Crusade

by James Lowder

  “Plague,” the priest replied at last. He took his holy symbol—a wooden disk painted a rosy pink—and rubbed it between his hands. “They’re all dead.”

  A rumble of concern and fear ran along the rail, as those who heard the priest’s report discussed it with their neighbors. The first mate cursed and spat into the water. “Well, Captain,” she said at last, “there’s not much doubt about what we should do now.”

  Again the captain nodded. “Not much doubt at all.”

  The two men in the boat couldn’t hear the discussions held at normal levels onboard the ship, but they must have sensed something was wrong. They both grabbed for the oars and attempted to push the small boat closer to the black-hulled Sembian cog.

  The first mate turned to Razor John. “Kill both the sailor and the priest, fletcher.”

  John gasped. “No!” he said, outrage in his voice.

  The first mate raised her callused hand as if she were going to strike the fletcher, then she stopped. “Those men have been exposed to plague,” she hissed. “Kill them before they get aboard, or we’ll end up just like the Ouroboros.”

  The comment stopped John cold. He stared out at the two men in the small boat, then thought of a plague spreading through the ship, killing everyone on the Sarnath. I’ll die, too, he realized. And Kiri. That thought, above all, disturbed him terribly.

  He met the cold, hard gaze of the first mate. “Why me?”

  She smiled a malevolent, evil grin. “Because you’re a soldier now, Cormyrian, and I’m an officer. You do what I say. Besides, do you want a ship full of crusaders to die because of two men? You won’t beat the Tuigan that way.”

  Closing his eyes, John came to a decision. He hesitated for only an instant, pulling his black, fingerless gloves tight on his hands, then snatched a blue-fletched arrow from his quiver and nocked it in his bow. The sailor in the small boat looked up just as John let the arrow fly.

  The Sembian sank down, an arrow through his heart. The cleric wailed once and got to his knees. “I can cast a spell!” he cried. “I won’t spread the plague.”

  “We just can’t take that chance,” the captain replied coldly. He turned his gray eyes to John and casually flicked two fingers toward the ship’s boat.

  The fletcher sighted the cleric’s heart and pulled back on the bowstring. The fine cord bit into his fingers, then he let another arrow fly. The Lathanderite futilely tried to get out of the way. Instead of striking him in the heart, the blue-fletched arrow hit his shoulder, knocking him from the boat. He struggled for a moment, then sank. The cleric’s wooden holy symbol was left floating on the surface, but soon it, too, dropped beneath the water.

  “You eight archers to my right,” the first mate yelled, “get some pitch and lob flaming arrows onto the Ouroboros. I want her fully engulfed before we leave.”

  After glancing at the still form in the boat, she turned to John. “You do your job well. Now all you have to do is get used to following orders.” When he replied with only a blank look, the first mate added, “This is a war, fletcher, not a contest of skill at the spring festival.”

  Silently John walked back to the bowsprit. Along the way, a few sailors slapped him on the back and congratulated him on his fine marksmanship.

  As he leaned back against the gunwale, the fletcher pondered why no one seemed especially chilled by what had just occurred. After a little while, he decided that the first mate was correct: he’d only done his job. Razor John wasn’t proud of the task he’d reluctantly completed, but he went back to working arrows convinced that King Azoun would at least understand he’d killed only to save the ship and further the cause of the crusade.

  The port of Telflamm was crowded with ships of every sort. As King Azoun scanned the harbor from the deck of the Welleran, he estimated that about two hundred vessels from the crusaders’ fleet lay moored nearby—almost half the total armada. Boats of many sizes shuttled between the docks and the larger ships, carrying soldiers and sailors to shore. The piers were filled to capacity with cogs and carracks, which were being unladen by longshoremen. Crates of food and weapons, horses and livestock, even parts for mobile forges and supply wagons, covered Telflamm’s docks.

  “We’re ready to go, Your Highness.”

  Azoun nodded. “Then let’s be on our way,” he said to Farl Bloodaxe. “Will we be to Torg’s camp before nightfall?”

  The general shrugged. “I don’t know these waters very well. I would say more likely before sunrise tomorrow morning.” The dark-skinned man shielded his eyes with his hands and looked toward the sun, which was now high in the east over the onion-shaped domes of Telflamm’s temples and civic buildings. “Yes, definitely by dawn tomorrow.”

  “King Torg awaits,” Azoun noted cheerfully, motioning for Farl to give the orders to proceed. The Welleran was quickly under way north along the coast of the Easting Reach, two other Cormyrian carracks following close behind.

  Azoun glanced back at Telflamm once, then began a leisurely stroll around the ship. For the first time since the carrack had left Suzail—a little over a month before—the Welleran was quiet. Most of the passengers had been dropped in port so that extra supplies could be loaded aboard the Cormyrian tri-masters. This food and other essentials were destined for King Torg and his dwarven troops, and whatever soldiers Zhentil Keep had seen fit to send. Only a skeleton crew remained aboard the flagship, commanded by Farl Bloodaxe, who had won the men’s support during the storm.

  With Lord Harcourt and General Elventree secure in Telflamm, keeping the troops in line, Azoun had time to discuss the use of magic in the upcoming conflict with Vangerdahast. The king’s trusted advisor was along on the crusade to supervise the use of the War Wizards against the Tuigan. Azoun had no doubts that his old tutor would wreak havoc upon Yamun Khahan’s army given the chance.

  “From everything I’ve heard,” Vangerdahast had said during one meeting, “the Tuigan don’t like magic very much at all. In fact, their permanent capital—if you can call a tent city a capital—is set up in a magic-dead area. Spells won’t work there.” The mage had stroked his beard then and looked wistfully at the flickering lantern. “A few well-placed lightning bolts ought to shake them up quite a bit.”

  Azoun leaned on the base of a mast. He laughed to himself, thinking of the gleam that shone in Vangerdahast’s eyes whenever he spoke of using spells against the horsewarriors. Azoun was sure that his old friend was getting at least a little caught up in the adventure of the crusade.

  In fact, from what the king had seen during the sail from Suzail, the entire army seemed to be growing more excited, more enthusiastic about the campaign. The Welleran had come close to many other transport ships during the trip across the Inner Sea. Every time the flagship got near enough that another vessel could see she flew King Azoun’s standard, she was welcomed with cheers of greeting.

  That joyous sound kept Azoun’s spirits buoyed through the quiet trip along the coast that day, and the king’s growing confidence in his army began to show in his demeanor. He spent little time during the night worrying about the battles to come. Instead, he thought about his wife and wondered how she was faring back in Suzail. Before he went to sleep, he resolved to have Vangerdahast contact Filfaeril as soon as possible, once the supplies were delivered.

  Vangerdahast even noticed that Azoun seemed relaxed and well rested on the morning they reached their rendezvous point on the northern shore of the Easting Reach, just south of the port town of Uthmerg.

  “Why so animated this day, Your Highness?” the royal wizard asked as he watched the king briskly pace back and forth at the rail.

  “I am happy because our goal is almost in sight,” Azoun told the mage. He stopped pacing, then pointed east to the tall-grassed, rolling hills that stretched away from the shore. “And King Torg is sure to be ready to join our army by now.”

  The wizard squinted toward the shore. The choppy, shallow water prevented the Welleran and the two ships accompanying he
r from getting closer than a few hundred yards from the beach’s dark sand. “Then I suggest we get a move on. Do you see any envoys yet?”

  Now the king scanned the dark shoreline, too, but saw nothing save a few white birds running in the surf. “No. You contacted them already, didn’t you, Vangy?”

  “Hours ago,” the wizard sighed. He rubbed his chin, then nodded. “If you have no objections, Azoun, I’ll have us in the dwarves’ camp in a few moments.”

  With that, the royal magician fell silent and noiselessly mouthed an incantation. His eyes rolled back in his head, revealing milky white orbs. “That will do nicely,” Azoun heard the mage mumble. His voice sounded hollow, as if it were coming from a great distance. Before long, Vangerdahast closed his eyes, then shook his head briskly.

  “I’ve located the camp, and I think I’ve spotted a fine location for us to teleport to. We’d best move right away, however.” The wizard grabbed Azoun’s wrists. “Don’t want some fool dwarf to park a horse or a cart there.”

  “Farl,” the king called. When the general appeared from a hatch nearby, Azoun said, “The escort hasn’t shown up, so we’re going ahead to the camp. We’ll send word as soon as the dwarves are ready to receive their supplies.”

  The ebony-skinned man nodded, then asked, “Is there anything else I should do while you’re gone?”

  “Just keep the ship afloat,” Vangerdahast said quickly. “Come, Your Highness, we really can’t dawdle.”

  Azoun swallowed and clenched his teeth. “Let’s get it over with, Vangy.” The king had complete faith in his friend. Still, the gruesome stories he’d heard about mages mistakenly teleporting into stones or trees, or ending up hundreds of yards above the ground after the spell, made Azoun nervous.

  Again Vangerdahast fell into a rapid, rumbling chant. A brilliant yellow light flashed into existence around the king and the wizard. Azoun looked down, but before he could note the fact that the deck was suddenly visible through his ghostlike feet, the world disappeared. The only sound of the king’s passing was the hollow thud of air rushing to fill the space where he’d stood only a moment before.

  White. Blinding, empty white.

  That was all Azoun saw for what seemed like minutes. Then the world and all its colors returned. The king rubbed his eyes and looked around. Low, grass-covered hills surrounded him on every side.

  “I’m sure if I do that one hundred times, I’ll never get used to it,” Azoun said softly. He staggered forward a step, then stopped to regain his balance.

  Vangerdahast chuckled. “Rather like the way I feel about sea travel, I’d imagine.”

  Unlike the king, he was not troubled by magical travel. In fact, the royal magician seemed energized by the experience, as if the spell had somehow granted him a little extra strength. “The dwarves’ camp is—” The wizard paused, then pointed east. “In that direction, I believe.”

  Azoun was still staggering slightly when he topped the rise. Though he felt weakened by the teleportation, he still climbed the slope with greater speed than Vangerdahast could manage. Being the first one up the hill, Azoun saw the crossbows before his friend.

  “Stand where you are,” a red-bearded dwarf growled, leveling his weapon menacingly at the king. He spoke in Common, a universal trade language in Faerun, but his words were tinged with a heavy accent.

  “Aye,” added his companion, who was shorter than the first and much, much fatter. “You’ll not be sneaking around our camp, human.” His accent was even more pronounced than the other dwarf’s.

  “Just a minute,” the Cormyrian king said evenly, holding his hands away from his sword. “We’re here to see Torg.”

  Vangerdahast trudged up next to the king. The dwarves shifted their crossbows to target the wizard. “Don’t be foolish,” the mage snapped, dismissing the guards with a wave of his hand. “This is King Azoun of—”

  “Pryderi mac Dylan, you absolute dunderhead, put that thrice-damned crossbow down!”

  Both dwarven sentries, Azoun, and Vangerdahast looked up sharply at the loud, bellowing command. A scowling dwarf, waving his hands wildly around his head, stormed up the hill behind the crossbowmen. Neither the Cormyrian king nor his advisor were fluent enough in Dwarvish to understand exactly what was being said, but they got the general idea from the other dwarves’ reactions.

  The red-bearded dwarf lowered his weapon and dropped to one knee. After he’d pulled his fellow sentry to the ground, he said, “Ironlord, I didn’t—”

  The scowling dwarf reached the top of the hill. He stood, hands on hips, for a moment, then cuffed the red-haired sentry on the back of the head. “I warned you there’d be royalty about, you oaf,” he grumbled in Dwarvish. “Can’t you recognize a king when you see one?”

  Azoun and Vangerdahast exchanged brief, concerned glances. The dwarf the others called “Ironlord” wore a steel breastplate covered by a black cloth surcoat. A brilliant red phoenix clutching a warhammer spread over the surcoat’s front. The dwarf’s thick black beard only partially obscured that symbol, for the hair was bound with thin golden chain into two neat forks. The forked beard made the ironlord look a little ominous, and his hard, closely set eyes only heightened the effect.

  This was obviously Torg, ironlord of Earthfast.

  “Your Lordship,” Azoun began in rough, broken Dwarvish. “I am King Azoun of Cormyr, and this is Vangerdahast, royal mage of my court, commander of the army’s War Wizards.”

  The dwarf smiled broadly and studied the king with his dark, steely eyes. “Welcome, Your Highness. You speak passable Dwarvish for a human,” Torg said in perfect Common. “My apologies for this … scene.” He glowered at the kneeling sentries.

  Azoun tried to return the ironlord’s smile. “It’s certainly understandable,” he offered, pointing back down the hill. “We appeared out of nowhere. They were only doing their—”

  Torg cocked his head to one side. “Appeared, you say? Out of nowhere? What happened to the blasted escort I sent to meet you at the shore?” He raised one hand up to his black beard and pulled a gold chain tight around one fork.

  “They didn’t show up,” Vangerdahast replied. “We waited quite a while, but no one came.”

  The dwarf’s face darkened in anger again. He turned abruptly to the kneeling sentries and snapped, “Gather up a patrol and find the escort I sent out.” After a pause, he added, “Bring them to me when you find them.” The guards rushed to the task.

  Vangerdahast decided then that he was going to have to brush up on the spell that allowed him to comprehend strange languages. Torg’s habit of slipping in and out of Dwarvish made the wizard uneasy. Since it was his job to keep Azoun safe while away from the ship, Vangerdahast knew he’d feel more secure if he could understand what everyone said at all times.

  Torg exhaled sharply, as if he were expelling his anger. The ironlord then faced his guests. “Please allow me to escort you through the camp personally.” He spun on the heels of his thick-soled boots and marched down the hill.

  Azoun and Vangerdahast quickly fell into step behind the dwarf. Torg’s short legs didn’t hinder his speed, the humans soon learned. The dwarven king set a good pace as he stomped toward the camp. Walking behind Torg, Azoun noted that, apart from the gleaming metal of his armor and sword, the dwarf was decked out entirely in red and black. Blood and thunder, he concluded silently.

  For his part, Vangerdahast was studying the layout of the dwarven camp. The hill the wizard marched down led to a large, grass-covered plain. Uniform, brown tents spread in straight lines across the open area. The precision of the lines astounded the wizard, who had assumed the camp would be like most human camps: relatively chaotic sprawls held together only by proximity.

  Before the two kings and the wizard reached the first tent, they saw the army. Hundreds upon hundreds of short, stocky dwarven soldiers marched in precise ranks. The bright sunlight glinted off their polished armor and the blades of their weapons. Azoun noted with some surprise that the d
warves were carrying polearms.

  “You make them drill in full armor?” Azoun asked Torg as they got near a formation. He knew from experience that the hot, early summer sun would be devastating on the armor-clad soldiers.

  The ironlord stopped and looked at Azoun, puzzlement showing on his face. “How do you expect them to fight in armor if they don’t train in armor?”

  “But the sun. The heat will—”

  Torg snorted. “It may well be sunny on the day of the first battle. The men will be glad we did this then.” The dwarf shaded his eyes and looked up into the sky. “I hate the sun myself. Too damned bright.” He turned to Vangerdahast. “Of course, we don’t get this much sunlight underground. Another good reason to drill the troops in it.”

  Surveying the army for a moment, the wizard scratched his head and said, “This is the first dwarven army I’ve seen with polearms.” He motioned to the marching troops. “Why are you training with pikes?”

  A wicked gleam flickered in Torg’s dark eyes, which neither Azoun nor Vangerdahast missed. “Do you remember the human general I mentioned in my letters?” Without waiting for a reply, Torg said to Azoun, “The human was very familiar with Your Highness’s treatise on the use of polearms in warfare. Recommended it so highly, in fact, I read the book myself. Quite enlightening.”

  Azoun bowed slightly, a little embarrassed by the unexpected praise. “You intend to use the pikes against the Tuigan?”

  “Of course.”

  “But the Tuigan are archers,” Vangerdahast exclaimed. “Pikes won’t do you any good if they stay two hundred yards away and fire arrows at you.” He gestured at the drilling troops. “You’ll be slaughtered.”

  Torg laughed and dismissed the wizard’s comments with a wave of his hand. “Yamun Khahan has never faced dwarven troops before, and I’m sure his warriors’ arrows haven’t been tested against plate armor forged in Earthfast.” The ironlord put his short, round fingers to his mouth and whistled. “And we have ranged weapons of our own.”