Measure and the Truth

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The latest reports still have Ankhar closing in on Solanthus,” reported Captain Franz. The Crown officer sat astride his lathered charger. The young man’s face was lined with sweat, caked with dust. But he had ridden up to the emperor and his staff at a gallop, and his voice displayed only calm assurance, no fear.

The leader of the White Riders had been out on patrol for more than a week and had just located the marching column of the Palanthian Legion and his father’s Crown Army. Dismounting, Franz saluted his father, General Dayr, and turned to address Jaymes. “But I have to tell you, Excellency, that those reports are four days old. My outriders have not been able to penetrate the screen of warg cavalry, so we don’t have concrete information on the whereabouts of his main body.”

“Well, let’s start with some facts,” Jaymes said, thinking aloud. He had maps in his saddlebags and a whole library of them in one of the command wagons, but his memory had etched every detail of those plains into his mind; he didn’t need to consult any documents to lay out the situation on the plains.

“He hasn’t come within fifty miles of the city-that much we know.”

“Correct, my lord,” the knight captain reported. His gaze was steady on the emperor, and he spoke levelly, without emotion, though resentment simmered behind his eyes. “The screen of his riders extends that close to the city, but they haven’t pressed my outposts.”

Jaymes turned to another nobleman, a high lord of Solanthus who had joined his force the previous day. Lord Martin had been a stalwart commander in the city’s defense, and he had led a brave company during the Battle of the Foothills. The emperor couldn’t help but think Martin merely looked old and tired. His hair had thinned, and what remained of it had turned white. His pale blue eyes were watery and didn’t seem to focus clearly.

But Lord Martin had always been a reliable man, and he was his best bet there and then. Jaymes spoke bluntly.

“Your garrison is at full strength. Would it help to send a few regiments of infantry to reinforce?”

“I don’t think so, Excellency,” Martin replied. His voice was as strong as ever, Jaymes was pleased to note. He recalled, too, Martin had lost a son in the battle that broke the siege. In the immediate aftermath, the nobleman had been fully engaged and his help was vital in winning the conclusive actions of the war. But afterward, surely the personal tragedy had taken its toll on him.

“We have enough to man the city walls with the complement of troops already in Solanthus,” the lord reported. “And those walls are as high and as strong as ever. The breach at the Westgate has been fully repaired-in fact, the gate is taller and thicker than it was before Ankhar’s monster smashed it down. There’s plenty of food in the granaries. Even so, I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by bringing more hungry mouths behind the walls.”

“I agree,” Jaymes said. He glanced at Franz again and was startled to see the naked hostility there. The emperor’s eyes narrowed. “Captain?” he said curtly.

“Yes, Excellency?” A mask fell across the young officer’s face. But Jaymes made a note to remember his hidden feelings.

“Is there any chance Ankhar has moved farther east, into Throtl, or the Gap?”

“No, Excellency. I’ve sent three platoons of lancers all the way to the northern edge of the Darkwoods, and there has been no sign of anything that way.”

“So he’s back there somewhere, behind Solanthus?” General Dayr speculated. “I suggest we find him and attack, Excellency. We have the Crown Army here, with your legion, and the Sword Army gathered at Solanthus. United we’d have more than enough strength to collapse his pickets, and destroy him once and for all.”

“We could do that, if indeed he’s over there,” the emperor replied. “But I’m not ready to take the chance.”

“What chance?” Captain Franz blurted out, his face flushing. He blinked in the face of Jaymes’s glare but didn’t back down. “We know where he isn’t, just like you said! So he has to be down there, east of the city.”

“No, there’s one more possibility,” the emperor replied. “What if he took his army into the mountains?”

“But why?” Franz objected. “He’d be trapped in some box canyon or dead-end valley. There’s no place an army could cross over the crest of the range!”

“Not an army of knights, perhaps,” Jaymes replied. The young man’s outburst forgotten, he spoke thoughtfully. “But Ankhar doesn’t march with wagons and war machines. He doesn’t even have horses. And he knows those mountains well-they’re his home, after all.”

“Do you think he’d go there now?” General Dayr asked. “Because if he did…”

“He could outflank us all and make for any part of the southern plains. He’d be far ahead of us and we couldn’t do a damned thing about it,” Jaymes concluded. “And the more I think about it, the more I’m certain he’s not anywhere on these plains at all.”

“If that’s true, what can we do about it?”

“I’ll leave the Sword Army near Solanthus for the time being; General Rankin can keep an eye on things around here. General Dayr, you will march eastward with the Crowns for thirty miles and set up a temporary camp. I want you to be ready to move in either direction at a moment’s notice.”

“Yes, Excellency. Of course. And the Palanthian Legion?”

“I’ll lead them myself. We’ll march toward the mountains. The legion isn’t big enough to stop Ankhar by itself, but if he does try to come through the high country, we’ll be waiting to give him a nasty surprise. I expect we’ll be able to hold up his progress until you arrive to help finish the job-hopefully once and for all.”

“May all the gods hear you,” Dayr replied sincerely.

Blayne woke up suddenly, sensing that someone was in the room with him. It was night, and the cramped little boarding house cubby that had been his home in Palanthas was utterly dark. It should have been utterly silent, as well. But Blayne had heard something, a soft sound that had interrupted his sleep. And when he listened, he plainly discerned the sound of breathing.

“Who’s there?” he demanded, sitting up, reaching for his matches. With a scratch against the striking board, he smelled sulfur and heard the wooden chip burst into flame. He even felt the heat of the little fire on the fingertips holding the match.

But his room was as dark as ever.

Magic!

The skin on the back of his neck prickled, and he thought about his short sword-suspended from a hook on the back of the door, way across the room. “Who’s there?” he asked again before cursing and shaking out the unseen match as the flame seared his fingertips. “Why can’t I see?”

“It is important that my identity remain secret.”

The cool voice startled him, brought him bolt upright on his grimy mattress. Blayne discerned no threat in the voice, rather more a tone of almost paternal affection, as though his visitor were a revered counselor-even though he had never heard the voice before.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I bring you news-good news, from your friend in the gray robe.”

“Finally!” Blayne cried involuntarily. He blushed over his outburst-and because he had just inadvertently confirmed to the unseen visitor his connection with Hoarst the Gray. “I mean… I have done what he asked when he sent me here. But I feared he had forgotten me.”

“Not at all,” said the other man with an avuncular chuckle. “And he will be pleased to hear of your success-as I am pleased.”

“So… you also know about my mission in Palanthas?”

“Yes. The Legion of Steel is an important component in our plans, as the nation moves beyond the reign of the emperor. I take it that you have made the necessary contact with them, then?”

Blayne considered for a few moments, wondering how much of his secret mission he should be divulging to the mysterious stranger. It seemed the man was a confidant of Hoarst’s and that he already knew a great deal about Blayne. After all, the young lord had taken his room in a shabby inn with the clear intention of remaining incognito. Yet somehow, the stranger found and knew him.

“Why this peculiar darkness?” Blayne asked bluntly. “I sense that you’ve cast a spell to block any light in my room.”

“It is very important no one know who I am,” replied the man, his easy tone indicating he took no offense at Blayne’s question. “That is all. You can trust me; I am a friend.”

And, in truth, Blayne felt he did trust the man. Of course, he didn’t know about the charm spell his visitor had cast, the subtle magic that made pleasing the powerful cleric’s every word. Nor could he see the black mask the Nightmaster wore across his face.

So Blayne told him all he had learned during several meetings with the secret order of knights known as the Legion of Steel.

“There are about a hundred of them in the city, organized into six cells,” he reported eagerly. “I’ve only been to visit one of the cells, of course-that’s deliberate on my part. But they have been preparing for their day ever since the emperor passed his new edicts.”

“Excellent. One hundred knights is a few more than I had expect-that is, hoped — to find here,” the other man said.

“But you said you brought news for me! From Hoarst,” Blayne remembered suddenly. “What is the news?”

“Ah yes, that. Good news, indeed. The Black Army has taken over the High Clerist’s Tower, and even now our mutual friend sits in control of the pass,” the stranger explained.

“They took the tower?” Somehow, the truth of that seemed rather daunting to Blayne. It was good news certainly, but still… suddenly, rebellion did not seem like an ideal thing to support. Actual conflict was being waged. The thought-the reality-was unsettling.

“Did the garrison fight? Were there many killed?” he asked anxiously. “On either side?” he added quickly.

“There was no bloodshed, none whatsoever,” said the kindly visitor. “It seems that disgust with the emperor is growing like a well-watered crop, all across the land.”

That was a surprise; Blayne would not have expected the duty-conscious General Markus, one of the emperor’s most loyal adherents, to surrender so easily. But it made the good news better.

“That crop has been watered with my father’s blood,” Blayne remembered bitterly, wondering if he was trying to remind his visitor or himself. “It is time the emperor reaps his violent harvest.”

Selinda tried to scream, but her throat was so dry that no sound emerged. She struggled to move, to break free from some kind of cloaking net that inhibited her movement, but felt as though her whole body were encased in heavy mud. The tiniest effort, such as wiggling a finger, was a great challenge. Actually running away, she discovered, was quite out of the question.

Where was she? How did she get there? Her eyes were open, but she saw only a vague, almost black grayness. Had she been blinded?

She had the vague sense that a lot of time had passed since she had last been aware of her surroundings. Some memories returned, slowly… the smoke-filled inn, the exotic music… people were laughing- Selinda was laughing-overcome by hysteria. She recalled her dance of wild enjoyment, the boisterous cheers of the other patrons. That drink! A lotus… something…

And Lame Hale.

“Hale!” she called angrily-or rather, tried to call. But still her mouth seemed to be filled with cotton; her tongue, her lips were unresponsive to mental commands. She tried to move again and failed-and for the first time realized that she was physically restrained. Her vision was clearing slightly. She made out a growing illumination, a spot that might have been a window, and the shapes of worn planking on the ceiling over her head.

She was lying on her back, on some sort of mattress. Her hands were over her head, each bound by the wrist to some sort of thick restraint. With a shudder of relief, she realized that at least she was still dressed; indeed, she was wearing her own clothes-she could feel the familiar, rare silk nestled against her skin. But what was happening to her? How had she come to such a pretty pass?

“Ah, my dear. How nice to see that you are awake.”

The voice came from very close beside her head, and she started in panic.

“Hale?” she asked, recognizing the voice. “What did you do to me?”

“Nothing… yet.” The smirk was evident in his voice. “You are worth far more to me intact than damaged.”

“My worth? What in the world are you talking about? Are you planning to sell me?”

“Very astute!” said the man. She could make out more details finally, and when she twisted her head slightly, she saw him out of the corner of her eye, sitting smugly against the wall of the room. Selinda tried to think, to clear the fog from her mind and hatch some sort of plan. But all she felt was a headache. “A splendid-looking creature such as yourself will fetch a fine price in the east.”

“But-how dare you!” she spat. “Why, they’ll be looking for me!”

“I haven’t failed to note that you invariably visit us alone, my dear. I am guessing, with a fair degree of certainty, that you haven’t told anybody where you are. So let them look for you-within a few days, you could be hundreds of miles away from here. I have only to give the order, to make the deal.”

Selinda fought against the tears that threatened to blind her. She would not give him the satisfaction! Instead, she cast about for some idea, anything, that might give her cause for hope.

“Of course, it may be that there are buyers closer to home who would be interested in possessing one such as yourself… a woman as beautiful as a princess, if truth be told.”

Cold terror shot through her. Did he know who she was? Could he use that information to hurt her or the emperor?

Or the city of her birth?

And then, with a glimmer of optimism, she remembered her ring. She couldn’t see her finger, but surely the ring was still there-it must be there. If she could just touch one hand with the other, twist the ring on her finger three times, she would be able to teleport out of there, back to her palace room, that former prison that suddenly seemed so inviting and secure, a safe refuge against the many dangers of the world. She wasted no time in regretting her actions but tried to imagine a way to get the man to ease his guard.

She let go a deep, unhappy breath and slumped back on the bed, motionless. Her despair was not an act, but her loss of strength was. Stretching her legs, she realized her feet were bound too. The room was shabby and plain, and she guessed it was probably somewhere in the back of the inn she had visited so many times.

But nobody at the inn knew who she was, and nobody at the palace knew where she was!

“That’s better. It will go easier for you if you don’t struggle so much. Those ropes can chafe terribly, I have learned.”

“I understand,” she said meekly. “But I am terribly thirsty, and my shoulder is sore. Could you loosen those ropes, just a little? My feet are bound; you know I’m not going anywhere.”

“I suppose a little slack wouldn’t hurt, so long as you promise to behave,” Lame Hale said with a sneer that made her skin crawl.

“I promise,” she replied as sweetly as she could through gritted teeth.

He leaned forward and pulled on the rope. Her right hand came free, and in the same instant she pulled it around to her left, groped with her fingers, felt for the metal band, her magical tool of escape. But she couldn’t feel the ring, couldn’t feel anything but her cold, clammy skin!

“Oh?” said Hale calmly, reaching out to grasp her hand again, bringing it back to the post where he secured it tightly again. He showed her the glimmering circlet of silver, shining in his hand, and looked at her with mock innocence. “Were you looking for this little bauble?” he asked.

Ankhar’s route took him and his column of ogres and hobgoblins right past a broken-down cabin near the upper reach of the mountain valley.

“Do you remember this place?” he asked his stepmother, pausing to look at the wreckage, feeling an unfamiliar lump of emotion in his throat.

“Yes,” she said in a muted voice. “Here I save you from Bonechisel. You were just baby.”

He chuckled, touched. “Yes. Then I grew up. Nobody saved Bonechisel from me.”

Proudly he showed the place to Pond-Lily. “I was born here! My first home!”

The ogress was delighted and wanted to stop and ooh and ahh over the place, but Ankhar couldn’t spare the time for such trivialities. “We march now,” he said. “Come back later, after war.”

They moved on up the valley toward the crest of the snow-covered mountain range. The ogres, draconians, gobs, and hobs of his army all followed behind, unquestioning of their lord’s intentions, strategies, and plans.

“Even then, I saw greatness in you,” Laka said proudly. She put a withered claw of a hand in Ankhar’s, her bony grip barely wrapping around his smallest finger. “Now, you carry greatness for the Prince of Lies.”

Ankhar proudly carried that greatness right up to the crest of the Garnet Range. The valley terminated in a couloir that was surrounded by looming mountain faces that were very steep but not quite precipitous. The half-giant himself led the way on a remembered goat path, kicking through a steep, melting snowfield for the last thousand feet of the climb. He came through a narrow pass between two great peaks and immediately started downward.

The column of ogres and hobs trailed out behind him, moving single file over the lofty ground, snaking into a line more than two miles long. Ankhar was already out of the snow, picking his way around a clear, blue pond, while the tail end of his army was still waiting to begin its ascent.

But the half-giant was in no great hurry. He paused at the pond’s outlet and, with a few deft stabs of his emerald-tipped spear, pulled a half dozen plump trout out of the water. Pond-Lily set about making a fire, while more ogres, as they arrived, spread out along both sides of the stream and tried to duplicate their chieftain’s success.

By the time some two hundred drooling, snapping monsters loomed over the water, every one of the fish had been spooked, and the ogres of the advance entourage had to settle for watching Ankhar, his ogress, and his stepmother share the tasty morsels from the stream. That they did with remarkable patience, as the rest of the army continued to slowly make its way over the high saddle.

The procession continued far into the night, and several hobgoblins fell to their deaths as cooling temperatures turned the slushy snow to ice. But the rest of the troops made it before dawn, and Ankhar woke well rested and ready to lead his army to lower elevations.

“Move out!” he ordered cheerfully after a repast of leftover trout. He ignored the grumbles and complaints of those warriors who had just finished the previous day’s march an hour or two before.

“Easy walk today,” he encouraged. “This is a wild place-deer and trout for all, if you keep eyes open. We go through woods all the way down to the plains, and there we can make war. No people until we come to the cities on the plains-and then we kill, and we feast, and we drink!”

Heartened by that prospect, the army marched along easily, emerging into a larger valley, where the half-giant was startled to discover a smooth, paved road-a feature that had not been there in his childhood, nor when he had campaigned through there some four years earlier.

Still, the road made for good walking, and the army fell into a semblance of a military formation, advancing three or four ogres abreast, lumbering freely down toward the plains. The half-giant did not waste any brain power wondering why anyone would build a paved highway through the wild valley…

Until they came to a curve in the road and Ankhar stopped, utterly astounded by what he saw lying before him.

“Huh?” he said to Laka. “Someone put a town here.”