The Crown and the Sword tros-2

by Douglas Niles

  He began to feel a little sick to his stomach.

  The bizarre newcomers looked somewhat like humans but seemed to be made of stone. and as Ankhar watched with fascination, they swarmed up to the elemental king, surrounding it, thrusting at it with their long spears. The monster advanced right into the midst of that rank, swinging the great columns of its legs, stomping mightily right on top of the stony spear-carriers.

  Surprisingly, the new attackers showed an equal enthusiasm for the fray. Holding their spears pointed upward, they marched fearlessly right under the crushing force of the king’s striding legs. The monster pounded downward, burying dozens of the warriors under each foot. But when it tried to move on, the thing lurched unsteadily and remained locked in place.

  “Like it stepped into a pit of tar,” Hoarst remarked. “It seems to be stuck.”

  “No! They will be crushed!” Ankhar insisted, his expectations overruling the evidence of his eyes.

  For, indeed, it seemed like the elemental king was anchored fast. It roared the mightiest bellow yet-even the echoes hurt Ankhar’s ears-but it could not lift either foot off of the ground. Bending at the waist, the gigantic being swept a granite fist across the front of the spear-wielders. But instead of smashing them to the ground, it collected them, like a shaggy dog collects burrs. Each warrior met the elemental’s blow with an upraised spear, and the weapon drove into the monstrous fist and remained embedded there. The stony warrior, in turn, held unfailingly to the spear, so when the king raised his fist again, he had a score or more of the gray-colored warriors dangling from the limb.

  And the following ranks of the bizarre attackers continued to advance and fight similarly. All around the king circled a ring of these stone beings, and the later ranks climbed over their fellows-who remained stuck fast to the monster’s feet-to thrust and plunge their own spears into its ankles, its calves. In moments the being was skirted all about, and the things continued to climb, to stab, to cling.

  Strangely, these newcomers did not seem to be dying, though the elemental king struggled to kick with its massive legs and continued to smash downward with clublike arms. The massive torso twisted back and forth, flexed and leaned, and quivered violently. Yet the burrlike warriors remained fixed to the huge shape, every place they touched it, and still more of them climbed up, stabbed, and held on. Another great forearm smashed to the ground, but when the king raised the limb, nearly a hundred of the stone warriors dangled from it, like a strangely decorative fringe.

  The stone warriors continued to attack, to stab with their spears, and to lodge their weapons in the monsters. The king roared and thrashed but didn’t seem capable of destroying the attackers. Ankhar blinked, growling deep within his chest. So strange and unexpected! What in the world was happening? Even when the monster lashed out, each of the stone warriors struck by an elemental limb seemed to grab onto it, until the lower extremities of the monstrous being were wrapped in a skirt of stone ornaments.

  The stone warriors rattled and clattered as the huge being shook, banging together and swinging about, but still none of them broke free. Instead, more came on, climbing, stabbing, clinging.

  And the weight was clearly dragging the monster down.

  Thrashing desperately, the king of the elementals seemed to shrink, its lower limbs slipping into the ground. The attackers affixed to the feet and lower legs disappeared, vanishing through the bedrock of the valley floor, and the king sank with them.

  More and more of the spear-carrying warriors closed in, climbing on top of each other, swarming like ants higher and higher up onto the shoulders of the massive being, even as the king continued to shrink down closer to the ground. Almost waist deep now, the monster fought desperately with its arms, twisting its torso. But each blow only attached more of the mysterious spearmen to the creature’s immortal form. Spears stabbed into the great vault of the king’s chest, while more of the enterprising stone warriors-moving nimbly, despite their stiff facades-scrambled onto the creature’s collar, nape, and neck.

  The attackers scrambled and stabbed, and finally they completely covered the elemental king. Ankhar could see no sign of the fiery eyes, the craggy shoulders, the stormy arms and legs. His great monster was just a huge, shaggy pile of stone creatures that coated the being, inexorably dragging it under. Still fighting, thrashing, convulsing, the massive form continued to sink under the ground.

  Now it was chest deep in the solid bedrock of the valley and sinking deeper still. It roared once more, but even that was a hollow sound, coming as though from very far away and sounding more like hellish pain than fury. Even as the king howled, the stone attackers climbed into its gaping mouth, stabbing with those spears, dragging it down, down. Now only its shoulders and head remained above the ground, and even those moved sluggishly, totally overwhelmed by the stony weight of the spear-carrying attackers.

  Within a few moments, the elemental king had sunk out of sight, bearing with it the heavy weight of the mysterious stone warriors. Still they piled on, spears pointing down into the ground now, the attackers stabbing, following the force of their thrusts into the ground, and descending from sight.

  They continued until, at last, there were none of them remaining on the surface of the world.

  Only then did Ankhar glance elsewhere, taking note of the human warriors, suddenly rallying under the command of their lord marshal and a general wearing the sigil of the Rose. The few goblins on their wolves who had followed closely behind Ankhar were being cut down by companies of mounted knights, the men refreshed and heartened by the defeat of their monstrous foe. Trumpets sounded, and the whole of the Palanthian Legion started forward, pushing the scattered remnants of Ankhar’s horde before them.

  “I think,” Hoarst said with a low, rueful sigh as he started to climb down from the shelf of rock, “that we had better get back to the army.”

  The Palanthian Legion led the counterattack, emerging from the mountain valley with a vengeance, sweeping into the scattered companies of Ankhar’s horde. Jaymes and his Freemen rode with General Weaver at the forefront of the charge, though the army commander immediately dispatched messengers from his bodyguard to his other retreating troops.

  Within an hour the men of the Rose, Crown, and Sword were streaming back to the field from the west and north. Word of the elemental king’s defeat infused them with new energy, fueling the strength of a fresh charge. The barbarians and monsters of the half-giant’s horde, recognizing imminent disaster, began a flight to the south and east.

  It became obvious that the shattered enemy army would continue routing all the way to Lemish. Exhausted and drained, the humans of the Solamnic Army finally abandoned the pursuit as night cloaked the battlefield in darkness. Too much had happened during this momentous day for any soldier to keep fighting. The enemy was clearly defeated, broken, and demoralized.

  Annihilation would have to wait for another campaign.

  CHAPTER TWENTY — EIGHT

  END OF THE BEGINNING

  ‘The adamites’ sole purpose was to guard the elemental king, to prevent it from journeying to the upper world and wreaking the kind of destruction of which it was capable. They must have been stationed there many centuries ago-perhaps even during the Age of Dreams.”

  Jaymes was explaining the situation to Lord Martin as the two of them rode to Solanthus, accompanying the withdrawing army of Solamnia. Thousands of troops marched with them, before and behind, all proceeding in a massive column. The joy of a great victory propelled them, but it was tempered by the memory of the many grievous losses, men and women slain, cities sacked and burned, during the three years of Ankhar’s war.

  “We must offer a prayer of gratitude for whichever of our ancestors, or our ancestors’ gods, had the foresight to assign them to that ageless duty,” remarked the nobleman of Solanthus. “Without them, our cause surely would have failed.”

  “Not just our cause,” Jaymes noted. “Imagine if that creature was free to roam the surface of
the world. No city could stand against it. Even the greatest dragons might have had no choice but to flee or die.”

  The army was marching westward, finally, away from the battlefield and the Garnet foothills. Of course, scouts and outriders were closely watching the area around the great force, and the men still carried their weapons at the ready. But all reports indicated the enemy was thoroughly broken, scattering to the southeast, and even the lord marshal allowed himself to relax a little.

  The two men rode their horses at a slow walk, following behind an enclosed wagon that served as an ambulance, softly furnished to carry Coryn as comfortably as possible. The Clerist knight, Sir Templar, rode inside the wagon with the wizard, using his healing magic to ease her pain and recuperation. The lord marshal intended to accompany the wagon all the way to Palanthas, but Solanthus was the first stop on the long ride.

  Generals Weaver, Dayr, and Markus were riding with their own troops, elsewhere in the great column. General Rankin had fallen in the Battle of the Foothills, as it was being called, and his body was carried in another wagon not too far away. He would be returned to Solanthus for a state funeral. Captain Powell and the Freemen were riding in a loose formation around the lord marshal, near enough to be summoned if necessary. One other rider, the slight figure of Moptop Bristlebrow astride a small pony, trailed very closely behind Martin and Jaymes.

  “So you dispatched the kender to search for these adamites, to lure them up to the surface?” Martin said, shaking his head in astonishment. “How did he know where to find them? Or where to bring them to the battlefield?”

  Now it was Jaymes’s turn to shake his head wonderingly. “All I can say is he calls himself a professional guide and pathfinder extraordinaire, and if anyone ever earned his title, it’s Moptop Bristlebrow. He must have a very benevolent god looking out for his welfare. I’ve never met anyone who can find his way like he can, and yesterday he found a path that saved a whole army.”

  Yet Moptop, listening in as he rode beside the two humans, was unusually subdued and self-effacing. “I thought this whole war thing would be a grand adventure,” he said with a heavy sigh. “But there’s too many people who get hurt. The city got all broken up, and I can’t stand seeing all those horses get killed.”

  “Aye, my friend,” said Jaymes, clapping him on the shoulder. “Far too many people get hurt.”

  “We’re going back to Solanthus, but it makes me so sad to think of that place without the duchess. She led those people through that long siege, and she won’t be there now. Not ever again!” the kender declared, sniffling noisily.

  “Aye,” Lord Martin agreed. “But she held us together, kept the city alive, during those years of the siege. You may rest assured, my friend, that her memory will live as long as there are people in Solanthus strong enough to draw a breath.”

  “That’s something, I guess,” he admitted. “But I still miss her.”

  “Indeed.” Martin nodded solemnly. “As do we all.”

  The princess of Palanthas looked out of the window from her chambers high up in one of the towers of her father’s palace. Her eyes were drawn to the east, where the crest of the Vingaard range was outlined in the purplish rays of the setting sun. She held a piece of paper in her hand, a few sentences quickly scribed and messengered to the city in a courier’s pouch. That same pouch, carried by a fleet rider, had brought news of the great victory.

  All the city was celebrating Ankhar’s defeat. His army had been banished to Lemish, said the report, and the threat to the lands of the knighthood was quelled for the foreseeable future.

  The other note that had been delivered to her was a personal missive from the lord marshal himself:

  I have won the field. My army has triumphed, and I returning to Palanthas. I am coming home to you, my bride.

  The missive had provoked a strange reaction-not the delirious joy she would have expected, nor even a tremulous sense of relief, the weight of concern for her husband’s fate lifted by the good news.

  Instead, she felt confused and frightened.

  She remembered her tears, her almost uncontrollable hysteria when Jaymes had departed for the war the morning after the wedding. She had locked herself in her rooms for days, seeing no one but her faithful maid, Marie, and her trusted counselor, the priestess Melissa du Juliette. The cleric had remained at her side, caring for her tirelessly, speaking softly, soothing the grieving young woman, until at last Selinda began to feel more like her old, confident self.

  Emerging at last from her self-imposed seclusion, she had found a palace, a city, a people she barely recognized. It was this altered awareness that finally brought home to her that, though her surroundings remained the same, she herself had undergone some deep, fundamental transformation. It was a frightening and disorienting awareness, so she had tried hard to figure out what had happened to change her so.

  At first she had prayed to every goddess she knew, hoping that the seed of her wedding night’s passion would take root within her womb and begin to grow into the baby she desperately desired.

  Within a few weeks, however, she had learned she was not yet pregnant, and with that realization had come a new sense of wonder, and mystery, and another dawning realization.

  Did she desire a child?

  No, not yet, she had decided, and with that decision had come more questions. Why had she fallen so giddily for this man she had known for years and had previously regarded with a certain wary respect. What had happened to her? What had changed her?

  And what would her future hold?

  “You fool!” shouted Ankhar, raising his fist over his stepmother’s wrinkled face. “You pledged me an undefeatable ally, and he was defeated at the very moment of my triumph!”

  “He was as mighty as they come!” shrieked Laka, not the least bit cowed. “You are the fool, to let him be trapped in the mountains! You should have driven him across the plains with the wand!”

  “Bah! He was killed by that army of stone! Who were they? Where did they come from all of a sudden?”

  Laka only glared at him. The half-giant’s hand trembled, but he could not bring himself to smash it downward. Instead, he whirled about and spotted the Thorn Knight watching him through narrowed eyes.

  They were in a bivouac of the retreating army, a sprawling encampment near the marshes that marked the border between Solamnia and Lemish. That land, dark and mysterious and peopled with monsters and goblins and other wretched beings, lay like a shroud on the southern horizon. For miles around the trio, the remnants of the half-giant’s horde were scattered in tents and bedrolls on the wet, miserable ground. Mosquitoes and other insects whined around their ears. All of the half-giant’s captains had found compelling reasons to avoid their commander on this dark and ill-omened night.

  “Why could you not foresee the danger?” Ankhar asked the wizard, his voice a low growl.

  “Who could have?” Hoarst replied, not illogically. “Those stone soldiers are unknown in all the history of the world.”

  “Fool!” the half-giant cursed, still trembling. Impulsively he slapped with his great hand, a blow that would have snapped the wizard’s neck had it landed where he aimed, right on the smug, almost contemptuous face.

  However, the Thorn Knight was no longer there; he had blinked himself magically out of sight a fraction of a breath before the powerful blow landed. Ankhar swung through a wide arc, striking only the air, staggering off balance to keep from falling.

  “Where did he go?” he demanded of the old hob-wench.

  Laka shrugged in that maddening way of hers. “Away,” she replied. “Perhaps he will return when you have calmed down.”

  The half-giant forced himself to draw a breath. He squinted, remembering. “You said that potion, the tea he drank to gain strength, would kill him eventually!”

  “It should have,” the shaman replied with a shrug. “But he has a well of strength I did not perceive. It seems my potion not only healed him for a time, but ended up
by making him stronger.”

  “He is a dangerous man.”

  “A powerful enemy, to be sure. But also a powerful ally.”

  “Will he really come back?” Ankhar asked, discouraged. It occurred to him, a trifle belatedly, how much he had come to rely upon the Thorn Knight. Hoarst’s spells, and his knowledge, had been key elements in the army commander’s success, and he knew that he wouldn’t fare nearly as well without his magic.

  The half-giant slumped to the ground, ignoring the swampy wetness that instantly soaked through his breeches. Laka came over to him, placing a clawlike hand upon his beefy forearm.

  “If he has reason to come back, he will,” she said. “You have made him a very rich man, and he will remember that. For now, you must rest. Tomorrow we march into Lemish. There, my son, you will be master of all-King Ankhar!”

  “King of Lemish? Lord of a swamp and a forest? Master of a few crude villages? What good is that?” he demanded.

  “It is a new start,” she said. “A place for you to begin afresh, grow strong again, my bold son. For I had another dream, just this night.”

  “A dream? Of what?”

  “A dream that you will return to Solamnia. Your army will be mightier than ever, and the humans of the world will bow down to you and beg for mercy.”

  “A prophecy,” Ankhar said. He leaned back, stretching out on the ground, suddenly conscious of the weariness that seeped through every fiber of his bones. “I like this prophecy,” he remarked. “Tell me more.”

  But by the time Laka began to speak, he was already snoring.

  The great column of the Solamnic forces dispersed as it marched. A large contingent, representing all four armies, stayed in the vicinity of Solanthus, there to keep a wary eye on the border with Lemish, and to watch for any reappearance of Ankhar’s vanished-and vanquished-horde. General Rankin of the Sword Army, former captain of Solanthus, would be laid to rest in a great funeral in the city, but the lord marshal offered his regrets and explained that he would hurry on to Palanthas with Coryn the White.