The Crown and the Sword tros-2

by Douglas Niles

  Much of Ankhar’s army streamed away, falling back around the charred outlines of the artillery park, hastening southward along the bank of the Vingaard. Three hundred ogres formed a square in the center of the melee. All around them, the troops of the horde were dropping back, sometimes with good order, in other cases in full rout.

  The separated companies of the White Riders gathered. Knights lowered their visors and took up such lances as had survived the fray or drew their heavy, bloody swords. The ogres alone stood before them as the Crown Knights rolled forward in the battle’s final charge. The clash of steel against steel rang out once more, mingling with the shrieks of wounded horses and the cries of bleeding ogres and dying men.

  When the last of the riders finally limped away, not a single ogre remained standing.

  “We’ve turned the flank, my lord,” General Dayr reported. He tried to maintain his detachment, but the fierce elation of battlefield success flared in his eyes, gleamed in the momentary glimpse of his teeth. “They’re running for the fords to the south of here.”

  “Well done, General,” Jaymes said, nodding toward the dust marking the enemy’s retreat. “Let them go for the time being, and see to your wounded.”

  “The Clerists are already at work with the other healers. There remains only one stumbling block.”

  The lord marshal arched his eyebrow, thought for a moment, and nodded. “The company in the gorge, down at the river?”

  “Yes, my lord. I have sent scouts to bring me reports on them. But it looks like they can’t pull out safely; Ankhar has enough ogres left to shower them with boulders if they try to move out.”

  “All right. Let’s have a look,” the lord marshal acknowledged. He nudged his horse in the flanks and-accompanied only by the two dozen knights of the Caergoth Freemen-set out to inspect the battlefield.

  CHAPTER TWO

  BETRAYAL, AND BETRAYAL

  The two armies, like exhausted wrestlers, had separated and now lay prostrate, gasping for breath, thirsty for cool drink. The plain around the Narrows was no longer a place for the living, but for the dead and the doomed.

  To the latter end, men and monsters had done their work well. The evidence lay all around, first indicated by the sweeping shapes of the vultures and crows circling overhead. The scavengers swirled downward like dark, macabre snowflakes to settle among the lifeless forms scattered across a mile or more of the plains just to the west of the deep gorge. Here and there the shape of a great war machine, a catapult or a ballista, was discernable through the soot and ash that caked the charred timbers; this was all that remained of the lethal devices. Smoke still spiraled upward from the large fire pits where shot had been heated. In one place barrels of oil had been cracked open to soak into the dry ground. Fire burned over the very plain itself, marking the place with a thick, smudgy pillar of black smoke rising into the otherwise cloudless skies.

  Nearby lay more than a hundred dead horses, a fabulous buffet for the scavengers. Amid the slain beasts, with their torn saddles and once-grand regalia, lay a great number of goblins and more than a few ogres, proof of the charge that had, at last, broken the ranks of Ankhar’s hordes. Many knights had perished here as well, but their bodies had been removed for-unlike the beasts of the half-giant’s horde-the humans gathered up their slain and gave them burial or cremation.

  A kind of silence had descended over the field, filled just hours before with the clashing of steel and cries of pain and exultation. Nevertheless, a listener would have heard a keen, almost mournful wailing in the wind that scoured this dusty ground. Occasionally, too, was heard the raucous protests of the birds, as crows were forced to yield to the great beaks and crushing wings of the vultures, and the ravens, in turn, were driven from their morsels by greedy crows. The black-feathered birds gave the scene a life of its own, a shifting pattern of movement overlaying the great sprawl of the dead.

  Accompanied by the two dozen riders of the Caergoth Freemen, Jaymes rode across the field at an easy gait, though his sturdy roan showed signs of trepidation. She tossed her head about, veering away from a slain ogre. Her ears stood upright, quivering.

  The riders made their way through the detritus of battle until they came to the rim of the precipice. They peered down into the river gorge, where the waters of the Narrows churned and plunged in the deep channel. Eyes narrowed, the lord marshal took in the situation.

  Two companies of warriors were visible on a flat shelf of land beside the rapid flow, facing each other in lines ranked behind poised spears and shields. One group consisted of humans, men in leather armor and metal caps, formed around a pennant displaying the sigil of the Crown. The other was a band of goblins, ragged but fierce, with shaggy cloaks and long, wicked-looking pikes. The surface upon which both companies stood was low, barely a few feet above the water; the river beside them was deep, dark, and moving rapidly. The shelf of level ground was perhaps a quarter-mile long, but only ten yards wide. On the side away from the water, sheer cliffs swept upward hundreds of feet, leading to the rider’s vantage.

  The warriors in the gorge seemed evenly matched, perhaps two hundred ofn each side, and they faced each other in the center of the little swath of level ground. Even with his first quick glance, the man took in how those companies arrived at such a place. The humans had descended through a narrow ravine, a passage barely wide enough for single file, that snaked up to reach the plateau nearly a mile away from the river gorge. The goblins had marched down a narrow trail carved out of the very side of the cliff. That path twisted out of sight to the man’s right, but he could clearly see the lower half and imagined that it continued up to reach the crest of the bluff some distance up the gorge.

  Another company of riders appeared on the plain above the canyon, horses trotting around the pillar of smoke marking the oil fire. They numbered perhaps a dozen men, many wearing full plate armor of gleaming steel. One, a herald, held aloft a standard from which a proud banner flew-a white crown on a field of black. It matched the sigil displayed by the company down by the river, though it was a much larger and more ornate emblem-for it was the banner of General Dayr himself.

  The general broke away from his entourage to ride, alone, toward the man who still sat astride his horse at the brink of the precipice. The escort of Freemen withdrew to a discreet distance, so the two commanders could speak privately.

  “My Lord Marshal,” Dayr said as he drew up to Jaymes. “I hope you are satisfied with the fruits of our victory.”

  “Yes, General,” said the marshal. “We have broken Ankhar’s army in the north. I understand that, even now, he is pulling the bulk of his horde back to the east side of the river.”

  “True. But there is a new development. One of his men, a sergeant of the Dark Knights, has come forward under a banner of truce. He says that Ankhar himself would like to have a parley with the officer in command.”

  “The half-giant would so expose himself?” asked the marshal.

  The general nodded. “He says he will come forward alone, to meet a lone human, on that spit of land there, above the river. There is a narrow gorge, some ten paces wide, that would divide the two leaders. Of course I am more than willing to go, Marshal Jaymes, but I thought that I should give you the option of making the parley yourself.”

  The rider nodded. “I’d like that. After two years of fighting this barbarian, I should like to meet with him face-to-face to take his measure with my own eyes.”

  “As you wish,” the general replied.

  “What, do you imagine, is the purpose of this parley?”

  “I suspect he will bargain for mutual withdrawal of those troops you see down there by the river. The battle, of course, is over, yet the potential for slaughter remains. You see, our men-that’s the Second Company of the Vingaard Arms-might make their escape through yonder ravine, but a hundred ogres have been posted upon the far rim. If our men try to withdraw, they could be crushed by the rocks dropped by the ogres from above. At the same time,
Ankhar’s goblins are likewise trapped. If they withdraw up the cliffside trail, our archers will be able to cut them to pieces. In either case it is likely that no more than a handful of the enemy troops will survive to escape the gorge.”

  “But Ankhar’s army is already retreating. I presume there is a reason why we cannot simply wait him out, bring out the company when the ogres have left.”

  “The rains, my Lord Marshal. Up in the Garnet range it has been pouring for several days, and the river is rising by nearly a foot with every passing hour. If we don’t pull the men out of there, the matter is moot; by tomorrow morning, they will all have drowned.”

  The marshal nodded, taking in the scene again with those sharp, penetrating eyes. The cliffs, the river, the ravine, and the trail were all as the general had described. If the men in the gorge were not soon plucked to safety, they were doomed.

  “Very well,” said Marshal Jaymes Markham. “Send word to Ankhar through his messenger; tell him that I will meet him and parley.”

  The half-giant was an impressive creature, standing nearly twice as tall as the man glaring at him across the gulf of the narrow crevice. Ankhar was unarmed, as was Jaymes; this had been a fundamental condition of the parley. Still, the creature’s mere fists looked capable of crushing the skull of a human soldier, and the glower on his face suggested that crushing a man’s skull was a very tempting notion right now.

  Jaymes studied the hulking barbarian who had been his adversary over the past two years. Ankhar’s brow loomed over his eyes like the craggy outcrop of a cliff, accenting the bestial features of the ogrish face. The eyes were small in comparison to the overall size of the huge face, but they glittered with a certain cold, appraising intelligence. The man had the unsettling awareness that the half-giant was studying him with the same curiosity he himself felt.

  “You are called the Lord of the Rose?” asked the half-giant in a voice like the growl of a bear.

  “Some call me that, but I claim no such title for myself.”

  “You fight under the white banner, with Crown and Sword and Rose all woven together. That seems to me like you claim the sign.”

  The man shrugged. “You can take it any way you like. I don’t see a banner over your own army, yet your troops shed blood aplenty, just the same.”

  The half-giant’s broad mouth curled into a cruel, tusk-baring smile. “They have killed many men, in the name of the Truth. I am the Truth. They rejoice in drinking human blood, in taking human women-and miles of land!”

  “Yet you have given many lands back, this last year. Three times you have faced my army and three times been defeated.”

  Ankhar shrugged. “The war goes on. Many more men will die. This is Truth.”

  “Right now, the truth is that your company and mine are trapped together on the bank of the river,” Jaymes noted. “If we hold our positions, neither group can escape-each would be destroyed by troops on the heights if they try to make higher ground.”

  Ankhar snorted contemptuously. “Let them stay where they are.”

  “Was it not you who requested this parley? What, then, was your purpose?”

  “Perhaps I want a face for my enemy,” growled the half-giant. “You fight well… for a human.”

  “I fight when I must-and when I fight, I fight well.”

  “I will kill you soon enough. For now, I see you, and spit upon you!”

  “You’re a creature of the mountains, I am told,” Jaymes replied evenly. “Do your agents tell you of the storms in the Garnet range? It has been raining, hard, for days. The creeks and streams are full, spilling down toward the plains.”

  The glowering brow furrowed for a moment in thought. If he was surprised by the information imparted by Jaymes, he gave no indication. “So the river rises? All our men will drown?”

  “It looks that way to me,” Jaymes said. “I prefer my men to die bravely, not drown ignominiously, and I am willing to let your troops live also, in fair trade.”

  The half-giant hawked and turning his head to the side, spit noisily. “A fair trade? So that your men can take more of my mountains? Drive my people from the plains? Kill them?” His voice had dropped to an angry snarl.

  “I make no apologies. Nor will I enumerate the list of crimes committed by your ‘people’-the wrongs that make it necessary for us to wage war against you.”

  The half-giant bellowed then almost instantly grew calm. “What do you suggest?”

  “I offer to pull my archers back from the rim of the cliff, so that your company can march up the trail and rejoin your army as you cross the river. In return, your ogres will withdraw from the heights over the ravine, so that my own men can file out of the deathtrap that the gorge will soon become.”

  Ankhar glared, spit into the ravine again, and growled deep in his chest. Finally he nodded.

  “Let us make this truce. Our warriors will live to fight another day. I agree with you. Better soldiers die in battle than drown in a thunderstorm.”

  “Good,” Jaymes replied. He studied Ankhar’s face, looking for any hint of treachery-or sincerity. “So, too, shall I agree to a truce.” He looked up at the sky. “It is past noon now. The shadow of the sun will reach that white layer of stone, halfway up the cliff, in about two hours. Shall we let the truce take effect at that time?”

  “Yes. To last until sunset over the plains. There will be no killing during that time.”

  “Very well,” said the man. He nodded thoughtfully. “Your warriors fought well. It was only a fierce charge of knights that, in the end, broke your line.”

  “Bah. My Thorn Knights’re not here. Their magic would shatter any charge-kill your tin can riders!”

  “So they might have. But they did not.” Jaymes shrugged as if it were a matter of no great concern. Yet he knew that the half-giant spoke the truth. The Thorn Knights had formerly served Mina and the One God in her campaign to conquer Ansalon. They were formidable wizards, devoted to the dark arts in the furtherance of their own power. In many battles their presence had proved decisive, but their numbers were few. Jaymes was well aware those potent wizards might have made a difference and was glad they were absent from this battle.

  “I go now, to tell of the truce. I withdraw my company,” Ankhar said. “Next time, may we shed each other’s blood.”

  “So we may,” the human replied. “I will not wish you luck in that endeavor.”

  The half-giant chuckled, the sound an odd mixture of cruelty and humor. “I wish you luck-to stay healthy until that day,” he said. “So I may kill you myself.”

  “Aye-and the same to you,” replied the marshal, the commander of all the Solamnic Armies.

  Still facing each other, the two leaders backed warily away from the edge of the narrow crevice. Jaymes reached behind, took the bridle of his roan, and swung easily into the saddle. As he cantered away, he glanced back and saw that the half-giant was still watching him with those too-small, too-intelligent eyes.

  The signalman caught the attention of the captain of the Second Company of the Vingaard Arms, the unit trapped on the shelf beside the river. He waved his flags at the rim of the precipice. The orders were simple: “Prepare to withdraw,” followed by, “Await the command to execute the order.” A simple wave of the company’s Crown pennant returned the acknowledgement that the message had been received and understood.

  General Dayr and Marshal Jaymes stood beside the flagman, watching the shadow that had already crept far up the canyon’s wall. In another quarter of an hour or so, it would reach the strata of white rock that signaled the commencement of the agreed-upon truce. A scout rode up, and both commanders turned to regard him.

  “The ogres are indeed withdrawing from the rim of the ravine,” the man reported without formality. “Already they have marched more than a mile, and when I departed from the scene just moments ago, they were making steady progress away.”

  “Are they out of range by now?”

  “Aye, my lord-the ogres are no lo
nger able to strike at the men of the Vingaard Arms.”

  “It appears as though the brute is keeping his word,” Dayr murmured, raising his eyebrows in a gesture of mild surprise. “I hadn’t been entirely sure until now.”

  Jaymes shook his head very slightly. “I was sure he would pull the ogres back. But I am not yet convinced that he is keeping his word.”

  “And our archers are now down from the heights. They wouldn’t have time to return to their firing positions if Ankhar’s company makes haste.”

  “I’m sure they’ll get out of there as fast as they can,” said the army commander.

  A few moments later, the sun’s shadow reached the requisite position. The two men watched as the companies beside the river slowly backed away from each other, the humans moving toward the lower terminus of the narrow ravine, the goblins to the foot of the trail that twisted so precariously along the canyon’s wall. When perhaps three hundred yards of distance was between them, the formations abandoned their battle lines and formed into narrow columns, each starting up its respective route of retreat.

  “Now we arrive at the moment of truth,” said Jaymes. “Or perhaps I should say, ‘the Truth.’ ”

  “I have heard that he calls himself this,” Dayr remarked. “Even under the most severe interrogation, his warriors insist that their general is the Truth.”

  For several long moments, the mutual withdrawals proceeded quietly. The last of the human warriors filed into the ravine, disappearing from the sight of the two commanders, though some goblins were still visible making their way up the winding trail. The head of that column approached the first switchback and continued upward, vanishing momentarily as the trail cut under a broad overhang of rugged limestone.

  “After the barbarians are across the river, do you want me to pursue them in the direction of Dargaard?” asked Dayr. He shuddered at the thought of that dark and haunted fortress.