Measure and the Truth

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Hoarst returned to the Black Army with a small keg in his bag of holding. It contained perhaps two gallons of precious liquid-very precious in so many ways, he thought a little wistfully. Would he ever find another concubine quite like Sirene? He doubted he would. But like a passing breeze-or a teleporting wizard-that regret vanished when he beheld the neat rows of tents, arrayed at the southern end of the hidden valley in the Vingaard range.

It was time to get to work.

The companies of Blackgaard’s force, ten units of three hundred men each, had moved there. They would travel light, leaving their tents and baggage behind, because, after all, soon they would all be sleeping comfortably in the High Clerist’s Tower.

Hoarst found Blackgaard sharpening his sword in the predawn mists. The Gray Robe was interested to note the commander did that mundane chore himself, but he made no mention of it.

“The bridge was finished just yesterday,” the captain reported to his mage. “Your timing is impeccable.”

“Good.” Hoarst patted the bag of holding. “I have the means of attack right here. It all went as planned.”

The bulk of the keg had vanished within the magical confines of the container, but Blackgaard understood his companion’s gesture. “Excellent,” he replied. “It’s time to move out.”

The columns of companies quickly fell into line and started up the steep road, switching back and forth to ascend the sheer wall that was the valley’s southern barrier. Their goal was only fifteen miles away, and Blackgaard intended to have them in position by nightfall, so they could have some rest before making the attack after moonset, in the darkest hour just before dawn.

The Black Army marched with the ease of a veteran formation. The soldiers were mercenaries, true, instead of men who fought for colors, state, or oath, but they were the finest, toughest mercenaries in the world. They took pride in their reputation. No untoward click of metal against metal, no cursing or grumbling or even careless stumble would mar their advance.

Within an hour the leading company reached the crest of the ridge bordering the valley and led the column out of the sheltered vale and into the windswept wilderness of the high Vingaard range. As if crossing a line of demarcation, they left the fields, pastures, and groves of their own settlement behind and entered a realm of stark gray stone, white glaciers, deep chasms, and lofty peaks. There were no trees there and few stretches of level ground.

The captain’s engineers had done a splendid job on the road. It would not suffice as a trade caravan route-it was too steep-but it was wide enough for five men to march abreast, even where it was scored along the side of a sheer cliff. After crossing the first ridge, the route cut along the precipitous side of a mountain, staying a hundred feet below the crest for the sake of concealment. Descending gradually, it curled around the shoulder of the solid massif then dropped sharply to pass between a pair of conical summits.

Beyond, the route was confronted with the obstacle of a half-mile-deep chasm-the barrier that had prevented any previous attack against the tower from the north. But the bridge that had been erected for the attack was a true work of art, slender and graceful, spanning the narrowest part of the chasm on a single arch. The stone surface thrummed to the march of the Black Army and carried the whole force safely across by midafternoon.

There was one last ridgeline to crest, and there the companies narrowed into double, and finally single, file. That part of the route, scaling the highest summit, was of necessity rough and ill-prepared. Since it was close to the fortress, the diggers had worked only very cautiously there so as not to risk discovery.

Night was falling as they approached the summit. Blackgaard had previously scouted out a shallow swale near the top, and there he put the small army into an overnight bivouac. There were a few stubby cedars growing in the little valley, but Blackgaard would allow no fires. Even though the rising ridge blocked their line of sight to the fortress, the smell of smoke had been known to thwart a surprise attack.

Lying on the hard and rocky ground, the men slept as much as they could, which was not much at all. Mostly they watched the red moon, then the white, slowly traverse the night skies. Lunitari set behind the western slopes at about midnight. Solinari, closer to full and trailing behind his red cousin, did not set until past three. Only the stars, far more of them than a man could count, brightened the vast arch of the cosmos.

Then it was time to move out.

Hoarst went first, leading a single company of three hundred handpicked men. As they crossed the summit of the ridge, their target came into view. Even in the moonless night, the alabaster walls of the High Clerist’s Tower stood out against the black mountain range. Dominated by its tall, central spire, the fortress had stood in that spot since the Age of Might, a symbol of the Solamnics’ mastery of that corner of Krynn. Lesser towers, immense walls and gates, and the secondary fortress known as the Knights’ Spur, all stood as reminders that the place had held out against great armies many times in the past.

The lead company started down the bed of a narrow ravine, descending sharply. Occasionally the path twisted around to give them another glimpse of their destination, but mostly it was a deep, narrow trench and all they could see was a narrow sliver of sky overhead.

The Thorn Knight was the first to reach the base of the ravine. They were less than a mile from the north wall of the tower when Hoarst called a halt. His men gathered around as he reached into his bag of holding and pulled forth the cask that he had brought from the Dargaard range. The wizard produced a very tiny cup and opened the spigot. One by one, his three hundred men were given a sip of the potion that had been brewed at such cost.

When they were done, the wizard dropped the keg on the ground. It was no longer needed-like the drained corpse of Sirene, it was an empty shell that had to be unsentimentally discarded. Hoarst lifted his hands, outlining his gestures with the tiniest hint of light magic so that his men could observe him. With one smooth gesture, he commanded them to move out.

Swiftly, silently, and magically, his company of soldiers began to fly.

General Markus was restless, unable to sleep. Always an early riser, on that morning it seemed as though he had not been able to close his eyes for more than a moment or two all night. Giving up sleep as a lost cause, he rose, dressed himself in his leather garrison tunic with the red rose emblazoned on the crest, and decided to walk the parapets of his mountain fortress.

He found the guards awake and alert, as he knew they would be. Most of the defensive positions of the High Clerist’s Tower overlooked the road through the pass. That was the highway Jaymes had ordered widened, the route where the emperor’s army had marched to and from Palanthas. Nothing stirred on the road that day.

Markus had been the commander of the tower garrison since shortly after the defeat of Ankhar’s army. Jaymes Markham had given the trusted, veteran captain the choice of going back to Caergoth, to command the Rose Army, or of taking command of one of the remote outposts in the outer empire. Markus had leaped at the chance to come to the tower and never regretted the choice.

There he was his own master, and the master of a place that was hallowed throughout the long history of his order. He trusted his men, and they all but worshiped him. There were no politics, no distractions-thankfully, no women! — and there he could live the austere soldier’s life that he loved. It was a life of duty and service, maintaining the security of a very important landmark.

He never forgot the fact that the High Clerist’s Tower was a bastion of the ages, the site of some of history’s greatest battles. It was the battlefield where Sturm Brightblade, the knight who restored honor to the Solamnic orders during the War of the Lance, had fallen. It was where the Heroes of the Lance had slain their first dragon. And it was the key trade route of the new Solamnic empire. Every night, no matter how ill he slept, Markus went to bed proud he did his job to the best of his abilities.

Why, then, did he feel such unease and disquiet?

Still restless, the veteran captain moved from the gatehouse through the lower courtyards, where all was quiet. He climbed the towers on the curtain wall, finding the sentries awake, bored but watchful. He considered going all the way up to the High Lookout-the loftiest spot in the whole tower, except for the tiny enclosure known as the Nest of the Kingfisher, atop a narrow spire-but he knew there were trustworthy guards up there, and it would take him until dawn just to climb the hundreds of steps.

Instead, he made his way to the northern walls of his great fortress. They looked down into vast canyons, utterly dark and silent, and up on frowning cliffs and jagged peaks. There were places in view that were higher than the fortress walls, but they were too far away for archers, or even catapults, to come to bear. The night was motionless, dark with shadows.

“Eh?” croaked one of the knight guards from the outer parapet. “What kind of bird-?”

The sound died out in a gurgle of air and blood. Markus had been a soldier all his life; he knew the sound of a throat being cut.

“Alarm!” he cried. “Raise the alarm. Light torches, by Kiri!”

Immediately fires flared into being, a dozen brands igniting across the many ramparts. For a horrified instant, the captain could only gape in disbelief. His lofty parapet, nearly a thousand feet above the canyon bed, was swarming with attackers clad in black leather armor. They came not just over the walls, but also from the base of the interior wall and tower-and many were dropping right out of the sky!

The defenders never had a chance. Markus’s knights, the men who so adored and trusted him, fought bravely, but there were only twelve men posted on the remote platform, and they were swarmed by at least ten times their number. Each knight faced two, three, even four attackers at once. Steel slashed at them from every direction. And the enemy were skilled attackers.

Markus saw the last of his men die-within seconds after the battle had started-before managing to retreat into the tower’s interior, pulling the heavy iron-banded door shut behind himself. He dropped the bar and braced it with his hands.

The alarm was ringing across the pass. Torches flared all over, as men sought targets and shouted questions and challenges.

A sergeant pounded by the steps below Markus, carrying a torch and holding his sword at the ready.

“General! What’s going on?” he cried.

“Up here!” Markus cried. “Two hundred men, maybe more, have gained the north parapet-right outside this door! Get reinforcements up here on the double!”

“Yes, sir!” The veteran soldier sheathed his sword and sprang down the stairs, his torch flaring. Markus still had his hands on the locking bar, but he grew more and more unsettled when there came no attempt made to force the barrier.

A moment later the general heard dozens of boot steps pounding up the stairs. He went to an arrow slit and looked out, wondering why none of the attackers had started to pound on the door. Markus could only hope that fresh troops arrived in time to help him make a desperate stand.

But when he looked out the arrow slit, he saw why the attackers weren’t pressing the attack there. The reason was clear and astonishing: they weren’t trying to batter down the door because they were simply flying away, soaring through the air to attack another position.

Hoarst and his flying company struck three different parapets, all positions high up on the north wall. In each place they killed the posted guards and created such commotion that additional troops from the tower’s limited garrison were dispatched to the critical juncture. And by the time the reinforcements reached each scene, the attackers were gone. Soon the whole tower was ablaze with torches and littered with dead bodies.

The High Lookout bristled with archers, and arrows were launched against bats, clouds, and imaginary targets in the sky. Hoarst would send his men against the lookout soon-they had about an hour of time before the potion of flying wore off-but first he had an even more important objective.

The Gray Robe’s advance company swept downward, off of the high wall, toward the north gate. Only about a dozen of his men had been lost in those initial skirmishes, and Hoarst took the rest in a long, sweeping descent from the lookouts and into the courtyard that was just within the fortress’s northern gate.

There they found several dozen guards, and there the flying soldiers of the Black Army attacked ruthlessly. Half the defenders fell even as the attackers were dropping to the ground, swords extended and chopping. For a few moments, a melee swirled in the courtyard, blades clashing and men shouting, screaming, and dying.

Hoarst saw a knight rushing toward the massive rolled chain of the portcullis. He knew that if the man released the chain, the heavy barred gate would come crashing down, and it would take at least an hour for his men to hoist it up again.

The wizard pointed his finger and spat a word of magic. Arrows of light and energy, deceptively beautiful yet terribly lethal, shot from Hoarst’s fingertip. Two, four, six of the magical arrows seared into the back of the running knight, dropping him to the ground, his body blistered and bleeding. The stricken man reached out a desperate hand toward the chain release, but another attacker was there. The Black Army man crushed the knight’s hand with his heel of his boot then stabbed him through the neck with his sword.

The Thorn Knight was pleased. As the last of the defenders were dispatched, he looked up at the massive gates, studied the mechanisms, and spotted the great capstans that would pull the portals open.

“Go there, men!” he cried, highlighting the machinery with a ghostly spell of brightness. “Turn the winches!”

“Charge! Double time, men-to the gates!”

Captain Blackgaard was leading the attack on foot-the steep and rocky slopes were not fit for horses-and the bulk of the Black Army surged after him in a long file. The nine companies on the ground swept around the base of the great fortress, which was protected by the cloaking shadows in spite of the torches flaring all along the high parapets.

As the alarms spread above them, they emerged from the shadows and raced toward the great barrier of the north gate.

Finally they came around the last corner of the bastion to see the great gates looming before them. Blackgaard felt a momentary panic when he saw the impassable barrier still blocking them. There came a creak of sound followed by a first tentative movement-and then he thanked his gods and all those who would make him rich, as the mighty portals began to swing open.

Hoarst had done his work well.

Markus looked down to see thousands of men, all clad in black, pouring through the open gate. The advance guard of flying soldiers, meanwhile, had claimed the gateway into the central part of the tower, forced an opening, and slain the few defenders who blocked their path.

The general took a look across the courtyard toward the redoubt known as the Knights’ Spur. It was a side tower separated from the bulk of the fortress by a deep channel, which was crossed by a single bridge. If the defenders could get across there…

The thought died as he saw fifty black-dressed soldiers already patrolling that rampart. The small bridge was being raised; the Knights’ Spur was soon closed to the defenders.

Clashes raged throughout the great fortress. Outnumbered and surprised, most of them awakened from a sound sleep, the Knights of Solamnia nevertheless gave a good account of themselves. They fought in twos or threes, each man watching his comrade’s back. The attackers were cut down by the score. More by instinct than anything else, however, the knights were gradually retreating toward the southern end of the fortress.

Already the attackers, with so many gates opened by the flying advance guard, were pouring around every wall, tower, and courtyard on the north side. They swarmed through the central courtyard. The great tower in the center of the fortress had fallen, and enemy archers had replaced the knights on the High Lookout, raining their deadly missiles down on the defenders.

Here and there a sergeant organized a counterattack, or a dozen men burst through an encircling line of black-clad attackers. The Solamnics fought bravely and died, falling back steadily. The fortress was too big, had been breached in too many places for them to try to hold more than a small corner of it against the overwhelming numbers.

“Rally to me, knights!” cried Markus to his surviving men. “We’ll hold them at the south gatehouse!”

His men arrived in pairs and trios, a pathetically small number, all of them fighting their way to the general, many dying in the attempt. Dressed in silver mail shirts or even silken pajamas, they stood back to back when they could find companions, dueling-and dying.

Still, the Solamnics took a terrible toll on the attackers. They knew every nook and cranny of their great fortress and had the advantage of lethal traps that had been carefully laid over the years. More than two hundred of the attackers perished under a crushing rockslide, triggered when a sergeant released a trapdoor over a constricted corridor. Dozens of black-clad soldiers fell as they pressed through darkened hallways defended by unseen knights. A whole company of the Black Army-three hundred men-died horribly when they were trapped in a courtyard that was flooded with oil and subsequently ignited into a cauldron of screaming men and stinking, burned flesh.

But in the end, the overwhelming number of attackers simply had to prevail. When a hundred men were slain charging across an exposed courtyard, two hundred survived the charge to sweep the beleaguered defenders from their positions. When a corridor floor dropped away, spilling two hundred Black Army soldiers into a subterranean aqueduct and certain death by drowning, four hundred replacements took a new route and massacred the knights who had sprung the trap. Wherever the defenders met with a momentary success, the attackers changed tactics, came around from a new direction, and carried the fight.

Finally Markus had fewer than a hundred men left, huddled together on several sections of the outer parapet. They formed two lines, facing west and east, blocking the ramparts on top of the walls as the attackers swarmed into them. For a few moments, the Solamnics stood, steel clashing against the attackers, killing two or three of the black soldiers for every one of their own casualties.

Markus looked to the sky, which was paling with dawn. The flying soldiers had disappeared. Knowing they must have used magic to take to the air, he realized the foul enchantment had worn off, that the enemy was once again grounded, like his own men.

“Fall back to the south gatehouse!” he ordered. “We make our stand there.”

The men retreated with the discipline one would expect of Solamnic Knights. There was no panic, not even when a new rush of the black attackers surged through a side door and took the skirmish line in the right flank. Two or three men fell, but the rest wheeled back toward the great metal door that led to the massive gatehouse.

But then the doors to that gatehouse burst open, disgorging a fresh company of the enemy, three hundred strong or more emerging to form a phalanx. The defenders were trapped in a vise. Enemy archers began to open up on them from higher platforms, and it broke Markus’s heart to see brave men fall without even being able to strike a blow at their distant attackers.

It was not far from this place, General Markus remembered grimly, that Sturm Brightblade had died. The Blue Lady, Kitiara, had killed him here, and in that courageous moment the Orders of the Solamnic Knights had sprung back to life. The Oath and the Measure had been redeemed, the honor of Vinas Solamnus restored.

“Hold, there!” he called as two more knights fell. A young apprentice, not yet bearded, rushed into the breach, hewing and hacking at the black-clad attackers, and the new line held-for a moment, until the lad was felled by an arrow plunging from high above.

Markus was down to only a dozen men, and they were beset by hundreds of attackers on all sides. His bloody sword was a heavy weight in his hand, but that was nothing compared to the burden dragging down his heart.

Another knight fell, so close to him that his blood spilled across Markus’s boots. The general tried to step forward and avenge the man, but the killer backed away from him, and five or six of the attackers rushed in to take his place.

Markus never saw the one who killed him, the keen blade lancing in from the left, stabbing under his rib cage, driving up to pierce his great heart.

“Est Sularus oth Mithas,” he groaned. My honor is my life.

And on that day, it was his death as well.