The Crown and the Sword tros-2

by Douglas Niles

  “Don’t talk nonsense!” snapped Brianna.

  “But the honor of the knighthood-the tradition! An honorable knight does not leave his comrades’ bodies in the hands of the enemy!”

  “Such traditions must give way to dire necessity,” the duchess said.

  “Your Grace,” said the lord, drawing himself up stiffly. “If it has come to the point where my advice is no longer req-”

  “I require your good advice, my lord!” she declared. “And I shall continue to expect it. But right now we must address the emergencies at hand!”

  “I intend to make the enemy pay dearly,” Jaymes told the lord. “I will not forget the sacrifice of good men. But we must persist with our plan. We can’t stop the elemental king, but now is our chance to strike at the army that flanks his advance.”

  Lord Martin cleared his throat. “The elemental has gained ground rapidly-faster than his support troops can follow,” he noted. His pallor remained ashen, but his voice was firm and purposeful. “You are right; we might be able to come at them from behind and from the sides, hit them hard, while the monster is elsewhere.”

  “Where is the giant now?” Jaymes asked.

  “It began to demolish the armory shortly after you descended into the tunnel. It has been smashing away on the walls and towers there-almost in a frenzy. It’s not far from here,” Brianna explained.

  “I remember where the armory is,” Jaymes said. “I should head there directly and have a look. If possible, I can harass and delay the creature. How many troops do you have in nearby positions?”

  “Several companies have fallen back from the gate,” Martin informed him. “One or more can go with you.”

  “Good. Get the rest of the garrison into a position for an all-out attack on the ogres and goblins.”

  “We’ll have them ready as soon as we can,” said the duchess, her cheeks flushing. “There’s no time to waste.” She touched his beard with her small hand, looking up at him with shining eyes. “You… take care. May the gods watch over you.”

  “All is not lost,” he replied. “Keep your faith, but be ready for anything.”

  “Farewell, my Lord Marshal,” she said, pulling her hand away with visible reluctance.

  With a final wave, the lord marshal and his professional guide and pathfinder extraordinaire dashed out the door and into the smoky streets of Solanthus. Lord Martin had preceded them and was waiting with nearly a hundred swordsmen and archers in two units. Raising shields and blades, the swordsmen swung behind Jaymes and the kender, while the archers hoisted their full quivers and trotted along, bringing up the rear.

  The monster loomed over the wreckage of a military barracks, standing amidst the shattered stone walls. Winds whirled around its cyclone legs, raising a thick, noxious cloud of dust and casting medium-sized rocks through the air. These missiles flew randomly in all directions, crashing and skidding along the ground wherever they landed, adding to the chaos and destruction as they smashed through the wooden walls of nearby buildings.

  Flames flickered around the lofty visage of its craggy face, and for a moment the monster paused, as if surveying its accomplishments thus far. The armory, once a small but sturdy castle, had been reduced to mounds of broken stone. Here and there were bonfires where the monster had aimed its fiery gaze, but the remnants of the stony structure lacked much in the way of combustibles, so there were no major conflagrations, just small blazes, smoldering piles of charred logs, and pyres of black smoke.

  Jaymes and Moptop had spotted the elemental king as soon as they emerged from the temple. They cut down a side street, moving north for a couple of blocks then circling around through a narrow alley and entering the yard of a nearby stable. Lord Martin and his makeshift company trailed close behind. Now they all watched the conjured monster from behind a broken doorway and the shattered walls of the building across the street.

  “What now?” asked the kender in a small voice, looking skeptically at the monster. “I hope it doesn’t notice us. It’s not like we can do much to stop it, can we?”

  “I’m not at all sure what we’re going to do,” replied the man-a remark that caused his companion to blink in surprise or perhaps consternation. For once, however, the loquacious kender seemed at a lack for words; he merely nodded sagely.

  The elemental king had wrecked much of the west side of Solanthus. Now, with the armory and adjacent barracks utterly demolished, it was faced with a choice. To the north sprawled vast neighborhoods of houses and apartments, while a turn east would take it toward the ducal palace and the heart of the Solanthian metropolis.

  After a moment’s respite, the hulking creature took a step through the wreckage, striding toward the stable where the lord marshal and kender crouched in concealment. But they were beneath notice and hadn’t been spotted. One of its massive, swinging legs kicked through the remnant of the armory wall, coming to rest in the street. Dust billowed out and up with each step, and the smoke thickened in the force of the swirling winds. The monster took another step, and another, and soon moved away down the avenue.

  “This way,” Jaymes said, leading Martin and the fighting men to the west, away from the elemental, keeping the shattered wall between themselves and the hulking monster.

  In moments they reached a cross street. To the right, a small company of ogres were lumbering along in the wake of the elemental. In the opposite direction, they saw the brown, shaggy figures of a dozen warg wolves, each ridden by a goblin. The unruly, snarling beasts were poking through the ruins of a house, while their riders jabbered and shrieked.

  “Here’s as good a chance as any,” Jaymes said to the lord. “Have your archers concentrate on those wolves. I’ll lead a group of swordsmen against the ogres.”

  “Very good,” Martin replied. The bowmen, each with a sturdy longbow, nocked arrows to their strings. The soldiers with swords and shields took up their positions.

  “Now!” Jaymes declared, drawing Giantsmiter and charging into the street with the swordsmen following.

  Immediately the ogres barked and hooted, turning and charging the defenders in a mass. In moments the two sides were clashing. In the lead, Jaymes fought like a madman, slashing to the right and left. He dropped two ogres as the enemy clubs and blades smashed into the shields of the Solanthian footmen, and the narrow lane was filled with flailing bodies; slashing weapons; and howling, screaming combatants.

  Jaymes swept another ogre off its feet, followed up by a fast stab that penetrated the brute’s breastplate, chest, and heart. Breaking from the melee, he glanced over his shoulder to see the archers were firing away, arrows scything into the goblins and wargs, dropping wolves and riders at fifty paces. Within breaths, the whole detachment of cavalry was wiped out, and a moment later the last of the ogres fell, bleeding and dying.

  But then, before anyone could rejoice, a huge shape loomed into sight, as the elemental king, with no apparent pattern in its random movements, came lurching back the way it had come. The men found themselves exposed in the street, and looking up, scattered.

  The lord marshal froze, expecting the monster to charge and trample them all.

  Instead, the gigantic being veered away to the side. Fire flashed from its eyes, and the yawning mouth opened in a surreal growl, like the moaning of a powerful wind through a desolate wood-only a hundred times as loud.

  “What’s it doing?” asked Martin, who ran up besides Jaymes.

  “I don’t know. It’s as though it’s been distracted,” the lord marshal replied.

  “Look!” cried one of the swordsmen. “The kender!”

  They saw him then, standing on top of the roof of one of the few intact buildings down the street. Moptop was jeering and hooting imaginative insults, waving his arms and shouting in his high-pitched voice at the elemental king. The monster turned its immense face toward the diminutive kender, as though disbelieving. It roared and shivered.

  “What makes you think you’re so tough?” Moptop yodeled. “I
’ve lit matches that made more fire than you! You’re probably scared of little old me! Well, aren’t you?”

  The elemental roared again, the sound pounding against their eardrums like a hurricane wind. The creature stood in place, limbs gesticulating madly, fire blossoming from its cave-like eye sockets. The gargantuan figure twisted and flailed in obvious torment. Moptop vanished from sight as the creature took a hunkering step toward him. Once more the monster halted, roaring and bellowing; then his tormentor was back in view.

  The kender had climbed up a cone-shaped pile of broken rock, scrambling over large sections of wall, pulling himself up the steep summit with one hand. At the top, he braced his feet on a pair of flat stones, stood up to his full height, and brandished his fist, pointing straight at the monstrous creature.

  “I’m warning you, big ugly. Get out of here, you!” Moptop screamed, hopping up and down on the rock. “You stupid fire-face! This is your last chance to run!” He clenched both fists, shaking them in the air, and whooped and shrieked in triumph and glee. “You’re nothing but a big, overgrown thunderclap-that’s what you are!”

  The elemental roared again, even louder than before, anguished by-as Moptop would claim for the rest of his life-the incredible humiliation resulting from the kender’s taunts. The mighty creature took a step forward then another. It lumbered closer, kicking through a row of shattered houses. Violent winds gusted in its wake, and raindrops splashed all over the street, only to be instantly dried by the swirling gale.

  Jaymes spotted a ladder nearby, leaning against the balcony of a two-story building. Quickly he scrambled up the rungs and onto the overhanging perch. He pushed through the door, raced down a narrow hallway, and found a stairway leading to the roof. Scrambling up, he emerged several buildings away from Moptop, but with a view of all the city.

  From his high vantage, Jaymes could see a whole regiment of ogres advancing in formation down the Duke’s Avenue. He could see that Moptop was still busy hollering taunts, though the lord marshal was too far away to fathom his words. Nor was it clear that the elemental king understood. But the important thing was that the monster remained focused on the diminutive taunter as it strode right into the midst of the ogre battalion.

  The brutish warriors noticed too late that the monster was upon them, and they began to flee, but they couldn’t get out of the way in time. Those whirlwind legs swept through the regiment, tossing dozens of ogres through the air as if they were milkweed puffballs or dandelion seeds. A few ogres tossed spears or hurled axes at their supposed ally, but these weapons had no more effect than had the blades of the city’s defenders.

  Not content with that initial and apparently accidental massacre, however, the elemental bent down to swipe at other ogres with its crushing arms, bashing them to the ground or sweeping them up against the walls that stood on either side of the street. Dozens of brutal, strapping warriors were squashed like bugs. Huge columns of flames erupted from the elemental’s eyes, immolating other screaming ogres with infernal heat.

  Jaymes looked down into the street and spotted Lord Martin.

  “Get back to the duchess!” he yelled. “Tell her that the creature is moving away from here. Now’s the time to attack Ankhar’s warriors, while they are thoroughly disorganized!”

  “I’m off!” replied the nobleman. “Good luck to you!”

  Lord Martin raced away at a sprint, while the archers in the streets took shelter and directed a volley of fire at another group of Ankhar’s infantry, painted goblins who had appeared in the nearby street and were moving toward the ducal palace. The attackers took shelter behind barrels and in the shells of buildings to avoid the lethal arrows.

  The king roared again, exulting as he thrashed around violently. Only when all the ogres had been slain, knocked senseless, or driven away did the elemental pause. Remembering, it looked back, fiery eyes seeking the kender, who was no longer in view. Jaymes leaped from his rooftop perch onto a lower building then dropped to the ground. Once more he held the great sword high, waving it over his head as he gathered the swordsmen around him, the whole company starting forward at a trot.

  Then the monster changed direction again, moving away from the site of its orgiastic violence, lumbering toward the plazas, the gap in the city wall, and the teeming army of Ankhar the Truth, the vast bulk of which was still gathered on the plains.

  The elemental king, a being of pure power and energy, did not have thoughts, plans, or ideas in the manner of men and other sentient, intelligent creatures. Rather, it was driven by mysterious instincts, lusts, and furies whose urges were primal, fundamental.

  Now those instincts carried the creature toward those who had enslaved it, had stolen it from the realm-however hellish-that had been its lair, its kingdom, its home.

  It roared and spumed like a terrible force of nature, leaving only death and destruction in its wake. Where there had been buildings, now there was only rubble. Stone walls toppled, everything made of wood burned. But the elemental king took no note of the damage, the havoc. Its fiery eyes scanned ahead, seeking its intended target.

  Seeking the one who had enslaved it.

  “It’s moving away, Your Grace! I can’t believe it, but the kender has succeeded in taunting the beast and drawing it away from the center of the city!” declared Lord Martin.

  Brianna could make no reply, perhaps because the swell of her emotions so tightened her throat that she didn’t trust herself to utter any words of hope. But the evidence was clear in the violent spectacle before her eyes: the fire elemental, for some reason, had turned upon its former allies, the savage warriors of Ankhar the Truth.

  After decimating a whole regiment of ogre soldiers, the fiery monster had proceeded to rip the ranks of goblin archers who had been assembling on the West Gate plaza. Then the creature had turned to slice through the whole line of enemy bowmen, casting hundreds of them through the air with the gale-force winds of its cyclonic legs. Storms of lashing water gushed from the liquid arms, sweeping away entire companies, drowning those goblins too small or stunned to pull themselves free from the torrent.

  The duchess looked around her. The garrison had assembled more than two hundred Knights of the Sword, all armored, mounted, and bearing heavy lances. She had ordered them to gather in the courtyard before the palace. Summoned to the ducal banner-the sigil of the Sword-they had ridden here at once and awaited her orders.

  The road was wide enough for some forty riders to charge abreast, so the mounted knights had formed six lines. Nearby stood hundreds of other troops, including swordsmen and axers, companies of militia bearing spears and shields, and several companies of longbowmen. The last-named had been armed with all of the feathered missiles remaining in the city arsenal. All the defenders were eager to avenge the terrible damage that had been inflicted on their city, and their comrades, in the previous days.

  After months of siege and days of disaster, they were ready to strike back. To a man, these warriors understood that the coming battle must result in victory, or the city that they loved, that had sheltered their families and property, would be forever lost.

  “But, Your Grace,” Harbor continued, lowering his voice and leaning closer to the slender young woman who had not yet spoken. “Surely you don’t need to lead the charge. Let my veteran knights take that responsibility, while you inspire us from the rear.”

  “My lord,” she said, her stern tone softened by the warmth in her eyes. “I have watched too much of this battle-and this war-from the window of my lofty tower. Now I must lead, and I will wield my own steel in my city’s defense.”

  Harbor tried to plead his case further until he realized with chagrin that the duchess was staring off without listening. He settled for quietly admonishing the nearby knights to look out for Brianna, on pain of their honor and their lives.

  She sat high in the saddle of her black mare. Her copper-colored hair was unbound, trailing across her shoulders; Brianna had disdained a helmet because she decide
d it was important that she be seen and recognized. A small shield was strapped to her left arm, and a slender-bladed sword-more of a rapier-nestled in a scabbard at her belt.

  Now the duchess drew that blade with a flourish and held it over her head. Her mare shivered restlessly, and she heard the snorting and stomping of the other horses as they, too, stirred under their riders now on alert, feeling the imminence of battle.

  “Warriors of Solanthus!” she cried, her voice clear and strong. “Today is the day we reclaim our city! Follow your captains! The time has come! Acquit your honor!”

  She pressed her knees together, and the big horse started forward, the knights abreast to either side of her advancing slowly at first, down the Duke’s Avenue. Brianna rode in the middle of the front rank, between a pair of large Sword Knights, who flanked her protectively. She didn’t glance at them or behind her, but rode easily for a short distance before kicking her mare and increasing to a trot. The ranks of knights kept pace.

  They came to the place in the avenue where scores of ogres lay dead, many of them mangled or crushed by the elemental king. Again Brianna spurred her mount and the mare broke into a canter with the rest of the line sweeping forward to match her speed. Surging now, the men and horses thundered toward the enemy. The columns of Solanthian infantry ran hard to keep as close as possible to the mounted knights.

  But the galloping horses pulled ahead. The wind blew Brianna’s coppery hair back in a shimmering plume. The noise of the pounding hooves echoed and reverberated from the surrounding buildings. Dust billowed, smoke swirled, and the noise swelled.

  Brianna felt a thrill she had never known before, a sense of fate and inevitability, as if all the experiences she had undergone in her life, all of her choices-including her marriage to the duke who had proved a scoundrel-had conspired to lead her to this, the realization of her destiny.