Shadow of a Dark Queen

by Raymond E. Feist

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  He glanced at the faces in the pavilion, as now every eye was upon him and every man listened closely. “Some of the boys gave as good as they got and by the third month of siege, those pretty home-guard soldiers of the Raj had turned into as tough a bunch as I’ve seen. And they fought for their homes, so they were more motivated than we were.”

  He fell silent. Calis said nothing for a long while, until finally he asked, “When did they call for surrender?”

  Zila looked uncomfortable. “That was what caused everything to fall apart.”

  Erik knew from what he had heard around camp that the behavior of mercenaries was strictly gov-erned by convention and tradition. Zila’s manner suggested something out of the ordinary had occurred.

  At last Calis asked, “What?”

  “They didn’t call for surrender. They just came to the limit of our arrows and started digging, setting up their siege trenches and readying their engines. For a week there was no real fighting, just a few shots from the walls to keep them alert. The Raj was a brave enough man for someone who had never held more than a ceremonial sword in his life, and he stood at the head of his army . . .” Zila closed his eyes. He covered them with his hand, and for a moment Erik thought he might be weeping. When he removed his hand, Erik didn’t see tears, but he did see bottled-up rage.

  “The silly bastard stood there, wearing a gods-thrice-damned golden crown, holding a peacock fan of office, while those lizards rode around below his walls. He commanded them to leave.”

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  Calis said, “What else?”

  “He couldn’t understand that this was no war out on the plain over control of trading routes or to settle some matter of honor with the Raj of Maharta or the Priest-King of Lanada. He didn’t understand even when they swarmed into his palace and started cutting up his wives and children in front of his eyes . .

  .” Zila closed his eyes, and then whispered, “I don’t think he understood when they hoisted him up and impaled him before his own palace.”

  “Impaled him?” blurted Erik.

  Calis looked at him for a moment, then said,

  “What aren’t you telling?”

  “Ah, it’s a nasty business,” said Zila. “And I speak ill of the dead to repeat it. And of myself, truth to tell.”

  “You’re protected by the peace of the camp,”

  reminded Praji, his ugly face turned even less appealing by dark suspicion. “Did you turn coat?”

  Zila nodded. “My captain, and the others . . .” He seemed lost in the tale and said, “You know there are ways in and out of a city under siege, for a crafty man with enough money. The lizards didn’t ask for our surrender. They just came at us again and again.

  The men fighting with them were worse than any I’ve met, and I’ve met some black-hearted murderers in my time. But the lizards . . .” He took a long drink.

  “They stand nine, ten feet tall, and they’re as broad as two men across the shoulders. One blow with their sword can numb a strong man’s arm to the shoulder or split a shield. And they have no fear. They didn’t attack until the wall was breached.” He shook his head. “Until we quit the wall and gave it to them.

  “They sent an agent who found my captain and some others and told us there would be no formal 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:49 PM Page 386

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  offer of truce and that after the battle, those in the city would be put to the sword. They said those of us who abandoned the walls and stood aside would be free to join in the looting.”

  Praji looked ready to attack the man, as he slowly rose. He stared at Zila for a long, dark moment, then spit on the ground and left. Calis seemed more interested in facts than in condemning the man.

  “What else?”

  “The captains brought the offer to us. We knew we were beaten. Every day more men and supplies would come downriver to bolster them, while we grew weaker. Someone had set fire to a grain warehouse”—Erik winced in anticipation; he knew that grain dust in the air could explode if touched by spark or match; that was why no fire was permitted near the mill or the grain silos near Ravensburg—“and the explosion took out half the supplies of grain as well as a block of dwellings. Someone else poisoned a good amount of the wine being harbored near the palace, and at least a score of men died screaming as they held their bellies.”

  He closed his eyes, and this time a tear did fall, one of rage and frustration as well as regret. “And their damn spellcasters. The Raj had hired his own, and some were good. A few priests were there, too, healing the wounded and sick. But the lizard magicians were stronger.

  Strange noises would come during battle, and a man would feel terror no matter how well the fight went.

  Rats came boiling out of the sewers in broad daylight to bite your ankles and climb up your legs. There were clouds of gnats and flies so thick you inhaled them, or swallowed them if you opened your mouth.

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  below the cow. And every day the lizards dug their trenches and turned their siege engines and kept hammering at us.”

  Zila looked around at the faces. “I don’t know if you’d have done different in my place, but I doubt it.”

  His tone was defiant. “My Captain came to us and told us what was going to happen, and we knew he wouldn’t lie to us. We knew he was no coward.” He said to Calis, accusingly, “You said you knew him?”

  Calis nodded. “He was no coward.”

  “It was the lizards that broke the compact. They changed the rules of war. They gave us no choice.”

  “How did you escape?” asked a voice from behind, and Erik turned to see de Loungville, who had come up sometime during the narrative.

  “Something the lizard’s agent said bothered my Captain. I don’t know exactly what, but I do know that when they impaled the Raj in front of his own people, they told everyone still alive that they could either sit a stake next to their former ruler or serve.”

  “You weren’t given the day’s grace to quit the field?” said Foster, from behind de Loungville, and Erik stepped aside so they could see Zila better.

  “We weren’t given enough time to pick up our own kits! But Bilbari knew they were up to something and had us gather by the smallest gate to the south. We fought our way out, and they were too busy to send anyone after us. That’s where our Captain died, leading us out of the city we had betrayed.”

  Calis said, “It was your Captain’s choice.”

  Zila said, “I’d be a liar if I told you. We’re regulars, and until then every man had a contract with Bilbari. We voted on it, like regulars do.”

  “How did you vote?” demanded de Loungville.

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  “Does it matter?”

  “You’re damn right it matters,” he answered, his face set in an angry mask. “Turning coat is the lowest thing a man can do.”

  Zila said, “Every man voted to leave.”

  Calis said, “You have the peace of the camp until sunrise the day after tomorrow. See that you’re gone by then.”

  He rose, and as he left the pavilion, Erik hurried after him. “Captain!”

  Calis halted, and Erik was shocked at the anger he read in the half-elf ’s face. “What?”

  “Some of their horses need to lie up. If they don’t, give them another couple of days and they’re useless.”

  “That’s Zila and his companions’ problem.”

  “Captain, I don’t give a nail’s head for Zila and h
is men. I’m thinking of the horses.”

  Calis looked at Erik, then said, “Tend the horses as best you can, but do nothing special for them. Hay and water, that’s all we’ll give them. What they buy from the villagers is their own business.”

  “There’s a man named Rian who wants to know if we’ll take him. Says he doesn’t want to lie around Maharta.”

  Calis was silent for a moment. Finally he said, “If one of those turncoats is in sight when the sun reaches the sky the day after tomorrow, he will be killed.”

  Erik nodded and returned to the remounts. There he found Rian and said, “My Captain says we have no room.”

  The man’s expression shifted, and for an instant Erik thought he’d appeal, but at last he said, “Very well. Will you sell horses?”

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  Erik said, “I don’t think it would earn me my Captain’s thanks to keep you here.” Lowering his voice, he said, “Keep what little gold you have. Take that buckskin gelding over there.” He motioned toward the horse. “He’s just come sound from a stocked-up leg—he got it kicking out for no damn reason at all—and he’s got rocks for brains. But he’s fit enough to get you out of here in two days.”

  The man named Rian said, “I don’t think I’ll wait that long. My Captain’s dead, and so are Bilbari’s Regulars with him. I’m heading south to find a billet before word gets down there. Once a man’s labeled turncoat, no one will ever trust him.”

  Erik nodded. “Zila said you had no choice.”

  Rian spat. “A man always has a choice. Sometimes it’s to die with honor or live without, but there’s always a choice. That pretty Raj was a man. He might never have fought a day in his life, but when it came time to surrender he spit over the wall. He cried like a baby when they hoisted him up onto the stake, and he howled like a broken-backed dog when he felt it coming up his gut. But even while he hung there with his own shit and blood running down the pole, he never asked for mercy, and if Khali-shi”—he used the local name for the Goddess of Death, who judges the lives of men—“has any goodness in her, she’ll give him another chance on the Wheel.”

  Erik said, “Zila said you were never offered the chance of surrender.”

  “Zila’s a lying sack of pig guts. He was our corporal, and with the Captain and sergeant dead he thinks he’s our Captain. No one’s killed him yet because we’re all too damn tired.”

  “Come with me,” said Erik.

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  He led Rian to the hut Calis used as his office and quarters and asked to see the Captain. When Calis appeared, he looked at Rian, then at Erik. “What?”

  “I think you should hear this man out,” said Erik.

  Turning to Rian, he said, “What about the offer to surrender?”

  Rian shrugged. “The Raj told the lizards he would burn in hell before he’d open the gates of his city to them. But he offered any captain who wanted to quit the city the chance to leave—without pay, of course.” Rian sighed. “If you knew Bilbari, you’d know he was one greedy son of a mule. He took a bonus for staying, then made a deal with the lizards to betray the city and join in the looting.” He shook his head. “But that was the joke. It was the worst betrayal of all: as soon as the fires started and the looting began, they hunted down the mercenary companies one at a time. Those that stood died, and those that surrendered were given the choice of swearing service or taking the stake. No day’s grace, no laying down of weapons and walking away, nothing. Serve or die. A few of us managed to get free.”

  Calis shook his head. “How could you betray your vow?”

  “I never did,” said Rian, with what was the closest to a show of emotion Erik had seen so far. He stared Calis in the eyes and repeated, “I never did.

  We were a regular company, soldiers for life, sworn in oath as brothers. We voted, and those who voted to stay and fight were on the losing side. But we swore an oath to each other long before we took the Raj’s gold, and damn me if I’d leave a brother for being wrong-headed.”

  “Then why did you seek service with us?”

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  “Because Bilbari’s dead and our brotherhood is broken.” He looked genuinely sad. “If you knew Bilbari, you also knew he had his own way of taking care of his men. Some of us were with him ten, fifteen years, Captain. He was nobody’s father, but he was everyone’s eldest brother. And he’d kill the first man who harmed one of his own. I’ve been selling my sword since I was fifteen years old, and it’s the only family I’ve known. But it’s a dead family now.

  After Khaipur, no man will have us to service, and that means being a bandit or starving.”

  “What will you do?” said Calis.

  “I’d like to head out tonight and get a march on this news heading south. Maybe catch a boat out of Maharta if I can’t find a billet there, head up coast to the City of the Serpent River or down to Chatisthan, someplace nobody knows me. I’ll find another company who’ll hire me, or a merchant needing a bodyguard.” He looked to the north for a moment with a thoughtful expression. “But with what’s up there, I don’t know that any of us can find a peaceful life anywhere. I’ve never seen war like this before. You saw the smoke, Captain?”

  Calis nodded.

  “They fired the city when they were through. I don’t mean a fire here or there, but the entire city. We saw from a ridge to the south before we ran for our lives, but we saw.” His voice lowered as if he was afraid someone might overhear. “From one end to the other the fire burned, and the smoke rose so high it flattened and spread through the clouds like a big tent. Soot rained from the sky for days. Twenty, thirty thousand soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder before the gates, shouting and laughing, chanting 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:50 PM Page 392

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  and singing as they killed those who wouldn’t serve their cause. And I saw her.”

  “Who?” said Calis with sudden interest.

  “The Emerald Queen, some call her. In the distance. Couldn’t see her face, but I saw a company of lizards on those damn big horses of theirs, and a big wagon, bigger’n anything I’ve ever seen before, and on the wagon was this big golden throne, and this woman sat there, in a long robe. You could see the green flicker of the emeralds at her throat and wrists, and she had a crown with emeralds. And the lizards all went wild, hissing and chanting, and even some of the men, those who’d been with them long enough, they all bowed when she came by.”

  “You’ve been helpful,” said Calis. “Take a fresh horse and whatever food you need and slip out at the guard change at sundown.” Rian saluted and left.

  Erik turned to leave and Calis said, “Keep what you heard to yourself.”

  Erik nodded. Then he said, “Captain, the horses?”

  Calis shook his head. “Very well. Do what you can, but nothing that diminishes our ability to care for our own animals. No medicines you can’t replace

  . . . easily replace.”

  Erik was about to say thank you, but Calis turned and reentered the hut, leaving him alone. After a moment he headed back to the horses; there was a great deal of work to do, and some of Zila’s companions would be leaving on foot in two days if he didn’t work miracles.

  “Erik!”

  Erik looked up to see Embrisa standing nearby, just outside the corral where he was examining a 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:50 PM Page 393

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  horse’s leg, and he said, “Hello.”

  Shyly she said, “Can you have supper tonight?”

  Erik smiled. The girl had asked him twice before, so he could meet her father and mother—though he already had in the market and kn
ew them by sight, she wanted a formal meeting. It was becoming clear she had decided that Erik should court her, and he was both flattered and disturbed by the attention.

  She would be of marrying age in another two years in Ravensburg, but that was Ravensburg. The people here were much poorer, and children meant hands that could work at three years of age, out in the field gleaning grain that fell from the stalks as the crops were harvested, helping with the heavy work by six or seven years. A boy was a man at twelve, and a father at fifteen.

  He crossed to the rails, and climbed over, stepping down next to her. “Come here,” he said quietly.

  She stepped closer and he looked down and put his hand on her shoulder. He kept his voice low as he said, “I like you very much. You’re as nice a girl as I’ve met, but I’m going to be leaving soon.”

  “You could stay,” she said in a rush. “You’re only a mercenary, and you can leave the company. A smith would be a man of importance here, and you’d quickly become a leader.”

  Erik was suddenly aware that besides being pretty, she was also a cunning girl who had sized up the most likely man in the company to become rich—at least by village standards—should he remain and ply a trade.

  “Isn’t there a boy here—” he began.

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  young. The girls outnumber them because of the wars.”

  Erik nodded. His own company, though composed of condemned men, numbered more than one former farmer’s son who had left home to seek his fortune as a soldier or bandit.

  Suddenly Roo was standing beside them, and Erik knew he had overheard the entire conversation, though he pretended not to, by saying, “Embrisa! I didn’t see you there. How are you?”

  “Fine,” she said, lowering her eyes; her sullen tone showed she wasn’t.

  As if nothing was amiss, Roo said, “Did you talk to Henrik today?”

  Erik knew who Roo spoke of, a young man from a village not too far from Ravensburg who served with another squad, but one whom he had barely exchanged a dozen words with over the course of his travels. Henrik was a dull man with little to say.