Shadow of a Dark Queen

by Raymond E. Feist

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  sword in its scabbard, as he did not need to be told that they were about to fight.

  For in the distance, less than a mile behind Jadow, came a dust cloud. Erik saw the figures on the horizon, and before Jadow could get close enough to speak, Erik shouted, “It’s the Saaur!”

  De Loungville asked, “How can you tell?”

  “The horses look too big for the distance behind Jadow.”

  Just then Jadow came within shouting range and cried out, “Captain! It’s the lizard men! They are following.”

  Calis turned to de Loungville and said, “We stay in the saddle. Skirmish in two lines!”

  De Loungville shouted, “You heard the Captain! I want the first fifty men dressed left on me!” That meant that the first fifty men in the column would line up on de Loungville’s left arm, in a straight line.

  Erik was the man closest to de Loungville when he moved his horse around.

  Jadow came reining in, his mount staggering as he leaped off. Calis shouted, “Where’s Foster?”

  Jadow shook his head. “They bought none of it.

  As soon as I took off, they followed me and ignored the corporal. The corporal turned around and hit them from the flank, buying me a head start, Captain, but . . .” He didn’t have to say any more.

  Erik thought of the big man, Jerome Handy, who had become something of a friend after being embarrassed by Sho Pi aboard the ship. He glanced to his right and saw Sho Pi, and nodded. Sho Pi nodded back, as if he understood what Erik was thinking.

  Luis said, “Then we bleed lizards,” under his breath, but loud enough for those near him to hear.

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  Erik drew his sword and put his reins between his teeth. He unlimbered his shield and made ready. He’d control his mount with his legs, but he kept the reins in his jaws in case he needed to yank them.

  The Saaur’s animals must be as incredibly strong as their riders, thought Erik, for if Jadow’s mount was near death, the Saaur’s looked merely tired. Yet the green-skinned warriors didn’t pause once they saw the line of soldiers facing them.

  “We don’t scare them much,” observed Nakor from behind Erik, who wouldn’t take his eyes off the approaching riders.

  Calis said, “When I give the order, I want bow-fire; then the first rank will charge. The second rank will hold until I give the order.”

  The bowmen, all in the center of the second line, drew back their weapons, and de Loungville half muttered, “Wait for it!”

  The Saaur bore down relentlessly, and as they approached, Erik started noticing details. Some wore feathers on their helms, while others had strange animals and birds on their shields. The horses were bay and chestnut, with some that were almost black, but while a few were near-white, he saw no buckskins or mottled colors. Erik wondered why he was fascinated by the fact of their being no pintos or buckskins.

  He fought down an unexpected urge to laugh.

  Then Calis shouted, “Shoot!” and the forty archers in the second line let loose. The rain of shafts caused a half-dozen riders to fall, and several of the alien horses screamed. Then Calis shouted,

  “Charge!”

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  told the horse to gallop. He didn’t look to see how the others were doing, but kept his focus on a Saaur with a metal crest topped with a horsehair fall atop his helm. The horsehair had been bleached and dyed a bright crimson, so it was an easy target for Erik.

  Erik sensed more than saw when his own horse crashed into the larger animal. He was too intent on avoiding the blow aimed at his neck. The Saaur warrior used a large single-bladed ax, which meant he could bludgeon with it on the backswing, but cut only with a forward blow. Erik almost fell into the gap between the two animals after his own mount staggered away from the larger horse. Erik ducked under the looping blow, but recovered in time to deliver a punishing blow with his sword to the thigh of the Saaur.

  He didn’t see if the creature fell from the saddle or rode past, because he was too busy engaging another warrior who had just unhorsed one of Hatonis’s clansmen. Erik charged him and got his sword point under the creature’s shield before it could turn and face him, and the Saaur fell backwards, flipping completely over the rear of his horse.

  Erik swore and reined his own horse away as the riderless alien horse lashed out with a foreleg. “

  ’Ware the mounts!” he cried. “They’re trained to attack, too.”

  Erik moved to help Roo, who was attempting to work in tandem with Luis against one Saaur. He came up on the lizard man’s blind side and delivered a killing blow to the back of the creature’s helm. The Saaur fell over and the helm fell off, revealing an alien face, green and scaled, but covered in scarlet blood.

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  “Well, their blood’s not green,” shouted Biggo, riding by. “They’re also dying right enough.”

  “So are we,” said Roo, pointing. Biggo and Erik turned to see that while most of the Saaur had been unhorsed, for each one killed, one of their own was down as well.

  Pushing back his helm, Biggo said, “We face them three to one, and still they take us out in equal numbers.”

  “Shoot,” cried Calis, and the ten archers who remained to him started peppering the five remaining Saaur with arrows.

  Jadow said, “Look!” and pointed into the distance.

  “That’s why they’re so fearless,” shouted de Loungville. “These are just the trail-breakers!”

  Afar, a large column of dust rose into the sky, and even at this distance the rumble of hooves was thunderous. Erik didn’t wait but set heels to the flanks of his horse and charged after the remaining Saaur, who were attempting to keep the humans engaged as long as possible until their companions could overtake them.

  Biggo let out a whoop and charged after him.

  They rode full into the same Saaur, striking at him from both sides. Erik caught him on the sword arm, shattering bone and cutting deep into flesh, while Biggo hammered relentlessly at the creature’s shield.

  Soon it was quiet.

  Calis said, “Ride for the cave! We’ll stand there!”

  Erik sucked a deep lungful of air and willed his tired horse to run. There was no choice. The alien horses were stronger and more powerful and had more endurance. They couldn’t outrun them, it was 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:50 PM Page 465

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  clear, and at one to one, they couldn’t outfight the Saaur in the open.

  Erik hoped that the cave tunnel did lead somewhere, as Praji had claimed. For if it was only a cave in a hill, it would be a lonely place to die.

  In ragged order, leaving the remounts to follow or wander, Calis’s Crimson Eagles, exhausted and sore from the short but furious fight, headed toward the distant hillock.

  Nakor was among the first to reach it, and without much grace he half jumped, half fell from his horse. He grabbed a waterskin and a bag of rations, then struck her on the rump, yelling enough to send her running away as he ducked into the cave.

  As Erik and the others began to dismount, he shouted, “There’s a door! Come quick!”

  “Strike a light!” commanded Calis, and de Loungville produced a special oil and motioned for someone to give him a torch. A bundle of them was fetched from the baggage along with a few other items the men would carry, but most of the baggage, food, and all the horses must be sacrificed.

  De Loungville sprinkled the oil on a torch, then struck flint and steel to cause a spark. The oil caught and the torch was lit, and he ducked inside the cave.

  Erik followed after, and had to d
uck-walk to pass below the low ceiling. After about ten yards, the ceiling rose and the corridor broadened, as the passage moved down into an underground cavern.

  Erik looked for the door and discovered it was a huge round stone. It was nestled in a heavy iron and wooden frame, rigged so it could be rolled from its position to the right of the passage to block it. While a few strong men could use large wooden pegs set in 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:50 PM Page 466

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  the face to move it from inside this cave, those following after would have no handhold on the smooth surface, nor any way to gain enough leverage to move the massive rock.

  When the last man was inside the cave, Erik, Biggo, and Jadow grabbed the wooden pegs and struggled to move the rock. Others insinuated themselves against the wall so they could push against the edge once it moved enough.

  Slowly, protestingly, the rock budged and then with a grinding rumble moved as the sound of horsemen echoed through the entrance of the cave. Angry shouts in an alien language echoed down the hail as the grinding stone moved slowly to block their retreat.

  Suddenly Erik felt resistance and knew that the Saaur on the other side had tried to prevent the closing. “Push!” he shouted, and another pair of hands moved below his, and he looked down to see Roo trying to add his strength to the task. The little man had slipped below and crawled on the floor to find a place from which he could help.

  Nakor shouted, “Close your eyes!”

  Erik was slow and was temporarily blinded by a sudden flash of light as Nakor lit something from de Loungville’s torch and tossed it through the narrow space between the wall and the slowly moving rock door.

  A scream and several shouts of rage answered, but the pressure on the door was released and it closed suddenly with a deep and final thud. Erik felt the shock in his shoulders as it slammed into the opposite wall.

  His knees felt suddenly weak and he sat down on the cold cave floor. He heard Biggo laugh. “That was closer than I like.”

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  Erik found himself laughing, too, and looked over at Jadow. “Foster and Jerome?”

  Jadow shook his head. “They all died like men.”

  Calis said, “Bobby, light another torch so we can see where we’re going.”

  “Do we have another torch?” asked the sergeant.

  A voice in the dark said, “In the bundle here, Sergeant.”

  Calis said, “Biggo, while we’re looking ahead, I want you and von Darkmoor to do an inventory.

  We’ve left most of what we had outside, but I want to see what we have here.” He glanced around.

  “Though if there’s not another way out, it really doesn’t matter, does it?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he moved off into the gloom as de Loungville lit a second torch, handed it to Luis, and moved after the Captain.

  Nakor hurried to grab a few loose rocks and lay them between the stone and the floor. “Won’t roll back very well if they do get a grip,” he said with a grin.

  Biggo turned and said, “All right, me darlings.

  You heard the Captain. Look around and tell ol’

  Biggo what you thieving rascals grabbed when you ran for your lives!”

  Erik chuckled, but knew it was just relief at still being alive. He didn’t know who else had noticed, but when he ran into the dark he had looked back over his shoulder and seen at least thirty of the hundred or more men who had left that morning lying dead on the ground. They had survived the first encounter of a long and bitter journey to come, and almost a third of them were already dead.

  He put that thought from his mind and began looking to see what resources they had.

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  Hours passed, and there were faint sounds from the other side of the rock door, so they knew the Saaur were contriving ways to move the boulder and come after them. At one point Roo wondered aloud what they would do if some Saaur magician came along and used magic to open the door, and the anger that greeted the remark caused the wiry man to fall instantly silent. Erik couldn’t remember a time when Roo had been shut up so quickly or effectively.

  When Calis finally returned, Biggo said, “We’ve got food for four or five days, Captain. A few extra weapons, but mostly what each of us is carrying.

  We’ve got plenty of gold and gems, ‘cause the sergeant there grabbed the pay sacks, and we’ve got a fair supply of bandages and herbs.

  “But all our camp gear is gone, and a lot of us are going to be thirsty if we don’t find water quickly.”

  Calis said, “The tunnel seems to head down gradually, and toward the foothills. I saw signs that someone’s used this route not too long ago, maybe a month, but no more than that.”

  “Tribesmen?” asked Roo.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Praji, standing up. “Unless you’re anxious to face that angry pack of lizards waiting out there”— he pointed to the door—“we go that way.” He pointed into the gloom.

  Calis said, “Everyone ready?”

  No one said no, and Calis turned to de Loungville. “Get them into some sort of order, and let’s start seeing where this passage leads.”

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  the familiar surrounded Erik, as if following orders made the closeness of the tunnel and the gloom bear-able.

  Then Calis gave the word and they moved off into the darkness.

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  Discovery

  A gong sounded.

  It echoed off vast ceilings of carved and colored stone, ringing through the great hall, and the Warden turned. Miranda saw him regarding her with impassive features. But he made no threatening gesture as she approached.

  She had been flying across the mountains since leaving the vast city known as the Necropolis, the City of the Dead Gods. Following the instructions given her by the fortune-teller in the Inn, she had returned to Midkemia and found her way back to Novindus, and from there to the Necropolis. Then she flew upward, guided by her arts, despite her fatigue, and she sought out this mythical place atop the mountains called the Pavilion of the Gods.

  At last, when she had to use her powers to preserve air around her, she found what she sought, a splendid place atop a cloud, a vast series of halls and galleries that seemed created out of ice and crystal as well as stone and marble.

  The clouds thinned, and she saw that the massive building stood atop the summit of the greatest moun-470

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  tain in the area, and in the center stood a single immense opening.

  She floated through the clouds surrounding the Celestial City, moving through the door effortlessly.

  She felt a tingle as she passed through the spell that kept the freezing cold out and the air inside.

  The man she had spied across the grand hall floated across the vast expanse of floor to meet her.

  She took a moment to study her surroundings. A vaulted ceiling was suspended nearly seventy flights of steps above his head, supported by twelve mighty columns of stone, each chosen for beauty. She quickly chose her own favorite, one fashioned of mala-chite, the green veins of polished stone that could capture the eyes for hours. The rose quartz was lovely, too, but something about the green stone spoke to her.

  The floor of the hall was partitioned by some faint energy. Miranda used every trick of perception she had, and decided the fields were not barriers or traps but something closer to signature
s, as if each area had a specific use or identity, but only noted for those able to sense those energy barriers. And in each area beings moved, humans from their outward appearance, but all wearing some of the strangest fashions she had ever seen.

  The great windows were set with crystal panes so clear they seemed air frozen in an instant, and the snow fields outside reflected the afternoon sunlight on the peaks above, bathing the great hall in rose and golden hues. Those people moving across the vast floor threw long shadows, as jeweled, faceted globes threw soft white light across the hall, the source of that light having nothing to do with nature.

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  The approaching man glided through the air, standing regally as if being carried by a company of invisible bearers upon a heavy platform. He touched foot to the stone floor of the hail as Miranda gently touched down on the marble floor.

  Several others nearby turned to observe the confrontation, though they remained silent. Miranda threw back her cloak’s hood, shaking her dark hair as she glanced around the hall.

  “Who comes to the Celestial City?”

  With amusement she answered, “A fine lot of gods you are if you don’t know who comes to your own palace to visit. I am called Miranda.”

  The Warden said, “None may invade the precinct of the gods without invitation.”

  Miranda grinned. “Odd. I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “None may invade without permission and live to leave,” said the Warden.

  “Well, consider me an uninvited guest, not an invader.”

  “What cause brings you to the Hall of the Gods?”

  Miranda inspected the figure before her. Like the others who inhabited the hall, he wore an odd robe, tight-fitting across the shoulders, but billowing out below the arms, forming a perfect circle at the hem almost six feet in diameter. Miranda guessed there was a thin band of metal or heavy cord sewn into the hem. The sleeves were long, and also flared along the length, while the collar was stiff and high, surrounding the back of the head up to the ears, giving Miranda the impression that she spoke to a six-foot-tall doll fashioned from interlocking cones of paper, with a painted clay head stuck on the top. What a peculiar-looking character, she thought.