead and landed closer to the barricade. Nakor could see a barrel explode upon impact, sending oil in all directions, which ignited when some struck the barricade.

  The pool of fire engulfed those corpses stumbling toward the barricade and soon they were falling.

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  Pug, Tomas, Ryana, and Miranda suddenly appeared next to Nakor.

  Pug said, “Gods!”

  Nakor said, “Those corpses aren’t the problem, Pug. Erik von Darkmoor is taking care of them as needed, but there is where you must go!” He pointed northward. “Find the source of that energy, and you’ll find the one you need to destroy.”

  Battle horns sounded, and Fadawah’s army started to march forward as the fires began to abate.

  Tomas asked, “Where can I best serve?”

  Nakor said, “Killing those soldiers here does no good, but ending the problem up there may save the West.”

  Ryana shifted her form and suddenly the huge dragon towered over them. “I will carry you all.”

  They climbed on her back and she launched herself skyward. Those soldiers who happened to be glancing toward the treeline as Ryana struck a mighty beat of her wings and gained altitude were astonished, and many shouted and pointed, but as the battle built in fury and the advancing army of Fadawah bore down on the abandoned diamonds, most were too preoccupied with survival to notice the dragon.

  She circled once and headed north.

  Dash heard the drums from the Keshians in the field. He knew he’d see what they had in store later; the darkness hid the Keshians’ deployment as sunrise was still hours off. As best the watchmen on the walls could tell in the dark they were facing only cavalry and mounted infantry, with no heavy foot or war engines; Dash assumed they had infiltrated fast-

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  moving companies for weeks now, and that slower-moving units had been avoided. With even half the normal garrison here, Kesh would never risk an attack on this scale. So the news was mixed good and bad: they were only facing swordsmen and horse archers, but they were facing a lot of them.

  Dash expected this meant the escaping Keshian officer Duko wrote of in his message to Patrick had successfully reached his army with the news of Krondor’s weaknesses. The only good news in the message had been the fact of Jimmy being alive and Malar being dead.

  The word from the palace was equally mixed.

  Patrick, Francie, and her father would recover—though Lord Brian might have lasting effects from the poison. Lord Rufio was dead, and several of the other nobles of the area as well. Two officers had recovered enough to take up positions on the walls, but Dash knew they were woefully undermanned to hold off the Keshian army for more than a few hours, a day or two at best.

  There were still too many weaknesses in the defense of the city. There were ways into the city that you didn’t have to be a Mocker to find. The dry aqueduct along the north wall had more than a half-dozen entrances if one simply took the time to probe.

  Dash wished he could have repaired the sluice gates and flooded it, but he would have filled a hundred cellars full of water by doing so. Suddenly an idea struck Dash. He called out, “Gustaf!”

  The mercenary appeared and said, “Sheriff?”

  “Take two men and run to the city armory. See if we have any Quegan fire oil. If we do, here’s what you do with it.” Dash outlined his plan, then called to 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 553

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  Mackey, “Hold things here while I’m gone. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Dash hurried off the wall and ran down High Street, to the intersection of the North Gate road. He cut through burned-out buildings until he reached the cleverly cleared alley and he hurried through it, despite the predawn darkness.

  He jumped fences and ducked under obstacles, risking injury to reach his goal in as timely a fashion as he could. He found the door he sought, a root cellar entrance from all appearances, but really a cover to one of the Mocker-controlled tunnels leading toward their headquarters.

  He hurried down stone steps, as lightly as he could while keeping up a good rate of speed. He grabbed a stone wall corner with his left hand, steadying himself as he swung around.

  A man turned with a startled expression on his face, and without breaking stride, Dash hit him as hard as he could, dropping him to the stone floor without a sound. Dash hurried along a wide walkway which ran above the watercourse. There was a slow trickle of water flowing through it. Dash knew that would change if Gustaf found the oil and used it as directed.

  Dash reached a section of wall that appeared identical to the adjacent sections, but which yielded to pressure, swinging open on a shaft, perfectly balanced so as to pivot with ease. Down a short tunnel Dash hurried, reaching a plain door. Dash knew that here he stood the biggest risk of being killed before he could speak.

  He tripped the locks from his side, but instead of opening the door he stood back. The audible clicks 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 554

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  alerted someone, for after a moment the door swung open and a curious face peered through. Dash grabbed the thief and hauled him forward, spinning him around while off balance, and propelling him back through the door before he entered.

  The man careened into two others who were standing on the other side of the door, knocking all of them over in a heap.

  Dash stepped through. He held his hands out so anyone could see he wasn’t armed. But to insure that he made things as clear as possible, he shouted, “I’m not armed! I came to talk!”

  The denizens of Mother’s, the headquarters for the Mockers, turned in astonishment at the sight of the Sheriff of Krondor standing before them, his sword still at his side. From across the room, Trina said, “Why, Sheriff Puppy, to what do we owe this honor?”

  Looking from face to face, most of which were shifting from surprise to anger, he said, “I came to warn you.”

  “Of what?” said one man. “Keshians in the tunnels?”

  “They’re your worry,” said Dash. “The ones outside the gate are mine. No. I came to warn you that in less than an hour this entire room and the rest of Mother’s is going to be under water.”

  “What!” shouted one man.

  “It’s a lie,” swore another.

  “No, it’s not a lie,” said Dash. “I’m going to flood the north aqueduct and the bypass channel below Stinky Street. The culverts above the main passage”—he pointed to the door though which he had just entered and the passage beyond—“are shattered 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 555

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  and all that water is going to come flooding down here. This entire section is going to be underwater by noon.”

  Trina walked over, two very large menacing-looking men accompanying her. “You wouldn’t be saying that to flush us out, would you, Sheriff Puppy? It could be useful to have us running through the sewers and tangling with some Keshians you haven’t managed to find yet.”

  “Maybe, but that’s not it.”

  “Or maybe you want us to be standing up in the streets for the Keshians to run over when they break down the gate?” said a man nearby, pulling his dagger.

  “Hardly,” said Dash. “There are enough bumps in the roads as it is. I don’t need more.”

  “I would believe you,” said Trina, “if I didn’t know the north sluice is damaged from the war and can’t be opened until it’s repaired.”

  “I’m not repairing it,” said Dash. “I’m going to burn it.”

  Several men laughed. “You’re going to burn a gate that’s half underwater!” said one. “How you doing that?”

  “Quegan fire oil.”

  Suddenly a man said, “It burns underwater!”

  Trina turned and shouted orders, and men began to grab packages, bundles, and sacks. She came to stand before Dash and said, “Why warn us?”

  He grabbed her arm and looked her in the eyes.

  “I’ve grown fond of certain thieves over my life.” He kissed her. “Call me an idiot,” he said after she stepped back. “Besides, you may be a bunch of ragged good-for-nothings, but you’re my ragged 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 556

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  good-for-nothings.”

  “Where should we go?” she asked, and Dash knew she wasn’t referring to the Mockers in general.

  “Take the old man to Barret’s Coffee House. It’s almost rebuilt, and Roo Avery already has stocked it with some food. There’s a tunnel off of the sewer under Prince Arutha’s Way that leads to a landing by his basement. Lie low there.”

  She looked him in the eyes and said, “You’re going to cause me more trouble than you’re worth before we’re done, Sheriff Puppy, but for now I am in your debt.”