Emperor of Ansalon

Chapter 1

Ariakas woke in the night, roused by some unknown disturbance, a subtle shift in the rhythms of the darkness. Dry moun shy;tain crags soared to the sky all around him, outlined only in starlight, and the stillness allowed him to hear the dis shy;tant rumble of surf against the shore. Close beside him, gray ash masked the dying remnant of his fire, a small collection of embers gleaming in crimson contrast to the dark night.

Sitting up, he shrugged off his bedroll. The certainty crystalized: something or someone had been through his camp. He felt equally certain that the encroacher was gone. The warrior took his own fresh awakening as sign that the intruder had intended him no harm.

Still, a sense of violation persisted, growing into a cold outrage as he touched the hilt of his sword, reassuring himself of its presence. The weapon was old, but sturdy and sharp-he felt a strong measure of relief feeling the weathered hand guard and grip.

Silently he rose to a crouch, allowing the fur blanket to tumble to the ground. Chill air tingled across his naked back as he stepped to his pack. A quick check showed that his rations of dried meat and hardtack remained untouched. In a sense the discovery disappointed him, for it meant that the visitor had not been merely a hun shy;gry animal.

Next he reached through the pack for his flask of lava-rum, finding it immediately. He moved the bottle as he continued his one-handed search, and then he froze. Carefully he raised the flask, hefting it gently to gauge its weight. His lips curled into an involuntary grimace- fully a third of the precious liquor was gone!

Setting the silver container to the side then, he plunged his hand into the depths of the pack. He felt his long dag shy;ger, secure in its doeskin sheath. Moving the weapon, he reached farther-and a sickening sense of worry rose in him. Frantically clawing around, he felt nothing but the hard ground through the leather bottom. The locket! It was gone-stolen from his pack while he slept!

His anxiety and rage immediately flamed into power shy;ful determination, like a banked fire welcoming the first breath of the bellows. Yet he forced himself to be calm as he looked at the stars. He had another hour until sunrise. There would be no finding the thief's trail without light, he knew. At the same time, when he began the pursuit, he wanted all of his endurance, all his speed and agility for the chase.

At issue was far more than the worth of a tiny, how shy;ever precious, object. More important was the fact that this thief had entered camp in the dark of night-had stood over his sleeping form! — and then had proceeded to rob him and disappear. To Ariakas, the insult weighed as heavily on his mind as the loss of treasure. He would regain his locket, and at the same time deal a proper measure of retribution to the thief.

With this purpose in mind, he pulled his fur across his goose-pimpled flesh, once again resting his head on the cloak-wrapped pillow of his boots. A single star had winked out behind the looming crest of the mountain before he was asleep.

On one side of the camp, the Khalkist Mountains plunged toward the surging shore of the Newsea. A series of steplike granite ledges climbed away from the angry surf, each mountainous shoulder strewn with a patchwork blanket of wiry grass, chiseled bedrock, and loose, sharp-cornered scree.

Now, in the pale blue light filtering through the layer of dawn clouds, Ariakas awakened with a sense of pur shy;pose. The pounding of the surf was a lonely accompani shy;ment to his solitude, penetrating coastal mists even though the Newsea itself lay partly concealed behind dissipating fog. Tendrils of that same fog cloaked the rugged heights, shrouding the summits in a gray over shy;cast and slipping through the valleys and gorges like the thief through his camp.

He let his fire lie, taking a piece of hardtack for his breakfast, distracted into hurrying by a sense of urgency. In fact, his rage had been filtered into nothing more than a dire purpose, and vengeance was a purpose that com shy;pelled immediate and forceful action. As Habbar-Akuk had noted, a man who did not pursue revenge was no man at all.

When he hoisted his pack to his back, he thought of the locket, the picture of the woman. He was aware of an acute sense of loss, astonished to realize that he missed her! In the weeks since leaving Khuri-Khan, he had passed through the most rugged, inhospitable country on Krynn, and always she had been his companion. She helped him overcome his pronounced vertigo as he negotiated cliff-bracketed passes, or steep, treacherous glaciers. She had shared his frigid camp in rocky swales, where the nearest firewood was a thousand feet away- straight down. Always she had helped him ford streams, avoid avalanches.

Ariakas even wondered to himself if it had been the lady who had warned him about the ogre patrol two days earlier. He had always before taken for granted his innate ability to sense danger. It had been key to success shy;ful campaigns, enabling him and his men to escape deadly ambushes. Yet when he had encountered the ogres, the lady's presence articulated the alarm with peculiar urgency, precision… and care.

It had been the day before yesterday. Drizzling rain obscured vision, and Ariakas was chilled and uncom shy;fortable as he trudged across lowland terrain. A strong premonition, which seemed to him like the lady's voice, warned him of danger. Taking shelter in a thicket of wil shy;lows beside his trail, he silently watched a half dozen ogres march into view, passing within a few paces. Each of the beasts was a Basher, dressed in the crude loin shy;cloths of sentinels of Bloten. Bashers passionately hated humans, dwarves, and elves. Eight feet in height, with weight nearly double Ariakas's, each of the long-armed monsters wielded an assortment of clubs, axes, and swords. One of them alone was a threat to the most capable warrior-a band such as this, if alerted to his presence, would inevitably track him down and kill him.

As he watched the monsters disappear, it was hard for Ariakas to suppress his desire to attack. Remembering years of campaigns, of friends slain and villages razed, all his old hatreds threatened to surge into life. Curi shy;ously, then, he found cold solace in the fact that now he had no such obligations, no responsibilities beyond him shy;self. The ogres vanished into the rain, and without fur shy;ther interruption or worry, Ariakas had resumed his trek to Sanction.

His attention returned to the matter before him. His eyes scanned the dry, brittle grass around his camp, and he pondered evidence that the thief was a very capable individual. At first glance he could see no sign of the intruder. His own bootprints from the day before stood out clearly, showing his course through the narrow val shy;ley below, following the pattern of switchbacks up to this high ledge.

Perhaps that's how he followed me, Ariakas mused. The trail was little-used, and the previous week's rain had ensured that his tracks were the only marks in the mud.

But why would the thief have scrambled up to such a height, and then only stolen the locket? Sure, it was the most valuable item he possessed, but his purse of coins held several valuable steel pieces, and no self-respecting cutpurse would have left them behind. Perhaps the fel shy;low was shrewd, and only went for the easily trans shy;portable item of high value.

Too, the intruder must be a person of remarkable stealth. He had passed within a few feet of Ariakas, and the mercenary captain was a very light sleeper. The thief had opened the pack, taken a drink from the flask of lavarum, and removed the locket-all without attracting the man's attention.

Then the final question-why had the pilferer left him alive and armed? Above all things, Ariakas was a practi shy;cal man. He disdained thievery-it was the desperate act of a weakling, he believed with conviction. And, too, it was impractical. A thief could not help but make ene shy;mies, and odds indicated that sooner or later one of those enemies would catch up with him and exact vengeance. Therefore, in his life Ariakas had only taken those things he earned, or whose owners stood no chance of ambushing him at some unknown moment in the future.

Yet in stealing this locket and leaving Ariakas alive, this thief seemed to be asking for trouble! Perhaps the fel shy;low had supposed the theft would not be noticed for a day or two, but that seemed a farfetched explanation. Certainly Ariakas never would have taken such a risk.

As he continued to search for signs of a spoor, he began to seriously question his prospects for success. For long minutes he scrutinized the ground, circling his camp in an ever-widening spiral, without success. Surely the culprit hadn't flown from the scene of his crime!

Again the curl of fury twisted his lip, unnoticed by the warrior as he grunted and muttered his frustration. He was no woodsman, but neither was he a novice in the ways of the wild. Certainly the wet ground would yield some clue as to his thief's route of departure!

He considered the possibility of a blind pursuit-sim shy;ply making a guess as to which way the fellow had gone. His chances of success were slim, but without a spoor it seemed the best he could do.

A tiny rock, flipped so that its muddy side faced the sky, caught his eye. Freezing in place, Ariakas studied the slope rising away from the stone. The snarl disap shy;peared from his lips, replaced by a thin, taut-lipped smile. The footprint was so faint as to be almost invis shy;ible-merely a place where toes had pressed into the mountainside in an effort to gain secure purchase. Only the dislodged stone, streaked with mud where all the other stones had been washed clean by constant drizzle, told him that this was the place. Squinting, he looked upward, and found another obscure print a dozen paces away.

The trail! Without hesitation he secured the pack to his shoulders and made sure that his sword rested lightly in its scabbard. His own boots gouged deep, muddy wounds in the soil as he followed the faint track, long strides carrying him quickly up the hillside.

Throughout the day he followed the spoor across the tumbled landscape of the Khalkists. The rocky soil yielded precious few clues, but each time the path threat shy;ened to peter out before him, another subtle indication appeared.

Gradually he became aware that his quarry made no particular efforts to disguise his route. Ariakas followed a winding series of valleys away from the shoreline, but not once did the thief attempt to double back, or select a surprising turn in his path. Instead, he followed the course of the valleys, generally working his way toward a high pass that Ariakas could see above and before him.

By late afternoon the warrior had entered the flat val shy;ley before that pass, growing increasingly certain that the mountainous gap must have been his quarry's desti shy;nation. For one thing, the vale he now traversed was a steep-sided gorge, with sheer rock walls climbing to the right and left. The only points of access seemed to be the slope he had climbed, which led from the coast of the Newsea to the narrow gash in the stony ridge before him.

Here, in this narrow valley, Ariakas found solid confir shy;mation that he was on the right trail-and that the thief took no precautions to avoid pursuit. The left wall of the gorge, which the trail had followed below, suddenly veered inward, jutting to the very shore of the narrow stream that trickled along the valley floor. Low, muddy banks bracketed the tiny flowage, and the rock wall before him forced Ariakas to cross.

There in the mud he found his proof: a pair of foot shy;prints, where the thief had tiptoed through the muck and then either forded the stream or skipped across on the tops of several slick rocks rising from the placid water. Ariakas waded quickly through-the water didn't even reach the top of his boots-and on the other side, as he looked for confirmation, he received a surprise.

Two sets of prints led away from the stream, turning, as he had guessed, toward the looming pass in the high ridge. The information momentarily puzzled him, throwing a number of his assumptions into doubt. Could it be that a pair of intruders had slipped through his camp without awakening him? The odds of that stretched credulity to the snapping point. And, too, why had they let him live, and not even tried to take his sword!

The prints in the mud were small and indistinct, for the soft earth had already settled back to erase much of the detail. In any event, Ariakas took less note of the size of the footprints than in the quantity. It was with renewed vigilance that he moved away from the stream, angling up a long, grassy slope toward the narrow notch above.

As he climbed, another thought occurred to him. He had suspected all day that he followed a thief of remark shy;able, but innate, stealth. Judging from the lack of trail sign, the fellow had moved with an almost uncanny abil shy;ity to leave the ground undisturbed. Now, with the knowledge that the scant spoor had been left by two thieves, Ariakas further revised his estimate of his quarry's stealth.

Yet at the same time, the two thieves had trekked through the mud of the streambank and left a plain spoor, when a little bit of wet-walking up the creek would have allowed them to emerge onto a cluster of boulders, leaving no footprints at all! It was clear they didn't care whether they were followed or not.

The latter suspicion heightened the warrior's sense of readiness. Was he walking into an ambush? It seemed like more than a faint possibility.

All these concerns focused in his brain as he approached the narrow gap. A tiny path cut back and forth across the steep slope, and every once in a while he saw the telltale smudges of footprints in the loose dirt.

He lacked the tracking skill to guess how long ago his quarry had passed, so he made the cautious assumption that they were close before him. Perhaps they'd even watched his long traverse up the bare mountainside.

At last the trail veered into the notch. A quick glance at the approach showed Ariakas that cover for himself was nonexistent, while any number of splintered cracks yawned within the pass, offering ample concealment to anyone who awaited him. Drawing his sword, he quickly scrambled up the last twenty feet of the trail and found himself standing between two weather-beaten shoulders of rock.

Every sense tingled alertly. He looked to the right and the left, trying to penetrate the shadows with his eyes. Nothing moved there. No sound disturbed him except for the growing howl of the wind. Indeed, the light breeze had risen into a steady gust as he crested the ridge, and it now blew his long hair back from his face, chilling his clean-shaven cheeks and chin. When he tried to stare into the distance, the biting force of the wind brought tears to his eyes.

Yet he was finally certain that no ambush awaited him within the narrow gap. As he stared into the distance, he tried to shrug off the eerie feeling that no other life existed in these rugged mountains-no life beyond the warm pulse of his own blood, his own rasping breath and growling determination.

He turned his back to the wind, giving respite to his eyes. His back-trail fell away below him. In the distance, between barren humps of low mountains, the gray waters of the Newsea surged relentlessly against the rocky shore. Far to the right, along the mist-screened coast, he saw a low-hanging bank of dark cloud-Sanc shy;tion.

There the volcanic Lords of Doom spumed their smoke and ash into the air. The pall of darkness remained a constant fixture over that racked city, he knew. Though he had never been to Sanction, many of his mercenaries had seen that gods-bereft place, and had described it in excruciating detail. He unconsciously marked distance and direction for his future march. But then he turned back into the wind, back to the trail and the quarry before him. He would not travel to Sanction without the locket, and he would not regain the locket without con shy;fronting the thieves.

Only now did he begin to feel his weariness. The ten shy;sion of the pursuit, the determination of the long climb, had sapped his energy more than he had realized. The trail before him led down an equally steep expanse of grassy shale. Before continuing, he slumped to the ground, placed his back against a flat rock, and tried to catch his breath.

His gaze swept across the vista before him, as his mind carefully appraised each challenge, each difficulty facing him.

First, the geographical: he now faced the most tortu shy;ous terrain he had ever seen. Sheer pinnacles of rock rose upward in a dozen locations, each of them culminating in a soaring peak that had surely never felt the footfall of a landbound creature. Rock-walled gorges plummeted out of sight between these heights, and if any trail scraped along those cliffs, he saw no sign of it from here.

Neither did he see sign of water, though dirty patches of snow clung to several shaded gullies on the southern faces of the peaks. A series of twisting ridges snaked their way around the gorges, skirting the greatest heights, but it seemed that every mile of forward progress would require an equal amount of ascent and descent. By con shy;trast, the steep climb to reach this pass had been an ami shy;able stroll.

Next, the quarry. Where had the two thieves gone? He noticed with growing frustration that the ground below him was rocky and dry. The moisture-laden clouds had expended their rain on the sea side of this soaring ridge, retaining no water for the barren heights before him. Here he would find no tracks in the mud. Too, the slope was primarily bare stone, with very small patches of hardy grass tufting upward here and there. Anyone who traveled with the stealth of those thieves would surely leave no sign of their path.

And finally, he saw nothing that looked like a logical trail. Wherever his quarry had gone, they had followed an improbable and dangerous route-and a dozen such possible paths currently presented themselves.

His fingers clenched into fists as he wrestled with the quandary. Did he dare to make a guess from so many possibilities, each of which offered inherent threats to his life just by making the attempt to follow? Or should he waste precious daylight-his best estimate placed sunset less than two hours away-by searching for signs that might not even exist?

The two courses of action wrestled in his mind as he caught his breath. Within a few minutes he was physi shy;cally ready to move again, but he had not decided how to proceed, and he knew that he had to do something. Ari-akas rose to his feet, hoisted his pack to his back and, knowing that he'd need both hands on the steep moun shy;tainside, slid his sword back into the scabbard. Stepping to the edge of the pass, he began to look for the best way down-but once more he allowed his eyes to drift across the barren, rugged terrain.

He froze, his breath quickening in tension. Something had caught his eye, near the summit of a neighboring ridge. There!

Ariakas couldn't believe his luck. Two figures, tiny in the distance, came into view. Slowly the pair worked across a steep slope, carefully grasping for handholds as they traversed a jagged ledge of rock.

Instinctively he dropped behind the blocking boulders of the pass. He could see the two clearly now, and there was no doubt in his mind that these were the thieves.

They moved with precision and care, but also with sur shy;prising speed. He calculated the course that had taken them from this pass to that ridge, and imagined the dizzying descent, followed by an exhausting climb, which had brought the culprits high onto the next moun shy;tain. Unconsciously Ariakas acknowledged that the thieves were at home in these mountains, and utterly fearless.

He could discern few details about the two figures. They wore earth-colored clothes-it was only their movement that had drawn his attention-and they climbed with careful grace. Within a few minutes they disappeared from his view, but now at least he knew which way to go.

Renewed energy surged through his veins, and he started down the slope with almost reckless enthusiasm. A small rockslide of loose scree tumbled around him as his long strides sought purchase on the slope. In this fashion he half ran, half slid all the way to the bottom of the pass. His heart pounded with excitement, and he felt steady endurance solidify his muscles as he splashed through the narrow stream and started up the opposite incline.

The place where the thieves had disappeared was chiseled in his mind, and he wasted no effort looking upward. Instead, his reaching steps carried him along the rising slope of the rocky massif. Gradually he gained altitude, but only when he arrived at the foot of the rocky column did he begin to work his way straight upward.

Now sweat beaded across his forehead. His pulse pounded in his temples, and he drew lungfuls of air in deep, rejuvenating breaths. Ever upward he moved, instinctively seeking handholds and secure footing, pulling himself through a steady ascent.

Finally he reached the place where he had seen the two thieves. During his rapid pursuit, the sun had slipped behind the western peaks, and a shroud of dark shy;ness had begun to draw across the sky. Ariakas ceased his climb and began a careful, sideways traverse. Stars twinkled in the east as he came around the shoulder, moving with extreme care. A single misstep would send him sliding hundreds, perhaps thousands, of feet down the rocky slope, yet he felt the image of the lady calling him on. Focused on his objective, Ariakas sensed only a vague awareness of the dizzying height.

Soon he reached a gentler slope, and he started for shy;ward without pausing for rest. Yet even here he couldn't spare a hand to draw his sword-he could only hope that the thieves remained as blithely oblivious to pursuit as they had appeared throughout the day.

Finally he felt dirt below his feet, and with a measure of gratitude he left the rocky promontory behind. Dark shy;ness closed about him now, but he could discern a low valley before him, and an even darker patch that could only be a grove of hardy cedars-the first trees he had seen all day.

Fierce triumph surged through his veins; full proof of his quarry rose before him. Who would believe the thieves could be so arrogant, so careless, as to build for themselves a fire?