Amos laughed in appreciation. ‘And after Armengar, they won’t be so quick to rush toward a fire.’
Guy said, ‘That’s a bright one, Arutha.’
Jimmy looked pleased at the praise. Arutha said dryly, ‘Sometimes too bright.’
Jimmy’s expression turned dark, while Locklear grinned.
They gained a day. From the time they left the first morning until sundown, they saw no sign of pursuers. Arutha decided Murmandamus must have ordered a thorough search of the empty fortress and would then have to reorder his army for the trek across the High Wold. No, they had stolen the march on the invaders, and they were likely to stay ahead of all but his fastest cavalry.
They could push the horses, rotating the remounts they led, and make between thirty-five and forty miles a day. Some horses were sure to go lame but with luck they would be across the vast, hilly High Wold in a week. Once in the Dimwood, they would have to slow, but the chances of being overtaken would also be less, for those behind would have to be cautious of ambush from among the thick trees.
On the second day they began passing the bodies of those wounded who could not withstand the punishment of the hard ride. Their comrades had followed orders and cut the dead loose from their saddles, not wasting time to bury them, not even stripping them of weapons and armour.
On the third day they saw the first signs of pursuit, vague shapes on the horizon near sundown. Arutha ordered an extra hour’s ride, and there were no signs of those behind at dawn.
On the fourth day they saw the first village. The soldiers riding past before them had alerted everyone of the danger, and it was now deserted. Smoke came from one chimney and Arutha sent a soldier to investigate. A well-banked fire still smouldered, but no one was left. A little seed grain was found and brought along, but all other foodstuffs were gone. There was little to comfort the enemy, so Arutha ordered the village left alone. Had the villagers not picked the place clean, he would have ordered it burned. He expected Murmandamus’s soldiers would see to that, but he still felt better for leaving the place as he had found it.
Near the end of the fifth day, they saw a company of riders approaching from behind, and Arutha ordered his company to halt and make ready. The riders came close enough to be clearly marked as a dozen moredhel scouts, but they veered off and moved back toward their main army rather than accept the offer to fight the larger force.
On the sixth day they overtook a caravan, heading south, already warned of the approaching danger by the first units of the garrison to ride past. The caravan drivers were moving at a slow, steady pace, but it was certain they’d be overtaken by Murmandamus’s advanced units within another day, two at the most. Arutha rode to where the merchant who owned the wagons sat and, riding alongside, shouted, ‘Cut your horses loose and ride them. Otherwise you cannot escape the Dark Brothers who follow!’
‘But my grain!’ complained the merchant. ‘I’ll lose everything!’
Arutha signalled a halt. When the wagons were stopped, he shouted to his command. ‘Each man take a sack of this merchant’s grain. We’ll need it for the Dimwood. Burn the rest!’
The protesting merchant ordered his bravos to defend his cargo, but the mercenaries took a single look at the fifty soldiers from Highcastle and moved away, allowing them to take the grain.
‘Cut the horses loose!’ ordered Guy.
The soldiers cut the horses from their traces, and led them away. Within minutes the sacks of grain had been removed from the first wagon and passed among the soldiers, including an extra sack for each of the merchant’s horses. The rest of the wagons and grain were fired.
Arutha said to the merchant, ‘There are thirty thousand goblins, Dark Brothers, and trolls on the march this way, master merchant. If you think I’ve done you an injustice, consider what you would face trundling these wagons along the trails of the Dimwood in the midst of such company. Now take the grain for your mounts and ride for the south. We shall stand at Sethanon, but if you value your skin, I’d ride past the city and make for Malac’s Cross. Now, if you want to be paid for this grain, stay in Sethanon, and if we all manage somehow to survive the invasion, I’ll recompense you. That’s your risk to decide. I’ve no more time to waste on you.’
Arutha ordered his column forward and, minutes later, was not surprised to find the merchant and his mercenaries riding after them, staying as close to the column as their tired mounts would allow. After a short while, Arutha yelled to Amos, ‘When we halt, get them some fresh horses from the remounts. I don’t want to leave them behind.’
Amos grinned. ‘They’re just about scared enough to behave. Let’s let them fall just a little farther behind, then when they catch up with us tonight they’ll be bright and cooperative lads.’
Arutha shook his head. Even in the face of this backbreaking ride, Amos appreciated the humour of the moment.
On the seventh day they entered the Dimwood.
The sounds of fighting caused Arutha to order a halt. He motioned for Galain and a soldier to ride toward the source of the sound. They returned minutes later, the elf saying, ‘It’s over.’
They rode to the east to find soldiers from Highcastle in a clearing. A dozen moredhel bodies lay about. The sergeant in charge saluted when he saw Arutha approaching. ‘We were resting our mounts when they hit us, Highness. Luckily, another squad was just west of here and came running.’
Arutha looked at Guy and Galain. ‘How the hell did they get ahead of us?’
Galain said, ‘They didn’t. These have been here all summer, waiting.’ He looked about. ‘Over there, I think.’ He led Arutha to a deadfall, which hid the entrance to a low hut, cleverly concealed by brush. Within the hut were stores: grain, weapons, dried meats, saddles, and other supplies.
Arutha inspected everything quickly, then said, ‘This campaign has been long in planning. We can now be certain that Sethanon has always been Murmandamus’s objective.’
‘But we still don’t know why,’ observed Guy.
‘Well, we’ll have to proceed without regard to why. Take anything here that we can use, then destroy the rest.’
He said to the sergeant, ‘Have you sighted other companies?’
‘Yes, Highness. De la Troville had a camp a mile’s ride to the northeast last night. We encountered one of his pickets and were ordered to continue on, so as not to concentrate too many men in one place.’
Guy said, ‘Dark Brothers?’
The sergeant nodded. ‘The woods are swarming with them, Your Grace. If we ride past, they give us little trouble. If we stop, we’ve snipers to deal with. Luckily they don’t usually come in bands as large as this one. Still, it might do well for us to stay on the move.’
Arutha said, ‘Take five men from my column and begin to head east. I want word passed that everyone is to keep a watchful eye for these stores of Murmandamus. I expect you’ll find them guarded, so look for places where the Dark Brothers begin to object to your trespassing. Anything that can help him is to be destroyed. Now you’d better ride.’
Arutha then ordered another dozen men to ride a half day to the west, then turn south, so that word of the caches of arms could be spread. He said to Guy, ‘Let’s get on the march. I can almost feel his vanguard stepping on our heels.’
Du Bas-Tyra nodded and said, ‘Still, we might be able to slow him a bit along the way.’
Arutha looked about. ‘I’ve been waiting for a place for an ambush. Or a bridge to burn behind us. Or a narrowing in the trail where we can fell a tree. But there hasn’t been a single likely place.’
Amos agreed. ‘This is the most bloody damn accommodating forest I’ve seen. You can march a parade through here and not one man in twenty would miss a step for having to dodge a tree.’
Guy said, ‘Well, we take what we can get. Let’s be off.’
The Dimwood was a series of interconnecting woodlands rather than a single forest such as the Edder or the Green Heart. After the first three days’ travel, they passed a
series of meadows, then entered some truly dark and foreboding woods. Several times they waited while Galain mismarked moredhel trail signs. The elf thought some of the moredhel scouts might wander a bit before discovering they were being misled. Three more times they came across caches of Murmandamus’s stores. Dead moredhel and soldiers showed their locations. The swords had been tossed into fires to rob them of temper, while the arrows and spears were burned. The saddles and bridles had been cut up and the grain was scattered about the ground or burned. Blankets, clothing, and even foodstuffs had gone to feed the fires.
Late in the second week in the forest, they smelled smoke and had to flee a forest fire. Some overzealous ravaging of one of Murmandamus’s caches had resulted in the fire breaking loose in the woods, now dry from the hot summer. As they rode away from the advancing blaze, Amos shouted, ‘That’s what we should do. Wait until his magnificent bastardness gets into the woods and burn it down around him. Ha!’
Arutha had lost six horses by the time they left the Dimwood, entering cultivated lands, but not one man, including the merchant and his mercenaries. They crossed twenty miles of farmland, then made camp. After sunset a faint glow on the southern horizon appeared.
Amos pointed it out to the boys. ‘Sethanon.’
They reached the city and were halted at the gate by soldiers of the local garrison. ‘We’re looking for whoever’s in command!’ shouted the sergeant in charge, his chevrons clearly shown in gold upon the finely tailored green and white tabard of the Barony of Sethanon.
Arutha signalled, and the sergeant said, ‘We’ve had soldiers from Highcastle drifting in for the last half day. They’re being given compound in the marshalling yard. The Baron wants to see whoever’s in charge of this lot.’
‘Tell him I’m on my way as soon as these men are quartered.’
‘And who should I tell him that is?’
‘Arutha of Krondor.’
The man’s mouth opened. ‘But…’
‘I know, I’m dead. Still, tell Baron Humphry I’ll be up to his keep within the hour. And tell him I’ve Guy du Bas-Tyra with me. Then send a runner to the marshalling yard and find out if Baldwin de la Troville and Anthony du Masigny are safely here. If so, have them join me.’
The sergeant was motionless for a moment, then saluted. ‘Yes, Highness!’
Arutha signalled for his column to enter the city, and for the first time in months saw the normal sights of the Kingdom, a city busy with the business of citizens who thought they were safely kept from harm by a benevolent monarch. The streets thronged with people busy with the concerns of the market, commerce, and celebration. In every direction Arutha could see only the commonplace, the expected, the mundane. How soon that would change.
Arutha ordered the gates closed. For the last week those who had chosen to take their chances and flee southward had been allowed to leave. Now the city was to be sealed. More messages had been sent, by pigeon and riders, to the garrisons at Malac’s Cross, Silden, and Darkmoor, against the possibility of the other messages not reaching those commanders. Everything that could be done had been done, and all they could do was wait.
The scouts who had been positioned to the north had reported that Murmandamus’s army was now completely in control of the Dimwood. Every farm between the woodlands and the city had been evacuated and all the inhabitants brought inside the walls. The Prince had instructed everyone to follow a strict schedule. All food was brought to Sethanon, but when time ran out, Arutha had ordered every farm put to the torch. The fall crops not yet harvested were fired, and unpicked gardens were dug up or poisoned and all herds too distant to be brought to the city were ordered scattered to the south and east. Nothing was left behind to aid the advancing host. Reports from the soldiers who had reached Sethanon indicated that at least thirty of Murmandamus’s caches of stores had been discovered and looted or destroyed. Arutha harboured no illusions. At best he had stung the invaders, but no real damage had been accomplished save inconvenience.
Arutha sat in council with Amos, Guy, the officers from Highcastle, and Baron Humphry. Humphry sat in his armour – uncomfortably, for it was a gaudy contraption of fluted scrollwork, designed for show and not for combat – his golden plumed helm held before him. He had readily acknowledged Arutha’s preemption of his command, for given its location, the garrison of Sethanon lacked any real battlefield commanders. Arutha had installed Guy, Amos, de la Troville, and du Masigny in key positions. They sat reviewing the disposition of troops and stores. Arutha concluded reading the list and spoke. ‘We could withstand an army of Murmandamus’s size up to two months, under normal circumstances. With what we saw at Armengar and Highcastle, I’m sure the circumstances will not be normal. Murmandamus must be within the city by two weeks, three at longest; otherwise he faces the possibility of an early freeze. The rainy fall weather is beginning, which will slow his assaults, and once winter comes, he’ll find a starving army under his command. No, he must quickly enter Sethanon, and prevent us from using up or destroying our stores.
‘If the very best of situations comes to pass, Martin will be now leaving the foothills of the Calastius Mountains below Hawk’s Hollow with the army from Yabon, upward of six thousand soldiers. But he’ll be at least two weeks away. We might see soldiers from Northwarden or from Silden about the same time, but at best we must hold for no less than two weeks and perhaps as long as four. Any longer, and help will be too slow in coming.’
He rose. ‘Gentlemen, all we may do now is wait for the enemy to come. I suggest we rest and pray.’
Arutha walked out of the conference room. Guy and Amos came after. All paused, as if considering what they had been through so far, then drifted off their separate ways, to wait for the attackers.
• Chapter Eighteen •
Homeward
They walked the Hall.
It seemed a straight thoroughfare, a yellowish white roadway with more glowing silver doors at about fifty-foot intervals. Macros made a sweeping motion with his arm. ‘You walk in the midst of a mystery to match the City Forever, the Hall of Worlds. Here you may walk from world to world, if you but know the way.’ He indicated a silver rectangle. ‘A portal, giving passage to and from a world. Only a select few among the multitudes may discern them. Some learn the knack through study, others stumble upon them by chance. By altering your perceptions, you may see them wherever they lie. Here’ – he waved at a door as they passed – ‘is a burned-out world circling a forgotten sun.’ Then he pointed to the door on the other side of the Hall. ‘But there is a world teeming with life, a hodgepodge of cultures and societies, but with only one intelligent race.’ He halted a moment. ‘At least, that is what they will be in our own time.’ He continued walking. ‘At present, I expect these doors empty into swirls of hot gases only slightly more dense than nothing.
‘In the future, a complete society exists who travel the Hall, conducting commerce between worlds, yet there are worlds whose entire populations have no knowledge of this place.’
Tomas said, ‘I knew nothing of this place.’
‘The Valheru had other means to travel,’ Macros answered, inclining his head in Ryath’s direction. ‘Without the need, they never paused to apprehend the existence of the Hall, for surely they had the ability. Luck? I don’t know, but much destruction was avoided by their remaining ignorant.’
‘How far does the Hall extend?’ said Pug.
‘Endlessly. No one knows. The Hall appears straight, but it curves, and should I walk a short distance, I would vanish from your sight. Distances and time have little meaning between the worlds.’
He began leading them down the hall.
Following Macros’s instructions, Pug had managed to bring them forward in time, to what Macros judged was near their own era. After having accelerated the Dragon Lord time trap, Pug had no difficulty following Macros’s direction. The mechanics of the spells used were but logical extensions of what Pug had used to speed up the trap. Pug could only guess
if the proper amount of time had passed, but Macros had reassured him that when they started to approach Midkemia, he would know how much adjustment Pug would have to make.
They had been walking and Pug had studied each door in passing. After a while he discovered there was a faint difference between each door, a slight spectral oddity in the shimmering silver light, which provided the clue to which world the door led to. ‘Macros, what would occur if one were to step off between doors?’ asked Pug.
The sorcerer said, ‘I suspect you’d be quickly dead if you did so unprepared. You would float in rift-space without the benefit of Ryath’s ability to navigate.’
He halted before a door. ‘This is a necessary shortcut, across a planet, which will more than halve our travel time to Midkemia. The distance between here and the next gate is less than a hundred yards, but be advised: this world’s atmosphere is deadly. Hold your breath for here magic has no meaning and you may not protect yourself with arts.’ He breathed heavily for a moment, then with a great intake of breath, dashed through the door.
Tomas came next, then Pug, then Ryath. Pug squinted and almost exhaled as burning fumes assaulted his eyes and sudden, unexpected weight seemed to pull him down. They were sprinting across a barren plain of purple and red rocks, while overhead the air hung heavy with grey haze in orange skies. The earth trembled, and giant clouds of black smoke and gases were spewed heavenward by the bleeding mountains, glowing with reflecting orange light from volcanoes. The stuff of the world flowed down the sides of those peaks and the air hung heavy with oppressive heat. Macros pointed and they ran into a rock face, which returned them to the Hall.
Macros had been silent for hours, lost in thought. He pulled up short, coming out of his reverie, as he halted before a portal. ‘We must cut across this world. It should be pleasant.’
He led them through a gate into a lovely green glade. Through trees they could hear the pounding of waves on the rocks and smell the tang of sea salt. Macros led them along a bluff overlooking a magnificent view of an ocean.
The Riftwar Saga Page 171
