The Crown and the Sword

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jaymes, with Moptop in tow, accosted a Captain of Swords who stood with a small band of men at a barricade on the Duke’s Avenue. “I need to find the duchess!” the lord marshal announced. “Where is she?”

“She was commanding the left flank,” the knight offered. “I saw her come down from the tower before the giant stormed through. The garrison has a strong point at the Black Tiger Inn-the big stone house, there-and I think that’s where she went.”

Nodding his thanks, Jaymes took off at a sprint, skirting the plaza-still crawling with ogres-and heading through a narrow alley. The kender, unusually somber, trotted along, keeping up. They reached the Black Tiger a moment later and were both quickly passed through the gate into a large courtyard.

They halted to make way for a company of archers, all of them young men, scrambling up a ladder to take positions on the roof. A messenger came racing in the same door the swordsman and the kender had entered, shouting a plea toward the stables. “Ogres are flanking the Duke’s Avenue-a dozen or more, heading through the Silver District!” he called.

Four knights quickly mounted their horses and put spurs to the steeds, racing across the courtyard as a pair of men swung open the main gate. The riders clattered into the street, and the barrier was swung shut before they reached the first corner.

“The duchess has to be in there,” Moptop said, pointing toward the inn’s main hall, a large stone building on the other side of the courtyard.

Men in armor were coming and going through the open door to that hall, and the pair crossed over to it quickly. Jaymes entered the building and squinted as his eyes adjusted to the semidarkness. Moptop followed, sticking close by his side.

The duchess was speaking to some of her captains at a table. Lord Harbor was pacing nervously behind her. Brianna’s face was ashen, and she had a scrape on her cheek, but she was poised, her words commanding. He could see at a glance that her presence had a calming effect on the agitated men-at-arms who had gathered around the table.

“My Lord Marshal,” she said, looking up at his approach. “I’m glad to see you; we all feared you perished when the giant crossed the plaza.”

“Many did,” he said. “I was fortunate.”

“But what can we do now?” she asked, a hint of despair in her voice. “The elemental has destroyed blocks of buildings and roams unchecked through the city. At the same time, ogres and goblins are spilling through the gatehouse. I’m afraid…”

Her voice trailed off, but he could see the fear in her eyes. Her city and her people were doomed.

“The situation is bad, but we may have some options,” Jaymes declared, striding to the table. The knight captains made room for him at the side of the duchess and even allowed Moptop to push his way into the midst of armored men. “It’s true, we can’t fight the elemental. I don’t know what on Krynn could fight that thing. But we might be able to stop it another way. We might be able to affect those who are controlling it.”

“Tell me!” she said, her eyes suddenly bright. “What have you learned?”

Moptop spoke up, looking surprisingly subdued as he addressed the duchess and her captains. “Well, Ankhar has that creepy witch-doctor with him, and also a Thorn Knight-you know, one of the Gray Robes. They are all moving around together and making all the decisions about this army, and this monster-Ankhar called it ‘the king.’ ”

“The king? Of what?” one of the knights spoke up.

“I’m not sure,” Jaymes replied. “But I think it springs from far underneath the ground. It embodies many of the fundamental elements, and seems to be a kind of king of elementals.”

“A king? How can we fight a king of elementals?” Brianna asked.

“These three leaders of the enemy army are the controllers of the elemental. They are the key. They are moving about recklessly and are not themselves very well protected. They have a small bodyguard, according to the kender, and have remained well to the rear of the front line. But if we could get close enough to them…” Jaymes said. “I propose we try to strike them down. Their deaths cannot help but throw the enemy army into disarray, and I believe it may disrupt their control over the monster.”

“Assassinate them!” exclaimed Lord Harbor, frowning. “It is dishonorable!”

Jaymes quickly glared the man into silence.

“How could you get to them?” asked Brianna.

“The same way I found them-underground!” Moptop retorted.

“How do you know this?” demanded Lord Harbor. “And why should we trust the word of a kender?”

“ I trust him,” Brianna said sternly. Her tone softened as she looked at Moptop, her smile briefly flickering. “Still, I, too, would like to know how you came by this information, little one, and how you think you might be able to find these three behind enemy lines”

“I found them before-through the sewers! I was mapping the sewers-that’s what I do, usually. I’m a pathfinder extraordinaire. The White Wizard calls me that! And I was going along under the city, and I saw the giant go by, and then the ogres, and then came Ankhar and his friends. So I just listened real hard while they were talking. Kind of like a spy. A very brave spy who laughs in the face of danger. Ha!”

“I believe you are a brave spy,” the duchess said. “And I believe you are very good at finding things. I’m impressed with your boldness and would like to try your plan.”

The kender glowed, nodding his head and looking around at the other men in the room, daring them to contradict the duchess. Most of them, unfortunately, were looking at their feet.

The duchess raised her eyes, looking at Jaymes speculatively. “How do you suggest we proceed?”

“First, your forces must stand firm against the enemy army; any success against the giant will mean nothing if Ankhar’s troops are running amok in the city. The inn here is a strong point, and there are others around the periphery of the plaza. The first column of ogres is already heading down the avenue toward the palace, but there’s a good captain rallying some knights. They’ll try to hold them at bay. I just saw a small party of knights ride out to hold a side street. You need to keep up that kind of pressure on the enemy army while we try something to take away their chief threat-this elemental king.”

Jaymes turned back to the kender. “I want you to lead a small party through those sewers. We might be able to take Ankhar and his entourage by surprise if we can come up out of the ground, behind his lines, without warning. I’ll strike down the Thorn Knight first, he’s a magic-user and needs to be dealt with. Then let’s go after the half-giant and the witch-doctor, they’ll be trickier. It’s likely we will be able to disrupt their leadership and disperse the attack, and it’s even possible that we can turn back the elemental king.”

“How do you propose to do that-oh, never mind,” Brianna replied, nodding decisively. “I agree. Time is short, and the risk is worth taking.” She turned to one of her officers. “Sir Michael, what’s the latest word on the whereabouts of the elemental?”

“North of the Duke’s Avenue, the report came just moments ago. It’s wrecking the manors of many of the mercantile nobles, after going through a block of laborers’ houses.”

“And moving east from there, Your Grace,” added a young knight-it was Sir Maxwell, the only one present clad in the garb of the Kingfisher instead of the Sword. He held up a small disk that looked like a compass. “I was able to place an enchantment upon him. It has limited value, I’m afraid, allowing me to track his position with this.”

“That might prove very useful. Now it’s time to go,” Brianna declared. She picked up a pair of gauntlets and slid her delicate hands into the metal gloves. She looked at Jaymes with a glint of challenge in her eye. “I’m coming with you.”

“But, Your Grace!” objected Sir Michael. “I won’t allow it! The risks are far too great!” His words were swiftly echoed by the other knights who were gathered around the table.

“Do not forget, sir, I command here!” she replied tersely.

“I won’t allow it either,” Jaymes said. “You’re needed here.”

Brianna’s cheeks flushed, but her tone was icy. “You presume to-”

“I presume to understand how important you are to this city. The people need you. They need to see you, rally around you. If we can strike down the commanders of this army, we will have a chance to win! It would be foolish for you to risk your life with us-”

“On a wild-ass, insane gamble that has a miniscule chance of success!” Sir Michael completed. He glared at Brianna then shifted his attention to Jaymes. “However, I must insist on coming along with you, my lord,” he said in a more level tone.

“Naturally,” Jaymes agreed, nodding his head and almost cracking a smile.

“I acquiesce,” the duchess snapped. “Let all who are here understand that I do so, unwillingly and reluctantly. But, please Jaymes, take a few more men with you.”

“I’d like to come,” said the Kingfisher eagerly. His eyes were wide, but his voice was confident.

“Good. We could use a wizard to hunt a wizard,” Jaymes agreed.

A chorus of others, virtually all the men in the hall, quickly offered their services to the risky mission. Sir Michael quickly pointed to the Kingfisher and two other burly swordsmen. “That makes five men… and er, a kender,” he appended, as Moptop tugged anxiously on his sleeve. “Is that enough?”

Jaymes nodded. “It’ll have to be. Where do you suggest we start from?”

“My temple is just this side of the palace. We can climb the steeple there and try to get our bearings. From there we should be able to spot these three leaders,” said Maxwell.

“Lead the way,” said the duchess. She stared challengingly at Jaymes and Michael. “I daresay you won’t forbid me to come along that far, will you?” she challenged.

With a shrug, the lord marshal started for the door, and the rest quickly followed him.

“I can have a ton of it here by tomorrow morning, if the price is right,” said Rogard Smashfinger, master forger of Kaolyn. He stroked his blunt fingers through his gray beard, and waited for Dram Feldspar to reply, his expression guarded

The pair were meeting at a table in a clearing of the New Compound. All around them, chimneys smoked, axes thunked, and dwarves bustled about to build the new town in the Garnet range. Even as the town took shape all around them, work progressed on manufacturing more of the black powder, and a new, even stronger bombardment device.

Immediately upon his arrival here, Dram had sent word to his old homeland of Kaolyn-the dwarf kingdom underneath the highest mountains of the range-and he was pleased to see that Rogard Smashfinger personally had come to talk some business.

The two mountain dwarves were old acquaintances, and Dram knew that the smith could be trusted but would demand an exorbitant price. But the steel forged in that mountain dwarf kingdom was without peer, so Dram didn’t hesitate to reach down to the floor and lift up a small sack of jewels he had prepared for just this moment. He raised it to the table, upended it, and watched with satisfaction as Rogard’s eyes grew wide.

“That’s for the first ton, and a comparable sum will be set aside for every ton that follows. And just this season alone, I’ll need at least ten tons, as soon as possible.”

Rogard reached into the sack and picked up several stones for inspection-a mixture of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. He held them, one by one, up to the sun. He squinted suspiciously, muttering to himself as he appraised the stones. His tongue emerged from between his teeth as he beheld a particularly splendid emerald, and he couldn’t help but lick his lips again as he scrutinized the largest stone, a diamond.

“Aye,” he said grouchily. “I suppose these’ll do.” He scooped the gems into the sack and was about to tuck the bag into his pocket when Dram plucked it out of his hand, grinning.

“Tomorrow morning, then?” he said, chuckling. “You can take this away with you when I have the Kaolyn steel.”

“All right!” Rogard huffed. He had, of course, expected nothing less from such a tough businessman as Dram. “Just let me have another look.”

“Be my guest,” Dram offered, watching as the master forger carefully counted out the stones and once more hefted the bag, feeling its reassuring weight.

“We have a deal, then?” Rogard said, handing the sack back to Dram.

“Let’s make it official. Sally!” he called.

His wife scrambled up from the nearby stream bank. Her face was smudged, her hands and apron covered with fish scales and guts-she had been helping to clean the catch for this evening’s supper.

“How about a couple of cold tankards to close this deal between old friends?” Dram asked breezily.

“Get your own damn tankards!” she snapped. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Dram blinked in surprise then looked at Rogard sheepishly. “That’s what I get for marrying a hill dwarf,” he admitted with a pang in his heart, making a joke of it even as he watched her stomp back to the stream.

“Let’s have a drink when I bring the steel down,” Rogard said diplomatically, rising to his feet. “I’d better get moving. Tomorrow morning it is!”

The steeple of the temple, a shrine dedicated to Kiri-Jolith, gave them a chance to look over much of the western half of the city. They could see violent skirmishes raging in the street below as a line of knights stood behind a makeshift barricade of wagons and upturned tables removed from a nearby inn. The men were armed with swords and shields and fought valiantly against a press of goblins that had surged up against the obstacle.

Howling and jeering, the attackers pressed between the planks, crawled under the wagons, and thrust spears and swords at the knights. But the men gave better than they got, cutting down the few gobs who pushed through the barricade, chopping at the hands and heads of those enemy warriors thronging on the other side. Their discipline was admirable and for the time being, that particular group of attackers was stymied.

Things were worse down the adjacent street, they could see, where a platoon of ogres lumbered toward the palace, chasing the last survivors of a collapsed position. One knight, on foot, stood in the path of the attackers. He cut down the first ogre with a lightning-quick slash of his two-handed sword, and crippled two more with swift stabs at their legs. Even as the brutes tumbled, bellowing in agony, he was borne down by a trio of the hulking warriors, each smashing him with a crude axe until the remains were bloody.

Before the ogres could regroup, however, three mounted knights charged in from a side street. They rode in a line abreast, blocking any further advance. The horses kicked out, driving several ogres back, and the knights bore home their attack, holding their tenuous position and slowly pushing the ogres away from the palace.

“There!” cried Sir Maxwell, examining his magical compass. “Look to the north, past the armory!”

The elemental king came into view a few blocks away, striding out from behind the tall, square fortress. The giant reached out to smash down a three-story stone building, crushing the roof with a hammer blow, then pummeling the rest of the sturdy structure into rubble. Flames surged from its eyes, and immediately the interior of the broken building erupted into a conflagration. Black smoke billowed skyward, forming another of the pyres that already burned in a dozen places around the city. Stepping through the inferno, the elemental king crossed to the next block and began smashing a warehouse.

“Ankhar won’t be very far away, if the kender’s report is accurate,” Jaymes noted.

“It is!” protested Moptop.

“There’s the half-giant!” Brianna said, pointing toward the Duke’s Avenue, the wide street where goblins were hurling themselves against the barricade.

Now they could clearly see Ankhar swaggering along, several hundred yards behind the skirmishing. He was accompanied by several humans in black armor-former Dark Knights-as well as by the gray-robed Thorn Knight and the huddled, decrepit figure of the old witch-doctor. They were several blocks away from the temple, in a section of the city where all the human defenders had apparently been slain or driven out.

With his fists planted on his hips, the half-giant commander looked first toward the line of battle and the palace. Then his head quickly swiveled to the north. “He’s searching for the elemental,” Brianna guessed. The other men murmured agreement.

As they watched, the conjured creature left the wreckage of the burning building and once again passed behind the armory, heading toward the northwest. It was backtracking through its path of destruction, entering another quarter, a long block of tall buildings housing formerly prosperous mercantile shops. One sinuous limb tore through the front of a weaver’s store and cast a rainbow array of colored woolen fabrics into the air.

Ankhar and his party started after the creature, but they halted as the half-giant indicated a large, undamaged inn on a corner of the Duke’s Avenue. The watchers on the temple spire observed the bodyguards enter the stone-walled building, which was dominated by a thirty-foot tower at one corner. A moment later one of the men emerged and gestured, and the half-giant, with his wizard and shaman, followed them inside.

“Looks like he’s going to set up a temporary headquarters,” Jaymes said. He touched Moptop’s shoulder. “Do you think you can find a way over there through the sewers?”

“Sure! I can find my way anywhere; that’s why I’m called a pathfinder. We can go down through that grate that’s right over there in front of the temple. And we’ll have to find a place to come up over by that inn, but it shouldn’t be difficult. Just got to consult my maps,” he said, reaching into one of his pouches as one of the Solamnics could be heard to sigh deeply.

“Some of the grates are settled so firmly they can’t be removed,” Brianna cautioned.

Jaymes raised a hand to the hilt of his sword. “I can cut through steel, if need be,” he assured her.

“Good luck,” she said, placing a hand on his arm, squeezing him with surprising force. “And be careful.”

“You too,” he said, placing his own hand over hers then quickly breaking from her clasp, grabbing the kender by the shoulder, and pushing him into action.

The three Sword Knights, the Kingfisher, Moptop, and Jaymes quickly descended to the street level. Passing out through the front doors of the temple, they found the temple grate in an alley just to the side of the building. Two of the knights lifted off the heavy iron grid, exposing a shaft descending into the darkness. Rusty iron brackets set in the wall of the shaft held a ladder that looked to have been installed before the Cataclysm.

“This will do,” Jaymes said, the first to sit on the edge of the hole and drop his feet toward the first rung.

“Can’t I lead the way?” the kender complained plaintively, plopping down to sit beside the lord marshal. “I’m the pathfinder, remember?”

“I’ll go first,” Jaymes interjected, winking at the others. “The pathfinder must be protected. When we get below safely, you can advise me which way to go.”

With a shrug, the kender moved his legs to the side and allowed the lord marshal to precede him into the darkness. He came swiftly behind, however, followed by Sir Maxwell and the three Knights of the Sword. The kender, as usual, had a supply of small torches and passed a pair of them to two of the knights. They were ignited by the touch of one of his matches, and when held aloft produced enough illumination to tolerably light the way. Sir Maxwell, meanwhile, cast a light spell on the blade of his dagger, and held the weapon before him to add its cool, milky illumination to their mission.

Jaymes went in the lead, holding one of his small crossbows cocked and ready. Sir Maxwell, with his lit blade, advanced beside him, followed by the kender and the other knights. The passage was roughly cylindrical, with an arched ceiling and walls, though the floor was solid and flat. Muddy puddles of water reflected the torchlight, but they were able to step around these and for the most part, keep dry.

Moptop pulled out a long sheet of parchment and scrutinized it under the torchlight. “Now, we follow this until it ends up ahead, and then we take a left,” the kender said.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” grumbled Sir Michael, holding the torch high with his left hand while his right rested on the hilt of his sword.

“I can attest that he has a way of finding paths,” Jaymes said quietly.

They advanced in silence for perhaps a hundred paces to discover that, true to Moptop’s prediction, the tunnel did end in a T-intersection. They took the left branch and continued for a similar distance, past several small tunnels shooting off in different directions. When they came to a larger juncture, with three full-size passages leading away, the kender silently pointed them to the right, and they continued on for a short distance.

Moptop gestured to Sir Michael, and the knight lowered the torch for the kender to squint at his parchment again. Looking over the pathfinder’s shoulder, the knight shook his head in dismay as he saw the tangled patchwork of charcoal marks. But he bit his tongue, as Moptop curled up his parchment and tucked it back into his pouch.

“Right this way,” he said in an exaggerated whisper. “Now is when we should start looking for a way up and out of here.”

They found a way up in only another fifteen paces, tucked in a small alcove to the side of the tunnel, where a series of rusty rungs similar to the ones they descended led toward a metal grate overhead. No sunlight illuminated this grid, so Jaymes guessed they were either under a building or a roof’s overhang or perhaps in a narrow alley. Any of the three boded well for a surreptitious exit.

The lord marshal gathered the members of the little party at the base of the ladder, speaking quietly and quickly.

“Remember, the Thorn Knight first,” he said. “The giant and the witch-doctor are dangerous, but it’s the magic-user who is likely the chief link to the elemental. After we take him down, make for Ankhar and the shaman. All set?”

“I’m ready,” Sir Maxwell said. Most of the color had drained from his young face.

“Let’s go,” Sir Michael said, nodding curtly. “We’re all ready.”

Jaymes led the way, still holding one small crossbow while using his free hand to climb the ladder. He moved as stealthily as possible as he ascended, peering through the bars of the sewer grate, trying to get some idea of where they were going to come out above. By the time he was at the top of the ladder, he could see two walls with exterior surfaces of sooty stone, which seemed to indicate that they would be within a narrow alley. There was a thin line of smoky sky visible between two roofs that nearly overlapped each other, casting the whole area in welcoming shadows.

The grate was not so welcoming, however. Jaymes shoved at it with one hand, but it wouldn’t budge. Reluctantly uncocking his crossbow and slinging it at his belt, he put both hands against the rusty bars and braced his feet on a ladder rung. He pressed with all his strength, gritting his teeth, sweat beading around his eyes, but the grate was stuck fast.

Putting his face right up to the bars, he peered to the right and left. He saw barrels stacked nearby, apparently blocking off one end of the alley. The other end opened onto a wide avenue, and as he watched, a pair of ogres lumbered past. They paid no attention to the alley, but the grate was only a couple of dozen feet away from the street.

He turned around and dropped a few rungs, nearly stepping on Moptop’s fingers before turning to whisper to the kender. “Which building do you think is the inn where Ankhar went?”

“Well, let’s see…” The kender pulled out his scroll of parchment, allowing it to unroll downward until it dangled past his feet, swinging past the nose of the knight behind him. He looked up through the grate then back at the sheet. Finally he nodded. “That one over there-it has to be that one,” he said, indicating the structure to the right side of the narrow alley.

“Fair enough,” Jaymes said, trying to mute his skepticism. “We’re going to have to move fast,” he informed them all. “I’m going to cut through the grate with my sword, which might attract some attention. So get ready. Everybody up and out in half a breath.”

“Lead on,” Sir Michael said. “We’ll be right behind you.”

At the top of the ladder again, Jaymes cocked both crossbows and slung them at the ready. Then he twisted sideways so he could draw Giantsmiter out of its long scabbard. Balancing on his feet, with one knee propped around the back of a rusty rung, he slowly extended the tip of the sword between the bars of the sewer grate.

When he twisted the hilt in his hands, flames appeared along the steel edge, soundlessly flaring, bright blue in the shadows of the sewer shaft. He touched the blade to one rusty bar, producing a noise like the hiss of water spattering in a hot pan; the weapon quickly cut through the bar and came to the next with another loud, sibilant noise. Sparks and bits of molten metal spattered downward, some of them singeing his arms.

He ignored the pain and kept up the pressure with the sword. In a moment he had cut through all the bars at one end. Swiftly he repeated the process on the other three sides. Slicing through all but one of the metal rods, he lowered his sword and with one hand, bent down the almost-severed grate to open up a clear route to the alley.

With a glance down, confirming that his companions were poised for action, he pulled himself upward and out, quickly scrambling into a crouching position on the rough cobblestones of the alley. His eyes fixed upon the open end of the narrow passage. Fortunately, all he saw was a deserted section of the Duke’s Avenue. He slipped his sword back into its scabbard and took up his twin crossbows, one in each hand.

By then Moptop and the Kingfisher had emerged, with the three Knights of the Sword coming after. Maxwell looked almost boyish in his bright tunic and leather leggings. He held his dagger at the ready while offering a hand to Sir Michael, the last of the knights to emerge.

“There’s a doorway over here… looks like a kitchen door to the inn,” Moptop said, striding over to a rickety wooden barrier. The smell of lard seemed to confirm his diagnosis.

“Keep an eye on the entrance to the alley,” Jaymes ordered one of the knights. “We’ll be going back down that hole in a moment.”

He led the others to the kitchen door and tried the latch, finding it locked. Shrugging, he dropped his shoulder and plunged forward, breaking easily through the flimsy planking. Lunging into the empty room, he saw another door past the long cooking counter and huge iron oven. He advanced through the kitchen at a run, but the door to the main room flew open before he got there.

Jaymes found himself almost on top of one of the Dark Knight bodyguards who had accompanied Ankhar down the street. The man was clearly shocked to see an intruder in the kitchen, and he reached for his sword with lightning reflexes. Jaymes raised one of his crossbows and shot, the powerful weapon punching the lethal bolt into the man’s throat just above the rim of his breastplate.

Gagging, the knight fell back, and the lord marshal charged into the inn’s great room. He spotted the half-giant at once; Ankhar was standing near the front window, where he had apparently been watching his troops pass by in the street. He spun around, mouth gaping in a tusk-baring expression of astonishment. The little hob-wench was there as well and reacted quickly, shrieking in agitation and shaking her grotesque totem at the intruders. But where was the Thorn Knight?

Jaymes caught sight of the Gray Robe on the far side of the room. The man moved with liquid grace, gliding behind a stout pillar as if he knew that he was the target of this sudden intrusion. Other Dark Knights, more of Ankhar’s bodyguards, closed in, but Jaymes dashed across the room, while Sir Michael and the other knight met the guards with their steel. The lord marshal rounded the pillar and confronted the Gray Robe.

The Thorn Knight’s eyes met his. The magic-user was working on some kind of spell, murmuring an arcane word, gesturing with the slender fingers of his right hand while he waved a slender stick of wood in his left.

The lord marshal started to raise his crossbow, but the mage, without hesitation, charged right toward him-and away from him at the same time. Jaymes swung a fist at the Gray Robe, and his hand passed right through the image, causing it to disappear. Suddenly there were four identical wizards, all running from behind the pillar, each going in a different direction. The lord marshal swung the weapon, with its single remaining shot, from one of the images to the next, unsure which was the real Thorn Knight.

Moptop sprinted past and flew at one of the gray-robed figures, stretching his arms wide in an attempted tackle. The kender flew right through the magical image and landed hard on his nose. At the same time, the conjured reflection of the wizard vanished from sight. But that still left three possible targets, one racing toward the front door, and two diverging into opposite ends of the great room.

Meanwhile, Ankhar had recovered his wits and entered the fray. He pulled a sword from his belt that, while it was styled like a short sword for the half-giant, boasted a blade every bit as long as Giantsmiter’s.

Making a guess, Jaymes started after the Gray Robe who was heading for the door. He raised his crossbow, ready to shoot the man in the back. He barely noticed the Kingfisher, frantically chanting something and waving his hands around the room.

“There!” cried Sir Maxwell as the image in front of Jaymes disappeared.

The lord marshal spun around. The image of the Thorn Knight heading toward the back of the inn was also gone; only the one to the side of the room remained, his robe sweeping behind him as he leaped for the stairs leading to the second floor. Lunging after him, Jaymes slammed into genuine flesh, knocking the Gray Robe down.

The wizard fell into the railing, slumping backward. His lips curled into a snarl and his hands-one holding the wand, the other empty-gestured before his face.

But he wouldn’t have time to finish the casting.

Jaymes had raised the crossbow and now shot his bolt right into the man’s chest. The force of the strike hurled him backward, but the lord marshal was already on him as he fell. He saw the wand falling from the mage’s limp fingers and dived to snatch it up. He felt it snap between his strong hand and the floor before it rolled under a nearby crate.

“He destroyed the wand!” shrieked the shaman, her tone horrified.

“No!” Ankhar bellowed.

Jaymes could see that the Thorn Knight was badly, perhaps fatally, wounded. The half giant’s bellow, every bit as panicked as his mother’s cry, echoed in the room. More of Ankhar’s troops charged toward the front door, a press of reinforcements.

Clearly, the outnumbered attackers needed to withdraw. “We’ve accomplished what we wanted!” he cried, now pulling Giantsmiter from its sheath at his back. He rushed toward Sir Michael, who stood alone against a pair of Ankhar’s bodyguards. Moptop, his nose bleeding, ran along beside him, leaping over the body of the slain Sword Knight who had stood at Michael’s side when they entered the room.

“Where’s Maxwell?” demanded Jaymes, holding his great sword with one hand and spinning on his heel.

But Ankhar had closed in on the young Kingfisher. With one great hand, he gripped the young wizard around the throat and lifted him from the floor. Maxwell’s feet kicked and his arms thrashed, but he could do nothing against the hulking brute. With a deep, wet snarl, the half-giant tightened his fingers around the man’s neck.

Sir Michael cut down the last of the Dark Knights with a thrust to the gut, and joined Jaymes as both turned to rush toward the enemy commander. The hobgoblin shaman shrieked something, and both warriors halted abruptly as if they had crashed against an invisible fence. The lord marshal swung his flaming sword at the barrier and felt it wavering as Maxwell’s face turned blue, his flailing limbs suddenly drooping limply.

Moptop sprang across the room, jumping right at the shaman’s head. He wrapped his arms around her face, and the two of them stumbled crazily toward a large stone fireplace-the hearth, fortunately, cold. Their shouts and screams mingled chaotically as they tumbled onto the granite shelf, the kender on top of the old witch-doctor. With a shout of triumph, the kender broke free of the shaman’s violent embrace.

At the same time, the door to the street burst open and a troop of ogres charged in. “Kill them!” shrieked the witch-doctor, pointing with her skull’s-head rattle, and the brutes charged en masse toward the two swordsmen and the kender.

Maxwell made one last desperate gesture-a wave of his hand toward Jaymes. His mouth worked, and though no sound emerged, he clearly signaled: “Go!”

More ogres spilled through the door. The hob-wench shrieked her “Kill!” command over and over.

“You’ve got to flee,” Michael said to Jaymes, as they edged back from the approaching ogres.

“You too,” commanded the lord marshal, taking the other man by the shoulder and pulling him back. “There’s nothing more we can do.”

Grimacing in fury and grief, the Sword Knight acknowledged this truth. Moptop was already out the door, and they turned and followed him into the kitchen, stopping only to pull a heavy ice chest down to block their escape.

In the alley they saw that the last Sword Knight had taken up position near the street, where he stood matching swords with a burly ogre, giving ground slowly. Arrows zinged around them as some of Ankhar’s archers, responding to the alarms, shot wildly into the alley. The knight groaned and fell, bleeding from a gash through his chest, but before the ogre could advance, Sir Michael charged to replace the fallen man.

“Get away from here!” the swordsman shouted over his shoulder before cutting down the ogre with a single stab. More of the brutish warriors filled the mouth of the alley.

“Go!” Michael cried before meeting the next ogre with a resounding parry. “Est Sularus oth Mithas!” he shouted, the ecstasy of honorable battle radiant in his voice.

Jaymes shoved Moptop toward the gaping sewer hole. With a yelp, the kender ducked out of sight, and the lord marshal tumbled after. They ran into the darkness, chased by the sounds of ringing steel from the lone knight’s valiant holding action.

After no more than ten breaths, the sounds of battle suddenly ceased, but soon they were around the first corner, sprinting away through the sewers of Solanthus.